Thoughts on the Too-Easy Use of the Word “Greed”
24th May 2013
Don Boudreaux looks behind the curtain at the Left’s favorite word.
While driving yesterday I listened for a while to ESPN radio. Among the topics that the show’s hosts explored was greed – in particular, the “greed” of professional sports franchises such as the Washington Redskins and the New York Yankees to produce and sell to fans ever-more logo-ladened paraphernalia. Some of the radio hosts were more sensible than others, but every one of them assumed without question that “greed” is the appropriate term to use to describe the motivation of owners of pro sports teams to earn more money by supplying more of the likes of baseball caps, jerseys, and jackets emblazoned with team colors and images of team mascots.
All of the hosts agreed that there’s something a bit sleazy and disreputable about the aggressive production and supply of such paraphernalia. In short, it was an all-too-typical shallow discussion of commerce.
For my purposes here I assume (I believe realistically) that professional sports-team owners’ actions to sell more of their teams’ paraphernalia are indeed motivated solely by their desire to earn more money for themselves. But I ask: why are such actions described as “greedy”?