Culture Of Greed

Capitalism has become much more than just a political economic system. It's an all-encompassing ideology that determines to great extent all aspects of culture, speech and education, leaving lots of people believing that greed and selfishness are actually good.

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The literal phrase "Greed is good" has been popularized by the 1987 film "Wall Street". Gordon Gecko, the cut-throat hedge fund manager who makes investors money by ruthless mergers and acquisitions, say this in a shareholder meeting:

"The point is, ladies and gentlemen, 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, and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A."

Teldar Paper is the fictional paper industry in the film, but everything else in that speech is non-fictional. Everything Gecko says about greed there is taken right from the capitalist ideology. The link to evolution theory is the same made by the right wing, using it as a justification for social Darwinism and laissez-faire economics (free-market capitalism). Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene" was used with glee by neoliberals and neoconservatives alike to push for deregulation of the markets, banks and Wall Street. Dawkins was so angered by this, that he made a documentary called "Nice Guys Finish First" to explain, explicitly, how genetics and evolution were misinterpreted by these capitalist ideologues, and that evolution oftentimes favors co-operative behavior, like it does with humans.

Lastly, making this one quote a repository of everything wrong with the omnipresence of capitalism in our lifes, Gecko equates the U.S.A. with a corporation. Well, it's not just the U.S.A. unfortunately; politicians all over the developed world are judged and elected for their capacity to "run a business", not to govern a country. The most extreme version of this phenomenon was of course Donald Trump, who never missed a chance to tell everyone how good he is at making the perfect deal. Governance reduced to business deals, complete with a profit incentive whereby the own nation has to come out on top. It is the most adversarial world-view. During the Cold War game theory was restricted pretty much to the power-dynamics between the two major world forces, now it's a determining factor in every national and international agreement. Including those on climate change, which is a problem we can only solve in a co-operative manner.

Wall Street, the film, is just one example of how this ideology of selfishness and greed is pushed through popular culture. So I'll give one more example, of the thousands available, of a film I like very much, and that's "2 Guns", a 2013 buddy cop action comedy starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg. They're both undercover, unbeknownst to each other, for their respective organizations (DEA Intelligence for Washington and Navy Intelligence for Wahlberg), and they rob a bank. Expecting to steal some 3 million dollars, they're both surprised to get away with 43 million dollars. They thought they were stealing money from a Mexican drug-cartel, but it turns out that it's CIA money.

The CIA has deals with many drug-cartels, allowing them to continue their business, receiving a percentage of their profits (how fictional is that?) in turn. Here we meet the character of Bill Paxton who plays the CIA bloodhound who's after our two protagonists and the 43 million dollar. Paxton, who suspects everyone, interrogates a bank official who was there during the heist, trying to determine if he's in on the deal:

Paxton: "The United States is the greatest country in the world, because we accept a man is, at his core, greedy, selfish and covetous."

Bank official: "I had no choice. They took my key. I would never willingly open the vault."

Paxton: "Keep your hands on the desk please. In America we line everybody up. Say, 'You're on your own.' 'Grab all you can grab.'"

Bank official: "I'm innocent."

Paxton: "Nobody's innocent, friend. There's just the guilty, the ignorant and the unlucky."

And then he perforates the bank official's hand by slamming some staples in, causing much pain. Again, in this one short scene we see a sublimation of the ideology of selfishness and greed. Paxton simply assumes that the bank official plays by the general rule-book, that he follows "the American way" by grabbing for himself what he can. This behavior is normalized to the point that it's naive to expect anything by means of socially responsible or environmentally responsible entrepreneurship for example. Sure, there are plenty of initiatives and rhetoric in that direction, but competition and the profit incentive assure that only the ruthlessly selfish remain viable in the long run.

It's come to the point even that helping others is largely looked down upon; that's something for bleeding-heart do-gooders only, who'll never become rich and deny themselves participation in "the American Dream". Whenever I try to help an old lady to carry her groceries or across the street, most of the times I'm greeted with suspicion first, and I don't blame 'm; we expect the other to be after something, to want something from us as it's been pounded into our souls that nothing's free, an eye for an eye, and greed is good, it's how we get ahead. I don't agree, however much I love the films I've mentioned here, as well as a lot more popular culture.

I'll leave you with another scene from the brilliant character played by Bill Paxton in "2 Guns"; if you haven't had a chance to see the film yet, I can recommend it for a couple hours light entertainment.

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