brianhutchison: It was an attempt at a sarcastic pun on terms like "creative accounting" as used all too often by large business, obscenely rich individuals and their accountants. I concur wholeheartedly that greed is one of the biggest problems of current society.
Then, it was a good one, despite my miserable failure at getting it ;).
Trilarion: I always get suspicous if people talk about the greater good. I think this also mostly fails because nobody really knows or cares what is the good of others. And greed is also not so bad to a certain extent. People stay focused, they get things done. Many of our wishes are materialistic after all. Maybe not for all but for many of us (me included).
I guess it depends on what your definition of greed is.
By default, I think the term "greed" is used to define an excess of want (and hence, it is excessive by definition).
For me, a good baseline is: If everyone had what I have (or half of what I have if you want to make some room to reward hard workers), could the planet sustain that indefinitely (considering it's natural lifespan)?
If the answer is no, then you are being greedy.
For the greater good, it is debatable to an extent, but I think the main problem with our society isn't a divergence of opinion on what the greater good is, it is a total lack of caring for it.
Many people's priorities are so distorted that they don't even care to find out (or at least find out in enough detail that it becomes a good metric to measure everyday behavior) what they idea of the greater good is.
And then, others care enough to figure it out for themselves, but then ignore it anyways.
Surely, you cannot tell me in good faith that if the majority of the population put some serious thought behind it, they'd come to the conclusion that short-circuiting the planet for future generations is the greater good.
Concerning materialism, I'd be thrilled if most of it could be transferred to digital intellectual property. That's the kind of materialism that we can substain.
Trilarion: So I guess in the end a mixture of systems will survive. The principle of sustainability togehter with a good portion of capitalism mixed with a basic income for everybody and basic access to cultural products. More to the left than it is today but not much. In my opinion that would work best.
I agree that some capitalism is good, but I'm not sure as to the amount it should be reduced to.
It depends on where you look ;).
