[zozin]

That’s what a business is. Greed is good, it drives people to do great things and create amazing products. If company A cared less about profits and more about society, it would lose out to company B who cares only about profit and market share, before eventually company A withers and dies and all we are left with is company B.

It’s the role of government to curtail greed and industry actions. The current climate is caused by a a failure of government to step in and intervene, not by the industry caring about profit above all else.

[jjulius]

>Greed is good...

You say this as though there aren't any downsides to greed.

>The current climate is caused by a failure of government to step in and intervene, not by the industry caring about profit above all else.

No, it's both. Full stop.

[sayonaraman]

I don't think you can argue with Gordon Gekko " that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit..."

And btw this forum is hosted by one of the most prominent venture capitalist firms in Silicon Valley which funds thousands of (promising) capitalists.

That's what America is about, greed, the pursuit of happiness, whatever you call it, everything else is noise.

[jjulius]

>That's what America is about, greed, the pursuit of happiness, whatever you call it, everything else is noise.

The pursuit of happiness is not greed. What qualifies as 'happiness' is entirely up to each individual, and for many people that doesn't include being greedy.

[sayonaraman]

well as the success of the US economy shows, those greedy capitalists create millions of jobs and goods and increase overall "happiness" of millions (of perhaps less greedy) people.

Greed and free markets make for a healthy society.

As a counter-example see what happened with the Soviet Union, I can tell you first hand that didn’t work very well. Demonizing "bourjois" values of private property and prosperity, while fetishizing the “common good” and all-controlling government made the entire society very unhappy (except for a few fat bureaucrats) and led to its eventual collapse.

[AnimalMuppet]

I absolutely can argue with Gordon Gekko. His "philosophy" is intended to be a caricature of what's wrong, not a serious position.

> "Greed... captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit..."

But see, we don't want the evolutionary spirit. We want our kids to be able to play in the park without worrying about the survival of the fittest. We want cures for diseases. We want social safety nets. We want to live in a civilization, not in a "state of nature"; we want to be humans, not animals.

[gruez]

>>The current climate is caused by a failure of government to step in and intervene, not by the industry caring about profit above all else.

>No, it's both. Full stop.

disagree. it's the job of government to add legislation. not having rules, then acting surprised when things don't go the way you want is asinine. if you want people to act in a particular way, spell it out. Don't act like it's implied and be outraged when people don't abide by your imaginary rules.

[jjulius]

It can be legal to be an asshole, but you're still an asshole. It may be legal to act in an unethical manner, but you're still acting unethically.

We absolutely are in the "current climate" because the industry cared about profit above all else, because they could.

[gruez]

This presumes there's an universal definition of asshole/unethical that everyone agrees on. You might think paying workers minimum wage is asshole/unethical, so you pay above it even though it's above market rate. Other business owners disagree and undercut you, causing you to be driven out of business. You think they're assholes and fume in your head about how evil they are, but they think nothing's wrong and you're just a bad businessman. Is it fair to denounce them for the way their acted, because their morals don't match up with yours?

[boston_clone]

People doing things worse is rarely a valid justification for not doing things better. What a weird approach to ethics in this thread.

Are our moral goals no longer about improving and setting a higher bar for how we conduct ourselves? Have we succumbed to material wants and ego at the cost of decency? Goodness gracious.

[gruez]

I don't think you'll find much objections to doing good, but but where do you stop? Say the minimum wage is $10 and you decide to pay your workers $15. You still get flak from people who want you to pay even higher (see: amazon getting flak despite paying above market/minimum wage). Do you just turn your business into a non-profit? After all, any profit means there's money that could be spent doing good.

[jjulius]

They can be a better businessman and still be an asshole. The two are not mutually exclusive.

[colinmhayes]

There will always be people who are willing to be assholes for money. Yea they're an asshole, but they're not actually making things worse since there are plenty of people ready to replace them.

[coliveira]

You must be joking, because people who believe that greed is good are exactly the same ones who believe the government should not be imposing rules and everything should be left for the markets to decide.

[gruez]

How is this relevant? Me subscribing to "greed is good" doesn't also automatically subscribe to "there shouldn't be any government intervention".

[zozin]

Of course there are downsides to greed, but as a driving force of human action it's good because it's relatable, identifiable, and can be regulated. Society gets to dictate how much greed is okay, not private industries. We decided long ago that killing out of greed is bad for society, so that's why we punish murder. The same thing with stealing, fraud, etc. In a complete vacuum you would no doubt have companies killing competing CEOs or destroying a competitor's property or lying constantly, but we don't live in vacuum. We live in a society curtailed by laws and regulations. So far we have had very little pushback against addictive apps, that will soon change.

[munk-a]

No - just because you're a predicatable asshole doesn't make you not an asshole. I don't disagree that whenever possible we should create laws that prevent selfish behavior from being a winning move but the economy moves quickly and exploiting new economic ideas for greed is still a dick move.

[johnsimer]

Greed is only good when the greedy actions do not have negative externalities

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

> It’s the role of government to curtail greed and industry actions.

It's the role of the government to curtail murder, but that doesn't resolve me of personal responsibility.

[mike00632]

In this case greed is pretty clearly bad.

[ironmagma]

Profit is different from greed.