Greed is underrated.
I’m not knocking compassion and generosity, those are wonderful. The world would be a better place with an abundance of compassion and generosity.
Without greed there wouldn’t be progress. The desire for “something better” is what drives innovation and work.
Shift your mindset from “I can’t afford it.” to “How can I afford it?”. This simple mind shift can dramatically impact your life.
Certainly, I’m not talking about malicious greed where you hurt someone else for your own gain. But rather the greed of desire, tempered by love, generosity and compassion.
People seem to overlook this "virtue." There is a difference between the greed you define here, which drives capitalism, and the greed that is more rightly defined as "envy," that drives socialism and communism. One leads, as you rightly note, to drive, innovation, growth; the other leads to apathy, theft, and degradation.