[CryptoPunk]

Greed is not good. Productive behaviour is good. Market economies encourage people to be productive in order to satisfy their self-interest.

Defining pursuit of self-interest as greed is the type of ideologically motivated moralizing that leads to people ignoring rational arguments and the evidence on what types of laws work and what don't.

>>As proof observe many European nations that are almost as productive wherein the wealth of most practitioners of most professions tops out much lower than their US counterparts and yet they produce similarly to our citizens.

1. The U.S. is significantly more productive than Europe on a per capita basis.

2. Even if 1 weren't true, your argument would prove nothing, as there are a vast array of differences between the EU and the US that could explain your observation. Your 'proof' is nothing of the sort. It's lazy confirmation bias. The empirical evidence, in the form of analysis on large datasets, strongly suggests being more market-based is associated with more rapid economic development. For example see this study: https://web.archive.org/web/20170821004405/http://ime.bg/upl... There's no evidence of any threshold where that benefit diminishes. These empirical observations are strongly supported by the basic economic theory.