Is It Greed?

John Stossel:

"If pursuing profit is greed, economist Walter Williams told me, then greed is good, because it drives us to do many good things. 'Those areas where people are motivated the most by greed are the areas that we're the most satisfied with: supermarkets, computers, FedEx.' By contrast, areas 'where people say we're motivated by 'caring'' -- public education, public housing etc. -- 'are the areas of disaster in our country. . . . How much would get done,' Williams wondered, 'if it all depended on human love and kindness?'

Greed gets people to cooperate. If you want to benefit from other greedy people, you have to make sure they benefit from you. Consider one of the wonders of our age, the supermarket. There are thousands of products on the shelves. How'd they get there?"

I suspect the issue of "greed" often comes up in many political issues, especially issues involving government regulation of economic activities. While I'm in agreement with what Stossel writes here about the meaning of these economic activities, I don't think it fits to talk about these things as "greed." It seems to me simply self-interest that motivates people to behave in all the ways that result in "one of the wonders of our age, the supermarket."

Further I don't think it is "greed" to be self-interested and to make personal efforts to do better for yourself and your family. It seems to me that "greed" must involve an excess in a negative personality trait, and one that leads a person to specifically pursue money as the primary personal goal in life and even at the expense of relationships with others, and perhaps it may even involve explicit efforts to take advantage of others for personal gain.

In general, the economic activities of people benefit many others and not just each person individually. In general, economic activities are not characterized by greed, but by a multitude of ways by which people help themselves while helping others.