Aristotle knew of insatiability only as a personal vice he had no inkling of the collective, politically orchestrated insatiability that we call economic growth.

Modern capitalism inflames through every sense and pore the hunger for consumption.

Aristotle knew of insatiability only as a personal vice he had no inkling of the collective, politically orchestrated insatiability that we call economic growth. The civilization of always more would have struck him as moral and political madness.

So for now, the world must hope that Americans continue gorging on foreign imports.

Satisfying it has become the great palliative of modern society, our counterfeit reward for working irrational hours. Advertisers proclaim a single message your soul is to be discovered in your shopping.

We must value a sense of moderation and modesty instead of an unquenchable greed for money, prestige, and consumption.

Satisfying it has become the great palliative of modern society, our counterfeit reward for working irrational hours.

So me talking about emotion is like Gandhi talking about gluttony, but it is the central organizing process of the way we think.

As St. Augustine put it In the midst of these temptations I struggle daily against greed for food and drink.

By implication, if nothing else, global energy, food, and mineral prices will continue to be buoyed by seemingly insatiable emerging market demand, which commands much higher reserve prices.

We must value a sense of moderation and modesty instead of an unquenchable greed for money, prestige, and consumption. In greed humans lose their souls , their freedom, their composure, their inner peace, and thus that which makes them human.

Even the proliferation of China s economic ties in Africa, the Middle East, and South America may reflect vulnerability rather than imperial ambition. China s voracious quest for new energy sources has already caused it to overstretch its limited ability to protect its sea lanes.

America s interventions in Vietnam and Iraq, its opposition to the Kyoto Protocol and insatiable consumption of natural resources, its role in creating the current financial crisis, the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and much else highlight America s flawed record.