As we know, Adam Smith would have viewed human behavior as self interested and responding to incentives. The greed of the miser, if this is what Blinder and other see as self interested behavior, is far too limited a conception of the complexity of the motivations of the individual to be of much use in attempting to understand how individuals act. As a moral philosopher, Smith recognized that we act in predictable ways to improve our own position and condition in life based upon our own understanding of circumstances and the incentives that confront us. This often, in fact frequently, involves cooperative behavior as we attempt to coordinate our needs with the needs of others to reach our own interests.
In previous posts I have lamented the lack of civil discourse in attempting to explore these ideas that - at their essence - ask us to examine virtue and vice. The imposition of greed in a pejorative manner does little to advance a discourse that attempts to understand how we all act under conditions of uncertainty.
In an odd coincidence, after reading Boyes refutation of Blinder, I had a conversation with my 12 year old regarding her current reading - a biography of Wilma Rudolph. While I recalled the general outline of her life, my daughter informed me that with 22 children, the Rudolph family struggle to support themselves shaped the lives of all the family. Wilma's parents, throughout the Great Depression refused government assistance, the father worked 2 jobs and the mother took in sewing. Both parents were self interested, not only in their own lives but in the lives of their family. I can't imagine anyone using the word greed to describe this self interested behavior.
Finally, Milton Friedman on greed
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