[STA]

yeah, but there is still enough for every one else.

[The Engineer]

With the exception of this passage...
The above example is nothing more than good business sense. I should know, I was a business major in college. I don't feel that being opportunistic is being greedy. Some may disagree, but I believe this whole-heartedly.

I am sorry if I presented my concept wrong. It was not bargaining that I was labeling as greed, but instead stealing, both illegal and legal (too include price caps). In negotiations both parties agree, and it is a fair deal. In stealing, one party has not agreed to the terms so through their expense the other gains.

I dismiss the standard concept of greed for a simple reason; it rests on need. Generally greed is any desire in excess of need. The problem is that need is such a flexible and superficial term. Technically need mean the bare substance for life, in which case no living human is in need, since they are still maintaining life. Then there are those who try to place a static quantity on need, generally by incorporating their view of a pleasant life. The exact range depends on who is judging; some will call air conditioning a need, while another dismisses it as a luxury. There is no such thing as universal need beyond the minimum natural resources that keep a human body alive.

Ultimately one can only define their personal desires and therefore what they will work for. What one man denotes as his "need" may be in excess or deficiency of another's, but it is the result of their own judgment, and therefore their own consequence.

To say a man is greedy because of his excess desires is simply to say he has exceeded your desires, but his desires may be far grander than even his current level. An individual's desire is the result of they life beliefs. One may be wrong to seek happiness in material possessions, when at the expense of other aspects of life, but it is their own decision. They are also free to choose a level many would define as deficient, it is their choice.

As long as they do not attempt to reach these desires at the expense of another's they are invalidating any moral law. But by turning to larceny to reach their goals, they allow their desires to overtake their willingness to earn it. The geed arise once they have disconnected their desires from their voracity to full fill it.