The “profit motive,” speaking broadly, means a man’s incentive to work in order to gain something for himself — in economic terms, to make money. By Objectivist standards, such a motive, being thoroughly just, is profoundly moral. Socialists used to speak of “production for use” as against “production for profit.” What they meant and wanted was: “production by one man for the unearned use of another.”
In a specialized sense, “profit” means…
