Greed

Remove all ads!

I think greed is necessary for the existence of the human species. Discuss.

 

Playing devil's advocate, are we?

To me, greed is one of the most disgusting things on earth: it corrupts humans from the way things should be. Companies are not run on customer service, or treating people right, or treating the environment the right way either. They are run on money: the more you have, the better.

Regular humans feel that way as well: the more successful you are moneywise, the better life you have. However, if you live by that philosophy, you may bever truly be happy. Sure, you can buy women (or men, if the gender is reversed), you can guy exciting things, but to be truly happy, all you need is to find something you love, and do it.


Now, is greed necessary for human existence? Absolutely not.

Wars are because of greed: "I want this piece of land."
"Well, to bad, its mine, I saw it first"
(And thus the war begins). People die in wars. If we didn't have those greed wars, many lives of people who didn't deserve to die could be saved.

Greed destroys people: the greed of huge companies runs small businesses out of business, thus cutting off their source of income, and possibly destroying their life. How can they support their loved ones without being able to pay for what is essential?


Stopping for now...

 

Of course it is!

As well as it's important for the existence of any other sentient being with the perception of self, others and possible future conditions!

The thing is that we're so effective in fulfilling our little greedy needs that it multiplied by say 6 billion is going to cost ourselves a heavy price. It might even cost our species existence...

To avoid that we have to start being smarter in fulfilling our greed. Short sighted running after instant gratification is so not smart.

 

Actually, I'm quite serious. Greed is, simply put, the desire for "more". Greed inspires ambition, and ambition leads to invention. Humans would still be nothing more than primitive animals without the driving greed that drove them to face the fire with the hope that they could take something from it. They succeeded (at least eventually), and human-kind's ascension to dominance began.

 

Not all ambition leads to invention. Most of it leads to a power struggle in which the people in government get benefits, and the governed get ****. Their ambition (they being the people wanting power) usually leads to pain, death, and the restricting of human rights. I don't view that as necessary.

 

If I subscribed to a Hobbesian view of the world, I'd be forced to agree with that assessment. To an extent, greed is necessary in a state of nature - even desirable, since it's a factor that determines survival. I would like to think that it's not necessary in wealthy developed parts of the world (although without it, I know standards of living would drop).

In the world of today, I don't think that greed is ever an unqualified good, and seldom even a qualified one. If one group is greedy, it probably means they're getting more than their share of something (or trying to get it), and at the expense of others who may not be getting what they require. Someone has more than they need; others have so much more that it ceases to have value to them; still others wouldn't mind being ruthless or greedy to get their slice of the pie; and a few more will do anything at all to have it.

Right there, you have a basic situation of inequity and conflict derived solely from greed and resource distribution. That can fuel everything from racism, bigotry, crime and political oppression, and can radicalise all the way through to systematic killings or genocide (just jump on Wikipedia and search for "Rwandan Genocide" or "Kulak", for a brief overview - although perhaps I'm over-emphasising the influence of greed as an additional causal motivator). The problem is that unless everyone drops out more or less simultaneously, then only the ones who keep playing will ever benefit.

To steal a line from Terry Pratchett - if something like shark fin soup is a delicacy somewhere, what does that tell you? Because it tells me that someone is hogging the rest of the shark! From a more religious view, the often underquoted line about money being the root of all evil is supposed to be about "the love of money"; that is, about basic greed. Greed isn't just about money or wealth, though - hunger for power, indulgence, prestige or any number of things can be drawn back to it.

In short - greed isn't necessarily immoral. It is almost certainly amoral, since it necessitates a certain level of selfishness and disregard for others. The difference between greed and ambition, IMO, is a fine distinction, and it is mainly to do with selfishness (both in wanting the thing and in possessing the thing). There is a difference between having enough and getting everything you can lay your hands on. I believe that the latter constitutes the common definition of greed, and it is not a desirable thing.

EDIT: Fel, I'd dispute your definition of "greed". It has a certain element of acquisitive desire that is stronger than "ambition", which can be a less negatively-charged term. "Greed" implies "I want this for me", whereas IMO, "ambition" only implies "I want this". I don't think anyone would argue that ambition is necessary - although I know of plenty of ambitious ******** who only really succeeded in screwing things up for a lot of people.

 

Without invention, there would be no governmental structure to "oppress the people" in the first place. Nowadays ambition is typically put to...less than ideal purposes, but when comparing a human life to one long ago, I'd say greed has served to better the species over the long run.

 

Precisely what I wanted to say, but didn't. Greed is the desire for 'more than the rest', not just 'more', as Fel said.

 

No, that's called excessive or comparative greed. Greed itself has no care for the fates or needs of others, and I suppose it can be called amoral in that light.

It's not the best thing in the world (especially today), but perhaps a necessary evil whose usefulness is shrinking in compare to the bad side effects.

@NS:
Ambition is more "I want to make something better." The 'something' typically refers to possessions or position when stimulated by greed, but an ambition to make the world a better place for everyone else (or something like that) is a selfless departure that has to be accounted for in the definition.

Because you wouldn't have to. Without ambition, noone would care about doing anything. I, for example, have an ambition to live to my next birthday; how about you?

 

Nowadays? Let's see...Alexander, Ceasar, Octavian, Alcibiades, Darius, Xerxes...I could go on, if you'd like.

 

@AMaster:
When considering "The History of Man", those are pretty recent events.

 

In theory, Fel has a point. We desire stuff. We realize that money is how to get stuff. We work to get that money. We buy stuff. We see more stuff we want, we work to get more money to buy more stuff. In theory it's good for the economy.

The problem is that pride factors into the equation. we not only want stuff for ourselves and our own enjoyment, but we want more stuff than others. This leads us to a less co-operative approach. We are more likely to hoard money until we can buy the stuff we want. We like to get stuff cheaper. Ultimately, those that control the means of production will cut their workforce to make their goods cheaper, but not reduce the price. with less means to income, some have little recourse to satisfy their own greed, and thus resort to theft, violence, or vice.

What greed fails to address, and ultimately distracts us from is any idea of the abstract. Greed focuses on more tangible things, rather than ideas of a higher purpose. Money doesn't buy happiness remember, so greed isn't all that important in the long run...

 

In the abstract sense, sure. In the recorded history of man, nope. As far back as we have historical records, we find warfare, rape, plunder, pillaging, and so on.

 

Fel, I disagree with your fundamental definition. Greed isn't the desire for, it's the desire for more gone out of control. It's wanting more for the sake of having more, not because you'll actually be able to make use or enjoy that extra.

If you look at the Seven Deadly sins, they all have a kernel of virtue at their core. It's the aspect of loss of control over those natural, necessary inclinations that turns those qualities from being something useful into something bad. Gluttony, for example - we all need to eat, don't we?

In other words (make sure you're sitting down for this), I agree with Gnarfflinger.

 

I don't believe I properly comprehend that statement, Rally. I can't make heads or tails of it, no matter how long I stare at the screen and how hard I wrack my brain. Could you restate, please?

 

@AMaster:

I was coming back to make another analogy... Virtues work in the same way. Think about something like thrift - spun out of control, it becomes stinginess or miserliness, which are decidely un-virtuous.

 

Symantics.

According to Webster's greed means excessive desire. Desire is a good thing, too much desire becomes obsessive and counter productive. Sorry Fel, greed is bad, but desire is good.

 

Even though there have been things accomplished by people driven by ambition, driven by greed, it doesn't in my mind make greed or ambition absolutely good concepts. There's always a limit where greed doesn't have any positive side effects anymore, and is solely about selfish gain at the expense of others, which is what it's really about at the core. It may be hard to draw a line, but one should make the attempt.

Animals are selfish and greedy too, concerned first and foremost with themselves, their own survival and gain. So one could say greed is a natural thing. But does it mean it's a good thing? It's very easy to excuse things by referring to "survival of the fittest." But does it have to be that way in a society?

 

@Rally:
Again, excessive greed.

@T2B:
While you've got Webster's out, you may want to check the spelling of semantics. I don't trust definitions of basic concepts that are that short. In my dictionary, Greece had a column and a half; greed had two words. Would you describe love or hate with only a couple words? I don't think so; "opposite of love" wouldn't even begin to cut it for hate (or vice-versa).

@Susi:
Well...yeah. I never said greed was good, and even went so far as to say it was a necessary evil that has outlived its usefulness. But the necessary part cannot be ignored; such feelings cannot be casually tossed away when they are no longer of use. It's part of who we are and we have to embrace it and find a way to live with it.

In truth, nothing is an absolutely good or absolutely bad concept. Everything has an upside and a downside; one may overshadow the other, but does not negate it.

 

I'm also going to have to agree with Gnarfflinger's last statement, and I definately agree with Rally, especially the part concerning the Seven Deadly Sins.