Ambition is something we try to encourage in our youth who is starting out with their careers.
This coming Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe, we will discuss how the two attributes compare with each other.
Is the difference mainly in where the motivation is aimed? Greed towards personal gain while ambition can be for something that is beneficial to others as well as oneself?
Can there be greed if no money is involved?
Can ambition to do good for one's country also be good for the rest of the earth?
Is Alexander the Great or Napoleon ambitious or greedy?
Perhaps ambitious is not always a good thing?
But should we advise our youth from trying to achieve something?
How much achieving is too ambitious/greedy?
Maybe the focus should always be towards the bigger good, look beyond ourselves and go for the bigger picture, sacrificing our self interest if required.
Should we then not always sacrifice the good of our city for that of our country? Why bother having local communities?
Is giving preferential consideration for one's local community instead of the greater community a form of greed?
Can a free market system work without individual consideration for their own welfare over others? Is greed therefore a necessary ingredient for this system?
In the perfect world, we will likely want ambition without greed. is that possible?
If you're working with other people then there has to be not merely rules but a discussion that continues to question and ammend to suite peoples and their individual interests. Otherwise its impossible to talk about a "free" market.
ReplyDeleteAmbition and greed and selfishness don't have to go together to make a good business. If I have interests they could include other people, a good working understand of the 'commom' good, and a whole slew of ideas/concepts that don't often fit into such discussions, if they're ever had. People can be selfish and ambitious and not harmful to other people. Greed is a word that people use but not often about themselves, unless I am being greedy when I don't share something, and I know that I am.
Business people have their own ways of doing things, and I'm not running a business, maybe because I don't have the right criteria.
VTS
Greed Vs Ambition
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction was that greed comes into play ONLY in a zero sum situation. This would be a situation that whatever I gain is a loss to the other participants in the game.
On reflection that is too simplistic. Consider the classic case of a competitive poker game. If I win I walk out with more wealth and others walk out with less. Am I and all the players greedy in holding the objective to gain at the expense of others? I think not. I and perhaps others may also hold the objective of enjoying the excitement of the game and even perhaps learning something regardless of the money outcome.
Still I think that to ask the question as to the nature of the game is a better first question than to go immediately to question motives. Motives are simply too slippery a concept.
Certainly, for me, whenever I participate willingly in a market place situation my default view is that I am not being greedy nor are others who are participating in that market. This follows from my view that markets, in general, are not zero sum games.
Similarly if I view a situation as a zero sum game my default view is to question my motives with respect to some feeling of greed or of wishing ill to others.
Just to muddy the waters my view of the nature of the game is often fuzzy in terms of the time frame and the extent of the realm of the game. Here is an example.
I go into a grocery store which has advertized a low price on a product that I want but that I know moves in relatively small volume, say 4l cans of olive oil. I find only 2 on the shelf.
Do I buy both of them, thinking that I will use them up and that the shelves will soon be replenished? Do I curb my "greed" by buying only 1 and leaving one so as to not deprive other possible buyers?
Whether I view myself as greedy depends on the time frame I consider and on the degree of "perfection" in the market. I can rationalize.
Certainly another purchaser approaching the shelf and with the same purchase intention and seeing me buy the last 2 would consider me greedy.
Dan
Its difficult to say if that would make you greedy, or not. Who could say?
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