The Greed Factor

“The gap in our economy is between what we have and what we think we ought to have - and that is a moral problem, not an economic one.”  - Dr. Paul Heyne (Economist)

Greed is the force that drives world markets as it corrupts the human heart.  The accumulation of wealth is the motivation behind some of the world’s greatest achievements as well as some of its greatest atrocities.  Greed is facilitating the demise of the very system that it is alleged to animate.  Masked as advancement and technology, materialism rules the Western world while propelled by greed.  Some say that greed is the ultimate motivator for competition, self-reliance and individualism.  Cutthroat competition is inhumane at its core while self-reliance is the misguided phantom ideal of capitalism.

THE FACE OF GREED
As evidenced by recent headlines, the capitalistic free market is in a fight for its very existence.  Fatal stock market & housing market collapses have challenged the economic norms of the Western powers.  The elite civilized nations have been severely tested along with the competence and character of those deeply entrenched in global markets.  The unquenchable avarice of the wealthy has finally surfaced troubling questions of morality onto the economic horizon.  The practice of selling market derivatives on a person’s home mortgage is gravely immoral.  Those buying such assets are essentially betting against the home buyer and hoping the mortgage will default due to delinquency or nonpayment.  The infamous ‘credit default swap’ is one human being profiting from the downfall and utter failure of another human being.  The basic livelihood of the common man is now a casino money chip in the hands of those who can afford to play.  Those who profit from immoral greedy investments do so at the risk of fomenting fear and birthing a cataclysmic economic avalanche.  The lavish destruction of all economic infrastructures is the path of greed.

It is not only the wealthy who have been conquered by their materialistic lust, but also the impoverished.   Greed is a lurking menace that darkens the hearts and minds of those living in meager means.  Even the simplest cases of armed robbery in lower-income inner cities attest to this dynamic.  There is usually no significant wealth gap between the assailant and the victim.  The thief is robbing his already-impoverished neighborhood for the acquisition of fluid capital that flows through the area but never rests there.  This capital never seems to penetrate the deepest workings of these neighborhoods.  Substantial volumes of currency and commodity move through the poorer areas but always end up in the hands of wealthier individuals outside.  Greed is the fleeting illusion of grandeur for the poor.

Ambition and profit drive market competition that compels one business to outperform a rival and provide a better product or service.  Competition remains healthy as long as it improves the lives of consumers and the business owners and workers involved.  As greed enters the picture, competition usually turns cutthroat and immoral.  It degenerates when a business looks to monopolize its market and maliciously attacks or forcibly purchases its competitors.  Institutional conglomerates such as banks may fall prey to bureaucratic clutter and immobility during times of crisis.  The regional monopolies of these banks decimate all competition and suppress new banks from rising.  A monopoly in any market will generally lower the quality of the product/service for the consumer, lower the wages for the worker, and maximize profits for the owner.  This will inevitably damage the quality of life for the society at large.       

The extensive use of cheap labor, child labor, and outsourcing are all different heads of the same leviathan of greed.  These practices may increase profit margins but they hurt the fabric of the business by undercutting its workers.  They weaken and disband labor unions and guilds while trampling upon their rights.  In the cases of job layoffs or pay reduction, it impedes individuals from being able to respectfully provide for their family.

THE HEART OF GREED
Greed feeds the faulty notion that one’s own desires and well-being always supersede those of the society.  Greed destroys altruism in the segments of society where it is most needed.  It weaves disunity and pins a man against his fellow man.  It violates the dignity of human work whose value emanates from the person, not from the nature of the work.  Greed is blind to the concept of a just wage which is always an exact number based on specific inflation and cost of living, among other factors.  Those ensnared by the lure of greed may even be willing to take crippling short term losses for a promise of vast riches in the long run.  Greed kills empathy and nullifies sympathy.  It is a flawed myopic vision with oneself in the center.   

Greed is born out of an underlying pride & arrogance that touts individualistic self-reliance.  Self-reliance is a virtuous concept as long it does not become self-centered and vain.  At times, the individual desires wealth, power and praise, detached from their own family and peers.  One must acknowledge that true self-reliance is a launching point for a person to help those who are still lacking.  This implicit generosity is a foreign concept for the capitalist paradigm.  The sensitivity towards a commonly shared human experience is declining in mankind today.  In an era where financial independence is fading, it is human virtue that will bring prosperity back, not stimulus packages and bailouts.