Consider Thomas L. Friedman’s announcement (New York Times, January 9, 2019): “I believe there is only one thing as big as Mother Nature, and that is Father Greed–a.k.a. the market. I am a green capitalist.” As a green capitalist, Mr. Friedman would place “a free market competition to ensure that mankind can continue to thrive on Earth.” He does not say by what political means he would do this. But by “shaping the market,” he would cause “our industries and innovators” to compete in “an Earth Race” to bring forth the technological solutions to the threat of climate change. The competition would be baited by Father Greed. The world-savers would be rewarded, not just by a saved world, which ought to be enough, but also by vast jackpots of silver and gold, mansions, yachts, and trophy wives or husbands. The rest of us will agree to this, of course, because the end of the world, or the end of the world as we know it, is very likely to mean the end of us. Mr. Friedman’s ultimate appeal is to fear, which outraces even the greed of industries and innovators: “This may well be our last chance…to manage the unavoidable aspects of climate change and avoid the unmanageable ones.”
But the Devil is a clever fellow. The danger in getting him to help us a little is that we will end by helping him a lot–and for this I again invoke Shakespeare. Mr. Friedman is not the first modern capitalist to understand the usefulness of greed (and of all the other old-fashioned sins). If greed will help you get rich, then (to balance the heavenly scales) you can set up a charitable foundation to help (a little) the poor and others less successful and deserving than you. Father Greed has been a prominent figure in our history for a long time. He will help you to get rid of the Cherokee or the Sioux, if you think you have a better use for their land. He helped to establish Negro slavery in our country, and he helps to establish wage slavery here and in the sweatshops of poor countries abroad, in both instances for the high purpose of improving people less fortunate….
Wendell Berry, The Need To Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice, 165-167
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