J. R. Molloy, after several comments that I understand
and agree with, writes
> Personal responsibility takes a back seat to personal greed when it comes to
> accumulating wealth. In fact the concept of responsibility serves the rich
> better than it serves the poor, because the rich can far more easily afford to
> practice it.
On the contrary, I think that the rich can afford to
be much more irresponsible (at least for a while) than
the poor can. When I was poor, I had, in order to escape
poverty, to be quite responsible in saving every dollar.
Now that I'm no longer poor, it doesn't matter if I blow
a hundred dollars on something.
What is the difference between greed and self-interest?
I'll guess that we use the term "greed" to depict those
highly self-interested individuals whose behavior goes
beyond the confines of good taste and respectability;
e.g., the complete lack of charity and compassion that
characterized the fictional Ebenezer Scrooge.
Self-interest, on the other hand, need have no such
negative characteristics.
Lee
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