ABSTRACT
Institutionalized Greed inculcates and enforces the truisms that corporations are never profitable enough and people never consume enough. To increase profits, we must be conditioned into finding the meaning of our lives in buying and consuming. Consider how the stock market works. It tends to function as an ethical black hole that dilutes responsibility for the actual consequences of the collective greed that now fuels economic growth. Our present economic system institutionalizes greed, our militarism institutionalizes ill-will, and our corporate media institutionalize delusion. To repeat, the problem is not only that the three poisons operate collectively, but that they have taken on a life of their own. Today it is crucial for us to wake up and face the implications of these three institutional poisons. The huge defence budgets proliferate supply contracts for many corporations, which thereby generate huge profits, attract investment and satisfy shareholder's expectations for optimal returns on their investments.
