Essay On Greed: Wall Street

429 Words2 Pages
In the movie Wall Street, Michael Douglas’ character Gordon Gekko speaks of greed, saying that it’s good. He then says, “greed is right. Greed works.” I would agree with this statement and that greed is good. Greed is the backbone of today’s market economy and is the reason why the US is such a powerful nation. In the film Pirates of Silicon Valley, Bill Gates steals ideas for his personal computer from Steve Jobs of Apple. He then starts his own company Microsoft, which becomes very successful. This movie is a prime example of why greed is good. If Gates had not taken ideas from Jobs then he (Bill Gates) would not be so successful and we would not have such a popular and commonly used operating system to use. This film also displays how greed is good in the way of competition. When Gates stole Job’s ideas and created a competing company, it meant it would keep prices of personal computers at a reasonable price. Going back to Gordon Gekko’s speech in the movie Wall Street, he says, “greed in all forms- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge- has marked the upward surge of mankind.” This quote epitomizes the thought of self-interest. When people go to school, go to work, and do productive things, they do it for their own benefit and personal gain. That’s greed. The incentive to do these things is to be as successful as possible. That is the “American Dream.” That is why the US is the way it is today. Capitalism does have its strengths and weaknesses but the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. For example, greed causes businessmen to compete with other businessmen, thus, keeping prices reasonable and forces them to keep up with consumer demands. But then greed could cause businessmen to make not so smart decisions to make more money which may affect everyone in the economy negatively. But I still believe that greed is good for capitalism in the US. I

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