Greed: Good?

The word "Greed" has a negative connotation. It immediately brings to mind selfishness, dishonesty, evil tycoon, and other such flattering terms. But is greed in and of itself bad? Perhaps we would widen our American vocabulary. Greed does mean an intense and selfish desire for something.

Greed is bad because it infringes on other people's rights and can also promote dishonesty. Would Bill Gates be considered greedy? He's the wealthiest person in the world in terms of money; is he greedy? He still wishes to become wealthier, elsewise he would have retired. I don't think he is a greedy man in the sense that he's infringing on other people's rights; the right term to use in place of greed I think would be self-interest.

"Self" has a rather obvious meaning. But the word "interest" has some meanings that might be useful to fully understand the abstract idea; it is the state of wanting to know or learn about something or someone and/or the advantage or benefit of a person or group. It also is a word to describe the money that is paid regularly at a particular rate for the use of money lent or the delaying of paying debt. So if you have self-interest, you are investing in yourself in one area or another.

But how does the world work without some kind of motivation? Would just the fact of knowing you are doing good motivate the world to progress? It should, but does it? But even then, are you partly selfish when you are going about doing good? This is what self-interest is. Greed can be gone, but we must still have self-interest in order to progress.

Bill Gates has a type of greed, or self-interest, where he has to persuade people to buy his products. Not force. Also, when he increases in his profit it means that he's creating more jobs, more wealth at an employee's level, and such.

So the question for all of us to ponder is "How can you persuade everyone to give you a dollar voluntarily?" Answering that question, and then investing in it, that's what can cause great wealth. Look at the problems that people are complaining of, fix it and then sell it.

Here is a video they showed in class:Milton Friedman - Greed

But this is what I learned of greed and capitalism today. :D