In discussions that I recall of fears and drives that can take a person beyond reason, one word comes back to me: scarcity.

How can I disagree with the concrete examples of deprivation already contributed in previous posts to this thread? This post is not intended as disagreement, in any way.

It is true that demonstrations of pathological greed are out there, like forms of cancer, devouring all around them.

But what I am thinking of, is this really primal, animal-level dread that there is never enough to go around, never enough for everybody. And you would scarcely credit the people who have this perception deeply embedded in their feelings and thoughts somewhere. There are people who are neither deprived nor affluent, people in a position to share a little with those less fortunate, and some of these people are attached beyond reason to what they possess, precisely out of this fear of scarcity. Some of them don't even realize it.