Greed causes a great deal of negative problems with the politics and economy of our nation.

No problem, I've gotten busy and been unable to reply myself numerous times. Sorry if I rushed to conclusions, but within the past few days of your round forfiet I had two or three other debaters forfiting every round, one not even posting his opening argument. You can understand the frustration and the confusion on both ends. You seem to have misunderstood exactly what I was saying when I said that need was something that only the savage have to worry about. While part of my point was that subsistence leveled people are in a state of need, my primary point was that people who are industrialized in a capitalistic system tend to not have to worry about need so much as they worry about wants and desires. You make the claim that greed is the desire to get anything more than you 'need'- and when even you say that 'need' is already surpassed by savages you suggest we 'need' very little. It is true, we do need very little. I don't need this computer, nor do I need my photography equipment (I'm a photographer). I don't need to live in a place as nice as I do, I could live in the ghetto and still live. Living on simply need is not desirable for the majority of people. That is where capitalism comes in. Capitalism allows people to live far past the standards of needs and minor wants, moving into a rich and prosperous life. Not all people will become billionaires, but even the average middle class person has all of their needs fulfilled, and plenty of their wants. In fact, a good portion of even the lowest of economic classes in the US have gone far beyond subsistence into wants and desires. I find it a little odd that you find pre-industrial societies already in a state of 'content'... From the statistics I have read (For example, Pre-Industrial France) the population was rather low (around the world) and the mortality rate was high. All of this is very well documented. The population levels were so low because people did NOT have what athey needed. They died of starvation, they got ill and died of simple diseases. More than half of their children did not live into adulthood, and a simple bad harvest could mean the death of an entire family. If that is the life you would like to live you may do so, I would however prefer to live in a state where that at least my basic needs were met. What sparked about these changes? This sudden change from living in a world where you could die of hunger, into a world where the average person has a multitude of conveniences and luxuries shared not even by kings of before? Capitalism and greed. I'm pretty sure that both of our opinions on greed are just that, opinions. I'm quite sure none of our ideas are absolutely set in stone correct, otherwise debate would be pointless. While some might not enjoy the idea of the great success that is capitalism, they are free to live their lives similar to those who relied on subsistence farming, just with slightly and bounds in efficiency in the past few centuries. If we're talking about pre-industrial Europe, their yields were far less than we would achieve today even on a bad harvest). For the vast majority of the population, the idea that you can live longer and not die of starvation is a great enhancement. The invisible hand of the market gives a very fair allocation of resources. If you want to go more into how exactly it is 'fair' we can do that. I'm not very familiar with your example of coffee and Indonesia. I'm curious, how exactly was it converted? Was it 'converted' by the free market? How exactly can coffee cause famine? Wouldn't a famine be a natural occurrence? Africa, ironically, is generally failing because of the lack of capitalism. Their leaders are holding back progress by refusing to allow the free market into the equation. Notice how most African economics are void of any remotely free market. As for the walmart reference, I did not say they went into a voluntary agreement simply because they get paid above market value- regardless, so long as they are in a free market there is a voluntary exchange! The factories tend to pay far above what they would get anywhere else, which is why there is such a demand for labor. Factories such as this are helping the poor countries move out of their poor status and into the status of the Americans. This does not happen over night, sometimes people might have to work hard to get into a situation of prosperity. People make a lot of money working, and are able to buy things they would not have before. It improves their lives. Walmart has no obligation to give their workers so much- their workers aren't worth that much. It is not wal-marts fault that some of their workers are rather poor and have problems, those are the issues of the workers. If you disapprove of walmarts policy then I suggest you not work there. For those who do approve of it, who approve of the extra money they receive, they work there- they agree to work there, they want to work there. I will only address your issue on healthcare shortly. Health care is very expensive in the US right now because the government is keeping the prices high- and has sort of gotten us fixed on certain sorts of bad insurance plans. Insurance is a form of collectivism, which when added together.... equals very high prices. If we deregulate health entirely and try to lean out of insurance our system will be very affordable. The thing about your examples of how bad a rise in population are-- it's not true, disease is not a serious problem- at least in comparison to other issues, poverty in the US is practically non existent unless you look at it compared to the wealthy (most of the poor own a microwave oven.) If a single person is working on minimum wage trying to feed a family it might be very difficult. Of course it's very difficult. It would be difficult if there were no minimum wage, or if the minimum wage was 40 dollars an hour. It would be near impossible to support a family very well given those conditions. It's just the situation, if you think one person can work at a job primarily meant for those coming into the workforce to provide for a family, you're ill. Raising minimum wage would not help those people. It would simply hurt the economy, specifically small businesses- and ironically poor people. Money doesn't come out of nowhere, and at some point somebody has to be fired.... because of the government. It is true, that greed is the cause of some issues, such as what you brought up as slavery. Those problems are brought up though government greed. Government greed has not gotten to the point where it is the cause of a great deal of problems in the US yet- we're not soviet. Most of the issues you brought up as greed were either not examples of greed, were examples of how things are good, or were rare examples of government instituted greed that either does not exist anymore, or simply involves a few rare things that the government does.