Greed could go with vice and virtue in different people.
People have greed, irrespective of religion,race or nationality. Greed has many faces. It is the tendency in people to have more and more of anything what they strive to attain.It could be varied like power,fame,money or pleasures. greed goes always,one step ahead of you. It is always ahead of you, asking for more on what you have.It becomes a competition between you and your ego. Abraham Maslow might have developed the Hierarchy of Needs on this aspect of human greed of the ego.
Greed is the companion of human ego, that motivates people to pull on, even against adversities.It is true that, greed and giving back to soceity together ,is a virtue.Because it propels the wheels of life and make people, hard working for a social cause.
“being ambitious” is a virtue and “being greedy and selfish” is a vice. So it is a question of personal identification of what is what. The orientation of people is very important, that builds or breaks their life on greed.
If we look at America, in last 100 years, it became the single most powerful nation in the world, only because of a greed of it`s people to achieve more and more. The American state, offered it`s citizens, two great virtues – personal freedom and a competition and efficiency based economic system called capitalism.
The system of today’s capitalism is quite different from the times of Karl Max.It is no more a system of exploiting the labourers.It has grown to the top of all economic systems.Because it is the only system that brings self discipline and accountability of individuals, that promote innovation and efficiency.A controlled greed is behind the success of capitalism .
Why capitalism fails
People may ask then why did such a system fail.It is simply the result of a radiating mass greed. Uncontrolled greed is a vice and when it takes an epidemic dimension, a disaster happens. The uncontrolled greed of a few people who controlled the finance system made the banks to collapse.Greed gets a lot more blatant , when people think it no more a bad thing to amass ill-gotten wealth, or wealth creation through immoral ways.It makes a social disaster when such greed takes an epidemic dimension that makes a whole system collapse like the present day financial crisis.
We cannot blame the system at all. Capitalism as it is ,have no substitutes for economic growth.But it must be run on virtues like social responsibility,openness and transparency. If the banks give their money only on greed to enrich the profit,they may lend anybody irrespective of their ability to repay.
Any free system, should be rooted in virtues for success.
In America, the trouble started as a result of credit financing without the base of virtues.Then the greed is not controlled.The result is like nuclear fission which leads to catastrophe.
In any society if people are given consumer credit to make them able to purchase goods that they cannot afford otherwise, there is a risk of default. On a large scale, the banks become bankrupt, nations go bankrupt.
Then people undertake protest on the streets and demand a change of the system. But, it is not the system but the human greed is the real culprit.
Greed is a human evil which needs a human cure. Only when People get rooted in them self, greed could be controlled. The roots will give people a moral basement of virtues.
The wheels of universe, move on virtues.When ever people deviate from virtues, they have to face consequences of self destruction in many ways.
