Greed has always been a negative concept.
The
English word we use is from the Old Norse, which meant to have a strong
desire for food or drink. When we look back to ancient Greek and Roman
times, the idea of greed was a bit different than what we think of
today. Then it meant to want more and more as to never be satisfied or
fulfilled, never happy with what you have.
While the Bhagavad
Gita, the Hindu text written around the 5th century BC, speaks of greed,
it lumps greed with anger and lust as uncontrollable emotions. “Hell
has three gates: lust, anger, and greed.” Many verses of the Old
Testament of the Holy Bible, too, speak of greed but in the context of a
behavior that creates damage because it distracts from more important
pursuits. 1 Maccabees 4:17: “And He said to the people: Be not greedy of
the spoils: for there is war before us.”
Those
people that are now on the streets shouting the word and painting it on
signs would probably be shocked to learn that the modern concept of
greed came from one of the great thinkers of the Catholic Church. Greed
is a religious concept.
St.
Thomas Aquinas wrote Summa Theologica in the 1200s. About greed he
wrote, “It is a sin directly against one’s neighbor, since one man
cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking
them.” Greed, according to Aquinas, is a zero-sum game in which a
participant’s gain is exactly balanced by the losses of the other
participant.
If I win, you lose. The thief who steals your cell phone then would be the best example of greed.
And
it is this model from Summa Theologica that has shaped our thinking of
greed for 800 years. But is all the current rallying against “corporate
greed” and the banks sensible?
“People,
not profits” sounds real nice and friendly. Except, who reaps the
benefits from those corporate profits? People. When I started as a
stockbroker decades ago, I asked prospective clients what beer they
drank.. Want to lower your cost of beer? Then buy the beer-making
company. Want to lower your Meralco bill? Buy the stock and get a 2+
percent dividend. And the more profits Meralco makes, the greater the
value of your shares.
Americans
complain about Apple manufacturing in China. But they are not willing
to pay 25 percent more for their gadget to have it made in the US.
Americans did not wake up one day and suddenly found all the shoes,
clothes and electronics “Made in China.” They bought the
cheaper Chinese-made goods over many years because they wanted to pay
less. Isn’t that greed? Weren’t they putting their own “profits” before
people?
The banks
are “greedy” because they make profits from the loans they make. I said
something dumb the other day and my friend at the Philippine Star, Boo
Chanco, pointed it out. I said that the bailouts were not set up to
benefit Greece, but for the benefit of lenders. Boo properly educated
me; “of course... the Greeks hopefully or supposedly got their benefits
from those loans years ago.” He is absolutely right.
The
“poor” in the US complain about the bank’s profits. Tens of millions
receive food stamps from the government. Banker JPMorgan is the largest
processor of food-stamp benefits in US. JP provides food-stamp debit
cards. More food stamps, more JPMorgan profits. And the taxes that are
paid on those profits go to pay for the food-stamp program.
You
see, in this modern age, it is not a zero-sum game. When there was a
very limited supply, then taking more could have meant someone else
received less. But modern capitalism has made the pie larger and
continues to make it larger every day. Chinese workers better their
standard of living; US consumers buy more goods for less money.
However,
there is a perfect solution to all the corporate greed and even to
personal greed: communism. Karl Marx wrote that “The theory of communism
may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.”
If
there is not any private property then greed disappears since no one
can accumulate (profit) at all. Since all the iPhones belong to all of
us, I can take the one you are holding and you do not lose. You just
take the other person’s. Of course, the iPhone would never have been
invented because Steve Jobs might have been greedy enough to want more
compensation for his idea than the janitor at the Apple office.
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