So then what should an employer base its pay scales off of Isamu? Also do you have a replacement for economics?
I totally agree. You cannot “underpay” someone, because if you are offering less than they can get in the open market, they will not choose to work for you. Anyone who gripes about being underpaid is a lazy POS who doesn’t have the gumption to go out and find an employer who will pay them what they are worth. Or who has an inflated opinion of their value.
But if the above statement is true, consider this: My older brother has a property independently valued at $500,000. He sells it to me for $200,000 because he wants to help me (This scenario often happens). What is the value of the property? According to you it’s $200,000.
I don’t have any solid answers for you about what businesses should pay workers other than to say that workers should not be cruelly exploited, which you seem to think is an impossibility, but which I think sometimes happens.
drewder was assuming an open market.
Oh, don’t worry, I get it. But if he wants to discuss fantasy then there are plenty of alternative history threads open. 
The drive to acquire more and more money/stuff even though you already have way more than you can use in your lifetime.
Well done!
This is simply not true. Gecko was addressing a group of shareholders, themselves greedy, in an attempt to sway them for his own benefit. It was a pretty easy sell.
In the movie’s director’s commentary, Stone explains he wrote Gecko’s speech as a flawed alternative to a zero-sum game philosophy. Gecko got where got by cheating and breaking the rules. By definition, others will be disadvantaged by this type of behavior. Greedy officials in government is never a good thing for the populous… no matter how they try to frame it.
I think that’s a pretty good counter example to my generalization, except for two points.
Firstly, my comment was in response to Tim R. Mortiss’ suggestion that greed (actually, “self-interest”) can be the foundation for a society that benefits everyone.
Secondly, the example you’ve described really doesn’t seem all that “greedy”. A truly “greedy” art collector might buy out every item at an auction so that other art-lovers have to go home empty handed, or might make taxing demands of the artists without thought for their values or well-being. But if the collector is actively sharing their collection with others and giving the artists free license to create whatever they wish, that’s actually very generous.
S/he may have an insatiable desire for art, but does that necessarily constitute greed, irrespective of the manner in which that desire is pursued?
Considering the implications of moral judgment implied, is it appropriate or fair to call someone greedy only because they have some exaggerated compulsion?
This leads me to wonder what Dr. Crap’s interest is in asking for our interpretations of what constitutes “greed”.
Dr. Crap,
Does your question stem from something you’ve encountered either personally or in the media (ie, an argument about whether someone’s behavior is “greedy”)?
That’s very insightful. I like it.
Excessive desire for material possessions. Desire for possessions beyond what you need and beyond your fair share.
Can you resell it for $500,000? Than that is the value of the property. The fact that your brother did you a favor by selling it below market value doesn’t change that.
He said a “properly structured” society. I would suggest that the structure of circa 1980s America as portrayed in Wall Street was not properly structured if someone like Gordon Gekko can acquire a company like Blue Star Airlines for the sole purpose of raiding its pension plan.
Which speaks to the essence of “greed” IMHO. It’s not about how much, but what you are willing to do or risk to get it.
How does one define “fair share”? Someone who founds a company that ultimately (and ethically) earns them a billion dollars deserves to be a billionaire. Even if that company ultimately drives other companies out of business through superior technology, products or business models.
The same person using their billions to influence politicians to enact protectionist legislation so they can earn even more billions is being greedy.
Perhaps. But there are also other ways to exploit employees besides paying them low wages.
One of the problems with unrestricted competition is that it places people who choose to not be unscrupulous at a disadvantage. Which ultimately is bad for society if everyone is just out to screw each other over. Survival of the fittest where “fittest” means “runs the best cons”.
I don’t know why you’re arguing with me. Drewder told you, by his account, it was worth $200,000. Argue with him about it.
In accounting terms the sale is $200,000 cash, $300,000 goodwill.
I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money
<golf clap>
Without looking at any other answers:
“Greed” is a label put on the desire to acquire possessions (or other things of value) that, either because it is excessive or exploitive, the person using the label wants to define as expressly “bad”.
“Ambition”, “reward for hard work” and “thrift” can be “good”. “Greed” (Gordon Geko aside) is always, by definition, “bad”. Because that’s what the word means.
What constitutes the difference between a (laudable) ambition for hard-earned cash on the one hand, and a (deplorable) greed on the other, is of course highly subjective and likely to vary from person to person and from situation to situation.
As you can see from my post #7 I have my own issues with Tim’s suggestion. But it appears he’s not responding to any posts that question his beliefs.
That was my point. I feel greed is not inherently harmful. Some greed produces good things. But I see some people disagree with this; they seem to feel that if it isn’t harmful, then it’s something other than greed.
I don’t have a problem with that. We all seem to agree that two things exist; we just disagree on what they should be called.
Goodwill is the amount of payment a purchaser makes above what the assessed value is, not below.
So my example is the opposite of goodwill. Maybe call it “badwill”, in that I don’t want to pay my older brother what I know the property is worth.
I’m curious, how would an accountant record that loss in the sale of an underpriced house on a tax return?
Fair ‘nuff.
I suppose it comes back to the question of the OP: how do we define greed?
To me it’s an essentially negative thing, even if in some cases some good things may come of it.
I’m sorry; I thought you were being rhetorical. I thought I made it clear that the “greed” I was championing was only greed that is equivalent to “enlightened self interest.”
Robbing someone at gunpoint, or embarking on elaborate Ponzi schemes, or anything that is likely to land you in prison, does not count as “enlightened self interest” in any way shape or form. It is only short-term nearsighted twisted self interest which will hurt you, as much as society, in the long term.
Laboring to invent a better mousetrap that will have the world beating a path to your door and making you a billionaire would be an example of enlightened self interest. That is the kind of greed that I’m claiming is good.
That’s not how rhetorical questions work. Rhetorical questions are where somebody asks a question and then answers his own question.
That wasn’t clear from the fact that you were quoting approvingly of somebody who did make his money illegally. Are you saying that while Gordon Gecko said “greed is good” his own personal greed was bad?