What is greed?

sozobe wrote:

It turns to greed I think when someone has much more than enough but doesn't do anything with the extra.

But isn't this somewhat the same problem? If a poor person saves we applaud it, if a rich person saves he's "hoarding".

What if the rich person just thinks they are a great investor and wants to give it all away when they die? Their motivations must not be greed. These behaviors are again things we find healthy in people who simply are not rich.

If the rich use the money, they waste it lavishly ("flashing the cash, gaudy, wasteful") if they don't use it they hoard it senselessly. I really don't think their activities here are the key factors, just the rich part. At some point it becomes conceptually too much, and no matter what they do with it people start to view it as being wrong, unless what they do with it is to immediately start rectifying the error of their ways (of having too much money) by getting rid of it.

Quote:

But when someone has that much and isn't willing to "give back" in any way but the bare minimum (taxes) -- and further, tries to beat the bare minimum via creative accounting and offshore bank accounts -- that gets into greedy territory IMO.

Why is it ok for us not to be giving to those poorer than us then? There are people who are as poor in comparison to you as you are to the rich, but if you don't start giving your money away to them significantly (the rich give, so it's the amount that is in question) are you being greedy?

And if we, within the law, try to minimize our own tax burden is it greedy? At what point does the same activities we all engage in* suddenly become greedy?

*I am excluding cheating, tax evasion etc. Those are clearly wrong regardless of who does it.

This, to me, is the only definition I find valuable. Thing is, most people simply seem to assume that anyone rich got there that way. They will call them greedy on the sole basis of the discrepancy in wealth, without having any specific act of greed in mind.

If a person has much more than enough, that person is not poor. Even if it's in a savings account and he/she chooses to live as if he or she were poor.

Yes. I do give a fair amount, for that reason. I don't have much more than I need, but I have enough extra, and am aware enough of those inequalities, that I have been donating what I can since I had very little to donate.

But would you consider someone who does not, in your situation, donate money to be greedy?

...I guess you just did describe two kinds of greediness...how about making better products more worth and built quality with a smaller price ? Would that be a good business plan in your dictionary ?

... in fact there is a limit to optimizing profit margins without contributing to mass unemployment and the destruction of social systems which eventually will lead to the demise of the economic structure...

Do you have any thoughts on what the criteria to identify people with those traits should be?

Put another way, if greed is when the pursuit of money becomes an end in itself then when does the pursuit of money subjectively become an end in itself to you?