I don’t usually react strongly to views others have shared on their blogs. After all, the blogosphere is the perfect arena to share your thoughts and speak your mind; and everyone is entitled to their opinions.
I did – however – find myself making an exception to letting things slide when I came accross this blog post by Shane Hutton titled
Greed Is Great
First, let me say I have a lot of respect for the modernista.com team. They have done quite a fantastic job of pushing the boundaries of the web and their latest site is truly a wonder to behold.
The site itself is featured on various top web directories and attracts a lot of visitors. I am just one of those (thousands of) awestruck visitors who were perusing their blog when I stumbled upon this unfortunate post
While I agree with the essence of Shane’s message, I think his definition of greed is very misleading.
A truly greedy, wholly self-interested person will adopt the position that, not only must I treat employees well, I must treat them so well that people line up to work for me.
While that’s the kind of noble person I identify with, I don’t think defining them as greedy is entirely correct, especially if you look at the other types of people that can be defined as greedy.
Truly greedy people feel entitled to more than what’s theirs, and getting it usually causes suffering for some other person.
Lend a greedy person a hand, and they’ll want the whole arm and proceed to despise you for not giving them all your limbs. And why stop there, how about all of you and your earthly possessions, not forgetting your soul too!
Greedy people are shortsighted. Like small children, they never fully consider the long-term consequences of their actions. Look no further than the current economic crisis to realise just how many greedy people (in legitimate business) are armong us.
You mention Bernie Madoff in your post as a person who was not truly greedy, because had he been, he would not have ruined his life and secured a lengthy jail sentence.
I say his life ended up in this mess precisely because he is a classic example of a greedy person. To many, he’s no different from a common thief, his racket happened to be different, that’s all.
A greedy person is happiest to get something of value from another for nothing.
The definitions of self-interest and self-preservation align closely with the ideal character that you depict in your post. But GREED? I’m sorry. No.
Gordon Geckko was also wrong in the movie Wall Street when he sensationalized greed like that. I suspect a lot of boneheds followed his example to the letter, forgetting that this was just a movie for entertainment purposes.
I do like the person you idealise in your post, but I think we need better definitions to separate the good, self-sacrificing, hardworking empire builders from the myopic scum of the earth that’s always looking for unsavoury shortcuts.
Lumping them all together as greedy makes me very uneasy.
8 Responses for "No, Modernista.com, Greed is NOT GOOD!!"
well I’m not objective, but that statement sounds terribly objectivist which I object to, especially now that Ayn Rand is dead, much like Zarathustra, but I guess they have not heard.
July 1st, 2009 at 4:18 pm@grim Thank you for your input. I do wish you could be more specific in relation to this post.
Ayn Rand, Friedrich Nietzsche & co. were a lot about theory, and theory is a mix of reality and projected guessing.
What I’m tackling here are principles that even a child understands. A fact that most people begin their childhood as greedheads and some stay greedheads well into their senior years.
I definitely don’t intend to impose my views on anyone but just opening up a subject that irks me to open debate
July 1st, 2009 at 4:53 pmHey Figo
ok, to clarify, well I guess I am agreeing with you, when I see folk pushing that kinda me first philosophy it irks me but I guess under my own system they are entitled to believe in what they want, but individual greed is a very short term path rather than the longer term way of mutual aid and altruism.
In an extreme life/death situation sure me first may well ensure survival, but we would never have developed agriculture or society without mutual aid. You have to look beyond short term personal gratification or you get greed myopia and that leads to things like the current economic crash (and dodgy risk spreading) but hey who cares about tomorrow when you want it now, because you are worth it or whatever.
Without longer term visions of a common constructive mutually supportive society we will retard our growth as human beings. But thats just what I think, doesn’t mean I do, or even can know anything. I just wanna be a good person and try avoid those who think that they are ‘naturally’ better or whatever it is that drives the greedy.
Thanks for opening a debate on this ‘cos we gotta lotta greedy assholes here in South Africa….
July 1st, 2009 at 5:12 pm@grim
You’re 100% correct.
We need more visionaries and fewer rats
Ive also changed the post title from “BAD” to “NOT GOOD”.
Makes it a little less declarative, methinks
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:27 pmFirstly, thank you Figo for furthering the conversation. Secondly, I am glad to see that we agree on the morality of the issue if not the semantics. I especially like the fact that you made the point quite clearly that greedy people, in the classic sense, are shortsighted. To me you identified the essence of it right there. A person with a desire to dominate their field, whatever we might agree to call that, can’t do it with a short term view that destroys other people’s lives or robs them of their wealth or their labor. In order to be so successful so as to literally be indispensable, which I would term as a greedy thing to want, you must act morally in order to to achieve that position. They may even forgo “greedy” to call you “driven” or “determined” or “a powerful force” or something else which isn’t as loaded a word as “greedy”. Now, whether wanting to dominate your field in the first place is moral or not is of course worthy of a conversation of its own.
And thank you also for the fine compliments regarding Modernista!. Everybody here appreciates it.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:42 am“Now, whether wanting to dominate your field in the first place is moral or not is of course worthy of a conversation of its own.”
I think you just found the topic for your next post man
July 7th, 2009 at 7:27 amhttp://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/147/37607.html for some interesting and current examples of short sighted greed
July 13th, 2009 at 4:58 pmWhoa! What an experience!
Shane, Avin & Grim: Thank you very much for stopping by and sharing your views and sorry for keeping quiet for so long. I wasn’t being rude.
I was conducting a little experiment regarding the real world reactions I would get. I give my blog url to almost everybody I deal with and I suspect some read this post and didn’t like what they saw.
It’s a bit provocative no doubt. I wonder if it’s simply coincidence that so many people tried to screw me over after the time that this post was written. It was overwhelming! Hmmm…
@Grim, that article is the perfect example! Thank you.
I don’t wanna say more on the subject for now.
You folks with the flamethrowers, you can stop now, k?
September 8th, 2009 at 3:45 pm