From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Wed Jun 05 2002 - 23:11:09 MDT
At 11:52 PM 6/5/02 -0500, Barbara Lamar wrote:
>Surely, Mr. Randall, in a business context, the dollar figure is a function
>of the value of the item you're offering in trade rather than a constant.
>Suppose you offer to sell me a widget, together with attachments A,B, and C,
>for $400.
>We both agree that the value of the attachments is $50 each.
> I give you $400.
> You deliver to me a widget with only attachment B.
Yes, but to probe the concept of `greedy is good' (especially in the
context of cancer treatments where life is the stake) I suspect a more
ruthless example should be examined. What you describe looks like fraud to
me, not cupidity (although it might be driven by cupidity). Isn't greed
better exemplified by your wanting a widget that costs Mr. Randall $50 to
make and bring to market, plus a moderate mark-up, but he insists that he
won't sell it to you for less than $100, or $1000. Moreover, he has the
power of the state behind him to prevent anyone else making an equivalent
widget (it's *his* design, after all). At what point does his mark-up
become `greedy'? Is it, as Mr. Crocker asserts, *good* that he should be
greedy in this deal? Why not be fair, instead? (What percentage gain would
be deemed `fair', though? 10%, say?)
But if the widget can save your otherwise doomed life, greed has a chance
of cleaning you out. You *have* to agree to extortion. "What are you
complaining about, loser? You're alive aren't you? Greed is good, right?"
Surely that can't be what's meant. So why use provocative terminology,
gentlemen, that makes it sound as if it is?
Damien Broderick
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