'Greed is good', Gordon Gekko claimed more than twenty years ago, blaming managers for their cowardice, hiding behind huge desks, and reversely praising shareholders for their guts, their risks, their greed. He did so through Michael Douglas in the film Wall Street. No doubt about his point of view: market over state. The current financial crisis in USA and elsewhere puts focus back on the inner logic of greed in capitalism with huge corporations being bailed out by the state, i.e. the tax paying citizens. Those American house owners end up paying the full price for their cheap loans - and then some. Lost to the poor judgement of financial managers and greedy shareholders, as in many other businesses. It would appear that modern enterprise has made the shareholder the most important customer. And left the real customers to be secondary. No wonder the cycle doesn't work. Today, one wonders what happens to earnings while flying high, if not partly paid to shareholders - and partly stored for bad times. As any responsible capitalist would do. Whatever happened to the gutsy, risky shareholders? Have they, too, become cowards?
'The Mahatma' made a list of Seven Social Sins in 1925, one of which reads Commerce without Morality. He was also quoted for saying 'The Mother Earth has enough for everyone's need, but not for anybody's greed'. The founders of the Danish brewery Carlsberg, I.C. Jacobsen and his son Carl Jacobsen, pooled together oodles of money - in the end to do good with it through several foundations to support science, research, the arts, etc. Other examples could be globally known people like Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey - and so many more. Pooling money to give to the poor, for education, etc. Responsible capitalists with morality. Greed can be good.