I don't like the word greed, it seems selfish. I think the better word is capitalism and I 100% agree is good, its actually great. Nothing gets built without capitalism, it's not a bad word.
I don’t think that greed, in the way Gordon Gekko defined it, has ever been good. There’s another line in the movie—when asked why he broke up Blue Star Airlines, he replies, “Because I can!” Net-net, he takes a midsize competitor out of play, fires hundreds of workers, expunges their pensions, allows bigger competitors to hike their prices, and inflation rises—or, as Gekko might add, “Confidence restored!”
Throughout history, every time Gekko-ish greed rears its ugly head, the effects paralyze society. Take Carnegie and Fisk in the 1892 Pullman strike. Carnegie had amassed a $475M fortune ($168B today), yet he couldn’t pay his workers, toiling seven days a week and sixteen hours a day, a decent or even working wage. Or go back to 1812, when the Rothschilds deliberately fooled the investor public that Napoleon had won the war and made the equivalent of a trillion dollars today on the collapse of British silver.
No, greed without boundaries is not good. But competition is. Without competition, we don’t strive, we aren’t motivated. It’s one thing if we are hungry and think of a way to acquire or build a great meal. But it’s not great if we are starving, disabled, or otherwise blocked from achieving our aims. It’s also not great if today’s economic winners pass on the actual costs of their success down to working people - for instance, building massive HQ but not paying barely any taxes to pay for the roads and infrastructure that benefits them — and that’s not counting the actual environmental costs.
If the competition games were not rigged, if the rules of playing the game were more fair, and the winnings more fairly distributed, then the competition game would be more fun. Imagine playing a game of Monopoly with you where I get to seize your holdings whenever I want. Want to play?
The ESG that you speak about has been recently focused on the E as in environmental, and we need to keep our house and planet in good shape to serve us well for future generations. But the S and the G need a lot more attention...or else many of us shun from playing the competition game, and we know where that leads.
I don't like the word greed, it seems selfish. I think the better word is capitalism and I 100% agree is good, its actually great. Nothing gets built without capitalism, it's not a bad word.
I don’t think that greed, in the way Gordon Gekko defined it, has ever been good. There’s another line in the movie—when asked why he broke up Blue Star Airlines, he replies, “Because I can!” Net-net, he takes a midsize competitor out of play, fires hundreds of workers, expunges their pensions, allows bigger competitors to hike their prices, and inflation rises—or, as Gekko might add, “Confidence restored!”
Throughout history, every time Gekko-ish greed rears its ugly head, the effects paralyze society. Take Carnegie and Fisk in the 1892 Pullman strike. Carnegie had amassed a $475M fortune ($168B today), yet he couldn’t pay his workers, toiling seven days a week and sixteen hours a day, a decent or even working wage. Or go back to 1812, when the Rothschilds deliberately fooled the investor public that Napoleon had won the war and made the equivalent of a trillion dollars today on the collapse of British silver.
No, greed without boundaries is not good. But competition is. Without competition, we don’t strive, we aren’t motivated. It’s one thing if we are hungry and think of a way to acquire or build a great meal. But it’s not great if we are starving, disabled, or otherwise blocked from achieving our aims. It’s also not great if today’s economic winners pass on the actual costs of their success down to working people - for instance, building massive HQ but not paying barely any taxes to pay for the roads and infrastructure that benefits them — and that’s not counting the actual environmental costs.
If the competition games were not rigged, if the rules of playing the game were more fair, and the winnings more fairly distributed, then the competition game would be more fun. Imagine playing a game of Monopoly with you where I get to seize your holdings whenever I want. Want to play?
The ESG that you speak about has been recently focused on the E as in environmental, and we need to keep our house and planet in good shape to serve us well for future generations. But the S and the G need a lot more attention...or else many of us shun from playing the competition game, and we know where that leads.