[merrylander]

Wel I never was so I can't advise you there. Unfettered capitalism reached its zenith (for lack of a better term) during the Rockefeller/Carnegie years and surely the was never a clearer illustration of total disregard of ethics (if you accept that ethics = moral philosophy).

The odd thing is that I do not believe that greed is our natural bent. I think back to when my son was around five or six. If my wife (ex now) gave him a candy or cookie he would ask if he could also have one for his friend outside. Not that he is greedy today, but I think we divert our children's best instincts. By we I mean society as a whole, not just the parents.

Wast the poet correct "Trailing clouds of glory do we come from God whi is our home."?

Then there is the other side of the coin in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "The Children". That one sort of has a personal angle, my Dad was working in the wollen mills at age 12. As I noted in the Ancestry thread, my Grand Dad was a shepherd, both emigrated to Canada and did very well for their families, but I guess familal experiences with things they went through have given me my 'bias'.