An interesting way to live better.

That's a good point.

Very Judeo-Christian concepts of good & bad. Who determines which?

@FrayedBear I would perhaps have said Marxist rather than Judeo-Christian.

@FrayedBear, @Fernapple
I think you're both right. The concept of being greedy is shared by both theists and atheists. It's a hard-wired part of human nature and is generally regarded as a negative thing. I just wanted to look at it from the opposite side, i.e. positive.

@Ryo1 I am less concerned with the effect on the individual of a so called "sin" , which I don't believe in anyway, sin as a whole not just greed. Than I am about the larger social/economic impact of the actual behaviour.

As to greed however, there is one big downside for the individual wanting to obtain wealth and happiness. Which is that greed can be insatiable, wanting more just leads to more wanting, and that in the end becomes pointless and shallow, in fact a treadmill. While at the same time it prevents, by consuming personal resources like time and blocking advancing appreciation and understanding, which are the things that can make everyone rich, personal growth. It is a very unhappy treadmill to be on, seeking more when you have yet to understand and appreciate what you have already, just for the short term ephemeral "hit" of each new, soon forgotten, win.

@Fernapple
>>> greed can be insatiable
That's true.
On the other hand, there are people called 'philanthropists'. They are welthy people who probably reached where they are by wanting more, whether it is money or fame or both, and they probably have a lot more than they need. And so they can now share their wealth with those who are less fortunate by donating a lot of money. Taylor Swift is a good example. She has donated enough money to cover the food bills for an entire year across 11 food banks and 8 community pantries in Liverpool, and she did the same in different cities during her UK tour.

@Ryo1 Yes, but is a philanthropist truly greedy ? Greed I would take, means both getting and keeping, though I know that is only an argument about definitions.

@Fernapple If I take greed as somewhat a positive thing, I would go along with what many economists say as in the original post.

@Fernapple the religious concepts of good & bad, heaven & hell, have existed for thousands of years before Marx was born.

@FrayedBear Yes but my point was to take the view of them, as if though Marxist eyes.

@Fernapple why?

@FrayedBear Because Ryo made the post about economics especially, and Marxism, whether you agree with it or not , still informs most modern views of economics to some degree. For the same reason had Ryo made the post about human evolution, I would probably have taken a Darwin's eye view.

Here in Australia there is the expectation of large increase in wealth from property ownership. It is not a real increase in wealth as the costing is based on false premise: to exactly replace the property just sold will cost you more than the wealth generated by the sale simply because of the expenses that you now incur - legal fees, taxes imposed, RE agent commissions, removalist costs, cleaning fees, physical & mental stresses etc. Your expectation flows on to infect others & so like the snowball rolling down the hill it gets bigger & bigger. Look at how Ponzi schemes work. Look at how Bitcoin works. Look at how Pyramid marketing schemes work

@FrayedBear
Buying and owning a property incurs a lot of costs, and one will take those costs into consideration before committing themselves to buying a property, I would've thought... In that case, nobody would have to get hurt.

@Ryo1 everyone is injured because the whole thing requires everyone to be making profit. When price is increasing because of artificial scarcity of supply raising prices everyone is the loser.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that a strong nation is one that is healthy, educated, productively employed, fed & housed. The US standard has for too long been to selfishly increase personal wealth at the expense of others.

OK. But how do you define 'greed' or 'being greedy' yourself?

@Ryo1 The 1996 Oxford Dictionary definition of greed is "excessive desire, esp. for food or wealth."

That sounds right to me.

I might expand on that a little by saying greed is taking more than you need.

@Flyingsaucesir And I guess that's bad, like one of the seven deadly sins according to Christianity.

Ivan Boesky - another Jew. like the Polish\Ukrainian Jew Perec Rachmann who died in English prison & gave his name to the English language with Rachmanism.

@Flyingsaucesir However do you agree that there is a huge difference between greed that injures others compared to greed that only injures the greedy & their immediate associates.
For example the person who buys more food than they can consume is only affecting their wallet & the person that they prevent from purchasing the same item. The person who buys in order to create scarcity to increase prices is harming far more people. Currently Israeli Jews are calling for the death or removal of all Arabs in Israel "Irrespective of reason for Palestinians being held prisoner in Israel Minister Ben Gvir calls for ..." - isn't this a far greater wrongdoing than either the greedy glutton grabbing the last cream cake after consuming 5 already or even the cream wholesaler who stockpiles ftozen cream in order to artificially increase prices?

@FrayedBear An interesting point.

@FrayedBear I think it's pathetic that these two groups of people cannot live peacefully together. (It takes two to tango, ya know.)

@Flyingsaucesir yet another case of religious indoctrination. However there is also a strong possibility of hidden\ suppressed historical reality. Psychopathic tendency through genetic and or environment exposures such as repeated indoctrination from priests and physical body alteration - circumcision.

@Flyingsaucesir Agreed but little different to many other instances - Ruandan Tutsi & Hutu, Serbs & Croats, Turks & Armenians, Cambodian intelligentsia & Pol Pots child army et al.