Greed is good?

I saw that Michael Douglas graced the front page of the Wall Street Journal one day this past week. The WSJ placed a picture of Douglas' character from "Wall Street," Gordon Gekko, side by side with a recent picture of the actor. Under the picture in the cutline, Douglas advises those aware of insider trading to report it to the FBI -- part of a public service announcement targeting financial fraud. Apparently, greed ain't so great.

Bank CEOs in the United States would probably object to that statement. Reuters reported: "The United States is home to four of the nine largest banks in the world -- JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp, Wells Fargo & Co and Citigroup Inc. It is also home to four of the six most handsomely rewarded bank CEOs." They got it made.

And though this may be quite a leap, I don't think distributive justice really has a place in a capitalist society -- or at least in our society. Think about it: Greed is rewarded. You're only as successful as your latest income statement in many people's eyes. And it's not a result of how hard you work either. If you're born into a poor family and spend your adolescence just trying to make it to tomorrow, you don't really make plans for college or concentrate on maintaining good credit -- two things pretty necessary for a "successful" life. When you get to adulthood and have to find a place to live and a job and health insurance, you're shit out of luck. And no one holds out a hand to help you. You're just condemned and dismissed because you simply did not work hard enough. Where is the justice in that? 

From Reuters: "You wouldn't know it by his pay stubs, but Jiang Jianqing heads the world's largest bank. Jiang, chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, made just $234,700 in 2008. That's less than 2 percent of the $19.6 million awarded to Jamie Dimon, chief executive of the world's fourth-largest bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co."

There's just something wrong with that picture. 

Justice is not just about money though. For me, distributive justice means equal opportunity for all. Equal access to education and welfare assistance and health care would go a long way to creating a more egalitarian society. Maybe we could take some of Dimon's salary and give it to all of the homeless veterans I see wandering the streets of Fort Worth with their hiking packs and their dogs and their eyes that have seen too much. Maybe that would balance things out a bit.