[economics] the science of greed

[Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Perjured Parrot, pp 187-189, Iris Press ed., 2002] Gardner was a lawyer who wrote mystery stories, his best known character being Perry Mason, who used the courtroom for the solution of the mystery; this story was written in the late 40s and reflected on the depression era. An entrepreneur is murdered while away on a fishing trip, Mason is called in and this is a conversation between Mason and the businessman’s grown son. Of interest is that it is a different take on the depression, written closer to the time itself:

‘After Dad returned, he said that we were all too greedy; that we worshipped the dollar as the goal of our success; that it was a false goal; that man should concentrate more on trying to develop his character. You might be interested in his economic philosophy, Mr. Mason. He believed men attached too much importance to money as such. He believed a dollar represented a token of work performed, that men were given these tokens to hold until they needed the product of work performed by some other man, that anyone who tried to get a token without giving his best work in return was an economic counterfeiter. Concluded …