2. Winners and Losers
Wealth has historically been viewed as a zero-sum game, where if one person (or nation) gains, another must lose.[1] There is not enough to go around. A world of limits, limitations, scarcity. Wars have been, and are, fought to gain new territory for population expansion and access to natural resources. The present-day economic paradigm was built from such memes as it’s a dog-eat-dog world, survival of the fittest, and manifest destiny.
In his Inaugural Address, newly elected U.S. President Jimmy Carter said:
We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great Nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems. We cannot afford to do everything, nor can we afford to lack boldness as we meet the future. So, together, in a spirit of individual sacrifice for the common good, we must simply do our best. [2]
This smacked of defeatism to many Americans, and arguably critically weakened his popularity. This, along with a worsening economy (with both double digit inflation and high unemployment), ultimately led to his being voted out of office, one of only a handful of Presidents not to be granted a second term. This was in stark contrast to Ronald Reagan’s feel-good, can-do, optimistic message which resonated in a profound way with most Americans and led into the go-go 1980s. As always, Americans love winners, and do not tolerate losers.
The so-called 1980s decade of greed was popularized in the movie Wall Street where Michael Douglas’ corporate raider character Gordon Gekko, pronounced at a shareholders meeting of a company he was scheming to takeover that “greed is good”, in that it allowed the efficient allocation of resources and motivated investment and entrepreneurial risk-taking in our capitalist society.[3] Film critic Roger Ebert had this to say about the movie, and the social phenomena it examines:
What’s intriguing about Wall Street . . . is that the movie’s real target isn’t Wall Street criminals who break the law. Stone’s target is the value system that places profits and wealth and the Deal above any other consideration. His film is an attack on an atmosphere of financial competitiveness so ferocious that ethics are simply irrelevant, and the laws are sort of like the referee in pro wrestling – part of the show.[4]
This movie was a product, and a mirror, of the times. An extreme fictional portrayal of the Greed is Good ethos is found in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with an alien race called the Ferengi. They are overtly and unashamedly greedy, avaricious, ruthless, cowardly and completely unscrupulous. They went so far as to codify their behavior in their famous Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. This has been the guiding principles of the galaxy’s most successful entrepreneurs. These 285 Rules of Acquisition range from #1 “Once you have their money, never give it back.” to #21 “Never place friendship before profit.”[5]
The above illustrates the obsolete us-or-them paradigm. Is there a better way to generate, distribute, and indeed think about wealth?
[1] American Heritage Dictionary. “zero-sum game – A situation in which a gain by one person or side must be matched by a loss by another person or side: ‘It’s not a zero-sum game in which either youth or pensioners must lose’ (Earl W. Foell).” 1930-1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Chief Editorial Writer for the Christian Science Monitor.
[2] Jimmy Carter, Inaugural Address as newly elected President of the United States, Thursday, January 20, 1977. From the Carter Library website (http://carterlibrary. galileo.peachnet.edu/inaugadd.htm).
[3] Wall Street , directed by Oliver Stone, 20th Century-Fox. 1987.
[4] Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times, December 1, 1987.
[5] Review of The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Ira Steven Behr, 1995.