The key driver of the capitalism system is often said to be greed. That is because many link greed to wealth and success. Success and wealth obviously brings with them a high standard of living.
According to sufficiency theory, there is nothing wrong in the above way of thinking. Sufficiency does not sees greed as a negative factor. Sufficiency, in fact, is a suppliments to those concepts-by providing a proper conceptual frame-work for the link between greed, wealth building, and high standard of living.
Why is a proper link needed?
As we have seen with countless billionairs or economic conditions of the globe or individual countries advanced or developing, often, the link between greed, wealth building and high standard of living falls apart.
- Un-checked greed can result in anti-competitive, anti-free commerce and monopolies. This in-turn, kills entrepreneurership and the industry’s ability to innovate.
- Un-checked wealth building can result in a society that is un-just economically, shutting off new talents and limiting the customer base.
- Un-checked high standard of living can result in an overly reliance on materialism at the expense of broader knowledge building-and therefore, harming the environment and research and development.
Sufficiency theory advocates the correct path to wealth building. This correct path of wealth building, will result in an opportunity for those with the ability to capitalize on opportunities and prosper, that is far greater-meaning that wealth building through the sufficiency concept will result in an available pie that is much bigger.
What is wealth building according to the sufficiency theory?
Simply said, capitalist has a responsibility above all else-not to wealth building-but to not killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. In other words, capitalist must think of the capitalist system, before thinking of building personal wealth.
