Getting a grip on greed

[CHIMO]

But the late economic historian Karl Polanyi noted that resisting the rapacious effects of the unregulated market is also natural, perhaps even more basic in humans.

Polanyi pointed out that the rise of capitalism centuries ago was so disruptive to the lives of ordinary people – who were forced into mines and factories after losing their rights to the common fields – that it produced a counter-reaction aimed at controlling the market.

Indeed, Polanyi argued that while capitalism was a carefully planned set of laws designed by the financial elite, the reaction to capitalism – protests, unionization, political agitation – was a natural set of responses that emerged spontaneously from the masses.

The impulse to resist unbridled capitalism – with its resulting extreme inequality and economic domination by the rich – is basic and has persisted throughout the centuries, according to Polanyi.
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/607029#