Wall Street: these are in reverse order, start two below

And finally, rated as one of the “most famous” speeches in film history is Oliver Stone’s character “Gordon Gekko” in Wall Street. Here it is–

Gordon Gekko at the Teldar Paper stockholder’s meeting–
Well, I appreciate the opportunity you’re giving me Mr. Cromwell as the single largest shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak. Well, ladies and gentlemen we’re not here to indulge in fantasy but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company! All together, these men sitting up here own less than three percent of the company. And where does Mr. Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than one percent. You own the company. That’s right, you, the stockholder. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their luncheons, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.
Cromwell: This is an outrage! You’re out of line Gekko!
Gordon Gekko: Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can’t figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I’ll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them!
The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that: Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right; greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and 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, you mark my words — will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

The inspiration for the “Greed is good” speech seems to have come from two sources. The first part, where Gekko complains that the company’s management owns less than three percent of its stock, and that it has too many vice presidents, is taken from similar speeches and comments made by Carl Icahn about companies he was trying to take over. The defense of greed is a paraphrase of the May 18, 1986 commencement address at the UC Berkeley’s School of Business Administration, delivered by arbitrageur Ivan Boesky (who himself was later convicted of insider-trading charges), in which he said, “Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”

The theme of the film is against the greed philosophy, and seems to be represented in this line, from a good character: Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.

In contrast, here is Gordon again, who points out some things Stone does seem to legitimately think are problems (Gekko is just not the solution!) — Gekko: The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you buddy? It’s the free market. And you’re a part of it. You’ve got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I’ve still got a lot to teach you.

A few more:

Bud Fox: How much is enough?
Gordon Gekko: It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.

Gordon Gekko: What’s worth doing is worth doing for money.

Gordon Gekko: I’m talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing.

Bud Fox: There’s no nobility in poverty.

Stone, to me at least, really represents a particular philosophical take with his character Gordon Gekko. It will be helpful to contrast Gekko to Ayn Rand (who is falsely associated with the notion, because she too praises greed, but for totally different reasons; and, sadly, with Adam Smith– who was anti-greed, of course.) Gekko also seems to be an example of the “bleeding” of business philosophy into other aspects of life. To make this worse, he seems to promote a
Darwinistic take on the economic: those at the top are somehow superior, have dominated the rest. What do you think about this? What would Smith or Hayek say?
It will be great to contrast Rand, who thinks so differently, yet praises accomplishment in business. She does think there can be nobility in poverty, as one example. She also thinks there is value in jobs where you trade for a living, though, she too has a penchant for jobs where you produce something. Smith and Hayek would not see the point of this.

Thanks again for reading these sources. I don’t mean to editorialize, it will just be great for you to have familiarity with them. Best, Dr. Baker