Greed is a desire to obtain more money or material possessions or bodily satisfaction than one is considered to need. A more religious term for greed is avarice, which is listed as one of the Catholic Seven Deadly Sins.
Greedy individuals are often believed to be harmful to society as their motives often appear to disregard the welfare of others: if one person is to increase in wealth, somebody else must be decreasing in wealth (assuming, of course, that a market economy is a zero sum game). However, greed has become more acceptable (and the word less frequent) in Western culture, where the desire to acquire wealth is an important part of capitalism.
When greed is applied to the subject of the excessive consumption of food or drink the term gluttony is often used, another of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Buddhists believe greed is based on incorrectly connecting material wealth with happiness. This is caused by a deluded view that exaggerates the positive aspects of an object.
Greed was also the name of a character in the anime Full Metal Alchemist.
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