I was asked on Twitter the other day to explain the difference between Objectivism and raw greed.  Twitter is not really a good platform to answer such a question, but my attempt was two tweets:

short and incomplete answer: time frame. Objectivism=long range, lifetime view; “pure greed”=short range, spur of the moment

And rationality (Objectivism) vs irrationality (raw greed).

I thought I would make an attempt here to provide a more complete answer given my current state of knowledge.  It will still likely be incomplete and I urge people who are actually looking for a complete answer to go to the source and read Ayn Rand’s fiction and non-fiction along with those of Leonard Peikoff.

I will be making some assumptions on what exactly was meant by “raw greed.”  I will also be restricting myself to ethics, meaning a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions.

Starting with Objectivism.  Before we can even begin to consider what is the proper code of value for a human being, there is a lot of ground that needs to be covered, primarily the questions: what are values? and how do we judge those values?

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary gives a definition of value that is applicable here: “something (as a principle or quality) intrinsically valuable [having desirable or esteemed characteristics or qualities] or desirable.”  This should immediately raise the question: desirable to whom and for what?  The answer to this question is also the answer to the question of how we judge values: to the individual and for his own life as a human being when viewed in the context of his entire lifespan.

With this in mind, a partial list of values might include: food, shelter, clothing, health, employment, medicine, entertainment, education, trade, loving relationships, money, and so forth.  These values are interrelated and act to support each other.  For example you would need a certain level of health before you could pursue employment or education.  These values may also be arranged in a different hierarchy depending on the context of your life.  So if you have taken care of all your basic needs, entertainment and relationships might rank higher in your values as pursuing those would lead to a greater enhancement of your life in the long-term.

The lifetime perspective on values is an important consideration both within broad categories of values and between them as well.  Within food one can easily see that while most foods available today will keep you alive in the short-term, chocolate cake for example, consuming them exclusively will almost certainly be unhealthy.  Entertainment and relaxation can be important values but if you pursue them at the expense of necessary food and shelter, you are unlikely to enjoy that entertainment very long.  In trade, or any dealings with others, you would deal fairly with them (i.e. not lie, cheat, or steal from them) because if you do not it will not be long before no one would have dealings with you.

Objectivism generally recognizes seven main virtues.  For a full description of these virtues I would recommend Dr. Leonard Peikoff’s book, “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.”  In brief they can be summarized as follows:

• Rationality – adherence to reality.  This is the fundamental virtue while the remaining six are derivatives of this one.
• Independence – accepting responsibility of forming one’s own judgement and of living by the work of one’s own mind
• Integrity – loyalty to one’s convictions and values
• Honesty – never attempt to achieve a value by faking reality
• Justice – never seek or grant the unearned and undeserved, neither in matter or in spirit, or put positively, always seek and grant the earned and the deserved
• Productiveness – the process of creating material values, whether goods or services.  i.e. in order to consume you must first produce.
• Pride – the commitment to achieve one’s own moral perfection, i.e. the commitment to consistently apply all the virtues

As with values, the virtues are interconnected and support one another.

In an attempt to concretize this, imagine an Objectivist businessman, an innovator.  He would look at reality as it is, not as he wishes it would be [rationality].  Having looked at reality, he would form his own judgement in regards to what long-term goals he wanted to pursue.  While he might seek input from experts, in the end he makes his own decisions [independence].  He would then set about creating a product or service that would allow him to achieve his goals [productiveness] and market it based on its true attributes, not exaggerations knowing that to do otherwise would undermine his long-term success [honesty].  He would not only charge what he felt the product was worth but also pay those who helped him produce it according to the value of their input [honesty, independence, and justice].  If he found there was a defect in his product or that one of his employees was dealing dishonestly, he would take steps to correct these problems [integrity, honesty, and justice].  At the end of the day, if he had kept to his virtues, he would take satisfaction from his efforts, regardless of their success or failure [pride].

Now for “raw greed.”  I take this to signify what most people today see as greed: the act of taking what you want, when you want it.  Not from any desire to make your life better in the long term, but simply because you want it now.  A person motivated by raw greed would lie, cheat, steal, and worse, to achieve their values, if this term can properly be used in this context.  Such a person would kill for a pair of shoes, deceive investors for fame and money, fake workplace injuries to claim worker’s compensation, sell fraudulent products, neglect their children to play video games, take dangerous drugs in order to fit into their swimsuit for the summer, and so on.

For them there would likely be no standard of values, definitely not his life taken as a whole, and certainly no set of virtues to adhere to in pursuing those values.  There would only be the chasing of short-term, irrational whims with no regard for long-term consequences.

If our imaginary businessman above were motivated by raw greed, we might have the following.  With no long-term goal, he might just decide he wants money.  Not for any particular purpose, but just to “be rich.”  He might then look around to see what everyone else is doing and decide to do that too, regardless of what he thought (if he thought at all) or if he actually enjoyed it.  Rather than actually produce something of value, he might instead try to sell his “idea,” which he likely stole from someone else, to investors or the government.  When the inevitable problems occurred preventing him from actually delivering or making money on his “idea,” he might find fault with blameless employees, “cook the books” to cover up the problems, or take short cuts in production that violate the rights of others.  At the end of the day, regardless of how much money he may have made, assuming his scheme does not fall around his ears, he is likely to have the nagging feeling that he really doesn’t deserve what he has.

I can hardly imagine a person who is more the opposite of an Objectivist.