Abstract

The paper deals with the most “economic” of all capital vicesVice and argues that it represents a typical case of “failure of reason”. Indeed, the greedyGreed hoards wealth by removing it from circulation and in so doing does not enhance prosperity, rather it thwarts it. The absence in economicsEconomics of a proper theory of rationalRational motivations is what explains the difficulty of the discipline to understand the greedGreed phenomenon and its multiple negative consequences. EconomicsEconomicstheory of motives possesses a theory of the reasons for doing what the homo economicusHomo Economicus believes it must do, but not a theory of the motives. The paper speaks in favour of the introduction in economicsEconomics of the anthropological assumption of homo curansHomo Curans, and indicates which implications would follow, the most relevant of which would be the consideration, in the analytical discourse, of the principle of reciprocityReciprocity.