Greed Is Still Good

I recently saw a number of articles which all had the same theme –America’s economic problems are partly caused by greed – that people are too materialistic, spend too much money, buy things they don’t need and are still trying to keep up with the Jones’s. My first reaction was “Damn right!”. You bet we want more. That is who we are and what made America so great and we should stop being ashamed of it.

People have been brainwashed into believing that wealth is bad and that the wealthier the person (or business) the more evil they are. Yes there are some corrupt rich people but there are an equal number, if not more, corrupt poor people, it’s just that you don’t hear about them in the evening news. People are also told that it is wrong to want more and that they should be satisfied with what they have. Of course you should be grateful for what you have but there is nothing wrong with wanting more money, more goods. I would even argue the opposite; that it is wrong not to aspire for a better life. In fact I believe that this need for more is hard wired into our genes, it is what separates men from beasts and without it we would be living in a very different world.

People laughed at President Bush for once asking everyone to support the war by shopping but he wasn’t that far off from the truth. Think about it. What if everybody decided they were satisfied with what they had and stopped buying? You think the economy is bad now just imagine what it would happen if starting January 1 the stores were empty of customers. Imagine the impact of closing just one clothes store; first the store’s employees would be out of work which would hurt their town’s economy as these unemployed people would stop buying things and perhaps even default on their mortgages, the truckers used to haul the clothes would be the next to hit unemployment, then add in the thousands of people needed to make the clothes plus the companies who produce the material, sewing machines etc etc who all would now be out of work. This hasn’t even taken into account the stock market which is easily affected by a company’s downward trend and all the stockholders, pension funds, 401k’s etc. which would be impacted and lose their life savings. And all because you decided not to buy that new jacket.

Greed not only keeps our economy going but it also has been the main motive for man improving himself and his world. It is our desire for better, faster and more improved products that has fueled mankind’s innovations, experiments, and progress and took us from caves to the moon. People don’t realize just how much they benefit from somebody else’s greed. Think about it. Everything you touch is the result of somebody coming up with a better way of making that object or because somebody figured out a way to make more money producing it. In either case greed is the dominant factor: I want a better product or I want to make more money producing this product, or both.

If you think that you are not greedy then you are either a hypocrite or a saint. And disguised in this contempt for greed is the liberal’s need to “equalize” the world by making the poor wealthier and the wealthy poorer. But that is a discussion for another day. As for our current problems, if you really want to turn the economy around then we all need to stand up and loudly proclaim the famous line from Oliver Twist “Please sir, I want some more.”