Greed vs. power

subject: philosophy of economics

i grew up blue collar. and i grew up super proud blue collar. i cant say that money was not an issue in our house, but going without was a sign of love. we shared what we had and we didnt chase after money. we valued love and friendship over everything else.

and thus i have been blessed.

the question has been in my mind for a long time, why is greed bad? what is greed? what is ambition? and what is power?

personally, i consider power to be a game of hot potato. all my friends are chosen so that i dont need to be the one making decisions. but this leads us down a trail of questions to ask. greed vs power.

we think people want money. but the truth is that money in our society is a proxy for power. and what people want is social power. not political, not economic, social.

the evidence is everywhere. people want to put their name on it. they want it to look like them. they will do anything to engineer a world in which they hoard POWER.

what is money? it is merely the fuel that allows for economic mobility. in the most brutal interpretation of capitalism, there would be no slavery. simply because slaves are economically inefficient. there would be no racism, discrimination is economically inefficient. there would be no sexism- it is economically inefficient.

the challenge arises when the “i” gets associated with some proxy for power. the world has always had an elite class of…