On Greediness
Greediness closely relates to selfishness. I'm not a saint myself, but let me give you a situation I had to observe several times.
Imagine you found an abandoned peach tree full of ripe (big, sweet, juicy, etc.) peaches. How many peaches would you take?
I would take some 5 for me and for my friends and leave the rest for the others. A greedy person would come with a trolley and take as much as he can. A more greedy might even cut the tree to get the ones from the top.
Now, a more difficult situation. Imagine you found a pile of diamonds. How many would you take?
Labels: economics
# posted by romka,
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
10:58
If it is an abandoned tree, why is the amount anyhow important? What has greediness to do with it?
You take as much as you want and tell about the tree to your dear friends. If you are planning to cook jam and you need 300 items of those, I think it is still completely ok. What people would think is "Lucky you" but not greedy. If you decide to give a bucket of jam to each of your friends, you will be considered generous, (as well as if you give them a diamond each).
For me, greediness appears in the following situation.
You and your friend find the tree mentioned. You both manage to take 10 peaches down. But you think "I like peaches far more than him, therefore I will take 6". And you say "Will 4 be enough for you, my friend?".
i agree, this post is rather about insatiability than the greediness. i was targeting on lacking of the notion of the common property in the modern economics systems. some common properties are protected by modern laws (on different territories), but it does not cover all the cases. for example, many natural resources are wasted for short-term profits.