4. Greed is Good

Throughout history the most popular stories writers ever produced have included a righteous hero verses a greedy and powerful villain. The villain has ambitious goal and will do anything to achieve that. Hero defeats the villain and stops him from achieving his evil goals. Good wins against evil and morals against greed. Environmentalists accuse human greed for overuse of natural resources. In many religions also, greed in its forms like usury are considered sinful. Since childhood we are taught that greed is wrong and sinful. However as I ponder about this issue I conclude we were wrongly taught. The problem is that greed is highly misunderstood by people.

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, 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. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind”

Greed is a rather useful property of human beings or for that matter any living being. It is Greed is rational, and what is rational is predictable, and the predictable is understandable, and what we can understand is good. People don’t realise but it is the foundation stone of our modern society. Greed by the rich leads to investment which in turn leads to more job creation for the poor; it leads to more risky investments in startups like Facebook, Amazon, Flipkart and in research and development of technology.

You might argue that gambling is bad, yes you are right because that is not being greedy rather it is foolishness as expectation of return is less than or equal to 0, if its greater than 0 then it is not gambling it is a free lunch. Same goes for investment in stock market, all your investment is also gambling unless you sure that expectation of return is greater than inflation. The difference between traditional meaning of greed and my meaning is that in mine you also have calculated the expectation of a profit , if not it is plain foolishness.  “I don't throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things. Read Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Every battle is won before it is ever fought.”-Gordon Gekko