What do you mean, the only ‘greed-motivated’ people in companies are stockholders / CEO’s? Everyone who works for a company gets a paycheck, and if they don’t perform well, they will lose their jobs. A person in the company who wants to earn as much as they possibly can is forced to work as hard as he can to get ahead. Unless he thinks he can cheat and get away with it – that’s another story.

Rex,

I agree with you – greed is an entirely subjective concept. For my thoughts on whether it makes sense to determine whether someone is greedy or not, read my theory of knowledge. Basically, if calling someone ‘greedy’ lets you predict useful things about them, then they’re greedy. Otherwise, they’re not. Capitalism does encourage competition; I think that’s a good thing. My whole point is that someone who wants to acquire as much wealth as possible for himself is forced to do something that benefits someone else in the process.

This leads to a few comments on your post:
-first, the subjective nature of greed would seem to make the argument that the restaurant owner is greedy at best cynical, at worst, irresponsible. The restaurant owner could be wanting people to come in to spend their money to keep the place open to put food on the table, or keep the lights on at his house (the main point being that he “needs” the money).
-Second, i fail to see how the leaving of trash behind constitutes any form of greed. Selfish? Absolutely. Irresponsible? Arguably. Lazy? Possibly. Greedy? Negative.
-Capitalism, especially in your example, really encourages competition (“the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable terms” thanks webster.com) more than anything else. And, actually, greedy people are at a disadvantage in a competitive business environment. You wanna sell me something at some inflated price? Screw you, i’ve got some other guy who will charge me less! The only way a greedy person could get ahead would be to corner some part of the market, but again the real capitalist (thank god for free enterprise) would merely see that as an opportunity to make some money (which doesn’t necessarily mean that capitalist is being greedy!)

And honestly, a CEO has a lot more to worry about than his stock options. Failure in his position is a permanent red strike on the way he competes to make a life. I think he is probably not motivated by greed, but by a ‘drive’ to compete with the best.

They’re sharing their market niche with competitors who sell substitute products – but why does that cause them to clean the food up? Because they want to get as much business as they can. Because they’re greedy. If they weren’t greedy, they wouldn’t care about losing business to other competitors.

As for the leaving stuff in restaurants, what’s the difference between that and littering? Somebody is more likely to clean it up if you’re in a private restaurant, but that’s about it. You’re still leaving work for others to do that is unnecessary. Companies have plenty of incentive to compete, and plenty of work to do, without you leaving your stuff around for them.

Jeremy,

I think maybe my post wasn’t clear enough. I think there are HUGE problems with greed – my point was that capitalism isn’t designed to make greed OK, it’s designed to alleviate some of the bad effects of greed.

I am an idealist though, so my opinion doesn’t really matter in this sense.

I would also suggest that the majority of customers who leave their things on the table are not motivated by greed but are in fact unmotivated entirely and lack certain empathetic or responsibility-judging faculties.

As another example, I am a staunch anti-litterer… littering will increase taxation and cause a “broken-window” effect (see urban economic theory). However, I am pro-leaving-shit-around in fast-food places. While as an individual my strong discipline incites me to clean the place I used after using it, I support leaving shit around fast food places because it forces them to compete or die.

-Trent