[Brandon]

See, I tend to believe that it's the nature of conscious lifeforms in general to constantly desire more and more--to feel incomplete. An existentialist like Sartre would claim that consciousness itself implies incompleteness, since something wholly complete would not need to think, act, or make choices.

The Buddhists recognized the role of desire in human nature very early. The entire philosophy is based upon the idea of learning to expect and want progressively less until you care nothing for anything worldly. If you ask me, though, any attempts to transcend or eliminate desire are unlikely to succeed.

Besides: if you don't believe in reincarnation, why waste the opportunity to partake of this lovely world of ours?

I think there is an "acceptance paradox" when it comes to desire. If you accept that you're never going to feel fully complete, regardless of what you do, it can give you some measure of peace.

So while capitalism certainly feeds off of desire, I don't think it's wholly responsible for creating it.