"We are encouraged to be greedy as individuals. By several forces."

You list Advertising, Mass Media, politicians, et cetera. As previously stated they encourage members of the public to buy, they do not encourage members of the public to be greedy. I can see that it would be very easy for those forces you speak of to "sell" you something, how on earth could they promote and induce "greed" in someone who is not already "greedy"?

"we are told on all sides that if we stopped consuming, our civilisation would collapse."

Now that is strange Ivor, because I have never been told that once and like you I have been wandering around all over this planet for quite a number of years and in the course of that journey in terms of time and distance I have found that I "need" progressively less.

Do you know Ivor, that if accosted on the street by a "market researcher" when asked your age, if you say you are over 34, your form is automatically discarded. It is discarded because your opinions and subsequent answers are of no interest, because the "Ad-Men" know that there is nothing, or very little that they can say or do to "make" you buy something.

"Bush has just given the Americans a load (?) of cash with the patriotic duty being to go and buy IN ORDER TO GET THE SYSTEM MOVING again."

How often has he done this Ivor? How often has anyone else done this? Not often is it, and in this particular instance it has been in response to a specific cause. So no, President Bush by authorizing the recently announced tax rebates is not encouraging people to be "greedy", he and his administration are hoping that by helping to put more money in circulation more money will be spent. Exactly how that money is spent, if at all,
is entirely up to individual choice, neither President Bush, nor anybody else has got any control over that.

The 'keeping up with the Joneses' syndrome, and the belief that "buying more will bring satisfaction" are also individual faults, the latter is actually a mental illness. At no point in my life have I ever had it preached to me that I must "keep up with the Joneses", and I don't know maybe it's just a "Scottish" thing but in my youth I was always taught the exact opposite of "buying more will bring satisfaction". We were always taught that having the ability to buy, gained by your own endeavours, if and when you want to, will bring you satisfaction

"by industry and commerce constantly having the new, the improved, and the different. Do encourage us to keep buying."

What you are talking about here is progress, I know most socialists are "Luddites" at heart and are bitterly opposed to progress, irrespective of how many times that history has proved them wrong. But as you correctly state in that quotation from your post, industry and commerce encourage you to buy – they do not encourage you to be "greedy".

"Our system is so designed as to try to make us constantly dissatisfied."

Now how exactly does "our system" do that Ivor, or is this just another version of the universal left-wing socialists whinge, "I'm dissatisfied with (whatever) it must be someone else's fault".

"Then there's fashion, another driver of dissatisfaction, and going shopping and consuming."

Personal choice Ivor, if you are daft enough to be caught up in it then more fool you. One thing I learned from my father – what is fashionable for me at any given moment in time is what I actually happen to be wearing at that given moment in time. But there again I had the advantage of going to school in the days when school uniforms were the norm (covered from when I was 5 years old until I was 17 years old), then I did my time in the Navy after which I was either in coveralls or in jeans and casual shirts, so no Ivor, I do not regard fashion as a driver of dissatisfaction, neither do many of my friends and acquaintances.

"And a big driver is shareholder/stockholder demand that the share value keeps rising, otherwise the investments will go elsewhere. So there's pressure from there to grow, to innovate, to sell, sell, sell. And sell more."

That is progress, advancement and I note that one thing that you omit to mention with regard to all that in the passage quoted above – job security, increased employment from increased production.

"And the rich and the well-off are as likely to be envious as anyone, if not more so."

Now exactly why should the "rich" be more likely to be envious? Your statement is completely irrational, and more likely to be based on envy than reason.

"the valuing of accumulation in itself does seem to me more fundamental to the thinking of the right than to the left."

Biblical parables about "talents" and "wise" and "foolish" virgins spring to mind in reading that which you have written above Ivor. Do the "right" have a greater regard for savings and investment? I would say yes. Are you saying that generally the "left" are spendthrift wasters? Certainly the current NuLab Government are. There are families in the UK now who have three generations that have never worked a day in their lives – that fundamentally is wrong.

"Labour is a cost to be kept under control."
Absolutely, that is essential, prudent, basic, good business practice. When labour is a cost not kept under control, your business becomes uncompetitive and goes to the wall and jobs are lost. The classic that always comes up in the Maggie Thatcher threads is the mining industry, costs were not kept under control a ton of British coal cost £250 to produce, when you could buy open cast Australian coal on the dockside in the UK for £8 per ton – so where do you buy your coal if you are interested in keeping costs down?

"Even if capital is making millions in profit, costs (including wages and salaries) being kept under control is basic. Especially when, as I said above, it's the shareholders who have to be satisfied above all and constantly. Meanwhile, Labour is replaceable, and no particular workers are indispensable."

Who are the largest "shareholders" Ivor? Where do their "profits" go? By the bye no-one is indispensable.

"Nor have you met the point that even in the UK, the (approx) 5th biggest economy in the world, that strong economic fact doesn't percolate or cascade to all - 1.6 million unemployed, millions encircling the minimum wage. So if they can't benefit in a good economic time in a strong economy, when exactly will they?"

1.6 million, around 2.6% of the population, that Ivor is low compared to other industrial counties. Spain 12.8%; Finland 10%; France 9%; Germany 8.1%; Belgium 6.7%; Italy 6% the USA 5%. Are people better off now than when I was a lad – every indicator seems to suggest that - yes they are.

Did "dire poverty" appear overnight in Russia and China, or was it already there but nobody was courageous enough to draw it to anybody's attention. If Lenin or Stalin came back now they wouldn't recognize Russia, Putin has made the claim that very soon Russia will replace Britain as the worlds fifth largest economy – dire poverty indeed. That represents a massive economic leap forward that would have been impossible under communism, especially the brand of it practiced in the USSR.

"the divergence into rich and poor is not a law of nature or providence. It's inherent, a necessary part , of capitalism."

What complete and utter rot, irrespective of system there has always been the division of rich and poor, there always will be. It is a "law of nature" because it is a fact of life that people are not created equal. They may be "equal in the eyes of God", they may be considered "equal in the eyes of the Law", but one thing is for certain that measured against any other yardstick in life no two people on this planet are equal.