Don Boudreaux of Café Hayek, (http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/) had an interesting post tilted, "Greed" Is Not an Explanation.” I encourage you to read it and the rest of the post, and earn extra credit by responding to the discussion board in Blackboard referring to “Greed.”
I believe that the distrust of greed, or self interest, as a motive is at the heart of the first of Bryan Caplan’s four biases, anti-market bias. As many of my students recall, I ask if they really believe that oil company executives, or Wall Street bankers are any greedier than in the past, or if they are likely to be less greedy in the future. If not, what changes in markets or market structure changed to make their greed manifest. In the case of oil, the change was probably increasing demand. In the case of the home loan market, it was probably changes in regulatory structure pushing loans to individuals in underserved areas, and perhaps one of Taleb’s Black Swans, leading investment bankers that had never seen a decline in housing prices to believe that one never would occur.
I believe, like Don Boudreaux, that greed is a universal constant like gravity. Perhaps my belief is wrong. If it is not a constant, economists have a big empirical problem: how do we measure changes in greed.”
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1 year ago
Congratulations on your new blog. So, I helped to motivate you. So, it's only right that I make your first comment.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate Professor Boudreaux' "Café Hayek". So, when I saw your comment there, I wrote to you knowing that I was publishing this entry today:
http://tinyurl.com/4e6plj
My point in the post is, isn't there a diminishing value for greed?
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Great work fellow Brooks - I don't know who this oregonguy is but I'd like to think I helped inspire this blog as well...:-) - Come to the tablet tea tomorrow and I'll show you a neat program called Microsoft live writer that helps you make your blog even cooler...
ReplyDeleteG. Brooks
Dear JGJB--
ReplyDeleteAlso, over tea, ask Dr. B to install SiteMeter on his page. It will allow him to see where visitors are coming from, and it's free.
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This summer I read Atlas Shrugged, and the main theme was that greed is a must. That in a society that thrives and succeeds ultimately is the society where people keep wanting and perusing the best. It talks of how if you keep making people successes harm them, by taxing them or saying it is unfair that you are that prosperous compared to other people in the same profession, people will loose motivation to keep working. Therefore technology and society is gone because the innovators and the leaders of the world disappear. It went along with Aristotle's theory that the most unfair thing to do is to try to make unequal things equal. Therefore, if you are looking for a society that can gain the most from its members I believe that the only way to gain this is through a certain type of greed. People should decide what to do with their money and with the profits of their work. The book keeps going back to two main points that money is the root of all good, and a quote from John Galt "I swear I will never live for the sake of another man, and will never make another man live for mine." It has thus convinced me that this would be the society to aim for, and I believe that greed is a great motivator.
ReplyDeleteBlake while I agree with a lot of what you said, I also think that (as with the vast majority of philosophies) it would only work in an ideal society. I haven't read the book so I don't have a full understanding of the philosophy of Atlas Shrugged, but I don't see how money is the root of all good. How is kidnapping someone for ransom good?
ReplyDeleteI agree that greed is a constant. People have always been and will continue to be greedy. It is just a part of the way that God made us. However, there are those who choose to act on their greed and those that learn to control it. Those that choose to act on it cause problems with the economy as well as many other things. For example, when the CEO of an oil company gets greedy, fuel prices skyrocket. In the end, it is just something that we will have to learn to deal with though. It is a part of life.
ReplyDeleteLike others have said, greed is a part of life. All people at some time in their life will be greedy. Some more than others. I also think oil comopanies got greedy. Now that the price of gas has lowered some, gas companies are complaining their not making enough money.
ReplyDeleteI believe greed is a constant in life, but you don't have to act on it. You can be greedy about something, but that doesn't mean you have to let it show. I don't think that the oil companies are necessarily greedy it's just that they are acting on the law of supply and demand.
ReplyDeleteGreed is part of being human, although one might not want to be greed does have its way of getting the best of us at times. CEO's of oil companies might have tendecies to become greedy, causing fuel prices to increase, but they aren't looking to screw the public necessarily. It's a business and every business has to take a little more than they give at times to keep it functioning.
ReplyDeleteGreed is a constant in society. There is nothing more prevelent and deadly. Every criminal act is in some way attached to greed.
ReplyDeleteRape
Assault
Theft
Bribery
Perhaps we as a society need to realize that it is here, and take the appropriate steps to hold each other and the people above us accountable for our actions.
Everybody is greedy at times, they just do not realize it. I don't think oil companies are the ones being greedy, I personally think its us as consumers who are being greedy. We want prices lowered because we don't want to buy it at there designated price.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the CEOs of oil companies are not the ones being greedy. They have a little greed which is completely understandable considering they have to make some profit in order to maintain their well being. Ordinary people lack an understanding of how markets work and accuse the CEOs of being greedy when gas prices rise. The price is determined by the market, not greed. For the most part, greed is a constant, not a variable.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of greedy people in the world. That is one reason why the economy is the way it is. People think they have to have everything. Well, here is something to think about: You can not take things to your grave. It does not matter what you have because in the end you do not have anything.
ReplyDeleteI believe that greed is a constant. Its present in every situation and every person. Doesn't always pertain to money and objects but also the want and desire to be the best at something or to obtain a certain status. In saying that I don't believe that Wall Street or the oil companies are any different then they've always have been. There has always been greed and scandals. The fact is that its just reported more often and the information is more accessible to us(the public). As far as the Home Loan Market I place the blame on both sides. I say that loan officers are at fault for not explaining the effects of a variable rate and what it will do to your mortgage payments when the interest rises. However I honestly believe a large part of the blame for the housing crash lies on the home owners. It was the greed and ignorance of the public purchasing houses that they couldn't not afford in the first place. People buy houses on variable rates and when they were adjusted they wondered why there payments doubled. It was the homeowners fault for not researching and making sure that they understood how the changes would effect their mortgages. So yes I believe that greed is a constant with contributing factors.
ReplyDeleteBy: Joshua Isbell
So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
ReplyDeleteShe was twelve years old when she told Eddie Willers that she would run the railroad when they grew up. She was fifteen when it occurred to her for the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. To hell with that, she thought---and never worried about it again.
"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with he last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders--what would you tell him to do?"
"I...don't know. What...could he do? What would you tell him?"
"To shrug."
These are my two favorite quotes in response to this and that shows what we need in this world. And if we continue to drive the great successful people over the edge we will lose ourselves. Because they do not need us. We need them.