Greed is good?

"The lust of avarice as so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth."
Pliny the Elder

I caught the Letterman show last night and his first guest was Ted Turner - founder of CNN, yachtsman and America's Cup winner, and, of late, philanthropist. The discussion naturally turned to the current financial crisis. In it, billionaire Turner said the first intelligent thing I have heard on television since the world economy started to unravel. An inexact quote:

"Perhaps people are going to have to change their lifestyles. Start playing Bridge with the neighbors and so forth."

Here here!

I recall that in the mid-to-late 70's television was dominated by a number of shows that extolled the virtues of simple lives with basic values. The number one show for years was something called "The Waltons", about a Depression-era, rural family in America. People loved it. Then something happened and we were inundated with such things as "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous", glorifying ostentatious wealth and conspicuous consumption and suddenly, if your were not rich - or at least could not appear to be rich - you were nobody. A bumper sticker of the day summed it up nicely: "He who dies with the most toys wins".

A line from Oliver Stone's later film, "Wall Street", put it well too: "Greed, for want of a better word, is good."

So, am I some sort of Puritan, thinking we should all be Amish or Luddites, poor and humble? Of course not. Within reason, greed is good. It promotes creativity, production and benefit for many. Without greed we'd probably still be living in caves. However, greed to the exclusion of all other motivators leads us to exactly where we are now: the brink of disaster.

It's interesting. In the past twenty years we have made enormous advances in technology and all but the poorest among us can enjoy them. But, I ask myself, even though I can "connect" with hundreds of different people online do I actually "know" any of them, or them me? Even though I can watch a zillion movies at a time, how many of them are worth the hours they take from my life? Even though I can carry a thousand tunes on my pocket cell phone, how many do I listen to? In short, am I, or anyone else, happier with our zillion gadgets than when entertainment so frequently consisted of playing cards or chatting with friends and neighbors or curling up with a good book and a hot tea?