Forum Post: G-R-E-E-D is GOOD - Stop trying to regulate it!
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 24, 2011, 5:56 a.m. EST by powertothepeople
(1264)
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LOL. If GREED is good and natural then so are Pride, Lust, Envy, Rage, Gluttony and - LAZINESS
Yet the favorite insult to fling at "libs" "poor people" and OWS protestors around here comes from conservatives/libertarians who defend:
GREED
and the insult that they love to fling is:
LAZY
You're not rich because you're LAZY
You're unemployed because you're LAZY
You're poor because you're LAZY
Your protesting is just you whining because you're LAZY
Hey, y'all right wingers. If it's human to be GREEDY, it is just as human to be LAZY so why use that to judge & insult people you disagree with?
Stop flinging it as an insult.
It's "only human". It's a "natural instinct", you're never gonna get rid of LAZY
Of course, I actually disagree with that assertion.
Just because something is a human instinct doesn't mean it shouldn't be regulated, taxed or prohibited.
We regulate most, if not all, of the 7 deadly "human instincts" in that list up there.
And even when there aren't "laws" against some of them (like gluttony) there are cultural constraints against them (like laziness!).
How about this?
How about if we agree that there actually should be cultural constraints and some regulation against both greed and laziness?
Don't you want to make a better world or at least a better USA?
EDITED TO ADD: My title was simply an attention-getter, not to be taken literally. Don't misunderstand - my premise is not that greed is good, my premise is that one "deadly sin" is as bad as another. Greed is a shortcoming we must struggle against, not a "natural drive" like eating or procreation.
At the place I work I find it ironic that there are several people that put down the protests (they say things like "those hippies need to get a job") and then literally with their next breath they say they wish their son or their daughter could get a job and move out or their basement (in some cases the people have multiple grown children living with them). They don't seem to connect the dots. The growing wealth gap is just a symptom of the real problem.
What these protests are really about is the average American regaining the political clout that he/she should have in our republic. Right now BOTH parties are bought and paid for by the corporations and special interests. They use their vast sums of money to "speak" as if they represent millions of Americans, buying political access and slanting the laws in favor of the rich and powerful. Who pays for this? The everyday American. We don't need "wealth redistribution," that would only be a temporary fix and many Americans including myself find the idea frightening. What we need is "political influence redistribution." We need to institute real, loop-hole free CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM that makes our election process work so the people with the best ideas for effectively running our government win, not who has the most money from pandering to corporate interests.
Do you remember the board game called: Lie,Cheat,Steal? ah how we trained our youth!
I tend to agree. I do believe that it is vital to draw a distinction between regulating personal behavior that is private in nature, and that which is not and can be shown to have a direct and negative impact on society as a whole.
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-- On Greed, and Externalities . . . . Nov. 23, 2011
http://occupywallst.org/forum/on-greed-and-externalities/
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– Greed, I say, Is NOT Good . . . . Nov. 24, 2011
http://occupywallst.org/forum/greed-i-say-is-not-good/
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Your post is is somewhat confusing. Could you say we should stop calling each other names and get on with the task at hand, namely reclaiming the government?
I can and will say that. Consider it said.
Have you read the 99% Declaration? https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
Here's a status report: http://occupywallst.org/forum/update-on-the-99-declaration-and-the-national-gene/
The problem with your view is that being disenfranchised has nothing to do with being lazy. An environment that does not provide adequate work opportunities will hamper any individual from achieving some level of success. Secondly, your view does not take into consideration those who suffer from disabilities or illnesses, physical or mental. A person suffering clinical depression, depending on its severity, will have at the very least extreme difficulty, if not being completely incapable, of holding a job due to being incapacitated by his/her illness. Also, what if a person has a spinal injury and the only work available is hard labor? It comes down to circumstance, not the presence or absence of laziness, that determines whether someone is successful. I thought that to be obvious, but sadly your comment has proven that to be false.
No, I agree with you.
I got tired of reading justifications for greed as a "natural" impulse.
I think of it as one of the seven deadly sins, not as a virtue or something "natural" that should be left alone.
My premise is that the people who call others "lazy" are the same ones justifying "greed".
"Greed" is as much of a moral failing or human shortcoming as "lazy".
I would like an end to categorizing people as "lazy" just as much as I'd like to see an end to the justifications for "greed".
Well, let's not dismiss laziness entirely. Not everyone who doesn't have a job is suffering a disability or other barriers. But I think to call it laziness is somewhat incorrect. What it is, in those cases, is lack of motivation. It's really hard to get a job and the jobs suck and don't contribute to any long-term future so I won't bother, for example. Or: all the places I've worked, everyone complains constantly and the boss is a jerk all the time, I can't stand it anymore. That's not laziness, that's lack of motivation, caused by economic circumstance and/or shitty management. Structural unemployment is complex, to blow it off as laziness is a bit of a cop-out, even when disabilities aren't present.
I completely agree. That was why I said circumstances need to be looked at for each individual. To claim that the unemployed are lazy is just a gross over-generalization.
In the long-term, cultural constraints are most effective. If they have a critical mass of "agreement" or "belief" in a social/cultural system, IMO they permeate the general mentality of that population and become almost an intrinsic part of that culture's "operating system." The majority of the people inside that culture/system then willingly CONFORM THEIR BEHAVIOR to the cultural constraints, accepting this as right, normal and in the 'natural order of "things." Recently re-reading Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States," I just read much information about the indigenous (American Indian) cultures which prevailed before settlement by Europeans began. Zinn's book/research shows a profoundly different and deeply influential set of cultural constraints in these indigenous (American Indian) social organizations which were so widely accepted and inculcated into the norms of "living" that they effectively controlled society. Right now, I personally believe we have profoundly influential cultural "sign-posts" in the U.S.A. which have served to JUSTIFY GREED, FRAUD/SHADY DEALING IN BOTH BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT, AND JUSTIFICATION OF INFLICTING PAINFUL CONDITIONS ON VARIOUS GROUPS OF PEOPLE.
I agree. A shared value system in a community is much more powerful than force of law, especially for "moral" issues.
Alcohol prohibition is a great example of this, even marijuana prohibition is.
The laws in these areas were/are out of sync with what the conscience of the country decided was moral and right.
One only has to read American history 101 to see what an "unregulated" society is like. Just to give an example without even thinking, the meat you buy in the supermarket. If you think it's nasty now, read up on what it was like before govmt regulations finally came into play. Greed is evil and it must die. And be regulated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
If we're so lazy, how come we're about to topple your whole fucking empire?
touche!
I suppose you can "regulate" laziness by giving the cops whips to "encourage" more work. Work, slave, work so you can pay more taxes.
As to greed, it is not just the 1% who are greedy. The poor who receive unearned govt benefits are practicing it too. Ayn Rand dealt with it when discussing the concept of selfishness:
"The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—which means: the values required for human survival—not the values produced by the desires, the emotions, the “aspirations,” the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment."
"The poor who receive unearned govt benefits are practicing it too."
Really? If they have no other option, you consider them greedy?
I'd say someone who commits welfare fraud might be greedy.
Someone who can't find a job and accepts food stamps is not greedy.
Also, there is a difference between selfishness and greed.
Selfishness is inordinate, excessive or exclusive concern with oneself.
Greed is avarice - an excessive desire to possess wealth or goods.
I'm not an Ayn Rand fan, but I agree that there is such a thing as "rational" or "healthy" selfishness.
One can't help others if one hasn't taken care of oneself first. This is an issue women as caretakers constantly struggle with.
Many spiritual disciplines teach a duty to care for oneself. The body as temple and so on.
Sure, it is okay to have self-interest to a healthy degree. If this is what Rand had in mind, I agree.
Excessive self-interest or selfishness results in narcissism, sociopathy or borderline personality disorder.
But greed is another animal. Greed is the lust for wealth and a preoccupation with acquiring it.
But who limits the poors' options? The people that advocate regulation of the economy & welfare. Rather than say people need food stamps why not say let's free the economy so people won't need food stamps? The greed I'm getting at is the you pay for it attitude. You pay for my health care. You pay for my kids education. You pay for my retirement. That's the left's greed.
There will always be some people who need food stamps.
Elderly, disabled and temporarily unemployed people with few options.
Even in the best, most prosperous of times, there is around 4 - 5 % unemployment.
And there are always people unable to work through no fault of their own, or through what we call moral failings.
You describe creating a safety net and having public resources that we all pay for as "you pay for it". I look at those things as things we pool our resources so we can provide them for everyone -- more like "we pay for it" together, so that when we need those services they are there for us.
Garbage pick-up, public schools, highways, public transportation systems - together we can do things that we cannot do alone.
I agree with you, my problem is with forcing people to "help" others through the govt. In the past there were voluntary mutual aid societies, sometimes called friendly societies, that helped people. There are charities today. What we don't need is the govt playing Robin Hood. Theft (taxation) is never justified no matter what otherwise good purpose it goes to. The results of govt welfare haven't been good anyway. There's been no reduction in poverty since the Great Society welfare programs of the late '60s.
Forget govt indoctrination centers (public schools) they serve no good purpose. We'd all be better off with private schools.
My Home Owners Association handles trash pick up. We don't need no stinking govt for that.
Govt roads & highways are just subsidies for various industries like oil, construction, autos, & logging. So if you like carbon monoxide, suburban sprawl, & chopped down trees keep advocating govt roads. Not to mention the police state that govt roads enable.