the problem with the ideology of capitalism, as i see it, is that it enshrines greed as the human condition, or even defines rationality as greed (it models a market as a competition between 'utility-maximizers'). this is really one of the most morally repugnant moves in the history of human thought, as though i defined man as the murdering animal or the rape machine or something, and then spun out centuries of implications from the assumption that everything everyone does is murder or rape. at the very outside, capitalist ideology makes greed a virtue, which is about the darkest and most vicious inversion of values one could imagine.

one thing they'd better think about: is greed (short for 'the pursuit of self-interest' [=wealth]) 'human nature'? in that case we don't have to carve out zones where it can be pursued, encouraged, or pursued freely, and also it would be silly also to count it as rationality, or to criticize actual human beings as irrational if they don't pursue their own self-interest for whatever reason. if it's the substratum of all human action, of course, it cannot be a virtue, or there is no purpose in treating it as a moral category if we can't fail to be pursuing self-interest all the time. is the project descriptive or normative? you really can't have it both ways. so is economics a science or is it a moral theory? or is there anything you won't say to justify greed? it's a sheer fact about all of us that we pursue our own self-interest, and then we have to create/nurture social contexts in which it can be expressed? don't be silly.

now on the other hand i do vote for private property. communist thinkers of all stripes have been constantly surprised that poor people are not opposed to private property; well, poverty is actually lack of private property. that we have a group or zone or region of objects that we can employ or dispose of autonomously is central to any sense that we are acting freely. you can draw up a utopia of collective ownership, but people have to suspect that this is going to mean that people other than themselves (and in effect often the state) are going to be in control of their environment.

so then the question is whether we can detach - to some extent under some conditions - property from greed. that's why i'm attracted to economic models such as josiah warren's. it has many problems, especially of 'realism.' but i do want to note that this 'greed is good' (or rational, or realistic, or inevitable, or natural) thing is a cultural construction, an ideology that emerges at a certain moment, under certain conditions; i don't see compelling reasons to regard it as the only possibility.