Greed
Of all human impulses, few are as common a target for blame as greed.
Why does Hollywood turn out endless remakes instead of original material? Greed.
Why did the financial market crash? Greed.
Why is anyone in the world poor? Greed.
Why did it rain on my birthday? Greed, presumably.
Before we can get into discussing whether these attributions of blame are fair, we need to ask the obvious question…
What Is Greed?
The definition given by Google (taken from Oxford) is “intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.”
Let’s briefly focus on the “selfish” part of that. In a certain sense, all desire is selfish. Even someone who performs an act of charity because he genuinely wants to help people is selfish. After all, he wants to help people. He’s getting what he wants. I bet he feels really good about himself for it too! Selfish!
Fellow 90’s kids will remember this as the view of Joey from Friends.
Of course, there is another, less useless way to reckon the word “selfish”.
Humans desire things in layers. I might go and get some flour because I want to bake a cake, but the deeper desire that fuels that is that I want to eat said cake, and the deeper (perhaps deepest) desire that fuels that is that I want the taste receptors in my mouth to be triggered in a certain way. However, it is still true that my desire to bake a cake is one of the main things that drove me to go and get the flour. A desire doesn't have to be my ultimate or deepest desire in order for it to be apt to describe it as the cause of my actions.
Similarly, when I perform an act of charity, I can aptly say that I did it to help someone else—even if that desire to help someone else was ultimately fueled by a deeper desire to feel good about myself.
Given this way of thinking, an unselfish act is one for which one of the main driving desires is a desire to fulfil the values of others. A selfish act, on the other hand, is one for which all of the deeper driving desires pertain to nobody’s values but one’s own.1
It is important to note that this conception of "selfish" covers most of the things we desire. Most of the things you do (and so by revealed preference, most of the things you desire) are for yourself.
To connect this back to “greed”, if you use the first of the two conceptions of "selfish" we've discussed here (Joey’s one) then “greed" covers any intense desire. If you use the second (the non-useless one), then greed covers any intense desire except for those which pertain to fulfilling the values of others, and so “greed” still covers most of our intense desires.
A Possible Criticism of Greed
Greed might be criticized in the following way:
If you desire something too strongly, then you may be willing to do bad things to get it. We do not want you to do bad things. Therefore, we do not want you to be greedy. You should maintain your desires at a low enough level that you will not violate moral rules in order to attain them.
I have three responses to that.
Response 1: An Analogy
My first response is that this is a misdiagnosis of the problem. When someone is willing to perform immoral acts in order to get something, the problem is not that his desire for that thing is too strong, but that his desire for being moral is not strong enough.
Some people, upon hearing that, will feel that this is a distinction without a difference. Everything we value is relative to everything else we value. Any increase in how much we want one thing is indistinguishable from a reduction in how much we value everything else.
However, this cannot be the whole story. If it were, we would have to say that love is bad too.
If a man loves a woman enough, he may be willing to do bad things for her. A man who steals jewelry for his sweetheart, for example. Does this mean that love is bad? Of course not, it just means that we must value morality in addition to love.
Response 2: An Analysis
That analogy is probably intuitive. I doubt you’d be willing to say that love is bad, and so by analogy, you must at least be a little less sure that you should say that greed is bad. However, a simple analogy can not explain why greed (or love, for that matter) is or is not bad. It certainly can not overcome the “distinction without a difference” criticism, all on its own.
The key here is the distinction between something which is bad, and something which merely can be bad. Something which is bad will tend to make things worse by the introduction of more of it. It doesn’t need to be universally so, but it does need to be generally so. Something which merely can be bad will not usually make things worse by the introduction of more of it, and may often even make things better by the introduction of more of it. Almost everything can be bad, so it is a mighty weak criticism.
So is greed in the category of “can be bad?” Or the category of “is bad?”
Consider a man who has a strong commitment to morality. He will be unwilling to steal something from you, even if he selfishly desires what you have very intensely. Not only is his intense and selfish desire for what you have not bad in this instance, it’s actually actively good. Why? Because if he refuses to steal from you, then the only way he can get what you have is by offering you something you value even more in exchange. In fact, the more he desires your stuff (the greedier he is), the better it is for you, as he will be willing to give you more in order to get it.
This is a situation in which greed is good. That does not mean that greed is good in and of itself, but it does mean that greed can be good. Specifically, it is good when paired with a commitment to morality.
Some degree of morality is ubiquitous among humans. Some more than others, sure, but the number of people whose actions are never constrained by moral considerations is somewhere between vanishingly few and zero.
If greed is good when paired with something that almost all people have to some degree, then it is not apt to describe it as generally bad—much less inherently bad.
Morality isn’t the only thing with which we can pair greed in order to make it an actively good thing. We can also pair it simply with a situation in which the most expedient way to get the thing you are greedy for is anything other than coercion.
For example, let’s say there’s a man who doesn’t care about morality, but is confident that the law will punish him for stealing. In that case once again, if he wants what you have and would be punished for stealing it, the best way for him to get it is to offer you something you value even more in exchange. Just like if he were moral, the more he wants what you have (the greedier he is) the better is it for you because he will be willing to give you more in order to get it.
The situation is even the same absent the law, in a large number of situations. Even just the fact that you would be willing to fight back if he tries to take your stuff may incentivize him to buy rather than steal, making his greed actively positive for you once again.
His greed is only bad for you when the lowest cost way for him to get what you have is to steal it. I mean “cost” a broad sense, including punishment for crimes, guilt for moral transgressions, harm from self-defense, etc. In a world of laws, moral feelings and privately owned fire-arms, greed is generally a good thing. Only in certain situations, with particularly bad incentives, can it become harmful.
Response 3: An Appeal
I find human desire to be a very special, almost sacred thing. Absent the desires of sentient beings such as humans2, nothing matters.
The stars don’t care if they explode tomorrow. The Earth doesn’t care if it’s a barren wasteland or a lush paradise. Only once a sentient being evaluates something, does anything have value.
If greed is intense desire, then an attack on greed is an attack on what sentient beings—the source of all value in the universe—consider to be most valuable. An attack on greed is an attack on humanity, and an attack on goodness itself.
Perhaps you think that the word “selfish” from our original definition of “greed” becomes relevant here. It is true that many of the things which sentient beings desire do not pertain to the values of others and can therefore be described as “selfish”, but I see no reason to take issue with that. It is arbitrary to dismiss human values just because they pertain to ourselves. Those values are still part of what gives meaning to reality.
Imagine a man who does not provide any benefit to anyone else, but does provide benefit to himself. He lives his life without causing any harm, just improving his own lot. I see this as a man who has led a good and moral life. I believe it is okay to exist for your own sake.
It may be that men like this are not common. Most of us do value the fulfilment of the values of others, and so it is important to one’s own wellbeing to improve the lot of other people, but that is beside the point. I can also see that being of benefit to others is a very good thing for one to do. That is also beside the point. The point is that if human values are worth fulfilling, then someone who fulfills his own is doing just as good a thing as someone who fulfills the values of another.
What If Greed Is Just Bad By Definition?
Perhaps I’m missing the point. Some dictionaries (though not all) define greed using the word “excessive” before the word “desire”. “Excessive” is not a particularly specific word (what does it exceed?), but perhaps in this context it simply means “an amount which would be bad”. If so, then greed is bad by definition.
As I always say, you can define words however you like, but this is clearly not always how it is defined. The phrase “greed is good” is common, and what it communicates is not oxymoronic. Perhaps it uses the word “greed” differently from the way you use it, but you at least understand it.
Additionally, a definition of greed that is bad by definition is less useful. There is a common sentiment captured by accusations of “greed” which is entirely comprehensible, and flatly wrong. The people most often criticized as “greedy” do indeed act upon strong, selfish desires, but as it turns out this is generally a good thing.
For example, the criticism of “greed” is often levied at billionaires, simply on the grounds that they have so much while others have so much less. The implication here is that if billionaires didn’t desire so much, they would have less, and there would be more to go around. However, this implication is false. Billionaires usually do not become billionaires by stealing. They are constrained by laws, morality and other incentives, forcing them to produce things that other people value in order to entice them to part with their money. Therefore, in their pursuit of more and more wealth, they enrich others as well.
When you buy something from Amazon, you value that thing more than the money you are paying to Jeff Bezos, and so you are better off as a result of that purchase. Multiply that by the billions of transactions that Amazon has engaged in and you have the reason that Jeff Bezos has so much—he has provided others with so much in return. Jeff Bezos’ greed has been incredibly beneficial to you. If he were less greedy, there would not be “more to go around,” there would just be less total wealth in the world.
There are exceptions. If someone gets rich as a politician, for example, he is faced with the perverse incentives that come along with government. The greed of politicians is bad for you, but most people are not politicians.
As you can see, the definition of “greed” that I am using here is entirely comprehensible, and appears to be the definition that most serious criticisms of greed implicitly use. If you define “greed” as necessarily a bad thing, then saying that someone is bad because he’s greedy becomes nearly tautological, and not very helpful. Additionally you’d have to say that Jeff Bezos is not greedy, because his intense and selfish desire for crazy quantities of money is a good thing. Unless you are willing to say that Jeff Bezos is not greedy, then you are not defining greed as tautologically bad.
Conclusion
I understand why it can be initially appealing to blame greed for bad things that happen. If the bad people didn’t desire things so strongly, they would not have done bad things in order to get them. However, this is blaming the wrong part of the equation. It is not the presence of greed (or love), but a lack of commitment to morality and lack of good incentives, that is the problem. The easiest way to see that is to consider which part of the equation really needs to be fixed.
When Hollywood turns out awful remakes over and over, the solution is not to call for Hollywood to stop being so greedy that they produce what the public demands. We want Hollywood to produce movies that people want to watch. Instead, we should call for the public to stop having such awful taste.
When investors follow the absurd incentives laid down by the government…
…and it inevitably blows up in everyone’s faces, the solution is not to call for investors to stop being so greedy that they make profitable investments. We want profitable investments to be made so that businesses can cover the up-front cost of producing products that people want. Instead, we should call for the regulators to stop their calamitous intrusions into the market that make socially harmful investments into personally sound ones.
When a robber pulls off a heist, the solution is not for him to stop valuing money so highly. We want him to value money more so that he will work more to get it. Instead, we should want him to start valuing morality in addition to money, or for the law to improve at its ability to punish thieves like him, so that his intense and selfish desire for money can directed towards productive ends.
Finally, when you see that some people are rich, while others are poor, don’t blame the rich people for wanting wealth. The greedy desire for wealth is exactly what incentivized people to create the businesses that pulled anyone out of poverty in the first place. Instead, we should blame the government wars, trade restrictions and regulations which prevent businesses from doing the same everywhere and for everyone.
When you see someone do something bad for something he wants, don’t blame his desire for being too intense. Blame his lack of morality, the lack of good laws, and the lack of other good incentives.
Don’t blame greed. Greed was an innocent bystander. One that we will probably need to rely on to solve the very problems that it is being erroneously blamed for.
Video version:
Of course, this is treating as a binary, something which is really a spectrum. It would be more precise to say that an act for which the desire pertaining to the values of others is deeper and more important is an act which is less selfish. However, as with any spectrum, we can just go ahead and draw a line somewhere and continue to treat it as a binary, and that’s just fine for many purposes.
Let me stress here that I said “such as humans”. If you believe animals are sentient, or if you believe there is a God who gives things value, or if you believe there are aliens out there, then do not think that anything I have said discounts them.