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Blame the ‘greedy bastards’, and you protect the greedy systems | Psyche Ideas

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is professor of conflict studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His most recent book is Shame: The Politics and Power of an Emotion (2023). is professor of conflict studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His most recent book is Shame: The Politics and Power of an Emotion (2023). The most vehement and damaging charges of ‘greed’ get directed at precisely those who are being stripped of everything Religion tells us that greed is a sin, self-help books say it’s a sign of dysfunction, and we can all agree that greed is bad. Except when it’s not. As the fictional trader Gordon Gekko, the voice of 20th-century capitalism, says in the movie Wall Street (1987): ‘Greed … is good. Greed is right. Greed works.’ So which version is correct? What’s clear is, first, that we share a profound ambivalence about greed and, second, that this needs to be addressed if we want to rein in the greedy systems that are currently threatening us with everything

Religion tells us that greed is a sin, self-help books say it’s a sign of dysfunction, and we can all agree that greed is bad. Except when it’s not. As the fictional trader Gordon Gekko, the voice of 20th-century capitalism, says in the movie Wall Street (1987): ‘Greed … is good. Greed is right. Greed works.’ So which version is correct? What’s clear is, first, that we share a profound ambivalence about greed and, second, that this needs to be addressed if we want to rein in the greedy systems that are currently threatening us with everything from authoritarianism and extreme inequality to…

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