This discussion is a conceptual extension of the Survival of the Fittest discussion that is open now. How many of you have seen and can remember Gordon Gecko (played by Michael Douglas) from Wall Street? Wall Street is one of my top movies. (I refer specifically to the original Wall Street. Wall Street 2 doesn't have the same impact.) Take a moment and check out Gordon Gecko's speech to the shareholders of Teldar Paper. Here's a link: Greed is Good Speech (Links to an external site.) You should be able to play the movie clip, but if not, the transcript of the speech is included. (I could play the clip in IExplorer, but had trouble accessing it in FireFox). This movie was an "expose" of the type of business practices that were prevalent in the 1980's. Amazingly, 30 years later, it doesn't seem as if much has changed in the way that businesses behave.

Here's the question: Is greed good? Is greed right? Does greed work? Is greed, as Mr. Gecko so eloquently put it, the catalyst to evolution and the upward surge of mankind? And if so, is that why we're seeing the same behaviors in business today that we saw nearly three decades ago?