Rodriguez 1

Juan Rodriguez
Dr. Marinara
ENC 1101H
21 November 2014
Greed is Good
Growing up, I was always told that being greedy was bad and that I should always share
everything that I have and to not be selfish. For most of my life, this is exactly what I did and to
be honest, it is probably what I will continue to do. We as humans are taught to not be greedy,
although there is nothing wrong with this. Greed is a characteristic that we grow up with.
Avoiding greed is a likable trait that attracts friendships and develops positive aspects to have in
the way we act with one another. Now what if I was to tell you that greed is good? In the movie
Wall Street, Gordon Gekko a wealthy investor in the stock market, presents a powerful speech
that revolves around the idea that greed is good. Just from that idea you can already see how
Gekko has created a new reality to the meaning of greed. As Bazerman talks about in his article,
People use texts to create new realities of meaning, relations, and knowledge (Bazerman 366).
Throughout this essay, my goal is to prove how this speech uses the powerful tools of
intertextuality and rhetoric to send its message and create a new meaning, relation and
knowledge to the term we know as greed.
Gordon Gekko begins his speech with the ongoing problem that the company Teldar
Paper has, as well as the majority of the investment firms in corporate America in the 1980s.
The problem includes the lack of accountability that the stockholders have. In previous years, the
management of the company owned the majority of the stocks of a company which would
usually make sense, as today, it seems that the tables have turned and management has no stake

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in the company. This induces them to not care what happens to the stock that the citizens in the
movie own as their money is not the one at risk. The CEO of the company owns less than one
percent of the stock and the rest of management owns less than three percent of the stock. That
means that the citizens, as stockholders, technically own the company. As a result, stockholders
of the company that have no say in what happens in the company, are being screwed over by the
rich bureaucrats that manage the company.
Gekko then continues to talk about how there are 33 different vice presidents in the
company all making over 200 thousand dollars a year. The previous year the company lost 110
million dollars which he claims was a result of all the paper work going on between these
managers. What he means by this is that they are keeping the earnings to themselves while
helping each other to get richer and not focus on the growth of the company instead. After this,
he begins to make his most important points where the new law of evolution in corporate
America is the survival of the unfittest. By this he means that only the managers of the company
are working on the aspect of survival of the fittest1 as the rest of the general population of
corporate America is working on the basis of survival of the unfittest.
However there is a way to make it work as his own company has made money not only for the
company but for its shareholders as well. He boldly says, Either you do it right or you get
eliminated. He then continues to the most powerful words of the speech that state,
Greed, for a lack of a better word is good. Greed is
right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and
1A 19th-century concept of human society, inspired by the principle of natural selection, postulating that those who
are eliminated in the struggle for existence are the unfit.

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captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in
all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love,
knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind.
And greed, will not only save this company, but that
other malfunctioning corporation called the United
States of America. (Wallstreet)

Analyzing this speech, intertextuality is seen

Americanrhetoric.com

throughout all the points that he makes. Porter defines intertextuality as Looking for traces, the
bits and pieces of text which writers or speakers borrow and sew together to create a new
discourse (Porter 397). He provides the example that writers in this image are collectors of
fragments, an archeologist creating an order, building a framework, from remnants of the past.
Porters ideas allow us to understand that no matter how hard we try, our work is never going to
be original. This is because the way we write is strongly influenced and made up of the
community that we have been a part of and the readers that we have been in our lives. He uses
the power of intertextuality to generate the relation of the current corporate America in Wall
Street of which he has been a part of. One of the points that Porter brought up that I found to be
most interesting was when he mentions that what makes a person creative is their ability to put
pieces together and create new meanings to them. Our most creative acts may be precisely
among those that are realized through highly repetitive forms of behavior (Porter 399). What he
means by this is that the creative writer is the creative borrower.
We identify how Gekko uses inter-text in his speech as this meaning that greed is good is
known in the economic world as the pursuit of commercial self-interest and has been an idea that

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has been around for more than 300 years. This was introduced when the idea that all who
become involved in business are exposed to becoming greedy as we can never have a limit to the
amount of profit that we seek. St. Thomas ranked greed among the seven deadly sins and warned
that trade which aimed at no other purpose than expanding ones wealth was justly
reprehensible for it serves the desire for profit which knows no limit (Rollert). But it wasn't
until 1705 where a moralist named Bernard Mandeville recreated the meaning of greed as
nothing more than just a shameful motive. Mandeville proposed the following, Private vices
yield public benefits. Being greedy can cause you to gain many public benefits including
economic prosperity and is what drives us to success. With the following conclusion to a fable he
also stated that only by such means could a nation grow wealthy.
T enjoy the Worlds Conveniences,
Be famd in War, yet live in Ease,
Without great Vices, is a vain
EUTOPIA seated in the Brain.
This suggests that society is better off when it promotes a culture characterized by private
vices. But by stating that utopia is seated in the brain, he states that we have near perfect qualities
that can also bring us to economic productivity other than just greed. But that main point that is
enforced is the fact that vices can look surprisingly like virtues if we implement them correctly.
One of the examples that supports this theory is how pride is a vice yet it can also be a virtue.
The following is from an article agreeing with Mandevilles theory.
If pride were eradicated tomorrow, the result would leave hundreds of companies
bankrupt, prompt mass unemployment, risk the collapse of industry, and in turn devastate

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both the economic security and with it the military power of the British commercial state.
Similarly, and on a smaller scale, without thieves there would be no locksmiths, without
quarrels over property, no lawyers, and so on. (Vandenberg)

This all forms the conclusion that private vices do in fact yield public benefits when used
correctly but they are not the only characteristics that we have that do so.
Gekko takes these ideas to be the benchmark of his solution to the failing company of
Teldar Paper, as well as all of corporate America. Through the community that Gekko has been
a part of and the many business meetings, presentations and speeches that he has witnessed,
Gekko analyzed the power of greed in each of the different business environments. As well as
how self-interest is used in economics to re enforce this distinct meaning to greed. Greed is a
root of success to the managers of these companies and the names that run our country. Instead
of the perception that most of us have of greed, he allows us to think of greed differently and
encourages us to be greedy in order to not only be successful in our distinct jobs but also in
everything that we do in life. As a result this would also cause our nation to grow and prosper
into economic wealth.
Another form of intertextuality that we can recognize in Gekkos speech is the pattern
that he says it in. It literally follows the same exact pattern of the following verse in corinthians.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not
dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will

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cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass
away.

This verse talks about love in contrast to Gekko who talks about greed. But
what makes them both so effective, is the pattern in which they are said in
and the structure that they follow. Gekko is using this same pattern that
turns out to be so effective because it allows him to organize his thoughts
into a way that is easy to understand for his audience. This pattern also
allows him to reiterate his point and is constantly repeating the word greed,
as in corinthians were it constantly repeats love. This causes the audience to
be almost overwhelmed by his stand on greed, to the point were they have
no other option than to agree with what he is saying. Gekko chooses this
same pattern because of its ability to preach out on a characteristic that we
hold; even though its switching from love to greed, they are both
characteristics. He goes off on its positive attributes that this characteristic
has just like the verse in corinthians. We can not deny that this
organizational pattern is an effective method in convincing us to embrace
greed rather than to eradicate it.
Gekkos words create a powerful impact not only to the people present in the room at the
time the speech is made, but his words also influence society as a whole. This is a perfect
example of the influence that text and language has on people as Bazerman wrote in his article
Speech Acts. Speech acts is the basis that words not only mean things, they do things, every
text that we say is an end result of an act we are trying to do. Gekko uses speech acts as his tool
to create new realities of meaning, relation and knowledge. We use certain tools to examine how

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texts arise within and influence the living world of people and events (Bazerman 367). The way
that Gekko structured this speech allowed him to be very persuasive and demanding towards his
audience. At the end of the speech, many end up agreeing with him on a point that is hard to
accept because of the persuasive power that his words hold. The intertextuality that he uses
allows his words to be backed up with information that is relative to what the audience around
him is used to. The community around him has allowed Gekko to formulate this new meaning
that promotes greed and then pitches it back to an audience that is part of the same economic
community. As a result, intertextuality becomes a tool that adds power and creates meaning to
his message and is a main reason his speech is so effective and provokes great influence on the
audience.
Analyzing this speech, made me realize how intertextuality plays such an important role
in all text that we use. Even in such a topic like the one used in Gekkos speech, one would think
that it is an original concept from the speaker but as it turns out it is not. The intertextuality that
he uses in his speech traces back to data used from more than 300 years ago. This concept was
created such a long time ago that it almost seemed to be forgotten. This is why when he brings
up this concept that almost seems crazy to hear. In his speech one of the executives even
interrupts him by screaming, Your out of line Gekko! But what we didn't know was that this
concept was already created but Gekkos creativity allowed him to stitch everything together to
create a new meaning and make it relevant to todays world. This concept is hard to accept as we
have always been used to knowing the word greed as something bad. But many think otherwise,
in the words of Jasper Fforse, If it weren't for greed, pride and passion you would have no
works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, no Van Gough, no Muppets and

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no Louis Armstrong. Greed is what keeps us wanting more and this is what brings us to our
greatest achievements.
Works Cited
Porter, James. Intertextuality and the Discourse Community. Writing about Writing: A College
Reader. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, eds. 2011. 395-406. Print.
Bazerman, Charles. Speech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems. Writing about Writing: A
College Reader. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, eds. 2011. 365-91. Print.
Wall Street. Dir. Oliver Stone. Perf. Michael Douglas. Greed is Good Twentieth Century Fox
Film Corporation, 1987.
Rollert, John Paul. "Greed Is Good: A 300-Year History of a Dangerous Idea." The Atlantic.
Atlantic Media Company, 07 Apr. 2014. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.
American Rhetoric: Movie Speech: Wall Street - Gordon Gekko Addresses Teldar ShareholdersGreed Is Good. N.p., 2001. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.
Vandenberg, Phyllis. "Bernard Mandeville." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d.
Web. 22 Nov. 2014.
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8. Holy Bible: New International Version. Lutterworth: Gideons
International in the British Isles, 1984. Print.