Greed: Good or Bad?

Greed good or bad

Greed at its core is a selfish or excessive desire for more than is needed or deserved; usually towards money, wealth, food and material possessions.(Barry 2011) This feeling is typically associated with a negative connotation which can be understood as greed itself can lead people to make bad decisions. Greed is one of the seven basic character flaws the others of which are arrogance, impatience, self-destruction, stubbornness, self-deprecation and martyrdom all of of which can lead to emotional instability.(Barry 2011) The feeling of greed causes emotional instability in people that are never satisfied with what they have always wanting more leading them to question themselves often about their standing in life. Greed can be cruel for both the user and the and the used against and when used in the workplace no one is safe from it whether it be good or bad.     

In recent discussions regarding greed, a controversial issue has been whether it can be good to have or if its just as bad as it is made out to be. On the one hand, some argue that greed is good for people to have. From this perspective, personal greed can serve as an advantage to have one that can lead to future success. On the other hand, however, others argue that greed can lead to personal destruction and is something bad to be avoided. In the words of Dr. Karl, one of this views main proponents, “Greed is a big reason why the wealthier you are the more unethically you behave, and thats bad“.(Kruszelnicki 2013) According to this view, the greedier people are the more unethical and emotionally unstable they should be. In sum, then the issue remains whether greed is good and can lead people to success or if it is just as bad as it has always been thought of and can lead to emotional instability and personal destruction.

    My own view has changed to believe that greed can be both a good and bad thing after this research. Though I still concede that greed remains associated with a negative connotation and can be bad for emotional instability, I still maintain that without some form of greed people cannot achieve their goals in life. For example, greed can be good because it creates incentive for people to work hard, get a good education, start a business, or invest in a company all which make people productive and contribute to society.(Humanity, 2014)  Although some might object that greed can only lead to negative consequences, I would reply that have some form of greed can be beneficial. The issue becomes important because greed is seen for the negative effects it can have on a person but it doesn’t have to be that way.          

Greed is one of those words that has often been involved in big business such as in corporate greed and has gained a reputation for itself as being bad to have. When greed is involved in the workplace it usually means one thing, people suffer. Studies have revealed that greed begets more greed such that bad behavior gets paid forward more than kindness.(Norton, 2014) This is something that is true for my own experiences whether it be at work or anywhere else greedy actions towards me make me want to be greedy towards another person or several before it stops but if someone is kind to me the truth is I think about being kind back to others but I am less likely to be so compared to greedy. Michael Norton and colleagues from other universities conducted research that supported the idea that greedy behavior is more likely to be paid forward than kindness; people were given $6 and had the choice of sharing it with someone and if they gave nothing to the other person the other was likely to do the same, if the other was given all $6 the person would only give $3 to the next.(Norton 2014) Truth be told I would have done the same as the test subjects bad greedy behavior is passed on without a second thought if I’m cut off by another driver I’m gonna cut him off as soon as I can. At work if a boss is greedy and wants the workers to work harder than they really should for the same pay workers are going to be greedy towards their coworkers or customers as they would be pissed and not work effectively. When greed is thrown around from person to person no one becomes safe from experiencing emotional instability the person who was cut off in traffic is likely to become emotional and even if they cut the other person off the feeling is not going to go away easily.   

Speaking about cutting people off in traffic studies showed that drivers of more expensive cars were seen as more likely to cut people off as well as break the vehicle code, owners of these cars must in fact be greedy since expensive cars don’t come cheap.(Kruszelnicki, 2013) Expensive cars are usually fast if I myself had a fast car I could see myself cutting off people and going over the speed limit often as well. These upper class people have also been found to act unethically and endorse such behavior at work according to one study.(Kruszelnicki 2013) Unethical behavior isn’t good for the workplace thats a fact when people care more about helping themselves than others they become unethical and cause emotions to run high. So it appears that social class plays a role in who is greedy and unethical and those who suffer from it, the rich are unethical and the poor as poor as they may be would share what little they have with another person. For the rich this greed can lead to personal destruction where others wouldn’t care for them either.

Greed may seem like it will only lead to personal destruction but it can in fact be a good thing. Jonas salk was greedy with his time which eventually led him to discover a vaccine for polio something that could have made him billions if he had patented it but he chose not to be greedy in a bad way and not to make money on it so it could be reproduced and be affordable. (Levine 2013) Jonas greediness in spending his time in researching like a sports player would spend in practicing to get better allowed him to come up with something no one else could it was only if he would have patented his vaccine that his greed would have been bad. Michelangelo spent 4 years painting the sistine chapel to make it what it is today because he was greedy about taking his time and doing it right. (Levine 2013) Both michelangelo and Jonas did what they did so that others could benefit from great art and scientific advancement, not to be greedy and make a whole lot of money. Their greed was in fact good greed for the success and feeling that would come out of what they did and not at the cost of others. Good greed however can cause emotional instability as the stresses to devoting so much time to one thing would cause a person great pain. In the workplace or in school people must complete work or projects a person who is greedy with the final piece might end up spending more time than requested as much rather present a masterpiece or nothing at all.

As much as good greed can lead to success once a person has reached their goal there runs a risk that a person becomes tempted to pursue 3 different types of bad greed. One of them driving a person to do unethical, immoral and illegal things in pursuit of more money than they need; another is to use more resources than they provide society and last is to continue collecting wealth even after they have surpassed the amount of money they need.(Humanity 2014) A way to make up for these possible outcomes such as Bill gates has been doing is by donating their money to charity which makes their greed not so bad at all.  

The question remains why exactly does greed matter and how does it affect people in the workplace? Employees who are greedy in the workplace can improve the company they work in by using their time properly and getting what they need done. Unfortunately when a person is busy working they have little time to interact with their coworkers which can create distanced relationships. The same goes for workers who are greedy and want to get paid but hardly work at all these employees do nothing to improve the company and also create bad relationships between workers, they begin thinking if they aren’t going to work hard neither am I. If a manager is too greedy and wants to get more done than possible peoples emotions will run high creating instability. It becomes unfortunate that although greed can be good to improve a company it can lead to emotional instability and hurt others in the process.

In has come to my conclusion that although greed can be good and bad no matter what it is it can definitely led to emotional instability in the workplace. People will stress out if they want to get too much done whether its for the good of everyone and friends or coworkers of these people might suffer from lost attention when greed has people working so hard they can't spare a moment. When there is personal greed in the workplace for personal gain coworkers will become emotionally unstable as some people begin to want more than they work for and need. Gordon Gekko may have been right when he said Greed is good which it can be in a way but the truth as the greek thinkers Aristotle and Plato said greed whether good or bad comes at the expense of ones ethics.(Kruszelniki, 2013)