These days there is a lot of grumbling about greed. It is not only being blamed for the Wall Street and Banking collapse, but also for the entire world-wide economic crisis.
Though this is broad brush painting as opposed to carefully reasoned analysis, it does make sense after a fashion. Unbridled appetites of any sort are bad - bad for the person, bad for the group, bad for society. We learned that in kindergarten.
But before we kill off greed, is it really all that bad? Where would this country be without all that greed and its more palatable cousin, ambition? Didn't that pair build the transcontinental railroad, invent the automobile, the telephone, not to mention engineering marvels like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Battery Tunnel? -- The outsized, hearty appetites for money, fame, attention, love, are as good as they are bad.
And yet this dynamic duo of human traits is now blamed for destroying our economic order. This begs the question: when do greed and ambition go from good and necessary, to bad and ugly?
A well-known story in the Talmud speaks to this idea: The rabbis prayed for sexual desire to be tamed. Their prayers were answered and the beast of desire was delivered into their hands. They imprisoned it for three days, but during this time the Talmud relates that they could not find a freshly laid egg throughout the land. What to do? Should they kill her? The world will become barren. No eggs, no children, houses will no longer built - maybe even all economic activity will stop. They let her go but not before they blinded her eyes. Now she won't be as powerful, they reasoned.
Along these lines, Freud argued that the development of civilization depends on individuals willing to at least partially say no to themselves and their appetites. Most famously, Freud argued that the taboo against incest between parents and children and siblings is an elaborately constructed defense against the desire to do exactly that.
Taboos make people damn up their libidinous impulses. They force connections with people outside the family circle. These connections form the basis of civilization. Complex civilizations then organize around a mixture, of economic needs, mutual protection beliefs and love. All of this complexity comes from the simple act of saying "no" some of the time.
Unfortunately, few things can compete against the titanic appetites and drives of the human being. Therefore, society will place taboos around desires. They will impose structures to modify and influence drives. In fact, cultures (even more so than religions) have been extremely successful in regulating all kinds of greed, sexual, financial and even political even as it remains difficult to do so.
For example, we are taught to eat with a fork and knife. It is not civilized to eat with our hands. It is not okay to take someone's spouse or steal their money. Messages like these are conveyed through a variety of legal, political, social and religious channels that these behaviors are not acceptable.
A society is said to be sick, however, when it ostensibly encourages one kind of behavior, but in fact encourages another. We have seen that this past week with AIG bonus scandal. Honesty and integrity are demanded from the SEC and other regulatory bodies and yet deceit on the part of executives is in fact rewarded when they are allowed to keep their undeserved gains.
We are in a unique position today as were the rabbis of old. We have captured the face of greed and have it in a holding pen. Its ugly face is in the public's crosshairs. We dare not kill it, because we can't function without it, but we must not waste an opportunity to blind it. Greed is a terrible thing to waste.
*Acknowledgment to learners and faculty at Ncaps*
