that doesn't jive with my initial take, although admittedly, i've only read the first few chapters so far and have yet to get back to it. i got the initial sense that the greed is harmful, and the beliefs around greed make it worse, so a little greed leads to a lot of bad feelings. it's not minimizing/forgiving of the actual greed in existence though.

i'm in general agreement of the book's overarching thesis that people are mostly good. we wouldn't have a functioning society if that weren't true. it's just that our spidey senses are horribly tuned to the modern world of very few actual dangers, which are mostly hidden away in institutions (centers of power) rather than our neighbors to whom we tend to cast the suspicious eye.