"The creative impulses" and "The possessive impulses"
The supreme principle, both in politics and in private life, should be to promote all that is creative, and so to diminish the impulses and desires that center round possession.
Source: Bertrand Russell: Principles of Social Reconstruction, 1916, chapter 8: What We Can Do, ( Allen& Unwin Ltd., p.236)
** Short Comments: "Creative Impulse" and "Possessive Impulse" **
The possessive desire to make a wide variety of things one's own continues to expand and grow from early childhood-- and for some, until the very brink of death. In many cases, this desire is suppressed or diminished by financial constraints, health issues, or the natural decline of energy that comes with age. However, there are exceptions.
President Donald Trump, now serving his second term and approaching the age of 80, shows no signs of this impulse waning. Quite the opposite: his possessive impulse is on full display in his recent public declarations regarding the purchase of Greenland, even hinting at the use of force to achieve it. To him, the world appears not as a place for creating new value, but as a vast arena for "deals," where every issue is a negotiation aimed at seizing advantage from others.
President Trump fixates on tearing up agreements made by the previous administration to renegotiate them, obsessed with clutching the "victory" in his own hands. Even when the energy expended and the resulting social losses outweigh the actual gains, the core of his behavior remains the impulse to move all things with "possession" (placing them under his own control) as the center.>
Such grandiosity is only possible because he holds the immense power of the Presidency. However, if the Democrats win the midterm elections in November of this year (2026) and the Republican majority in the House is overturned, his influence is expected to wane, leading to a "lame duck" status.
By observing President Trump as a prime example of an inflated possessive impulse, the following words by Bertrand Russell feel profoundly instructive for any era:
"The supreme principle, both in politics and in private life, should be to promote all that is creative, and so to diminish the impulses and desires that center round possession." ? Principles of Social Reconstruction, 1916
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