On Greed as Addiction
Terry H. Schwadron
Sept. 27, 2022
OK, here comes a little armchair exploration of psychology of greed, prompted by the vastness of the allegations filed last week against Donald Trump, his family and company over perpetual falsification of sworn financial and tax documents over decades and across his real estate empire.
The question for those of us who just get along: Why is it so important to identity to be the biggest or the richest? Isn’t the whole point to use the rules, even stretch the rules, to maintain yourself or family at some comfortable level, but steer clear of the illegal, immoral or sinful pursuit we associate with Greed?
For a moment, let’s set aside the fate of the massive lawsuit filed by New York State Attorney General Letitia James. From all that we’ve read and heard, she has built an impressive case based on actual documents to show capricious and manipulated real estate valuations used alternately to inflate the Trump holdings for gaining financial loans or to hide valuations when it came time to paying state and federal taxes.
We’ve heard too, somewhere in between the constant refrains of witch-hunts and perceived political persecutions, the Trump argument is that all real estate valuation is a mere guess and a matter of salesmanship.
In any event, the Trump legal strategies undoubtedly will rely on constant delay, procedural meandering and repetitive appeals, meaning that this lawsuit will not be settled anytime soon. Still, more worrisome must be the referrals to the IRS investigative unit and to Justice Department and Manhattan district attorneys for consideration of criminal charges that she could not bring.
Instead, let’s consider the addictive element here that marks more than Trump himself to touch his family members who carried out the alleged frauds and to the banks and valuation companies who took their share of transactions and just kept the con game going all those years without asking relevant questions that they would put to you and me.
Greed as Addiction
“What connects the various addictions is that enough is never enough — not for long anyway,” Psychology Today offered in a 2012 article, before Trump became a daily political name. “As addicts progress (or rather, regress) into their addiction, to derive sufficient gratification they must constantly seek more and more of their drug of choice.
“But of all the things one might be addicted to, nothing tops the greed-laden pursuit of wealth in its audacity, manipulativeness, and gross insensitivity to the needs and feelings of others. . . Ask a multi-millionaire or billionaire so afflicted (if you can find one willing to talk to you!), and you’ll discover that their “mega-fortune quest” really has no end point. . . They can’t because the means by which they reap their riches has itself become the end.”
Apparently, greed addicts find that chasing every financial opportunity
has become their be-all and end-all. For that, frankly, is where the dopamine is.”
Pursing a “money high” becomes a kind of self-inoculation against underlying feelings of emotional distress. “So greater and greater financial success is required to help them sustain their cherished illusion that they really are superior — in economic terms, vastly superior — to others: a most convenient narcissistic “fix” for whatever subterranean doubts they may yet harbor about themselves,” without regard to whether they hurt others along the way.
Add in the equally powerful aphrodisiac of political sway and influence, and you get quite a significant force. Tied yet further to the popularity and political narcissism of a Donald Trump, whose general penchant for self-promotion, boastfulness and an uncaring for matters of truth, and you have the makings of an unstoppable addictive personality.
Greed as Natural
Still, Greed is one of the most common features of human nature, argues a Frontiers in Psychology article, adding that until the last 20 years, it has not attracted much research interest.
People seem to hold different attitudes toward Greed, the article notes, visiting various formal and cultural research. The movie “Wall Street” included the quote that “Greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed has marked the upward surge of mankind.”
But the research shows that while Greed is highly valued in some organizations and societies, almost all religions treat greed as immoral and evil. Greed has been associated with many negative characteristics, ignoring norms and values for personal fulfillment. Others have explored the association of Greed with fraud, deception, theft, corruption among other unethical behaviors.
Like most generic values, Greed is seen as both a good in driving economic growth and bad in how it harms others.
Sigmund Freud, among others, argued that greed was natural, that humans were born greedy. For him, the unconscious was a cauldron of murderous wishes and drives — sex and aggression — that had to be socialized., said a Harvard Business Review essay.
Still, Greed, like all potentially destructive human drives, is tempered by social norms. It’s why we have laws, after all, to keep the playing fields relatively fair.
You won’t hear any of this in Trump’s defense, just more attacks on anyone challenging him. It turns out that there’s a link between greed for money and greed for bullying.
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