The Friday after Thanksgiving is called “Black Friday” because it’s the day companies traditionally see their books move from red to black. Many Americans treat Black Friday as if God himself ordained that they should go shopping. I myself have always loathed the day, since I am easily enervated whenever I’m in crowds.

This morning, in a Long Island town very near where I teach, a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death. The 34-year-old temporary, part-time employee (this was Wal-Mart, after all) was knocked down by a surging mob at 5:03 a.m., when the doors opened to “customers” who had been waiting to get in. He was pronounced dead at the hospital an hour later. The news reported that before the doors opened, people had been pushing and shoving and screaming at one another.

It goes without saying that this is an individual tragedy. But it’s also a terrible reminder of how easily and quickly ordinary people change from being decent to being hideous. Gather enough people together, make them all share the same desire, frustrate them a little as they strive to satisfy that desire, and they’ll readily become a mob that in turn becomes a running herd of irrational brutes—otherwise known as a stampede. Pilgrims at Mecca or at Hindu religious sites seem to succumb regularly to stampeding, as do fans at soccer stadiums. The former want something of the divine, the latter good seats. But a stampede of people who want to go shopping at Wal-Mart? This is of a different order.

Talking-head economists on the nightly news are endlessly bemoaning the fact that Americans aren’t spending enough to get us out of the current economic crisis. Later, after the economy is humming along again, they’ll inveigh against the fact that we’re not saving enough. But now is now and then will be then.

“Economy” is such a neutral-sounding term. In our modern consumer economy, where we’re urged to shop til we drop, however, “economy” masks ugliness. We live in an economy where the point is to consume many things that we don’t really need. The current economic crisis, we’re told, came about because of our greed. Now, in order to make things better, we’re supposed to become even greedier. To do this, we have to forget that greed was once considered one of the seven deadly sins, and instead see greed as a virtue.

Material things have their rewards, to be sure. But economists, please help me with this one. Isn’t there an alternative to what we have? Isn’t there some kind of modern economy where a national day of thanksgiving is something more than a day of distraction from greed?