Greed.

Thomas Merton:

Saint Paul calls is the “servitude of corruption” and which, in fact, holds the whole world of man in bondge by passion, greed, the lust for sensation and for individual survival, as though one could become rich enough, powerful and clever enough, to cheat death. 

Unfortunately, this passion for unreality and for the impossible fills the world today with violence, hatred,, and indeed, with a kind of insane and cunning fury which threatens our very existence.