Thoughts, essays, and writings on Liberty. Written by the heirs of Patrick Henry.

“There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else.”     Robert A. Heinlein,    Stranger in a Strange Land

October 4, 2006

The Five Motives

by Chris

At core, there are really only five motivations in this world:

  • Preservation
  • Procreation
  • Pleasure
  • Power
  • Profit

Forget about Maslows Hierarchy of needs (self actualization? Please…) when it boils right down to it the five P’s are it.

Preservation covers self preservation, life preseravtion, societal and social preservation, and even part of the procreation urge. Procreation… well let’s include other lusts in that as well; is self explanatory, as is Pleasure.

Now, power and profit…

The study of economics is so important, because economics govern both power relationships, and profit relationships; in that economics isn’t the study of money, but the study of cost (of all kinds, financial is only one of them), incentive (and dis-incentive), result, and consequence.

Economics is all about profit and power; history is all about economics and psychology; and psychology is all about… yup, those motivations again.

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1 Comment

  1. I would actually say that the one most basic motive is the need to feel appreciated. Everything we do, power, profit, procreation, and preservation, is all the need to be appreaciated. Otherwise I completely agree.

    Comment by Jonathan Harline — October 7, 2006 @ 4:07 pm

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