We have Gordon Gekko to thank for the commonly accepted principle of the one percent that “greed is good”. For top executives around the globe, this fictional character’s notorious speech in blockbuster movie, Wall Street unmasked this belief that greed is in fact good. In letting this cat out of the bag, his speech justified this shadowed theory of the wealthy. In addition, it promoted not only a tolerance of this fallacy, but an adoption of it. Until then, any upper level management would have been frowned upon for expressing this ideology as a way to explain the company’s business decisions when being questioned about sustainability or ethical policies. The driving force behind this philosophy can be correlated to the business concept of “the invisible hand”, according to Janet Walker’s Journal of Business Ethics.
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So, herein lies the root of the problem. If greed is good, and the invisible hand suggests that self-seeking tactics ultimately result in the benefitting of the economy as a whole, why is it that we still find ourselves in a pit of economic and social inequality being such an affluent, innovative, and progressive nation? For precisely the opposite rationale chief executives use as their platform for this ideology - including the concept of the invisible hand - greed promotes division among people, not communion; and thus from division forms injustice and
So, herein lies the root of the problem. If greed is good, and the invisible hand suggests that self-seeking tactics ultimately result in the benefitting of the economy as a whole, why is it that we still find ourselves in a pit of economic and social inequality being such an affluent, innovative, and progressive nation? For precisely the opposite rationale chief executives use as their platform for this ideology - including the concept of the invisible hand - greed promotes division among people, not communion; and thus from division forms injustice and