Posted December 3, 2002
Modern usage defines greed as excessive acquisitiveness in others. Excessive acquisitiveness in oneself,
on the other hand, is unheard of, for greed is rarely anything other than a rhetorical bludgeon for beating on one's enemies.
Nearly every use of the term conforms to this. The most recent example to cross my desk is from The Oregonian, which regaled us with a commentary by a 17-year-old student, one Tom Craig, who chalked up his state's inability
to educate its youngsters adequately
to one concept: Greed.
He notes how rich his country is, compared to other countries. And he notes how rich his friend's mom is, driving in her $35,000 Chevy Suburban, but still complaining of taxes.
Taxes? Tom, do you have any idea how much I pay in taxes?the driver said.
I held my tongue. She had decided that money was better spent on a luxurious SUV than on our children's future.
That's greed. Nothing more.
Well, there may be evidence of greed here. But the dread SUV driver, bitching about her taxes, is a red herring. The more obvious case of greed is the young student who can only see what he has to gain from taxing someone else harder.
Possessive Pronouns
I found his use of possessive pronouns quite clever, as well as misleading.
Note that phrase She had decided that money was better spent
; Mr. Craig neglected the correct possessive pronoun here: She had decided that her money was better spent
! By eliding one possessive pronoun, he carefully directed his reader away from considering, even for a brief moment, the injustice of expropriation.
And notice, too, the possessive pronoun he did use in that sentence: our children's future.
Mr. Craig does not likely have any children. The children he speaks for are not his, but others' — like his friend who is supported by an SUV-driving mother who could probably help her child more if she had less to pay in taxes. Mr. Craig chose this possessive pronoun to elide the normal responsibilities, and stack the ethical deck into thinking that the only moral discourse is talking about our
collective funds (confiscated from taxpayers) and our
collected children (corralled into schools).
And in all of this, the fact that young Mr. Craig has the most to gain from an increased tax burden, and the least to lose, well, this never crosses his mind. He sees greed only in those who wish to keep their money, and none in those like him who press for more taxes and more spending for their sake.
He is obviously a bright kid. But it is just as obvious that he has learned some lessons better than others. He has learned the language of liberal
(prodigal) governance — of us
vs. them
and the importance of always thinking in terms of groups. He has not learned the language of a more traditional morality, the morality of those forgotten possessive pronouns, mine and thine.
Does it matter that he has been taught in public schools, and that his father works for the federal government?
Real Greed
I would be curious what young Mr. Craig would think of John Stossel's ABC Special on Greed.
I wonder if he's ever thought of how useful humanity's acquisitive drive can be when constrained by a rule of law and allowed to flourish in markets. To get what I want, I must offer someone else something they want. Stossel explains this old truth about markets well, a truth made much of by Adam Smith, and formulated concisely by Destutt de Tracy, who showed why both parties to an exchange transaction gain. (Because of this, markets might even be better at educating kids than governments, but that's another subject Mr. Craig hasn't been taught at government school.)
The social question of greed, in markets, really isn't a very important question. But in politics, where when one takes one does not give in return, but instead gives to someone else, well, there greed can't help but come up in the debate.
It's a pity in all of this talk, however, that the true nature of greed rarely gets mentioned.
According to a more traditional morality, greed is a vice that has a profound personal dimension. It is an excess of acquisitiveness, and thus an imbalance. A greedy person is a person who focuses inordinately on wealth and not enough on other dimensions of human life. It is quite possible for a person to be greedy while doing good at work, and doing good for society at large. Some of the greediest of men may be the benefactors of mankind, simply by employing large forces of workers and pleasing vast hordes of consumers. But, inside, they may be spiritually impoverished, unloved and unloving, unmoved by beauty, sympathetic only when selling.
But to help such a person, self-righteous talk of his vice is probably not the place to start.
Of course, when most people use the word greed,
they are not trying to help others. They are helping themselves.
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