Champagne Lifestyles: The Changing Notion of Greed

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/11/01/The_Good_Society_Virtues_for_a_Post-Recession_World

Journalist Brendan O'Neill criticizes the historical tendency to interpret social crises through the "prism of excess and opulence" and expresses concern that all consumers, not just the elite, have been implicated in fueling the most recent financial meltdown. "This default explanation is far too partial and narrowly moralistic," he says.

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The global crisis is regularly presented as "payback time" for human greed. The Labour-left group Compass notes approvingly that the recession is working as a corrective against "individualistic and materialistic attitudes." Others argue for a "new corporate ethics," with financial risk-taking and rampant capitalism indicted by events. But is the recession really a problem of ethics or morality? Is there a danger the new anti-capitalist ethic amounts to little more than risk-aversion and paralyzing regulation? What about innovation and experimentation? If we demonize the aspiration to wealth as "greed," how will society reward success and encourage ambition, and the competitive spirit that so often drives social progress?

We are told to reject "me, me, me" individualism, but must we choose between selfishness and altruistic sacrifice, or might we form bonds of solidarity around collective self-interest? And is a bit of individualism really so bad anyway? Debating what we mean by the Good Society allows us to imagine how society could be rather than accepting the status quo. But as we search for a new kind of politics, will we rekindle idealism or instead adopt "post-recession virtues" that - far from allowing us to move society forward - will reconcile us to less ambition, less freedom and less capacity to shape society? - Institute of Ideas

Brendan O'Neill is the editor of spiked. He started his career in journalism at spiked's predecessor, Living Marxism, until it was forced to close in 2000 following a notorious libel action brought by ITN.

O'Neill writes widely for publications on both sides of the Atlantic. His journalism has been published in the New Statesman, the Spectator, the Guardian, The Sunday Times, the British Journalism Review, the Press Gazette and the Catholic Herald in Britain. He is also a feature-writer for the Christian Science Monitor in America and for the BBC in Britain. He writes a weekly blog for the Guardian website, Comment Is Free.

Category:

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Tags:

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• capitalism
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• great
• recession
• recovery
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[barabg]

Starts good but reaches an absolutely erroneous conclusions. Were not doing it for Gaia, were doing it for our own longevity. If you want to internalize it, were doing it to become more longsighted in our actions.

Thats was unfortunately profoundly stupid.

[rorylol]

In my opinion this is utter BS.

Trying to spread the blame so even the poor Chinese farmer gets some is absolutely insane.

It is a fact that the CEOs of the large American banks are taking record bonuses while the people that bailed them out are now feeling the full weight of the recession.

To make it short this guy comes at you with a lot of assumptions and what ifs but lacks any evidence for his claims.

[jaworski716]

@barabg whats the point in longevity if we can't be happy? I think this guy is talking about us having aspirations for the species.

[desch41n]

Jeez, you folks are dim.

What he's saying (pretty straightforwardly) is that we need to overcome environmental and social problems with MORE technology, MORE development and MORE growth.

What we shouldn't do is use these surmountable problems as an excuse to just give up on civilization and start cutting back people's living standards. As a lot of environmentalists want us to: wailing that the proles are breeding too much, eating too much meat, buying too many cars, etc., etc.

[titowasagoodman1980]

What the hell was he trying to say? He just went on an eloquent rant about the world's current economic/environmental quagmires. We all are responsible for the collective and systemic, historical destruction of society. How the hell does that realization destroy human initiative, innovation and free thinking? Doesn't such knowledge emancipate us from things that undermine our freedom? Like alienation and class hierarchy? This guy is supposed to be a Marxist....shame to left wing thought!!!

[Th3Wab3]

i agree but those r not the things he mentioned if we are going to criticize we should at least stick to the presented topics. now: in relation to "champagne lifestyles" what he talks about is what is presented on television as factual causations yes they are strawmen but they are what is presented none the less as chomsky has said the public just needs a cause for the problem. it doesn't have to be true... i agree this is a poor attempts to identify the primary issues. but he does raise a flag

[Opiman000]

"ApPARently", this guy is full of crap.

That is all.

[greatbroad]

@Causa10bserver

I imagine there are all kinds of labels for Hartmann. If you were to list all the books he has written, most of them are about ADD, ADHD, things like that. His fingers are in many pies.

What I love about Hartmann is his mind and how he thinks. If you would, listen a bit to his introduction of the older "corporate person hood book" on my video, "corporate person hood is a lie!" before you make up your mind.

[gzX9bVq6k]

"We can quantify the deaths caused by both communism and fascism, but we will never know how many deaths have been the result of capitalism; of nothing more noble than a rich man wanting to be even richer, and sacrificing the health and lives of millions of workers to achieve this. Don't even try to count how many people capitalism has killed, because not only will you not know where to begin, but also it will never end." Ludwig von Mises

[JCLeSinge]

Yes, I should have said billions. Thanks for sending that video; nice one.

[gzX9bVq6k]

When you mention "millions murdered by capilalism" that's a gross understatment.

[JCLeSinge]

Yeah, this is BS; this guy hops all over the place, switching soapboxes with every sentence. He's confusing the issue by throwing in multiple concepts, bolstering his argument through massive assumptions. He's basically camouflaging his main point, which is that he's defending excessive greed.