In prehistoric man foraging was an act driven by the instinct for survival. At one point it is likely that he gained understanding (by selective evolution pressure/individual experience) of the concept of unpredictability and out of this newfound concern for the future would begin to gather, hunt and grow more than he and the tribe had done the previous year. In other words, hoarding because of fear of the unexpected. Is this greed?….. Maybe, but it was necessary for survival of paleolithic man, woman and child.
Is greed in modern man driven by unnecessarily upregulated or even redundant genes? Should it be considered to remove or downregulate such a gene when scientifically possible? Or is greed the evil fairy godmother of prudence in man today? Is it good ? Or is greed the harbinger of mayhem and misery?….. Not really a fair question, is it?
Paleo diet might be the right fit for our digestive well-being, but over millenia genetic selection affected the common good adversely by maintaining and upregulating, no longer beneficial, sociopathic behavioral genes for hoarding and greed. The daily parade in the media of paleolithic men flaunting their stuff is a testament to this. No longer for the common good, but at the expense of it.