It’s a slow news day, and I was browsing some overseas newspapers. I came across this article on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald: “Greed is the market’s forgotten vice” by Ross Gittins. It’s an op ed review of a book, Beyond greed by Dr Brian Rosner, principal of Ridley Melbourne, an Anglican theological college. I’m not religious, but the concepts are pretty relevant to today’s increasingly secular society: one where the Christian legacy is still visible in our culture/s.
The article outlines how greed was once considered a major sin, but now is treated as something pretty trivial, or, in the case of the Randians, a major good. Gittins pulls some facts cited in the book:
A survey of regular churchgoers in America found that whereas almost 90 per cent said greed was a sin, fewer than 20 per cent said they were ever taught that wanting a lot of money was wrong, and 80 per cent said they wished they had more money than they did.
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It seems that, by comparison with the past, greed is regarded as a trivial sin. A retired priest has recounted that, in his long years of service, all kinds of sins and concerns were confessed to him in the confessional, but never once the sin of greed.
Rossner argues that greed has become a form of religion, within which the “economy” has become regarded as sacred.
”Like God, the economy, it is thought, is capable of supplying people’s needs without limit. Also, like God, the economy is mysterious, unknowable and intransigent,” he says. ”It has both great power and, despite the best managerial efforts of its associated clergy, great danger. It is an inexhaustible well of good(s) and is credited with prolonging life, giving health and enriching our lives.
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”Money, in which we put our faith, and advertising, which we adore, are among its rituals. The economy also has its
In place of the celebration of greed, Rossner puts in a bid for the alternative as being “contented” – that is, contented with our lot, but not with the way life is for those less well off than ourselves. Clearly he sees his target audience is the middle classes, or at least the better off working classes.
”To be content is to be satisfied, to enjoy a balance between one’s desires and their fulfilment. To be content is in effect to experience freedom from want,” he says. But note, it’s being content with your own lot, not those of others less fortunate than you.
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And the other side of the contentment coin is giving. Rosner says that if Charles Dickens’ Scrooge epitomises greed, giving is epitomised by Victorian jam maker Sir William Hartley. Hartley regularly and voluntarily increased wages, practised profit-sharing and supplied low-cost, high-quality housing to some of his employees and free medical attention to all of them.
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He was also concerned for his suppliers, and would amend contracts in their favour if a change in the price of fruit and economic circumstances conspired against their making a decent living.
These are admirable sentiments, but provide a counter to greed in the form of individual responses and Victorian era charity. A further point where I part company with the views of Rossner (as explained by Gitlin, is when he argues that greed underlies three major threats to our civilisation: terrorism, pollution and crime.
I do think that greed underlies major problems in our society, including the threats to the environment. However, I l did a search to see what else have been said about greed and the state of 21st century western society.
According to a sketchy Wikipedia article, there is a theory that greed, fear and herd instinct are the “three main emotional motivators of stock markets and business behavior”.
An article behind a pay wall at Scientific American, “Greed: How Economic Selfishness Harms Us All“, uses a Gordon Gekko quote from the 1980s movie, Wall Street.
I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them!
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
This has been the dominant ethos since the neoliberal or neocon revolution of the 1980s.
I found a part of a 2004 book, not behind a pay wall, that looks like it’s worth a read. It is from the book, Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives, by Sam Pizzigati. This author is described as a “long-time labor movement journalist”.
This section of the book, on a PDF file, The Cost of Greed is a secular analysis of the religion of greed and its sacred “market”. Its focus is on inequality as being THE major social threat to our society and democracy. The section concludes by pointing to evidence that income gaps translate to voting gaps: the decline in the numbers of people voting. To function democratically society needs public forums that enable public criticism.
And that requires the development or more democratic forms of media, on and offline. This should be a major election platform. See the Coalition for Better Broadcasting.
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