With the definition of greed - A desire to have more than is needed - who makes that determination of need? If I grow more tomatoes than I need to survive for a year and keep them to my self am I being greedy or prepared in case next year the crop fails? The moment someone defines another as 'greedy' they have defined themselves as slavers who desire to take from others who have produced. They are pretending to know the needs of others and want to put a claim on their 'excess' so that they might live better without effort. The first thing I would do if someone had produced more than me would be to ask how they did it. Most people are glad to share their knowledge. The second attempt might be to observe their methods. The third attempt would be to know that a better method existed then attempt to duplicate it or create one of my own by observation of the needs of the product and production.

Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" should be mandatory reading for anyone seeking a college degree. Smith was a very moral man and the son of a minister, and understood that capitalism was a natural extension of the survival instinct. He also believed that it encouraged positive social interactions and social advancement. He also recognized that people were less than perfect, and some could abuse the mechanisms of capitalism.

Adam Smith's other significant publication, The Theory of Moral Sentiments is also educational, as he describes rational, non spiritual grounds for moral behavior, which is surprising for a very religious man. This writing reinforces Smith's belief that capitalism was necessary for the existence of a soundly moral society.

The problem with most critics of capitalism is that they believe people are perfectable, if only everything in their world is stable and unchanging. The dynamics of what Smith called the "invisible hand" that makes a capitalist system unpredictable scare these people into seeking rigid controls in an effort to make capitalism less uncertain. We see this fear of change in left wing leanings for a "great leader" father figure who makes all decisions without the complexities of representative government.

This is exactly what someone told me today, that capitalism is a system of greed. I told don't make a judgment based on what you see here and now. We havent had a free market in at least 100 years.

It certainly is. If your definition of greed includes the freedom to work hard, or work brilliantly, or invent smartly.Everyone who lives in a free society is therefore greedy if they have a desire to improve themselves by exploiting their own abilities, and includes the ability to exploit the abilities of others for a fair recompense.

Unfortunately, the commonly accepted concept of greed is that it is gaining something at the detrimental expense of another. This is strongly reinforced in the media and in cinema's almost exclusive portrayal of private companies and business leaders as evil, "greedy" men who seek profit at the expense of others.

The word greed is antithetical to actual capitalism. Greed is wanting something yet not being willing to work or trade fairly to get it. Capitalism isn't greedy at all - it actually recognizes that you can have whatever you want - if you are willing to work to get it.

Greed is an arbitrary , subjective determination by some one who has no roll to judge. Its declaration derives from the desire to have something for less and also would limit production to his ignorant level of need.

Greed is a desire to have more than enough. How many people want just barely enough? We want more than enough.

I read way back during the 70s that USA poor have cars and TVs way unlike other countries.
Now they can also text and play video games.
And they have always gotten fat~well, some of them anyways.
Don't know about the Depression. I wasn't born yet.

as-if that, self-interest, is bad thing?