'GREED IS GOOD' (AND OTHER HALF-TRUTHS)

(Photo courtesy of deviantart.net.)

Are Ayn Rand and Gordon Gekko the same person?

Rand posited that pure, unadulterated selfishness leads to a greater good. Gekko's famous line was, "Greed is good."

Both summations of the link between greed and a rosy result bolster the ideas that are beloved by unapologetic corporatists. But in reality, greed is NOT good, and being greedy has NOT led to a greater good. Being greedy has, in fact, led to a world where people believe with all of their hearts that their greed has nothing to do with other people's misfortune.

In the Rand or Gekko philosophy, such a person's driven, focused pursuit of personal wealth and/or power seems to nicely dovetail with being beneficial to society in general. Clearly, they tell themselves, they are a mover and shaker, a money-maker. One who rules the universe simply MUST have an impact on those beneath them. And because of all the accumulated wealth they see when they view themselves in the mirror, it follows that they rain wealth down upon others. Hell, everything they touch turns to gold; they have the Midas touch.

This self-delusion isn't always a horribly bad thing. But it is always a very bad thing when the deluded individual decides to venture into politics. To fool yourself into believing you can do no wrong, that what is good for you is good for everyone, can be dangerous. In a CEO, the belief is somewhat understandable and perhaps even has some truth, but in a representative of the people, it is disastrous.

Plus, there's the whole idea of others being beneath them, less important, less vital to the "community." It should be easy to see that our movers and shakers have a firm, unshakable belief that they know better than an average citizen what is good for our country. And they may do what's right for them, but they have lost the ability to view our world in terms of what's good for us. This disconnect, this thinking that greed is good is being played out in our environment, in our politics, in our daily lives. We are a decade away from water becoming the most critical issue of our times, and yet big energy has no desire to look out for OUR resources because big energy is looking out for itself by making serious claims that what is OURS is theirs.

Think about religious freedom. Historically, the reason for a separation between church and state was so that people could worship as they wished without fear of reprisals, and that was what the "freedom" part was. Nowadays, religious freedom isn't about the freedom to worship how you choose; it's about enforcing your religious freedom as dominant to the beliefs held by others. Today, religious freedom is about being able to show that YOUR freedom of religion allows for additional protection -- even from federal laws passed that are meant to lift up the masses. If a law hampers your ability to use your religion in a primary way in the face of what others believe, the law is attacked as unconstitutional.

When "reprisals" for religious practices were a real threat, such reprisals could include any numbers of heinous acts, including death. Today's "reprisals" seem to be more of a "He said Happy Kwaanza instead of Merry Christmas" sort of thing, and this is portrayed as a war on Christianity. If freedom from violent, possibly deadly reprisal for one's religious practices is the salient feature of religious freedom, how can the Supreme Court really decide that it is a violation of a corporate entity's religious freedom to have to "pay" for birth control?

More to the point of this essay, how is it that this type of corporate greed (i.e. not "paying" for the array of available methods of birth control for employees) can be seen as anything BUT Gekko-like? This is a circumstance where the corporate ownership's interests are seemingly of equal or greater value than the interests of the very real people who work for them. It is a fine example of how greed is actually not so good.

When one factors in the issue of cost, it becomes even more clear that this particular brand of greed is one that is about power more than money. It is less costly to businesses when employees make conscious decisions about when to start, or add to a family. It is more costly to business and especially to society at large when unplanned pregnancy derails the future plans of employees. Babies are expensive. Birth control helps to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Birth control helps prevent the need for abortion.

Yet, in the U.S., the GOP and Tea Party seem determined to impose their "moralism" on everyone. Without access to affordable birth control (and it really does cost more than $9.00 a month), and without access to safe medical intervention, there will be more babies for the country to take care of. Like it or not, if you don't like abortion, you had better appreciate the role of birth control, because the ONLY other option is to face the fact that there will be a far greater need to fork over for kids you have no part in creating.

In the current world, corporate freedoms exceed those of the individual and the rest of us are not looking at a very rosy result. In the current world, the wealthy have more political clout; they have more say than the rest of us, because they pay for OUR representatives' campaigns. Once OUR representative gets into office, they are indebted to those who paid for the win. And now, the wealthy and big corporations ... all big money interests, in fact ... are using our Constitution against us, because they are so greedy that they use our system for themselves, exclusively.

Every House bill that I've taken the time to review this year gives big business something at our expense. No matter what the bill is about, somehow business is benefiting, and WE are intended to pay the freight. Our highway bill, a bill to help feed the hungry -- it doesn't matter what the issue is. Proposals of law made by the House have one thing in common: businesses get major tax breaks and the national debt is increased for years to come. New IRS law is being written into each and every bill the House passes, including the de-funding IRS enforcement departments.

And still the GOP and Tea Party SAY that Obama is bankrupting the country.

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Since the GOP and the Tea Party want to impose all their morals on the country, I think it's fair to ask which morals are more important. Is it more important that government be small, that welfare to individuals is limited, that business be allowed all the religious, regulatory and financial freedom that might, someday, allow them to trickle down? OR, is it more important to outlaw a woman's right to reproductive autonomy? With reproductive autonomy, of course, women can participate in the world of work. Women can contribute to the household and families can be managed properly by husbands and wives, together. Women and their physicians can work together to care for her reproductive system in order to reduce her health care costs, have more healthy babies, and reduce her maternal morbidity rate. Currently, women die during childbirth in the U.S. in greater numbers than in 59 of 180 countries. U.S. women die during childbirth as much as in some third world countries because of limited access to affordable pre-natal and regular health care.

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So, back to the original question: IS GREED ACTUALLY GOOD?

As a product of the 80's, and as someone who adored Wall Street's Gordon Gekko, I have to say that in reality, greed is still just greed, one of the sins we are warned against. There is no real redeeming feature of outright greed, because greed does not, in fact, allow for extending it's largesse to other, less greedy or less fortunate people.