Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ivan Boesky declared that greed is healthy during his speech to graduates at UC Berkeley in 1986. His statement sparked a global debate regarding whether the desire for more constitutes a moral failing or an evolutionary necessity.
Classical Greek thinkers like Plato and Aristotle defined pleonexy as an unjust desire for tangible worth belonging to others. Mythic punishment meted to Tantalus involved eternal withholding of food and water from his grasp.
Pope Paul VI warned in 1967 encyclical Populorum progressio that avarice most obvious form stultified moral development. Twenty years later Pope John Paul II stated nations sin through greed thirst power alongside individuals.
Pieter van der Heyden engraved image after drawings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder personified greed in 1558. Umberto Romano created works devoted to greed in 1950 while Michael Craig-Martin followed suit in 2008.
Some research suggests there is genetic basis for greed involving shorter version of ruthlessness gene AVPR1a. People possessing this variant may behave more selfishly than others without it.