That's well said and absolutely true :)
Self interest runs the world and for the most part is a good thing because it motivates people to do more than the minimum required, to create great innovations, and find ways to be the most efficient.  This has been an interesting conversation (at least it hasn't devolved into name calling like the last heated off topic outburst). 

In my opinion the great counterbalances to greed (too much of anything is bad) is responsibility and accountability.  Many people that complain about greed are not taking responsibility for themselves (I don't think the examples on this list fit that).  The biggest example of lack of accountability I've seen is in our Government.  They act as if the money they take from us isn't our money.  I wish every thing they spend money on was subject to a public vote.  It would slow pork barrel spending for sure. 

Socialization sounds like a great idea until you see it in action.  My wife works in healthcare and sees it every day.  People from Canada come HERE for treatment because they can get it NOW and get the best medical care they can afford.  When you take away the motivation to do more people do less, they don't innovate, they don't look for ways for greater efficiency.  In a lot of ways well meaning laws get in the way.  You just can't break into the medical industry because of all the bureaucracy involved from our government and beyond.  If I came up with a cure for Cancer in a lab in my house it would have zero chance of making it into the world without going through a gatekeeper.  The SYSTEM is broken because of too much bureaucracy and too many gatekeepers. 

It's people like us that can make it change.  Look at Linux.  If it had a single 'head' someone would have sued it out of existence but since there is no single point of control the will of the community moves forward despite those that would try to cheat.  Oracle buys MySQL, MySQL forks several ways.  Freedom persists.  We've removed almost all of the bureaucracy from Linux and the best of the best moves forward.  It's amazing how far Linux has come since I started using it in 1993.  Open medicine would have the same effect.