[Tublecane]

Yawn. This old argument bores me. The market is not moral. It is a mechanism for distributing scarce goods efficiently. We get our morality elswhere.

[SeekAndFind]

Author concludes and asks :

“The financial markets did not produce Madoff’s crookedness; Madoff was almost certainly depraved to begin with. The financial sector corrupts morality in the same sense that the existence of an escort service corrupted Eliot Spitzer. Should we blame the governor’s transgressions on the call girls rather than on his own flaws?”

[DManA]

There is a difference between greed and self interest. Greed destroys wealth. Self interest builds it.

[GeronL]

Government and immorality: Greed is as Greed does

[concerned about politics]

the crisis on Wall Street has revived the never-ending notion that markets undermine morality.

The politicians, those who write the laws, go to Washington as paupers, but retire as multimillionaires. Who's worse?

[the invisib1e hand]

(What do we make of greed ?)

Well let's not all run around chanting that it's "good" this time, like we did last time, OK?

What a pity to be informed merely by Stone or Voltaire or even Rand.

[loveliberty2]

Politicians who aspire to accumulation of power in their hands are displaying greed for power.

The poor people whose votes they "purchase" through promises of "goodies" derived from the labor of their neighbors also are displaying greed for "goodies."

Why have we allowed liberal talking heads and politicians to define the potential for greed in every human being as being exhibited only by business persons, corporations, or the "wealthy"?

Using "greed" as a perjorative against the "wealthy" misidentifies the problem and gives cover to those who wish to accumulate power over other the lives of others, while they claim to decry "greed" and to attribute lofty motives for themselves.

Nowhere do the wisdom writings indicate that greed in the heart of a poor man for another's earnings is any less evil than that in the heart of a Madow for the millions he can obtain in a Ponzi scheme.

[loveliberty2]

Pardon!!! Of course, my fingers went off on their own. It’s Madoff.

[I got the rope]

Greed - Milton Friedman

[aruanan]

Markets And Morality (What do we make of greed ?)

Like the poor, you'll always have greed with you regardless of the economic system. In a market economy, however, you'll find that the poor are always much better off and greed is more often than not channeled into productive enterprises that help the poor, the greedy, and society at large.