Talking Shop: Peculiar Problem of Plenty

“Greed is a bottomless

pit which exhausts man

in an endless effort to

satisfy his needs, without

ever reaching that goal.”

— Erich Fromm

Like all throaty growls, this one too began life as a whimper. The person whimpering was me, trying to talk some sense into a hotelier in Manali, supposedly the new Queen of India’s Hills. Quite tersely, the hotel ka maalik (hotel-owner) informed me that I was not allowed to wash my car with the half-bucket of water I had brought from my room. I was tickled and pickled at the same time. After all, while on holiday, I had carried that damned bucket up and down 100 steps from my room to the car. The tickle made me smile. The pickle turned out to be his undoing, for it made me growl. “Then what about the tanker-loads of natural water flowing into your drain? Who are you going to be rude to for that? God? Do you want his number?”

My growl and repartee flummoxed him. Or perhaps he feared that anyone coming from Delhi, especially one offering God’s own number early in the morning, must have access to the ‘one’ who rules over Delhi and the world today. His mental ChatGPT calibrated and processed my retort, and in a millisecond, he retreated, seemingly shrinking as he did. The shrinking got to me, managing to melt even my stony heart. “Arrey bhai, mazaak kar raha tha (I was joking). What’s happened to make you so fidgety,” I asked.

That opened up the floodgates to his soul (but not to his water tap); he told me of “the very tough water times” India’s hills live in. He spoke of July 8, 2023, the ‘Day the Mountains Wept’, a day the hills would never forget. It began with a drizzle, quickly turning into a nightmare as relentless rains and cloudbursts triggered floods, landslides and destruction. I could only nod sagely and ask: “Where mountains wept, where rain led to floods, in a region that supplies water and water-made (hydroelectric) power to much of North India, why are local people fighting over buckets of water?” As expected, I got no answer.

Questions with no answer

What answer could I expect from a humble Himachal hotelier anyway? Look at today’s world – Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, China-India and even Haryana-Delhi (I am only mentioning paradigms that people easily identify with). History books are ripping at the seams under the mind-numbing pressure of descriptive tales of mankind’s lust for more. Or less, depending on the situation and the desired degree of need and greed.

A glance at history shows that things “like a ruler’s lust for more” have not changed. Consider the Russia-Ukraine saga, a dispute that has led to untold suffering. One side is fighting for its homeland, while the other is on a ceaseless quest for land belonging to others. People have lost their lives, families, homes and livelihoods, but the war-drums keep beating. It’s all too familiar – Kings and dictators acquiring territory like kids collect toys, unconcerned about the misery they leave behind.

Look at the oil-rich Middle-East, where “more” means unimaginable wealth for a chosen few (by birth), while “most” live “on the edge of death”. Israel, Iran, and Palestine present a grim case of perpetual conflict, each faction fighting for power, oil, territory or whatever “more” it is that suits their ambitions on any given day. The result is pre-determined – the average Joe faces water shortage, rising food prices and shattered infrastructure. Leaders, meanwhile, are chauffeured around in bullet-proof luxury cars to sign insouciant treaties and dine in lavish restaurants inside gilded hotels, distanced from the sounds of gunfire. And from death.

When Kings were hoarders

More history. In the 14th century, Black Death swept across Europe in the form of a bubonic plague, wiping out one-third of the population. Even in the middle of such devastation, Kings and Queens, along with their devoted hoarders of grain and gold, never felt the pangs of hunger, the plague doing little to dent their extravagances. Almost as a rule, leaders are expected to put subjects first, at least in the face of annihilation, but history has shown us that self-interest and the need for “more” is too tantalizing a Homerian siren to resist.

Let’s talk Colonials. European empires – Britain, France and Spain – were so obsessed with “more land, more gold, more spices” that they hopped from continent to continent, exploited native people and resources, leaving behind scars that exist even today. Whether it was the spice route, opium trade or our very own Kohinoor, they wrung as much wealth as they could, while those who tilled the land and produced the goods starved and shrivelled.

Asked to explain this condition referred to as the “Scarcity Mindset” in humans, psychologists and sociologists only twiddle their thumbs. A 2020 World Economic Forum report says even those living in ‘Developed Nations’ with stable incomes desire more, influenced by a culture of consumerism and status. It is not about material wealth, but extends to abstract issues – more respect, more recognition, more power. Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton observed, “The quest for ‘more’ has rarely led to more happinekss. In fact, it often leads to just the opposite.” But the quest continues.

In 2018, The Lancet found rising income inequality was fuelling social conflicts worldwide. It pointed out that regions with vast wealth gaps were more prone to civil unrest, exposing how the greed of a few was destabilizing entire communities. “The pursuit of more power and wealth by a few exacerbates inequality, resulting in cyclical hardship for the masses,” it said.

People pay the price

Modern-day ‘Kings’; politicians, corporate moguls and power brokers; continue the tradition, hoarding resources, creating policies and loopholes to safeguard their own assets, leaving the average citizen juggling with inflation, job insecurity and soaring costs of living. In Developed Nations (and some Developing Nations too), the super-rich are inexplicably being provided tax breaks, while ordinary families get no relief.

In sub-Saharan Africa, foreign investors gobbled up vast tracts of land and produced cash crops, leaving local farmers with barely enough to feed their families. In Michigan in the US, people in a town named Flint were left to drink chemically-infected water in their ponds and lakes after big corporations finished their manufacturing projects. India witnessed it in Bhopal after methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in 1984, leaving thousands dead and others maimed or stricken with chronic health issues. It is happening in most of Europe (on the verge of an economic meltdown), Russia and is now beginning to impact Australia and New Zealand. As always, regular folks are bearing the brunt.

There is a grand irony to this script too – mankind has progressed from caves to cities, and stone tools to satellites, but the appetite for “more” remains strong, primitive and insatiable. Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, once said: “There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need, but not for man’s greed.” Gandhiji got that right – all done and dusted, we seem to be the same as we always have been; hunters, gatherers, hoarders. We are never satisfied, always hoping just a bit more will be enough. Will it? History seems to suggest otherwise.

Soliloquy: We should all return to the caves.

The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. He can be reached on [email protected]. Views expressed are personal