Okay, I'm on vacation. We're leaving tomorrow and won't be back until Wednesday. So here's something I've been gnawing on for a few days. Picked it up from one of Todd's web buddies, Old Whig.

In "Wall Street," Gordon Gecko said "Greed is good." That character then became a bit of a foil, upon which liberal do-gooders found much enjoyment in throwing their conservative foes.

Little did we then know that Gecko was only paraphrasing the writings of an early 20th century poet, Erma Perham Proetz.

Here are some excerpts from an article she wrote in 1928:

We are, of course, accustomed to thinking of education as philanthropy and to think of business activity as the direct opposite, the purely selfish pursuit of profit.

There is no occasion to deny that commercial activity is essentially the pursuit of profit. But in the forward progress of the world, we are discovering that the soundest basis of profit is service. Commercial organizations are more and more realizing that they can take profit from the public only if they render a service for which the public is willing to pay and that the willingness of the public to pay depends on whether the public is educated to the point of valuing the service.

It is coming more and more to be realized by the great commercial organizations that the end of selfish activity profit cannot be accomplished unless the activity really renders service to the public.

The fundamental purpose of business organizations today is not to discover how the public can be fooled, but on the contrary, to discover how the public can be served.

You can read the whole thing here. It's some sort of scan, but you can view it as a pdf or in text if you want. Check the drop boxes above the article.

Greed really is good. Are you greedy? Then you better find some way to part the public from their money, and to do that, you need to offer them something they want. You need to serve them.

Have at it.