by L G Hoel

Created on: June 09, 2008   Last Updated: January 23, 2011

Yes, the pursuit of profit is moral. It is the key to attaining the American dream. A person is only limited by his lack of a desire to pursue profit and a better life. The honest, honorable, pursuit of profit is certainly moral. If the goal is only profit without concern for others it is not moral. 

Man has been in the pursuit of profit ever since the beginning of the first monetary system. The people's profit helped create employment for Matthew the tax collector. He was collecting tax from people if it was from profit or not. We would hope that didn't bring an early end to the moral pursuit of profits, as government started collecting part of personal income. Man should share his blessings of profit with others without a tax collector.

Slavery was used for years to pursue profits at a faster pace. Using slave labor was not a moral pursuit of profit, for sure. Children made up part of the U.S. workforce between 1880 and 1930. Child labor has been used for centuries and is returning in some places in our modern age, to maximize profits.

We might say that the view of the pursuit of profit being moral is in the eye of the beholder. Moral values which govern individual behavior and choices have changed as our society and laws have changed. The meaning of what is moral is very different to some people today. To some people there is no such thing as wrong, just different degrees of not being quite right. Our permissive society today finds many profit seekers with no conscience. They show little regard for how their profits affect other people's daily lives.

The pursuit of profit has changed right along with how man treats his fellow man. There was time when the meat market owner weighed a little of his thumb when he weighed the customer's order. The only person he hurt was the customer who payed for meat that he did not get. The meat market owner himself might have been hurt if his thumb started appearing in dreams later in his life. A conscience still resided in most men in those days.

In this new age of global business ventures, pursuit of profit is done with leveraging and new tools like highly engineered financial securities and derivatives. Most of the new age immoral profits are having devastating impact on people all over the world.  Speculators can control the prices of crude oil and grain commodities while people starve.

Man has come along way in his pursuit of profit. Few have shared from their profits like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Far too many profit seekers have thrown their morals out the window. Morals were slowing them down on the wild ride to riches. The majority of the people pursue profits morally. When greed instead of personal gain drives the pursuit of profit there is no regard for moral ethics.

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