The Limits Of Greed

 

Steven Pearlstein and Robert A. Mamis clearly polarized the issues surrounding the billion-dollar plays on the Wall Street crap tables (Viewpoint: "The Corpocracy's Last Gasp," October). The recent play against Salomon Inc. was timed perfectly to accentuate the absurdities of these games, so eloquently discussed by Pearlstein.

Mamis's counterpoint was too simplistic. First, Pearlstein doesn't contest that in some cases mergers and acquisitions act toward the betterment of everyone involved. And second, Mamis fails to give any perspective to the inherent purpose of our great economic system. A great economic system is an unfolding process with its existence dependent upon its ability to continually serve society as a whole. It can't exist in a vacuum merely as an abstract intellectual playground to serve those clever enough to exploit it to their gain and at society's expense.

This does not mean that the individual incentives of a capitalistic system are bad. But it means that for the system to serve us all, the rewards of capitalism should be regulated by the government so that individual wealth is truly representative of those capitalistic actions that make or have made a positive contribution to society. Actions inspired by greed and self-advancement and made at society's expense can and should be regulated against.