When did “greed” become a dirty word? It’s used constantly as a pejorative (greedy capitalists, greedy corporations, greedy billionaires, yada, yada, yada). Campaign ads are filled with promises to stop greedy corporate profiteering – as if making money is a bad thing. The socialists demand that the “rich pay their fair share” – like they owe us penance for the sin of acquiring wealth. Even Pope Francis says that, “Greed is a sickness of the heart.”
But what is greed really? It is the human desire for prosperity – to accumulate wealth. There’s nothing evil about that desire. It is completely compatible with Judeo/Christian teachings. On the sixth day of creation, God told Adam and Eve:
Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. [Genesis 1:28]
It is his wish that we use the resources he provided to grow the population and prosper.
Greed is simply our internal desire to comply with God’s wish. How can a longing to do what God wishes, be a “sickness of the heart”? Would we somehow be more virtuous if we loathed obeying God, while grudgingly complying? Of course not. There is no sin in desiring the prosperity which God directed us to pursue.
However, Judeo/Christian beliefs do not endorse “the end justifies the means.” The actions we take in our pursuit of prosperity matter. Those actions can be either virtuous or sinful – and God has provided some guidance on the matter.
If we acquire wealth by harming others, it is clearly counter to God’s will. Wealth by forced redistribution is evil. We’re not to hurt others (Thou shalt not kill) nor pillage (Thou shalt not steal) to enrich ourselves. To forcibly take the products of another person’s labor, without a voluntary trade of value, is an act of enslavement. It is immoral whether done by theft, embezzlement, extortion, or taxation.
God so abhors the tactic of taking that which belongs to others, that it is a sin to even desire to do so (Thou shalt not covet). Isn’t it strange that our moral betters never talk about “sicknesses of the heart” when politicians foment jealousy to justify looting the wealth of others (i.e., Joe Biden’s Billionaire Tax)?
Fortunately, wealth can be acquired without harming anyone. We can prosper by adding value – using our labor and intelligence to
- Grow crops,
- Produce products, and
- Provide valuable services.
When the products of one’s efforts are valued enough by others to justify trade, both the producer and the customer are enriched by the transaction. If the producer enriches enough customers, he becomes wealthy.
Bill Gates became fantastically wealthy by creating a product which enriched the lives of millions. Their purchase of his software, provided more value to them than the cost of its purchase. Gates prospered, and so did his customers. His greed enabled widespread prosperity without violating any Judeo/Christian tenants of morality. Was he suffering from a “sickness of the heart” as he advanced our collective prosperity?
Would Bill Gates have been more virtuous if his operating system had never left his garage? Would the world be better off if it were denied the computing power which his product enabled? Gates would have remained a pauper, along with the millions denied the value he provided. Would God have preferred that?
In the 1997 movie Wall Street, Gordon Gecko said, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” It was shocking when he said it, because we’ve been conditioned to see a longing for prosperity as evil. But there is nothing evil about the desire to acquire wealth.
Greed is our internal drive to go forth and prosper – as God wishes us to do [Jermiah 29:11]. Without greed, human advancement – and the prosperity that derives from it – would be stunted at best, and perhaps nonexistent. Without the profit motive, would mankind have
- Created modern agricultural methods which have saved millions from starvation,
- Developed medicines and treatments which prolong everyone’s lives, or
- Invented products which lighten our labor, and free us to study the universe?
Would God’s will have been better served if mankind hadn’t acquired the “sickness of the heart,” desired no wealth, and was satisfied with mere survival? Would God be smiling down on mankind if we had remained a few thousand individuals, living in caves, hunting only enough to survive, and desiring nothing else? Is that his notion of prospering? If you believe we are not intended to make the most out of our resources, you should think about the parable of the talents, in which the master expected his servants to profit.
That we have come to revile greed, is a testament to the skill of the propagandists. They have trained us to ignore the value of success, and to demonize the wealth that flows from it. This twisting of our values and beliefs, has been done in service to those who seek control over us, rather than prosperity for us.
Author Bio: John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He is a contributor to American Thinker, The American Spectator, and the American Free News Network. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us Help keep us ad-free by donating here.
Substack: American Free News Network Substack
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA