Welcome to the War on Greed. It manifests itself in massive government legislation, Michael Moore films, Paul Krugman editorials, TV news, and elsewhere. All those greedy corporations, greedy bankers, greedy entrepreneurs have ruined us. They need to be stopped!
It is easy to apply the greed label. That’s because most people applying that label don’t know what greed is. What is greed?
If you reached this far in my article, you already read the quote and viewed the video by the great Dr Milton Friedman. He provides a necessary context to the question but does not really answer it.
My observation is that most people that apply the greed label think that profit is greed. Those people are confused. They think anyone that has achieved and are wealthy are greedy. They are wrong.
Greed is an addiction. It is an addiction to possession. A greedy person just needs to have more stuff. Be it money, land, art work, or power, the greedy person will do anything to have it. They will break the law, steal, cheat, lie, murder. Their compulsion to acquire is all consuming and ultimately self destructive, as shown in Citizen Kane. Some of the greedy people are bankers and corporate CEOs. Many greedy people are politicians.
Profit is not an addiction. In order to profit, you must provide a good or service that people want. The more you produce, the more profit you make. In order to grow profit you must continue to offer what is in demand, and if you do so you will be rewarded with higher profit. There is no lying, stealing, or murder involved. It is voluntary, peaceful, and ethical.
If you apply the proper definition of greed to our current condition, you will find most of the people labeled as greedy are not greedy. They may have made bad business decisions and took unwise risks. But they did not lie, steal, murder.
Much is made of health insurance companies making record profits. Their profits are reported to have increased 350% over a decade. A fine example of the War on Greed was recently shown on Fox News. How greedy they are! However, these greedy health insurance companies are nowhere near as greedy as beer brewers and software companies. The profit margins for these greedy health care companies are about 3%. Yes, for every dollar invested they get back 3 cents. For those who suffer from the experience of a government controlled education system, you may need to learn what a profit margin is.
There are others that are greedy and have not been labeled as such. They have acquired more power by lying and stealing. They tell us they need to take more money from us to stop all the greedy people. And we re-elect them.
So if you are watching Citizen Kane or Wall Street and ponder Gordon Gekko’s famous statement that greed is good and that greed works, you should now have a proper perspective.
Greed is bad. Profit is good.
Pat Dixon is the Chair of the Texas Libertarian Party and a City Council Member in Lago Vista, Texas.
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