We’re conditioned to be repulsed by at least some of the seven deadly sins, but things are not so simple with greed.
Veteran editor, political commentator and columnist Barney Mthombothi, writing in this week’s Sunday Times (paywalled), makes an excellent argument, as he so often does.
He declares himself to be nauseated by the self-serving corruption of our political class, saying that the end of apartheid was supposed not only to end oppression, but to usher in a new ethos of service to the masses.
He hangs the piece on the scandal surrounding newly appointed justice minister Thembi Simelane, who has apologised after finding herself in hot water with the Hawks over a R575 000 “loan” she received that appears to be the proceeds of corruption at VBS bank. At the time she was mayor of Polokwane. She used the money to acquire a coffee shop.
“Thembi Simelane … like [her apartheid predecessors] seems in it to serve the interests of her party or herself rather than the cause of justice. The system and cast of characters have changed, but the attitude hasn’t.”
Mthombothi continues: “Simelane’s little difficulty seems to sum up the depravity of her party. They just can’t seem to have enough. She was mayor of Polokwane but she also wanted a little coffee shop in Sandton, a swanky address. Grasping. Acquisitive. Greedy.”
If you have a subscription and are able to read his column, I’d recommend it. If not, let me share his conclusion: “The state capture battalion not only brought the country to its knees and — for now, at least — have got away with it, they’re being rewarded for it. Molefe, for instance, sitting on the portfolio committee on public enterprises, will quiz and interrogate executives cleaning up the mess he created at Eskom. John Hlophe, an impeached judge, is apparently well qualified to decide who should be a judge. It’s the height of insanity. These people, including Simelane, are the proverbial foxes guarding the henhouse. They’re in it for themselves.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Great writing
Still, I was a little triggered by the phrase, “Grasping. Acquisitive. Greedy.”
It’s great writing. Those words hit like bullets. But they’re not the core of the problem, here.
The problem is the perversion of public power and corruption of the public purse. The crime (if indeed there turns out to be one) is that taxpayer or ratepayer money was funnelled into private hands.
Greed is not, ipso facto, a crime.
One could argue that we’re all greedy. Free market economists would describe this trait as “self-interest”.
What exactly “self-interest” entails is subjective, and may not be obviously self-serving. The desire to provide for, or improve the financial security of, one’s family, for example, is an example of self-interest.
Everyone acts in their own self-interest, however they subjectively perceive it to be. Whenever one makes a decision to buy or sell, one makes a self-interested – i.e. greedy – decision.
“Excessive”
Defining greed is difficult. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines it as “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed”.
But who determines what is excessive? Who determines how much is needed?
Is it excessive to buy what others would call a luxury car, instead of a second-hand but reliable alternative? Is it excessive to ask for a salary increase, or accept a job at a higher salary, even though you are able to make ends meet with what you currently earn? Is it excessive to buy a branded fashion item, when a mass-market alternative will do just as well? Is it excessive to buy a house with a view, when a flat in the city is all that you need? Is it excessive to shop for bargains, in the hope of getting something for less than you normally would have paid?
When you negotiate for a lower rent, and a landlord asks for a higher rent, who exactly is being greedy? When you negotiate for a higher salary, and an employer offers a lower pay package, who exactly is being greedy?
Not pretty
Being “grasping, acquisitive, greedy” are not pretty character traits. We like to disguise them under false modesty, privacy and good manners, but ultimately, we all want that better job, that extra car, that pretty dress, or that fatter pay packet.
And ultimately, the desire to improve our lot – being “grasping, acquisitive, greedy” – is what incentivises our productivity. It is why we work, and why we work harder than we might like to work. It is why we come up with new ideas, of better ways to do things, or nicer products to sell.
Self-interest is the single most important motivating incentive in a well-functioning economy.
The limit to self-interest is the violation of the fundamental rights of others to their life, liberty and property. You can grasp and acquire as much as you like, as long as you do so lawfully, and don’t steal from others, or in the case of politicians and civil servants, rob the public purse.
Greed is good
In the 1987 movie Wall Street, Michael Douglas, playing Gordon Gekko, makes a speech. He says: “The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind.”
It has become very unfashionable to repeat it, but the phrase “greed is good” became emblematic of what has been described as the “excesses of the eighties”. Those excesses were described in florid detail not only on the silver screen, but also in books such as American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis.
That there were financial crimes committed in that time goes without saying. That happens during every boom, and in fact, throughout the business cycle. More generally, that those excesses were really problematic is disputable.
As Lawrence B. Lindsay, then a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, wrote in 1993, nobody talks about the excesses of the 1960s or 1970s, though there surely were many, and for all its excesses, the 1980s bequeathed the 1990s both lower inflation and lower unemployment than either of the preceding decades. Indeed, the 1990s would go on to become a remarkably prosperous decade during which median incomes increased and global poverty began to decline.
Motive
The desire to improve our condition – the “greed for more”, if you want to put it crudely – can indeed be a motivator to steal, to lie, to commit fraud, to embezzle from your employer or to abuse political power for corrupt purposes.
But that exact same motive drives all the productive work, building, invention, and trade that we do. That same motive pushes us to improve our communities and our towns and cities. It gives us an incentive to improve and educate ourselves. It motivates us to give to charities that support causes that we think will enhance our lives or the lives of those we care about.
The problem that Mthombothi identifies is not that someone would be “grasping, acquisitive, greedy” – however unattractive that might be. The crime lies in the means by which those entirely human cravings are satisfied.
Politicians and their cronies are entitled to eat as much as they like, but not by unlawfully raiding the public purse.
[Image: Avaricia (greed). A judge makes a show of listening to one party in a case, while accepting a bribe from the other party behind his back. Detail from The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things, a painting by Hieronymus Bosch or one of his students, ca. 1505-1510]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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