THE HISTORY AND CONSEQUENCES OF GREED.

  

GREED IS AT THE ROOT OF MOST INJUSTICE. IN OUR TIME, AMERICA HAS SOLD ITS SOUL IN THE HOPE OF GETTING THIRTY PIECES OF TRUMP COIN.

GREED RULES LIFE ON EARTH. IT ALWAYS HAS. CONSIDER HISTORY AND LOOK TO THE ROOT CAUSES OF FAMINE, WAR, CRIME, IT ALMOST ALWAYS COMES DOWN TO GREED.


The story of King Midas is a myth about the tragedy of avarice and narrates what happens when true happiness is not recognized. Midas was a man who wished that everything he touched would turn into gold. However, he had not thought that this wish was not actually a blessing, but a curse. His greed invites us to think and realize the consequences that may lead us to become slaves of our own desires. The phrase the Midas touch comes from this myth and is used to say that somebody has a good fortune.

The wish Midas was a king of great fortune who ruled the country of Phrygia, in Asia Minor. He had everything a king could wish for. He lived in luxury in a great castle. He shared his life of abundance with his beautiful daughter. Even though he was very rich, Midas thought that his greatest happiness was provided by gold. His avarice was such that he used to spend his days counting his golden coins! Occasionally he used to cover his body with gold objects, as if he wanted to bath in them. Money was his obsession.

IT WAS A CURSE.

https://www.greeka.com/greece-myths/king-midas.htm

Phyllis Carter


It's not hard to find historic examples of greed. You can call central casting, and order up conquerors and criminals, kings and their consorts, religious pretenders and robber barons, political bosses and Wall Streeters to fill out more than one top-10 list. But first you have to define greed, and that's a challenge. It's not just about having wealth. If it were, Bill Gates, the wealthiest person on the planet, would also be the greediest. He's not, of course: Gates made his fortune building a productive business and then spent a fair amount of it on charitable pursuits, and most ethicists would say that disqualifies him from being the greediest person ever.

 

To be really greedy, a person has to not just want and acquire a lot of material wealth. He (or she) needs to come by it less than honestly, and enjoy stacking it up in the face of the far less fortunate. He has to put his own desire for stuff above the needs and legitimate concerns of those around him. In the business world, that often means cheating. Madoff, for example, didn't just get rich, he got rich by faking an entire investment enterprise and doing it at the expense of decent charities and people who had trusted him with their life savings. All that just served to make him the most-hated guy of ... well, of February. By March, all that populist anger had turned to the AIG bonus boys. It wasn't just that they got fat bonuses after their firm took U.S. government bailout funds, it was that they were collecting them while others in the U.S. were losing their jobs, houses and retirement investments. And those were the people whose taxes were paying for the AIG bonuses. What made the AIG-ers seem even more objectionable was the perception that the same guys who were bagging the bonuses had created the strategies that led to the financial mess in the first place.

 

"When you're taking things that aren't rightfully yours, or entering areas where you are closing off opportunities for others, your ambition has turned into greed," says Pat Harned, president of the Ethics Resource Center, a Washington think tank. "It's a fine line."

www.newsweek.com


Some examples of greed in the history of mankind. 

RRTEACHER eNotes educator| CERTIFIED EDUCATOR

One clear example of greed, to me at least, was the policy of Indian removal in the Southeast (and really everywhere else.) In the Southeast, though, Indian peoples, especially the Cherokee, had done everything the government asked of them in terms of assimilating to western culture. Many of them had adopted plantation agriculture, they came up with an American-style constitution, and a written language. Yet despite this, and even a very unambiguous ruling by the Supreme Court to the contrary, removal of the Cherokee continued apace. There was no justification for this beyond those based on race, power, and the alleged right of white people to the riches that the Cherokee nation made possible.

LITTEACHER8 eNotes educator| CERTIFIED EDUCATOR

Our entire human history has been driven by greed, but the time of imperialism might be on the strongest examples.  The European countries decided that they deserved to take over the world, and they sent out representatives who proceeded to decimate, enslave and exploit populations of other continents.  We still feel the effects of it.  The African slave trade might not have been the first, but it has certainly made a great impact.

SHAKE99 eNotes educator| CERTIFIED EDUCATOR

How about the Great Recession that we are supposedly slowly coming out of now? I'm not an economist, but I believe at least part of the cause was due to mortgage based investments that were risky but made a lot of money for people who sold them and then washed their hands of them. Eventually the mortgage market collapsed and other people were stuck holding the bag (which no longer had any money in it).

KRISTEN LENTZ eNotes educator| CERTIFIED EDUCATOR

I would say Hitler's decision to invade Russia was a clear instance of greed.  He had conquered most of Europe and there is a good chance he could have consolidated his areas and defended them against Great Britain and the United States effectively if he didn't have to fight WWII on two fronts.  His greed led to his ultimate defeat.

POHNPEI397 eNotes educator| CERTIFIED EDUCATOR

You can say that all of human history centers around greed of one sort or another.  One obvious example of greed would the Spanish conquest of the Incas.  The conquistadors were so greedy for gold (and other things) that they ruthlessly destroyed the Inca Empire and took it for themselves.

https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-some-examples-greed-history-mankind-406638.