The Tyranny of Greed

Tyranny is a word that has, unfortunately, been heard often in recent years. The term usually refers to “the usurpation of power by a single individual or group, or the circumvention of law by rulers for their own benefit.”*¹ But it can also describe any power, such as greed, that dominates and dehumanizes. 

Greed is the inordinate desire to possess wealth, goods, or objects of abstract value with the intention of keeping it for oneself, far beyond the dictates of basic survival and comfort. It is not merely a personal flaw; it is also a power that enslaves both individuals and societies.

The biblical phrase “the love of money” is clearly a reference to greed (“the inordinate desire to possess wealth”)—and also a clear reference to its tyrannical nature, as it is “the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10, CEB).

According to my AI “buddy” Claude, “greed was absolutely central to Jamestown's founding in 1607.” The Virginia Company was a corporation “created explicitly to generate profits for its investors.” It became profitable after 1614, when it began shipping tobacco to Great Britain.

The greed of the Virginia Company led to enslaved Africans being brought to Virginia in 1619 to work in the tobacco fields. Human beings were reduced to property so that plantation owners could increase their wealth.

A century later, cotton became king, and greed increasingly drove the engines of slavery. So, citing Claude again, “the desire for wealth [=greed] from cotton drove the expansion and entrenchment of one of history's most brutal systems of human exploitation.”

“The more profitable cotton became, the more deeply the South invested in slavery, making it nearly impossible to imagine their economy without it—which ultimately helped precipitate the Civil War.”

But as far back as 1607, greed also wreaked havoc on Native Americans. The founding of Jamestown inadvertently initiated the genocide of the Native nations. Much later, the desire for more land to grow cotton was a major factor behind the Indian Removal Act of 1830. 

For much of the nineteenth century, greed fueled the seizure of Native American lands under the banner of progress, or “Manifest Destiny,” as settlers and governments justified the displacement/removal of the Indian nations for the sake of acquiring land to use for their own economic gain.

Whenever and wherever greed is rampant, people are exploited, lands are stolen, and justice is distorted. Sadly, though, even today, tyrannical greed continues to shape economies, politics, and daily habits of consumption—and that greed is epitomized in the current POTUS. His “business” activity is just one indication of his greed.

According to an Oct. 9 post (here), Trump has launched ads “to sell his new collection of watches.” This will add to the wealth he has greedily accumulated as President. He reportedly made $10 million in the last year selling watches, sneakers, Bibles, and guitars.

His most profitable business, though, is cryptocurrency. Last year, he made over $57 million from his stake in World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency platform. His $TRUMP meme coin launched in January 2025 is estimated to have earned $320 million in fees.

Since the tyranny of greed is so prevalent, attention needs to be given to Malcolm Foley’s book, The Anti-Greed Gospel (2025).*² (Here is a picture of author Foley and his “million dollar smile” along with the subtitle of his book.)

In his book, Foley cites John Chrysostom (d. 407), who asserted that “great is the tyranny of Mammon.” That tyranny exacerbated the idolatrous worship of Mammon rather than the true God. It also led to the construction of racism.

Plantation owners needed a moral and legal justification for treating human beings as property, so they constructed an ideology of racial inferiority. This allowed them to justify the brutal exploitation and to prevent solidarity between poor White and enslaved Black people.

While he does not cite them, Foley’s basic explanation of racism is similar to that of contemporary scholars Inram X. Kendi and Starlette Thomas.*³ They all argue that racist ideas were created to justify slavery. The latter was based on greed, which led to exploitation and then used racist ideology to justify it.

In the last part of his book, Foley challenges churches to confront greed as both a personal and systemic sin, and to replace it with practices of justice, solidarity, and truth.

Since greed is personal as well as societal, all of us need to remember the oft-quoted admonition of Thomas Merton: 

*¹ These words are from Timothy Snyder’s instructive book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017).

*² Foley (Ph.D., Baylor University) is a pastor, historian, and speaker who serves as special adviser to the president for equity and campus engagement at Baylor. Foley also co-pastors Mosaic Waco, a multicultural church in Waco, Texas

*³ Kendi is an author, professor, and anti-racist activist. He is the author of three books, the most influential being How to Be an Antiracist (2019). Thomas is an author, preacher, activist, and race abolitionist who serves as the director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative at Good Faith Media. She is the author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church (2023).