When I was at CMU, I once thought about a question: Why is the greed for money and material so much criticized, while the greed for knowledge is praised, or at least not often morally condemned.
The wisdom accumulated by mankind since civilization has repeatedly warned people that greedy people will be punished. The 1987 movie "Wall Street" also wanted to tell this truth at least to a certain extent, although its ending was open-ended. What impressed me most in the film was Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas)’s infamous speech "Greed is good" (Such a simple sentence immediately reminiscent of Yu Keping, Deputy Director of the Compilation Bureau of the Communist Party of China, December 28, 2006 The article "Democracy is a Good Thing"). After proposing this deafening judgment, Gekko used a series of parallel sentences to illustrate and lay out, one of which said:
Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.
Douglas took back the Oscar statuette of the year with this performance.
Wiki said when introducing the film: The film has come to be seen as the archetypal portrayal of 1980s excess, with Douglas's character advocating that "greed, for lack of a better word, is good".
Similarly, in 2008 Speaking out at the general meeting of shareholders, will you get thunderous applause?
Gordon Gekko: [at the Teldar Paper stockholder's meeting] Well, I appreciate the opportunity you're giving me, Mr. Cromwell, as the single largest shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak. Well, ladies and gentlemen we're not here to indulge in fantasy but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market when our country was a top industrial power , there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company! All together, these men sitting up here own less than three percent of the company. And where does Mr.Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than one percent. You own the company. That's right, you, the stockholder. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their luncheons , their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.
Cromwell: This is an outrage! You're out of line Gekko!
Gordon Gekko: Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. (Laughter.) One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I've been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is,ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life , for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.Thank you very much.Thank you very much.
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