What Is Greed?

When Does covetousness Be happen Too Much? In 2008, employees within a failing firm on W each(prenominal) Street were given $16 integrity thousand million in bon habits. That seems outrageous, doesnt it? Anger was the response of the Ameri can buoy priming coat indefinitely. that, if they had d bingle further research they would comwork forcece realized that the $16 billion in bonuses was merely half of what the company gave out in bonuses during gravely clocks. Many of the reporters telling the story discussed the issue of rewarding the avariciousness of the employees with taxpayer currency. Which brings us to the question, what exactly is rapacity?If they would comport earned more(prenominal) before, they argon expecting the pith that is sexual climax. It is non rapaciousness if every year before that the money had been guaranteed, is it? The Merriam-Webster lexicon defines rapacity as, a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed. _____ ___________________________________________________________________ The interchange greed dates back to the 1200-1300s, where in France it came from the member avarus meaning prehensile which was a form of avere meaning to crave or long for.Coming from the interchange avarus was avarice which meant just greed and from that intelligence activity came avarice which meant greed or covetousness (Harper, 1). Covetousness is defined as an envious bore-holeness to possess something(Merriam-Webster, 2). Greed from the 1600s to present is a back formation of the word greedy which has many routes and translations. The West Saxon word graedig or the Anglican word gredig two meant voracious or covetous (Harper, 1). Voracious is defined as absent to devour great quantities or having a very eager approach to an activity (Merriam Webster).From the Proto-Germanic language were the words graedagaz and graeduz meaning greed and famish possibly from the Proto-Indo-European root gher- mean ing to want or in Scot kill grdh- to be greedy. The origin that the hatful against the Wall Street bonuses would appreciate the most would be the one from the Greek word phyilargyros meaning money-loving and also the German word for greedy, habsuchtig coming from haben meaning to get down +sucht meaning sickness, disease (Harper, 1). The last one is the most interesting because it is suggesting that greed is something than can come and go with the secure or wrong stimulants, like a sickness does.What indeed would one need to do to boost their immune system against this greed? Or is greed something impossible for people to avoid? From the etymology we have found that greed can be related to hunger and envy and the want to have more and more, were these definitions consistent in their use over time? In order to better insure what greed actually is we need to push a mo handst to flavour back at the history of greed and how often it has occurred end-to-end the world. In 1527 A. D. the Spaniards had sai guide across the Atlantic Ocean and come across the imperium of the Incas.They were on their sort to the New World and they came across a raft with a crew of approximately 20 men along with many protects. After catching a glimpse of the treasure on the raft, the greed of the Spaniards welled up until they decided to conduct an jaunt to suppress the Incas conglomerate. After many years of spoilting a crew and resources for this expedition the Spaniards in the long run headed into the Incas Empire in 1532 A. D. fortunately the conquering of the empire was easier call sufficient to the civil war of the Incas.The Spaniards excessivelyk the Incas emperor hostage and in return were offered a room of silver and g overage as his ransom. The Spaniards greed continued to get bigger and they took the contents of the room, and did not return the emperor, scarcely alternatively killed him. The Incan people then revolted under the Spanish control (History W orld, 1). If the Spaniards and not been so greedy in their desire to take over the empire maybe they could have won over the people as their stimulate instead they were driven by greed and one man stock-still named them thieves of the Incan people.Mansio Serra Leguizamon, the last conquistador, said I wish your Your Majesty to understand the motive that moves me to make this statement is the peace of my conscience and because of the guilt I shargon. For we have destroyed by our evil behavior such a government as was enjoyed by these natives. They were so free of crime and greed, both men and women, that they could leave gold or silver worth a ascorbic acid thousand pesos in their open house. So that when they discovered that we were thieves and men who sought to force their wives and daughters to commit sin with them, they despised us. Instances similar to that of the Spaniards and the Incas recurrent themselves multiple times throughout history. From the go through greed of th e Europeans against the people of Africa to the land greed of the Americans against the Native Indians, those nations that progress seem to demonstrate an intense aim of greed in order to get to the top. However, while this greed in particular led to the success of those nations demonstrating it thither have also been examples where it led to the demise of a dictator or of a group as a whole.For example, Adolf Hitler had already defeated the studyity of his European enemies, the last being Great Britain. Hitler had signed a pact two years prior stating that he would not wage war on them, ca apply the nations to not have armed themselves. Hitlers decision to break this agreement could precisely be motivated by his greed to dominate all the some other countries even if Great Britain was ten times the size of his empire. While national socialist Germany had the most powerful military at the time they were not use to the cold weather and were soon overcome by the Soviet total tro ops.If Hitler had simply left the Soviet marrow alone he cleverness not have been defeated by the allies at all, it was his greed that led to not only his bus his government activitys guide. Other examples of the fall of perfect nations due to greed include the fall of the Roman Empire and the fall of Ancient Greece. A large group of historians have come to the result that the majority of progress in the world is a result of the greed of more powerful nations to depart even more powerful. This system is serious for those progressing and bad for the smaller, less developed nations who argon being taken over.Whether or not greed is moral in this aspect is another argument, but the definition of greed stated previously is most definitely applicable to these historical examples. In the example of the Spaniards and Incas it is greed because the Spaniards already had their own empire across the ocean, however they were driven by the want of more land and of the treasure of the Inc as to continue on and take more than was necessary for the nation to survive. Again it seemed unnecessary for the Europeans and the Americans to take the land of the Africans and Native Indians when they already had land elsewhere, it was an unnecessary conquest.In the example of Hitler attacking the Soviet Union, it was greed because he already had a pact with them to be at peace and he stony-broke it because he wanted more. It was not necessary for him to attack the Soviet Union but he did due to greed and the consequence of this was the demise of his regime the same(p) fall similar to that of the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece. It seems that throughout history the peoples perception of what greed is has remained in logical argument to the definition from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and this definition is consistent to the past of he word greed, just more detailed than previous definitions. It looks as though there is no way for people to avoid being greedy in its completion , whether it be wanting more candy than you need at Halloween (which was all of us at some point, Im sure) or wanting extreme amounts of money to be paid to you from workeveryone has demonstrated a greedy behavior at least once in their life. This brings nigh the question, is there a point to where greed becomes too overwhelming?By this I simply mean that you are not likely to dislike a three year old dressed in a cowboy costume for asking for more candy when they already have a full bag on Halloween, but you might loathe psyche who already makes $50,000 to $100,000 a year and is receiving a bonus on top of this paywhen their company is failing and is being paid by bail out consisting of your tax payers dollars. Is the three year old just as guilty as the Wall Street firm employee? nigh people would say no, the three year old is too vernal to really understand what greed is.Okay, so what about a half-dozen year old or an eight year old or a twelve year oldat what age does it become socially unacceptable to act in a greedy demeanor? Lets look at another comparison, but this time between people of an older age group. Its a bright, delighted twenty-four hours in the city and a married couple is walkway down the street when they look down and find an a hundred dollar bill. Instantly the man jumps for joy because he can finally afford some football game gear mechanism he had been saving up money on the side for. The husband didnt even pretend to ask the wife what she thought they should do with the money.Most people would dismiss this and say, Oh, its just a hundred dollars for football stuff. Let the man be. What if the same man worked for AIG and received a ridiculous paycheck and was asking for a bigger bonus at Christmas time to buy football paraphernalia? Whats the difference? Its still the same man using extra or bonus money to buy the same football paraphernalia, but people tend to freak out when the money is coming from a company that already pays exorbitant amounts for the annual salary and then they give out a bonus in addition to this.According to the definition of greed presented by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed, both men are acting greedy. Both men from the examples are definitely presenting a selfish desire because they are going to use the extra money for themselves and football paraphernalia isnt necessarily a necessity in everyday life. The issue of greed, similar to that of justice, seems to find its way back to green-eyed monster and morals.What people consider too lots greed depends on their view of right and wrong, and how many possessions or how untold money they personally have. We may not want to admit this because we think that we have the ability to separate ourselves and judge independently, but the reality is that the majority of people are not able to do this. Sure, they may be able to present a definition-correct response and say that the three year old has bad character and is too greedy, but most people would look over the actions of a mere three year old.They may be able to say that the AIG employee is unable to determine the fate of the economy and has worked hard and deserves the bonus and should be able to do what he wants with it, but mystifying down theyre jealous of their higher situation and wonder if the AIG employee really deserves such high amounts of money for what they do. As a result of jealousy people tend to claim that others demonstrate too much greed. However if they looked at their own life on a day to day basis would they see that they have been greedy on smaller but much more frequent scales in comparison to the one major instance of the AIG employee?Who is anyone to judge who is too greedy when even the smallest acts of greed are still a greedy action? Maybe everyone is equally sophisticate by greed but only large monetary instances are brought into the media in our society. Hav e we answered the initial question, when does greed become too much? Yes, we have. The common view of people today is that greed is not too much when it is a child asking for more candy on Halloween but it is too much when it is an employee receiving a $16 billion bonus. This can be simplified or abstracted into greed becomes too much when it reaches a larger, noticeable scale.In other words, greed is too much when someone is striving for something less than 10% of the population will attain. If the population had no lower class it was simply middle and higher classes, there would be more people in the higher class and therefore fewer would find greed present because it would seem more attainable. Greed is fit(p) on the basis of what is attainable to the majority of people. Works Cited Merriam-Webster Inc. Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n. d. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. . Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary. Online Etymology Dictionary.N. p. , 2001. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. . write up OF THE SPANISH EMPIRE. HISTORY OF THE SPANISH EMPIRE. N. p. , n. d. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. . Merriam-Webster Inc. Greed. Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n. d. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. . AIG Bonus Payments Controversy. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Apr. 2012. Web. 10 Oct. 2012. .