Greed is not new, but the mechanics of society are completely different now than 100 years ago.

For common people only 2 generations ago, the only way to 'make money' was to do actual work, something that probably created some kind of net value. Surpluses were shared differently, but work was done.

The opportunities to hustle and grab value while creating little for society is available to the common person today.

The economics have changed quite dramatically and that does factor into the equation.

There were plenty of markets runs, crashes and scams even in XVII century. Regular people (meaning "anyone with some excess capital") hoped to get rich off them, just as they do now.

Charles Ponzi became famous literally 100 years ago.

I think maybe the point of the comment is that there were countervailing forces in society at one point, e.g. the dictates of certain religions. That aspect of society is substantially weakened in our time (ethical codes of living are broadly considered antiquated and ridiculous in modern societies), so the focus on greed or greed-adjacent motivations are less restrained. Whether that is a Good Thing (tm) is up for debate, but it seems like a reasonable statement to me.

> there were countervailing forces in society at one point, e.g. the dictates of certain religions.

Only because they just wanted the money for themselves.

This is sort of the obvious "opiate of the masses" counter, which I think is a reasonable consideration.