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Greed has been denned as an “excessive desire for acquiring or wanting more than one needs or deserves” (Webster's New World Dictionary, 1964). It relates to a process of acquiring or wanting possessions with an almost wanton disregard for the feelings of other.
Greed has been seen historically as one of the deadly sins. Greed has come to mean the unnatural urge to accumulate the accouterments of the good life. In societal terms, it is seen as a virtue, euphemized by “the profit motive,” “growth incentive,” or the “entrepreneurial spirit.” Greed is represented psychoanalytically by the language of orality: devouring, sucking, biting. It conjures up cannibalistic fantasies of taking everything in and consuming all. To the degree that greedy impulses are manageable, they serve as powerful motivators.
I want to cite an illustration of the forceful rhetoric of greed to highlight the exhilarated emotion: “Be a hungry shooter. The slashing onslaught of a voracious appetite for victory destroys the resolve of the lesser competitor” (U.S. Army Pistol Guide, p. 162). Here is an example of an appetite that seeks to propel the participant into a maelstrom of purpose, fusing oral sadism with a driven phallic attitude. The aim seems not so much to fight the other competitor as it is to dedicate one's purpose to ingesting all that there is in victory. The shooter is given both approval and incentive for a greedy posture and a socially invested authority is underwriting his behavior. Greedy persons feel wonderful, elated, and filled with enthusiasm thinking that they have the right stuff. This marks the spirit of the term in all its adaptive meaning.
Another case in point can be seen in the movie Wall Street. Michael Douglas, portraying the corporate raider Gordon Gekko, rises at a shareholders' meeting and launches into an attack on the