PROFIT AND LOSS

PROFIT AND LOSS

LUDWIG VON MISES

Ludwig
von Mises
Institute
AUBURN, A L A B A M A
Copyright © 2008 Ludwig von Mises Institute

Ludwig von Mises Institute

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 CONTENTS

A. The Economic Nature of Profit and Loss . . . . . . . . . 7

1. The Emergence of Profit and Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2. The Distinction Between Profits and
Other Proceeds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3. Non-Profit Conduct of Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4. The Ballot of the Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5. The Social Function of Profit and Loss . . . . . . . . 19
6. Profit and Loss in the Progressing and in
the Retrogressing Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7. The Computation of Profit and Loss . . . . . . . . . . 26

B. The Condemnation of Profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

1. Economics and the Abolition of Profit . . . . . . . . . 33

2. The Consequences of the Abolition of Profit . . . . 34
3. The Antiprofit Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4. The Equality Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5. Communism and Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
6. The Moral Condemnation of the Profit Motive . . 47
7. The Static Mentality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

C. The Alternative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

5
A. THE ECONOMIC NATURE OF
PROFIT AND LOSS

1. The Emergence of Profit and Loss

In the capitalist system of society’s economic
organization the entrepreneurs determine the course
of production. In the performance of this function they
are unconditionally and totally subject to the sover-
eignty of the buying public, the consumers. If they fail
to produce in the cheapest and best possible way
those commodities which the consumers are asking for
most urgently, they suffer losses and are finally elimi-
nated from their entrepreneurial position. Other men
who know better how to serve the consumers replace
them.
If all people were to anticipate correctly the future
state of the market, the entrepreneurs would neither
earn any profits nor suffer any losses. They would

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) was dean of the Austrian School of

economics. This paper was prepared for the meeting of the Mont
Pèlerin Society held in Beauvallon, France, September 9–16, 1951. It
is included in Planning for Freedom (South Holland, Ill.: Libertarian
Press, 1952).

7
8 PROFIT AND LOSS

have to buy the complementary factors of production

at prices which would, already at the instant of the
purchase, fully reflect the future prices of the prod-
ucts. No room would be left either for profit or for
loss. What makes profit emerge is the fact that the
entrepreneur who judges the future prices of the
products more correctly than other people do buys
some or all of the factors of production at prices
which, seen from the point of view of the future state
of the market, are too low. Thus the total costs of pro-
duction—including interest on the capital invested—
lag behind the prices which the entrepreneur receives
for the product. This difference is entrepreneurial
profit.
On the other hand, the entrepreneur who mis-
judges the future prices of the products allows for the
factors of production prices which, seen from the point
of view of the future state of the market, are too high.
His total cost of production exceeds the prices at
which he can sell the product. This difference is entre-
preneurial loss.
Thus profit and loss are generated by success or
failure in adjusting the course of production activities
to the most urgent demand of the consumers. Once
this adjustment is achieved, they disappear. The prices
of the complementary factors of production reach a
height at which total costs of production coincide with
the price of the product. Profit and loss are ever-pres-
ent features only on account of the fact that ceaseless
change in the economic data makes again and again
new discrepancies, and consequently the need for new
adjustments originates.
LUDWIG VON MISES 9

2. The Distinction Between Profits and

Other Proceeds

Many errors concerning the nature of profit and

loss were caused by the practice of applying the term
profit to the totality of the residual proceeds of an
entrepreneur.
Interest on the capital employed is not a compo-
nent part of profit. The dividends of a corporation are
not profit. They are interest on the capital invested
plus profit or minus loss.
The market equivalent of work performed by the
entrepreneur in the conduct of the enterprise’s affairs
is entrepreneurial quasi-wages but not profit.
If the enterprise owns a factor on which it can earn
monopoly prices, it makes a monopoly gain. If this
enterprise is a corporation, such gains increase the div-
idend. Yet they are not profit proper.
Still more serious are the errors due to the confu-
sion of entrepreneurial activity and technological inno-
vation and improvement.
The maladjustment the removal of which is the
essential function of entrepreneurship may often con-
sist in the fact that new technological methods have not
yet been utilized to the full extent to which they should
be in order to bring about the best possible satisfaction
of consumers’ demand. But this is not necessarily
always the case. Changes in the data, especially in con-
sumers' demand, may require adjustments which have
no reference at all to technological innovations and
improvements. The entrepreneur who simply
increases the production of an article by adding to the
existing production facilities a new outfit without any
10 PROFIT AND LOSS

change in the technological method of production is no

less an entrepreneur than the man who inaugurates a
new way of producing. The business of the entrepre-
neur is not merely to experiment with new technolog-
ical methods, but to select from the multitude of tech-
nologically feasible methods those which are best fit to
supply the public in the cheapest way with the things
they are asking for most urgently. Whether a new tech-
nological procedure is or is not fit for this purpose is to
be provisionally decided by the entrepreneur and will
be finally decided by the conduct of the buying public.
The question is not whether a new method is to be
considered as a more “elegant” solution of a techno-
logical problem. It is whether, under the given state of
economic data, it is the best possible method of sup-
plying the consumers in the cheapest way.
The activities of the entrepreneur consist in making
decisions. He determines for what purpose the factors
of production should be employed. Any other acts
which an entrepreneur may perform are merely acci-
dental to his entrepreneurial function. It is this that lay-
men often fail to realize. They confuse the entrepre-
neurial activities with the conduct of the technological
and administrative affairs of a plant. In their eyes not
the stockholders, the promoters and speculators, but
hired employees are the real entrepreneurs. The former
are merely idle parasites who pocket the dividends.
Now nobody ever contended that one could pro-
duce without working. But neither is it possible to pro-
duce without capital goods, the previously produced
factors of further production. These capital goods are
scarce, i.e., they do not suffice for the production of all
things which one would like to have produced. Hence
LUDWIG VON MISES 11

the economic problem arises: to employ them in such

a way that only those goods should be produced
which are fit to satisfy the most urgent demands of the
consumers. No good should remain unproduced on
account of the fact that the factors required for its pro-
duction were used—wasted—for the production of
another good for which the demand of the public is
less intense. To achieve this is under capitalism the
function of entrepreneurship that determines the allo-
cation of capital to the various branches of production.
Under socialism it would be a function of the state, the
social apparatus of coercion and oppression. The
problem of whether a socialist directorate, lacking any
method of economic calculation, could fulfill this func-
tion is not to be dealt with in this essay.
There is a simple rule of thumb to tell entrepre-
neurs from non-entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs are
those on whom the incidence of losses on the capital
employed falls. Amateur-economists may confuse
profits with other kinds of intakes. But it is impossible
to fail to recognize losses on the capital employed.

3. Non-Profit Conduct of Affairs

What has been called the democracy of the market

manifests itself in the fact that profit-seeking business
is unconditionally subject to the supremacy of the buy-
ing public.
Non-profit organizations are sovereign unto them-
selves. They are, within the limits drawn by the
amount of capital at their disposal, in a position to
defy the wishes of the public.
12 PROFIT AND LOSS

A special case is that of the conduct of government

affairs, the administration of the social apparatus of
coercion and oppression, viz. the police power. The
objectives of government, the protection of the invio-
lability of the individuals' lives and health and of their
efforts to improve the material conditions of their exis-
tence, are indispensable. They benefit all and are the
necessary prerequisite of social cooperation and civi-
lization. But they cannot be sold and bought in the
way merchandise is sold and bought; they have there-
fore no price on the market. With regard to them there
cannot be any economic calculation. The costs
expended for their conduct cannot be confronted with
a price received for the product. This state of affairs
would make the officers entrusted with the adminis-
tration of governmental activities irresponsible despots
if they were not curbed by the budget system. Under
this system the administrators are forced to comply
with detailed instructions enjoined upon them by the
sovereign, be it a self-appointed autocrat or the whole
people acting through elected representatives. To the
officers limited funds are assigned which they are
bound to spend only for those purposes which the
sovereign has ordered. Thus the management of pub-
lic administration becomes bureaucratic, i.e., depend-
ent on definite detailed rules and regulations.
Bureaucratic management is the only alternative
available where there is no profit and loss manage-
ment.1

1Cf. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (New

Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1949), pp. 306–07; Bureaucracy,
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1944), pp. 40–73.
LUDWIG VON MISES 13

4. The Ballot of the Market

The consumers by their buying and abstention

from buying elect the entrepreneurs in a daily
repeated plebiscite as it were. They determine who
should own and who not, and how much each owner
should own.
As is the case with all acts of choosing a person—
choosing holders of public office, employees, friends,
or a consort—the decisions of the consumers are made
on the ground of experience and thus necessarily
always refers to the past. There is no experience of the
future. The ballot of the market elevates those who in
the immediate past have best served the consumers.
However, the choice is not unalterable and can daily
be corrected. The elected who disappoints the elec-
torate is speedily reduced to the ranks.
Each ballot of the consumers adds only a little to
the elected man’s sphere of action. To reach the upper
levels of entrepreneurship he needs a great number of
votes, repeated again and again over a long period of
time, a protracted series of successful strokes. He must
stand every day a new trial, must submit anew to
reelection as it were.
It is the same with his heirs. They can retain their
eminent position only by receiving again and again
confirmation on the part of the public. Their office is
revocable. If they retain it, it is not on account of the
deserts of their predecessor, but on account of their
own ability to employ the capital for the best possible
satisfaction of the consumers.
The entrepreneurs are neither perfect nor good in
any metaphysical sense. They owe their position
14 PROFIT AND LOSS

exclusively to the fact that they are better fit for the
performance of the functions incumbent upon them
than other people are. They earn profit not because
they are clever in performing their tasks, but because
they are more clever or less clumsy than other people
are. They are not infallible and often blunder. But they
are less liable to error and blunder less than other peo-
ple do. Nobody has the right to take offense at the
errors made by the entrepreneurs in the conduct of
affairs and to stress the point that people would have
been better supplied if the entrepreneurs had been
more skillful and prescient. If the grumbler knew bet-
ter, why did he not himself fill the gap and seize the
opportunity to earn profits? It is easy indeed to display
foresight after the event. In retrospect all fools become
wise.
A popular chain of reasoning runs this way: The
entrepreneur earns profit not only on account of the
fact that other people were less successful than he in
anticipating correctly the future state of the market. He
himself contributed to the emergence of profit by not
producing more of the article concerned; but for inten-
tional restriction of output on his part, the supply of
this article would have been so ample that the price
would have dropped to a point at which no surplus of
proceeds over costs of production expended would
have emerged. This reasoning is at the bottom of the
spurious doctrines of imperfect and monopolistic com-
petition. It was resorted to a short time ago by the
American Administration when it blamed the enter-
prises of the steel industry for the fact that the steel
production capacity of the United States was not
greater than it really was.
LUDWIG VON MISES 15

Certainly those engaged in the production of steel

are not responsible for the fact that other people did
not likewise enter this field of production. The
reproach on the part of the authorities would have
been sensible if they had conferred on the existing
steel corporations the monopoly of steel production.
But in the absence of such a privilege, the reprimand
given to the operating mills is not more justified than
it would be to censure the nation’s poets and musi-
cians for the fact that there are not more and better
poets and musicians. If somebody is to blame for the
fact that the number of people who joined the volun-
tary civilian defense organization is not larger, then it
is not those who have already joined but only those
who have not.
That the production of a commodity p is not larger
than it really is, is due to the fact that the comple-
mentary factors of production required for an expan-
sion were employed for the production of other com-
modities. To speak of an insufficiency of the supply of
p is empty rhetoric if it does not indicate the various
products m which were produced in too large quanti-
ties with the effect that their production appears now,
i.e., after the event, as a waste of scarce factors of pro-
duction. We may assume that the entrepreneurs who
instead of producing additional quantities of p turned
to the production of excessive amounts of m and con-
sequently suffered losses, did not intentionally make
their mistake.
Neither did the producers of p intentionally restrict
the production of p. Every entrepreneur’s capital is
limited; he employs it for those projects which, he
16 PROFIT AND LOSS

expects, will, by filling the most urgent demand of the

public, yield the highest profit.
An entrepreneur at whose disposal are 100 units of
capital employs, for instance, 50 units for the produc-
tion of p and 50 units for the production of q. If both
lines are profitable, it is odd to blame him for not hav-
ing employed more, e.g., 75 units, for the production
of p. He could increase the production of p only by
curtailing correspondingly the production of q. But
with regard to q the same fault could be found by the
grumblers. If one blames the entrepreneur for not hav-
ing produced more p, one must blame him also for not
having produced more q. This means: one blames the
entrepreneur for the facts that there is a scarcity of the
factors of production and that the earth is not a land
of Cockaigne.
Perhaps the grumbler will object on the ground
that he considers p a vital commodity, much more
important than q, and that therefore the production of
p should be expanded and that of q restricted. If this
is really the meaning of his criticism, he is at variance
with the valuations of the consumers. He throws off
his mask and shows his dictatorial aspirations. Produc-
tion should not be directed by the wishes of the pub-
lic but by his own despotic discretion.
But if our entrepreneur’s production of q involves
a loss, it is obvious that his fault was poor foresight
and not intentional.
Entrance into the ranks of the entrepreneurs in a
market society, not sabotaged by the interference of
government or other agencies resorting to violence, is
open to everybody. Those who know how to take
advantage of any business opportunity cropping up
LUDWIG VON MISES 17

will always find the capital required. For the market is

always full of capitalists anxious to find the most
promising employment for their funds and in search of
the ingenious newcomers, in partnership with whom
they could execute the most remunerative projects.
People often failed to realize this inherent feature
of capitalism because they did not grasp the meaning
and the effects of capital scarcity. The task of the
entrepreneur is to select from the multitude of techno-
logically feasible projects those which will satisfy the
most urgent of the not yet satisfied needs of the pub-
lic. Those projects for the execution of which the cap-
ital supply does not suffice must not be carried out.
The market is always crammed with visionaries who
want to float such impracticable and unworkable
schemes. It is these dreamers who always complain
about the blindness of the capitalists who are too stu-
pid to look after their own interests. Of course, the
investors often err in the choice of their investments.
But these faults consist precisely in the fact that they
preferred an unsuitable project to another that would
have satisfied more urgent needs of the buying public.
People often err very lamentably in estimating the
work of the creative genius. Only a minority of men
are appreciative enough to attach the right value to the
achievement of poets, artists, and thinkers. It may hap-
pen that the indifference of his contemporaries makes
it impossible for a genius to accomplish what he
would have accomplished if his fellow men had dis-
played better judgment. The way in which the poet
laureate and the philosopher à la mode are selected is
certainly questionable.
18 PROFIT AND LOSS

But it is impermissible to question the free market’s

choice of the entrepreneurs. The consumers' prefer-
ence for definite articles may be open to condemna-
tion from the point of view of a philosopher’s judg-
ment. But judgments of value are necessarily always
personal and subjective. The consumer chooses what,
as he thinks, satisfies him best. Nobody is called upon
to determine what could make another man happier or
less unhappy. The popularity of motor cars, television
sets, and nylon stockings may be criticized from a
“higher” point of view. But these are the things that
people are asking for. They cast their ballots for those
entrepreneurs who offer them this merchandise of the
best quality at the cheapest price.
In choosing between various political parties and
programs for the commonwealth’s social and eco-
nomic organization most people are uninformed and
groping in the dark. The average voter lacks the
insight to distinguish between policies suitable to
attain the ends he is aiming at and those unsuitable.
He is at a loss to examine the long chains of aprioris-
tic reasoning which constitute the philosophy of a
comprehensive social program. He may at best form
some opinion about the short-run effects of the poli-
cies concerned. He is helpless in dealing with the
long-run effects. The socialists and communists in
principle often assert the infallibility of majority deci-
sions. However, they belie their own words in criticiz-
ing parliamentary majorities rejecting their creed, and
in denying to the people, under the one-party system,
the opportunity to choose between different parties.
But in buying a commodity or abstaining from its pur-
chase there is nothing else involved than the consumer’s
LUDWIG VON MISES 19

longing for the best possible satisfaction of his instanta-

neous wishes. The consumer does not—like the voter in
political voting—choose between different means whose
effects appear only later. He chooses between things
which immediately provide satisfaction. His decision is
final.
An entrepreneur earns profit by serving the con-
sumers, the people, as they are and not as they should
be according to the fancies of some grumbler or
potential dictator.

5. The Social Function of Profit and Loss

Profits are never normal. They appear only where

there is a maladjustment, a divergence between actual
production and production as it should be in order to
utilize the available material and mental resources for
the best possible satisfaction of the wishes of the pub-
lic. They are the prize of those who remove this mal-
adjustment; they disappear as soon as the maladjust-
ment is entirely removed. In the imaginary construc-
tion of an evenly rotating economy there are no prof-
its. There the sum of the prices of the complementary
factors of production, due allowance being made for
time preference, coincides with the price of the prod-
uct.
The greater the preceding maladjustments, the
greater the profit earned by their removal. Maladjust-
ments may sometimes be called excessive. But it is
inappropriate to apply the epithet “excessive” to prof-
its.
20 PROFIT AND LOSS

People arrive at the idea of excessive profits by

confronting the profit earned with the capital
employed in the enterprise and measuring the profit as
a percentage of the capital. This method is suggested
by the customary procedure applied in partnerships
and corporations for the assignment of quotas of the
total profit to the individual partners and shareholders.
These men have contributed to a different extent to
the realization of the project and share in the profits
and losses according to the extent of their contribu-
tion.
But it is not the capital employed that creates prof-
its and losses. Capital does not “beget profit” as Marx
thought. The capital goods as such are dead things that
in themselves do not accomplish anything. If they are
utilized according to a good idea, profit results. If they
are utilized according to a mistaken idea, no profit or
losses result. It is the entrepreneurial decision that cre-
ates either profit or loss. It is mental acts, the mind of
the entrepreneur, from which profits ultimately origi-
nate. Profit is a product of the mind, of success in
anticipating the future state of the market. It is a spiri-
tual and intellectual phenomenon.
The absurdity of condemning any profits as exces-
sive can easily be shown. An enterprise with a capital
of the amount c produced a definite quantity of p
which it sold at prices that brought a surplus of pro-
ceeds over costs of s and consequently a profit of n
per cent. If the entrepreneur had been less capable, he
would have needed a capital of 2c for the production
of the same quantity of p. For the sake of argument we
may even neglect the fact that this would have neces-
sarily increased costs of production as it would have
LUDWIG VON MISES 21

doubled the interest on the capital employed, and we

may assume that s would have remained unchanged.
But at any rate s would have been confronted with 2c
instead of c and thus the profit would have been only
n/2 per cent of the capital employed. The “excessive”
profit would have been reduced to a “fair” level. Why?
Because the entrepreneur was less efficient and
because his lack of efficiency deprived his fellow men
of all the advantages they could have got if an amount
c of capital goods had been left available for the pro-
duction of other merchandise.
In branding profits as excessive and penalizing the
efficient entrepreneurs by discriminatory taxation,
people are injuring themselves. Taxing profits is tanta-
mount to taxing success in best serving the public. The
only goal of all production activities is to employ the
factors of production in such a way that they render
the highest possible output. The smaller the input
required for the production of an article becomes, the
more of the scarce factors of production are left for the
production of other articles. But the better an entre-
preneur succeeds in this regard, the more is he vilified
and the more is he soaked by taxation. Increasing
costs per unit of output, that is, waste, is praised as a
virtue.
The most amazing manifestation of this com-
plete failure to grasp the task of production and the
nature and functions of profit and loss is shown in
the popular superstition that profit is an addendum to
the costs of production, the height of which depends
uniquely on the discretion of the seller. It is this belief
that guides governments in controlling prices. It is the
same belief that has prompted many governments to
22 PROFIT AND LOSS

make arrangements with their contractors according to

which the price to be paid for an article delivered is to
equal costs of production expended by the seller
increased by a definite percentage. The effect was that
the purveyor got a surplus the higher, the less he suc-
ceeded in avoiding superfluous costs. Contracts of this
type enhanced considerably the sums the United States
had to expend in the two World Wars. But the bureau-
crats, first of all the professors of economics who
served in the various war agencies, boasted of their
clever handling of the matter.
All people, entrepreneurs as well as non-entrepre-
neurs, look askance upon any profits earned by other
people. Envy is a common weakness of men. People
are loath to acknowledge the fact that they themselves
could have earned profits if they had displayed the
same foresight and judgment the successful business-
man did. Their resentment is the more violent, the
more they are subconsciously aware of this fact.
There would not be any profits but for the eager-
ness of the public to acquire the merchandise offered
for sale by the successful entrepreneur. But the same
people who scramble for these articles vilify the busi-
nessman and call his profit ill-got.
The semantic expression of this enviousness is the
distinction between earned and unearned income. It
permeates the textbooks, the language of the laws and
administrative procedure. Thus, for instance, the official
Form 201 for the New York State Income Tax Return
calls “Earnings” only the compensation received by
employees and, by implication, all other income, also
that resulting from the exercise of a profession,
unearned income. Such is the terminology of a state
LUDWIG VON MISES 23

whose governor is a Republican and whose state

assembly has a Republican majority.
Public opinion condones profits only as far as they
do not exceed the salary paid to an employee. All sur-
plus is rejected as unfair. The objective of taxation is,
under the ability-to-pay principle, to confiscate this
surplus.
Now one of the main functions of profits is to shift
the control of capital to those who know how to
employ it in the best possible way for the satisfaction
of the public. The more profits a man earns, the
greater his wealth consequently becomes, the more
influential does he become in the conduct of business
affairs. Profit and loss are the instruments by means of
which the consumers pass the direction of production
activities into the hands of those who are best fit to
serve them. Whatever is undertaken to curtail or to
confiscate profits impairs this function. The result of
such measures is to loosen the grip the consumers
hold over the course of production. The economic
machine becomes, from the point of view of the peo-
ple, less efficient and less responsive.
The jealousy of the common man looks upon the
profits of the entrepreneurs as if they were totally used
for consumption. A part of them is, of course, con-
sumed. But only those entrepreneurs attain wealth and
influence in the realm of business who consume
merely a fraction of their proceeds and plough back
the much greater part into their enterprises. What
makes small business develop into big business is not
spending, but saving and capital accumulation.
24 PROFIT AND LOSS

6. Profit and Loss in the Progressing and

in the Retrogressing Economy

We call a stationary economy an economy in which

the per head quota of the income and wealth of the
individuals remains unchanged. In such an economy
what the consumers spend more for the purchase of
some articles must be equal to what they spend less
for other articles. The total amount of the profits
earned by one part of the entrepreneurs equals the
total amount of losses suffered by other entrepreneurs.
A surplus of the sum of all profits earned in the
whole economy above the sum of all losses suffered
emerges only in a progressing economy, that is in an
economy in which the per head quota of capital
increases. This increment is an effect of saving that
adds new capital goods to the quantity already previ-
ously available. The increase of capital available cre-
ates maladjustments insofar as it brings about a dis-
crepancy between the actual state of production and
that state which the additional capital makes possible.
Thanks to the emergence of additional capital, certain
projects which hitherto could not be executed become
feasible. In directing the new capital into those chan-
nels in which it satisfies the most urgent among the
previously not satisfied wants of the consumers, the
entrepreneurs earn profits which are not counterbal-
anced by the losses of other entrepreneurs.
The enrichment which the additional capital gen-
erates goes only in part to those who have created it
by saving. The rest goes, by raising the marginal pro-
ductivity of labor and thereby wage rates, to the earn-
ers of wages and salaries and, by raising the prices of
LUDWIG VON MISES 25

definite raw materials and food stuffs, to the owners of

land, and, finally, to the entrepreneurs who integrate
this new capital into the most economical production
processes. But while the gain of the wage earners and
of the landowners is permanent, the profits of the
entrepreneurs disappear once this integration is
accomplished. Profits of the entrepreneurs are, as has
been mentioned already, a permanent phenomenon
only on account of the fact that maladjustments appear
daily anew by the elimination of which profits are
earned.
Let us for the sake of argument resort to the con-
cept of national income as employed in popular eco-
nomics. Then it is obvious that in a stationary econ-
omy no part of the national income goes into profits.
Only in a progressing economy is there a surplus of
total profits over total losses. The popular belief that
profits are a deduction from the income of workers
and consumers is entirely fallacious. If we want to
apply the term deduction to the issue, we have to say
that this surplus of profits over losses as well as the
increments of the wage earners and the landowners is
deducted from the gains of those whose saving
brought about the additional capital. It is their saving
that is the vehicle of economic improvment, that
makes the employment of technological innovations
possible and raises productivity and the standard of
living. It is the entrepreneurs whose activity takes care
of the most economical employment of the additional
capital. As far as they themselves do not save, neither
the workers nor the landowners contribute anything
to the emergence of the circumstances which gener-
ate what is called economic progress and improve-
ment. They are benefited by other peoples’ saving
26 PROFIT AND LOSS

that creates additional capital on the one hand and by

the entrepreneurial action that directs this additional
capital toward the satisfaction of the most urgent wants
on the other hand. A retrogressing economy is an
economy in which the per head quota of capital
invested is decreasing. In such an economy the total
amount of losses incurred by entrepreneurs exceeds
the total amount of profits earned by other entrepre-
neurs.

7. The Computation of Profit and Loss

The originary praxeological categories of profit and

loss are psychic qualities and not reducible to any
interpersonal description in quantitative terms. They
are intensive magnitudes. The difference between the
value of the end attained and that of the means
applied for its attainment is profit if it is positive and
loss if it is negative.
Where there are social division of efforts and coop-
eration as well as private ownership of the means of
production, economic calculation in terms of monetary
units becomes feasible and necessary. Profit and loss
are computable as social phenomena. The psychic
phenomena of profit and loss, from which they are
ultimately derived, remain, of course, incalculable
intensive magnitudes.
The fact that in the frame of the market economy
entrepreneurial profit and loss are determined by arith-
metical operations has misled many people. They fail
to see that essential items that enter into this calcula-
tion are estimates emanating from the entrepreneur’s
LUDWIG VON MISES 27

specific understanding of the future state of the mar-

ket. They think that these computations are open to
examination and verification or alteration on the part
of a disinterested expert. They ignore the fact that such
computations are as a rule an inherent part of the
entrepreneur’s speculative anticipation of uncertain
future conditions.
For the task of this essay it suffices to refer to one
of the problems of cost accounting. One of the items
of a bill of costs is the establishment of the difference
between the price paid for the acquisition of what is
commonly called durable production equipment and
its present value. This present value is the money
equivalent of the contribution this equipment will
make to future earnings. There is no certainty about
the future state of the market and about the height of
these earnings. They can only be determined by a
speculative anticipation on the part of the entrepre-
neur. It is preposterous to call in an expert and to sub-
stitute his arbitrary judgment for that of the entrepre-
neur. The expert is objective insofar as he is not
affected by an error made. But the entrepreneur
exposes his own material well-being.
Of course, the law determines magnitudes which it
calls profit and loss. But these magnitudes are not
identical with the economic concepts of profit and loss
and must not be confused with them. If a tax law calls
a magnitude profit, it in effect determines the height of
taxes due. It calls this magnitude profit because it
wants to justify its tax policy in the eyes of the public.
It would be more correct for the legislator to omit the
term profit and simply to speak of the basis for the
computation of the tax due.
28 PROFIT AND LOSS

The tendency of the tax laws is to compute what

they call profit as high as possible in order to increase
immediate public revenue. But there are other laws
which are committed to the tendency to restrict the
magnitude they call profit. The commercial codes of
many nations were and are guided by the endeavor to
protect the rights of creditors. They aimed at restricting
what they called profit in order to prevent the entre-
preneur from withdrawing to the prejudice of creditors
too much from the firm or corporation for his own
benefit. It was these tendencies which were operative
in the evolution of the commercial usages concerning
the customary height of depreciation quotas.
There is no need today to dwell upon the problem
of the falsification of economic calculation under infla-
tionary conditions. All people begin to comprehend
the phenomenon of illusory profits, the offshoot of the
great inflations of our age.
Failure to grasp the effects of inflation upon the
customary methods of computing profits originated the
modern concept of profiteering. An entrepreneur is
dubbed a profiteer if his profit and loss statement, cal-
culated in terms of a currency subject to a rapidly pro-
gressing inflation, shows profits which other people
deem “excessive.” It has happened very often in many
countries that the profit and loss statement of such a
profiteer, when calculated in terms of a noninflated or
less inflated currency, showed not only no profit at all
but considerable losses.
Even if we neglect for the sake of argument any
reference to the phenomenon of merely inflation-
induced illusory profits, it is obvious that the epithet
profiteer is the expression of an arbitrary judgment of
LUDWIG VON MISES 29

value. There is no other standard available for the dis-

tinction between profiteering and earning fair profits
than that provided by the censor’s personal envy and
resentment.
It is strange indeed that an eminent logician, the
late L. Susan Stebbing, entirely failed to perceive the
issue involved. Professor Stebbing equated the con-
cept of profiteering to concepts which refer to a clear
distinction of such a nature that no sharp line can be
drawn between extremes. The distinction between
excess profits or profiteering, and “legitimate profits,”
she declared, is clear, although it is not a sharp dis-
tinction.2 Now this distinction is clear only in reference
to an act of legislation that defines the term excess
profits as used in its context. But this is not what Steb-
bing had in mind. She explicitly emphasized that such
legal definitions are made “in an arbitrary manner for
the practical purposes of administration.” She used the
term legitimate without any reference to legal statutes
and their definitions. But is it permissible to employ
the term legitimate without reference to any standard
from the point of view of which the thing in question
is to be considered as legitimate? And is there any
other standard available for the distinction between
profiteering and legitimate profits than one provided
by personal judgments of value?
Professor Stebbing referred to the famous acervus
and calvus arguments of the old logicians. Many words
are vague insofar as they apply to characteristics which

2Cf. L. Susan Stebbing, Thinking to Some Purpose (New York: Pelican

Books, 1939), pp. 185–87.
30 PROFIT AND LOSS

may be possessed in varying degrees. It is impossible

to draw a sharp line between those who are bald and
those who are not. It is impossible to define precisely
the concept of baldness. But what Professor Stebbing
failed to notice is that the characteristic according to
which people distinguish between those who are bald
and those who are not is open to a precise definition.
It is the presence or the absence of hair on the head
of a person. This is a clear and unambiguous mark of
which the presence or absence is to be established by
observation and to be expressed by propositions about
existence. What is vague is merely the determination
of the point at which non-baldness turns into baldness.
People may disagree with regard to the determination
of this point. But their disagreements refer to the inter-
pretation of the convention that attaches a certain
meaning to the word baldness. No judgments of value
are implied. It may, of course, happen that the differ-
ence of opinion is in a concrete case caused by bias.
But this is another thing.
The vagueness of words like bald is the same that
is inherent in the indefinite numerals and pronouns.
Language needs such terms, as for many purposes of
daily communication between men, an exact arith-
metical establishment of quantities is superfluous and
too bothersome. Logicians are badly mistaken in
attempting to attach to such words, whose vagueness
is intentional and serves definite purposes, the preci-
sion of the definite numerals. For an individual who
plans to visit Seattle the information that there are
many hotels in this city is sufficient. A committee that
plans to hold a convention in Seattle needs precise
information about the number of hotel beds available.
LUDWIG VON MISES 31

Professor Stebbing’s error consisted in the confu-

sion of existential propositions with judgments of
value. Her unfamiliarity with the problems of eco-
nomics, which all her otherwise valuable writings dis-
play, led her astray. She would not have made such a
blunder in a field that was better known to her. She
would not have declared that there is a clear distinc-
tion between an author’s “legitimate royalties” and
“illegitimate royalties.” She would have comprehended
that the height of the royalties depends on the public’s
appreciation of a book and that an observer who crit-
icizes the height of royalties merely expresses his per-
sonal judgment of value.
B. THE CONDEMNATION OF PROFIT

1. Economics and the Abolition of Profit

Those who spurn entrepreneurial profit as

“unearned” mean that it is lucre unfairly withheld
either from the workers or from the consumers or from
both. Such is the idea underlying the alleged “right to
the whole produce of labor” and the Marxian doctrine
of exploitation. It can be said that most governments—
if not all—and the immense majority of our contem-
poraries by and large endorse this opinion although
some of them are generous enough to acquiesce in the
suggestion that a fraction of profits should be left to
the “exploiters.”
There is no use in arguing about the adequacy of
ethical precepts. They are derived from intuition; they
are arbitrary and subjective. There is no objective stan-
dard available with regard to which they could be
judged. Ultimate ends are chosen by the individual’s
judgments of value. They cannot be determined by
scientific inquiry and logical reasoning. If a man says,
“This is what I am aiming at whatever the conse-
quences of my conduct and the price I shall have to

33
34 PROFIT AND LOSS

pay for it may be,” nobody is in a position to oppose

any arguments against him. But the question is
whether it is really true that this man is ready to pay
any price for the attainment of the end concerned. If
this latter question is answered in the negative, it
becomes possible to enter into an examination of the
issue involved.
If there were really people who are prepared to
put up with all the consequences of the abolition of
profit, however detrimental they may be, it would not
be possible for economics to deal with the problem.
But this is not the case. Those who want to abolish
profit are guided by the idea that this confiscation
would improve the material well-being of all non-
entrepreneurs. In their eyes the abolition of profit is
not an ultimate end but a means for the attainment of
a definite end, viz., the enrichment of the non-entre-
preneurs. Whether this end can really be attained by
the employment of this means and whether the
employment of this means does not perhaps bring
about some other effects which may to some or to all
people appear more undesirable than conditions
before the employment of this means, these are ques-
tions which economics is called upon to examine.

2. The Consequences of the Abolition of Profit

The idea to abolish profit for the advantage of the

consumers involves that the entrepreneur should be
forced to sell the products at prices not exceeding the
costs of production expended. As such prices are, for
all articles the sale of which would have brought
LUDWIG VON MISES 35

profit, below the potential market price, the available

supply is not sufficient to make it possible for all those
who want to buy at these prices to acquire the articles.
The market is paralyzed by the maximum price
decree. It can no longer allocate the products to the
consumers. A system of rationing must be adopted.
The suggestion to abolish the entrepreneur’s profit
for the benefit of the employees aims not at the aboli-
tion of profit. It aims at wresting it from the hands of
the entrepreneur and handing it over to his employees.
Under such a scheme the incidence of losses
incurred falls upon the entrepreneur, while profits go
to the employees. It is probable that the effect of this
arrangement would consist in making losses increase
and profits dwindle. At any rate, a greater part of the
profits would be consumed and less would be saved
and ploughed back into the enterprise. No capital
would be available for the establishment of new
branches of production and for the transfer of capital
from branches which—in compliance with the demand
of the customers—should shrink into branches which
should expand. For it would harm the interests of those
employed in a definite enterprise or branch to restrict
the capital employed in it and to transfer it into another
enterprise or branch. If such a scheme had been
adopted half a century ago, all the innovations accom-
plished in this period would have been rendered
impossible. If, for the sake of argument, we were pre-
pared to neglect any reference to the problem of capi-
tal accumulation, we would still have to realize that
giving profit to the employees must result in rigidity of
the once attained state of production and preclude any
adjustment, improvement, and progress.
36 PROFIT AND LOSS

In fact, the scheme would transfer ownership of

the capital invested into the hands of the employees.
It would be tantamount to the establishment of syndi-
calism and would generate all the effects of syndical-
ism, a system which no author or reformer ever had
the courage to advocate openly.
A third solution of the problem would be to con-
fiscate all the profits earned by the entrepreneurs for
the benefit of the state. A one hundred per cent tax on
profits would accomplish this task. It would transform
the entrepreneurs into irresponsible administrators of
all plants and workshops. They would no longer be
subject to the supremacy of the buying public. They
would just be people who have the power to deal with
production as it pleases them.
The policies of all contemporary governments
which have not adopted outright socialism apply all
these three schemes jointly. They confiscate by various
measures of price control a part of the potential prof-
its for the alleged benefit of the consumers. They sup-
port the labor unions in their endeavors to wrest,
under the ability-to-pay principle of wage determina-
tion, a part of the profits from the entrepreneurs. And,
last but not least, they are intent upon confiscating, by
progressive income taxes, special taxes on corporation
income and “excess profits” taxes, an ever increasing
part of profits for public revenue. It can easily be seen
that these policies if continued will very soon succeed
in abolishing entrepreneurial profit altogether.
The joint effect of the application of these policies
is already today rising chaos. The final effect will be
the full realization of socialism by smoking out the
entrepreneurs. Capitalism cannot survive the abolition
LUDWIG VON MISES 37

of profit. It is profit and loss that force the capitalists

to employ their capital for the best possible service to
the consumers. It is profit and loss that make those
people supreme in the conduct of business who are
best fit to satisfy the public. If profit is abolished, chaos
results.

3. The Anti-Profit Arguments

All the reasons advanced in favor of an anti-profit

policy are the outcome of an erroneous interpretation
of the operation of the market economy.
The tycoons are too powerful, too rich, and too
big. They abuse their power for their own enrichment.
They are irresponsible tyrants. Bigness of an enterprise
is in itself an evil. There is no reason why some men
should own millions while others are poor. The wealth
of the few is the cause of the poverty of the masses.
Each word of these passionate denunciations is
false. The businessmen are not irresponsible tyrants. It
is precisely the necessity of making profits and avoid-
ing losses that gives to the consumers a firm hold over
the entrepreneurs and forces them to comply with the
wishes of the people. What makes a firm big is its suc-
cess in best filling the demands of the buyers. If the
bigger enterprise did not better serve the people than
a smaller one, it would long since have been reduced
to smallness. There is no harm in a businessman’s
endeavors to enrich himself by increasing his profits.
The businessman has in his capacity as a businessman
only one task: to strive after the highest possible profit.
Huge profits are the proof of good service rendered in
38 PROFIT AND LOSS

supplying the consumers. Losses are the proof of blun-

ders committed, of failure to perform satisfactorily the
tasks incumbent upon an entrepreneur. The riches of
successful entrepreneurs are not the cause of any-
body’s poverty; it is the consequence of the fact that
the consumers are better supplied than they would
have been in the absence of the entrepreneur’s effort.
The penury of millions in the backward countries is
not caused by anybody’s opulence; it is the correlative
of the fact that their country lacks entrepreneurs who
have acquired riches. The standard of living of the
common man is highest in those countries which have
the greatest number of wealthy entrepreneurs. It is to
the foremost material interest of everybody that control
of the factors of production should be concentrated in
the hands of those who know how to utilize them in
the most efficient way.
It is the avowed objective of the policies of all
present-day governments and political parties to pre-
vent the emergence of new millionaires. If this policy
had been adopted in the United States fifty years ago
the growth of the industries producing new articles
would have been stunted. Motorcars, refrigerators,
radio sets, and a hundred other less spectacular but
even more useful innovations would not have become
standard equipment in most of the American family
households.
The average wage earner thinks that nothing else
is needed to keep the social apparatus of production
running and to improve and to increase output than
the comparatively simple routine work assigned to
him. He does not realize that the mere toil and trouble
of the routinist is not sufficient. Sedulousness and skill
LUDWIG VON MISES 39

are spent in vain if they are not directed toward the

most important goal by the entrepreneur’s foresight
and are not aided by the capital accumulated by capi-
talists. The American worker is badly mistaken when
he believes that his high standard of living is due to
his own excellence. He is neither more industrious nor
more skillful than the workers of Western Europe. He
owes his superior income to the fact that his country
clung to “rugged individualism” much longer than
Europe. It was his luck that the United States turned to
an anticapitalistic policy as much as forty or fifty years
later than Germany. His wages are higher than those
of the workers of the rest of the world because the
capital equipment per head of the employee is highest
in America and because the American entrepreneur
was not so much restricted by crippling regimentation
as his colleagues in other areas. The comparatively
greater prosperity of the United States is an outcome
of the fact that the New Deal did not come in 1900 or
1910, but only in 1933.
If one wants to study the reasons for Europe’s
backwardness, it would be necessary to examine the
manifold laws and regulations that prevented in
Europe the establishment of an equivalent of the
American drug store and crippled the evolution of
chain stores, department stores, super markets, and
kindred outfits. It would be important to investigate
the German Reich’s effort to protect the inefficient
methods of traditional Handwerk (handicraft) against
the competition of capitalist business. Still more
revealing would be an examination of the Austrian
Gewerbepolitik, a policy that from the early eighties on
aimed at preserving the economic structure of the ages
preceding the Industrial Revolution.
40 PROFIT AND LOSS

The worst menace to prosperity and civilization

and to the material well-being of the wage earners is
the inability of union bosses, of “union economists”
and of the less intelligent strata of the workers them-
selves to appreciate the role entrepreneurs play in pro-
duction. This lack of insight has found a classical
expression in the writings of Lenin. As Lenin saw it all
that production requires besides the manual work of
the laborer and the designing of the engineers is “con-
trol of production and distribution,” a task that can eas-
ily be accomplished “by the armed workers.” For this
accounting and control “have been simplified by capi-
talism to the utmost, till they have become the extraor-
dinarily simple operations of watching, recording and
issuing receipts, within the reach of everybody who
can read and write and knows the first four rules of
arithmetic.”3 No further comment is needed.

4. The Equality Argument

In the eyes of the parties who style themselves pro-

gressive and leftist the main vice of capitalism is the
inequality of incomes and wealth. The ultimate end of
their policies is to establish equality. The moderates
want to attain this goal step by step; the radicals plan
to attain it at one stroke, by a revolutionary overthrow
of the capitalist mode of production.

3V.I. Lenin, State and Revolution (New York: Edition by International

Publishers, 1917), pp. 83–84). The italics are Lenin’s (or the commu-
nist translator’s).
LUDWIG VON MISES 41

However, in talking about equality and asking

vehemently for its realization, nobody advocates a cur-
tailment of his own present income. The term equality
as employed in contemporary political language
always means upward leveling of one’s income, never
downward leveling. It means getting more, not sharing
one’s own affluence with people who have less.
If the American automobile worker, railroadman,
or compositor says equality, he means expropriating
the holders of shares and bonds for his own benefit.
He does not consider sharing with the unskilled work-
ers who earn less. At best, he thinks of equality of all
American citizens. It never occurs to him that the peo-
ples of Latin America, Asia, and Africa may interpret
the postulate of equality as world equality and not as
national equality.
The political labor movement as well as the labor
union movement flamboyantly advertise their interna-
tionalism. But this internationalism is a mere rhetorical
gesture without any substantial meaning. In every coun-
try in which average wage rates are higher than in any
other area, the unions advocate insurmountable immi-
gration barriers in order to prevent foreign “comrades”
and “brothers” from competing with their own members.
Compared with the anti-immigration laws of the Euro-
pean nations, the immigration legislation of the American
republics is mild indeed because it permits the immigra-
tion of a limited number of people. No such normal quo-
tas are provided in most of the European laws.
All the arguments advanced in favor of income
equalization within a country can with the same justi-
fication or lack of justification also be advanced in
favor of world equalization. An American worker has
42 PROFIT AND LOSS

no better title to claim the savings of the American cap-

italist than has any foreigner. That a man has earned
profits by serving the consumers and has not entirely
consumed his funds but ploughed back the greater
part of them into industrial equipment does not give
anybody a valid title to expropriate this capital for his
own benefit. But if one maintains the opinion to the
contrary, there is certainly no reason to ascribe to any-
body a better right to expropriate than to anybody
else. There is no reason to assert that only Americans
have the right to expropriate other Americans. The big
shots of American business are the scions of people
who immigrated to the United States from England,
Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, and other Euro-
pean countries. The people of their country of origin
contend that they have the same title to seize the prop-
erty acquired by these men as the American people
have. The American radicals are badly mistaken in
believing that their social program is identical or at least
compatible with the objectives of the radicals of other
countries. It is not. The foreign radicals will not acqui-
esce in leaving to the Americans, a minority of less than
7 percent of the world’s total population, what they
think is a privileged position. A world government of
the kind the American radicals are asking for would try
to confiscate by a world income tax all the surplus an
average American earns above the average income of a
Chinese or Indian worker. Those who question the cor-
rectness of this statement, would drop their doubts after
a conversation with any of the intellectual leaders of
Asia.
There is hardly any Iranian who would qualify the
objections raised by the British Labour Government
against the confiscation of the oil wells as anything
LUDWIG VON MISES 43

else but a manifestation of the most reactionary spirit

of capitalist exploitation. Today governments abstain
from virtually expropriating—by foreign exchange
control, discriminatory taxation and similar devices—
foreign investments only if they expect to get in the
next years more foreign capital and thus to be able in
the future to expropriate a greater amount.
The disintegration of the international capital mar-
ket is one of the most important effects of the anti-
profit mentality of our age. But no less disastrous is the
fact that the greater part of the world’s population
looks upon the United States—not only upon the
American capitalists but also upon the American work-
ers—with the same feelings of envy, hatred, and hos-
tility with which, stimulated by the socialist and com-
munist doctrines, the masses everywhere look upon
the capitalists of their own nation.

5. Communism and Poverty

A customary method of dealing with political pro-

grams and movements is to explain and to justify their
popularity by referring to the conditions which people
found unsatisfactory and to the goals they wanted to
attain by the realization of these programs.
However, the only thing that matters is whether or
not the program concerned is fit to attain the ends
sought. A bad program and a bad policy can never be
explained, still less justified by pointing to the unsatis-
factory conditions of its originators and supporters.
The sole question that counts is whether or not these
44 PROFIT AND LOSS

policies can remove or alleviate the evils which they

are designed to remedy.
Yet almost all our contemporaries declare again
and again: If you want to succeed in fighting commu-
nism, socialism, and interventionism, you must first of
all improve peoples' material conditions. The policy
of laissez faire aims precisely at making people more
prosperous. But it cannot succeed as long as want is
worsened more and more by socialist and interven-
tionist measures.
In the very short run the conditions of a part of the
people can be improved by expropriating entrepre-
neurs and capitalists and by distributing the booty. But
such predatory inroads, which even the Communist
Manifesto described as “despotic” and as “economically
insufficient and untenable,” sabotage the operation of
the market economy, impair very soon the conditions
of all the people and frustrate the endeavors of entre-
preneurs and capitalists to make the masses more pros-
perous. What is good for a quickly vanishing instant,
(i.e., in the shortest run) may very soon (i.e., in the long
run) result in most detrimental consequences.
Historians are mistaken in explaining the rise of
Nazism by referring to real or imaginary adversities and
hardships of the German people. What made the Ger-
mans support almost unanimously the twenty-five
points of the “unalterable” Hitler program was not some
conditions which they deemed unsatisfactory, but their
expectation that the execution of this program would
remove their complaints and render them happier. They
turned to Nazism because they lacked common sense
and intelligence. They were not judicious enough to
LUDWIG VON MISES 45

recognize in time the disasters that Nazism was bound

to bring upon them.
The immense majority of the world’s population is
extremely poor when compared with the average stan-
dard of living of the capitalist nations. But this poverty
does not explain their propensity to adopt the com-
munist program. They are anti-capitalistic because
they are blinded by envy, ignorance, and too dull to
appreciate correctly the causes of their distress. There
is but one means to improve their material conditions,
namely, to convince them that only capitalism can ren-
der them more prosperous.
The worst method to fight communism is that of
the Marshall Plan. It gives to the recipients the impres-
sion that the United States alone is interested in the
preservation of the profit system while their own con-
cerns require a communist regime. The United States,
they think, is aiding them because its people have a
bad conscience. They themselves pocket this bribe but
their sympathies go to the socialist system. The Amer-
ican subsidies make it possible for their governments
to conceal partially the disastrous effects of the various
socialist measures they have adopted.
Not poverty is the source of socialism, but spurious
ideological prepossessions. Most of our contempo-
raries reject beforehand, without having ever studied
them, all the teachings of economics as aprioristic non-
sense. Only experience, they maintain, is to be relied
upon. But is there any experience that would speak in
favor of socialism?
Retorts the socialist: But capitalism creates poverty;
look at India and China. The objection is vain. Neither
46 PROFIT AND LOSS

India nor China has ever established capitalism. Their

poverty is the result of the absence of capitalism.
What happened in these and other underdevel-
oped countries was that they were benefited from
abroad by some of the fruits of capitalism without hav-
ing adopted the capitalist mode of production. Euro-
pean, and in more recent years also American, capital-
ists invested capital in their areas and thereby
increased the marginal productivity of labor and wage
rates. At the same time these peoples received from
abroad the means to fight contagious diseases, med-
ications developed in the capitalist countries. Conse-
quently mortality rates, especially infant mortality,
dropped considerably. In the capitalist countries this
prolongation of the average length of life was partially
compensated by a drop in the birth rate. As capital
accumulation increased more quickly than population,
the per head quota of capital invested grew continu-
ously. The result was progressing prosperity. It was
different in the countries which enjoyed some of the
effects of capitalism without turning to capitalism.
There the birth rate did not decline at all or not to the
extent required to make the per head quota of capital
invested rise. These nations prevent by their policies
both the importation of foreign capital and the accu-
mulation of domestic capital. The joint effect of the
high birth rate and the absence of an increase in cap-
ital is, of course, increasing poverty.
There is but one means to improve the material
well-being of men, viz., to accelerate the increase in
capital accumulated as against population. No psycho-
logical lucubrations, however sophisticated, can alter
this fact. There is no excuse whatever for the pursuit
LUDWIG VON MISES 47

of policies which not only fail to attain the ends

sought, but even seriously impair conditions.

6. The Moral Condemnation of the Profit Motive

As soon as the problem of profits is raised, people

shift it from the praxeological sphere into the sphere of
ethical judgments of value. Then everybody glories in
the aureole of a saint and an ascetic. He himself does
not care for money and material well-being. He serves
his fellow men to the best of his abilities unselfishly. He
strives after higher and nobler things than wealth.
Thank God, he is not one of those egoistic profiteers.
The businessmen are blamed because the only
thing they have in mind is to succeed. Yet every-
body—without any exception—in acting aims at the
attainment of a definite end. The only alternative to
success is failure; nobody ever wants to fail. It is the
very essence of human nature that man consciously
aims at substituting a more satisfactory state of affairs
for a less satisfactory. What distinguishes the decent
man from the crook is the different goals they are aim-
ing at and the different means they are resorting to in
order to attain the ends chosen. But they both want to
succeed in their sense. It is logically impermissible to
distinguish between people who aim at success and
those who do not.
Practically everybody aims at improving the material
conditions of his existence. Public opinion takes no
offense at the endeavors of farmers, workers, clerks,
teachers, doctors, ministers, and people from many
other callings to earn as much as they can. But it cen-
sures the capitalists and entrepreneurs for their greed.
48 PROFIT AND LOSS

While enjoying without any scruples all the goods busi-

ness delivers, the consumer sharply condemns the self-
ishness of the purveyors of this merchandise. He does
not realize that he himself creates their profits by scram-
bling for the things they have to sell.
Neither does the average man comprehend that
profits are indispensable in order to direct the activities
of business into those channels in which they serve
him best. He looks upon profits as if their only func-
tion were to enable the recipients to consume more
than he himself does. He fails to realize that their main
function is to convey control of the factors of produc-
tion into the hands of those who best utilize them for
his own purposes. He did not, as he thinks, renounce
becoming an entrepreneur out of moral scruples. He
chose a position with a more modest yield because he
lacked the abilities required for entrepreneurship or, in
rare cases indeed, because his inclinations prompted
him to enter upon another career.
Mankind ought to be grateful to those exceptional
men who out of scientific zeal, humanitarian enthusi-
asm, or religious faith sacrificed their lives, health, and
wealth, in the service of their fellow men. But the
philistines practice self-deception in comparing them-
selves with the pioneers of medical X-ray application or
with nuns who attend people afflicted with the plague.
It is not self-denial that makes the average physician
choose a medical career, but the expectation of attain-
ing a respected social position and a suitable income.
Everybody is eager to charge for his services and
accomplishments as much as the traffic can bear. In
this regard there is no difference between the workers,
whether unionized or not, the ministers, and teachers
LUDWIG VON MISES 49

on the one hand and the entrepreneurs on the other

hand. None of them has the right to talk as if he were
Francis d’Assisi.
There is no other standard of what is morally good
and morally bad than the effects produced by conduct
upon social cooperation. A—hypothetical—isolated
and self-sufficient individual would not in acting have
to take into account anything else than his own well-
being. Social man must in all his actions avoid
indulging in any conduct that would jeopardize the
smooth working of the system of social cooperation.
In complying with the moral law, man does not sacri-
fice his own concerns to those of a mythical higher
entity, whether it is called class, state, nation, race, or
humanity. He curbs some of his own instinctive urges,
appetites and greed, that is his short-run concerns, in
order to serve best his own—rightly understood or
long-run—interests. He forgoes a small gain that he
could reap instantly lest he miss a greater but later sat-
isfaction. For the attainment of all human ends, what-
ever they may be, is conditioned by the preservation
and further development of social bonds and interhu-
man cooperation. What is an indispensable means to
intensify social cooperation and to make it possible for
more people to survive and to enjoy a higher standard
of living is morally good and socially desirable. Those
who reject this principle as unchristian ought to pon-
der over the text: “That thy days may be long upon the
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” They can
certainly not deny that capitalism has made man’s days
longer than they were in the precapitalistic ages.
There is no reason why capitalists and entrepre-
neurs should be ashamed of earning profits. It is silly
50 PROFIT AND LOSS

that some people try to defend American capitalism by

declaring: “The record of American business is good;
profits are not too high.” The function of entrepreneurs
is to make profits; high profits are the proof that they
have well performed their task of removing maladjust-
ments of production.
Of course, as a rule capitalists and entrepreneurs
are not saints excelling in the virtue of self-denial. But
neither are their critics saintly. And with all the regard
due to the sublime self-effacement of saints, we cannot
help stating the fact that the world would be in a rather
desolate condition if it were peopled exclusively by
men not interested in the pursuit of material well-being.

7. The Static Mentality

The average man lacks the imagination to realize

that the conditions of life and action are in a continual
flux. As he sees it, there is no change in the external
objects that constitute his well-being. His world view
is static and stationary. It mirrors a stagnating environ-
ment. He knows neither that the past differed from the
present nor that there prevails uncertainty about future
things. He is at a complete loss to conceive the func-
tion of entrepreneurship because he is unaware of this
uncertainty. Like children who take all the things the
parents give them without asking any questions, he
takes all the goods business offers him. He is unaware
of the efforts that supply him with all he needs. He
ignores the role of capital accumulation and of entre-
preneurial decisions. He simply takes it for granted
that a magic table appears at a moment’s notice laden
with all he wants to enjoy.
LUDWIG VON MISES 51

This mentality is reflected in the popular idea of

socialization. Once the parasitic capitalists and entre-
preneurs are thrown out, he himself will get all that
they used to consume. It is but the minor error of this
expectation that it grotesquely overrates the increment
in income, if any, each individual could receive from
such a distribution. Much more serious is the fact that
it assumes that the only thing required is to continue in
the various plants production of those goods they are
producing at the moment of the socialization in the
ways they were hitherto produced. No account is taken
of the necessity to adjust production daily anew to per-
petually changing conditions. The dilettante-socialist
does not comprehend that a socialization effected fifty
years ago would not have socialized the structure of
business as it exists today but a very different structure.
He does not give a thought to the enormous effort that
is needed in order to transform business again and
again to render the best possible service.
This dilettantish inability to comprehend the essen-
tial issues of the conduct of production affairs is not
only manifested in the writings of Marx and Engels. It
permeates no less the contributions of contemporary
psuedo-economics.
The imaginary construction of an evenly rotating
economy is an indispensable mental tool of economic
thinking. In order to conceive the function of profit
and loss, the economist constructs the image of a
hypothetical, although unrealizable, state of affairs in
which nothing changes, in which tomorrow does not
differ at all from today and in which consequently no
maladjustments can arise and no need for any alter-
ation in the conduct of business emerges. In the frame
52 PROFIT AND LOSS

of this imaginary construction there are no entrepre-

neurs and no entrepreneurial profits and losses. The
wheels turn spontaneously as it were. But the real
world in which men live and have to work can never
duplicate the hypothetical world of this mental
makeshift.
Now one of the main shortcomings of the mathe-
matical economists is that they deal with this evenly
rotating economy—they call it the static state—as if it
were something really existing. Prepossessed by the
fallacy that economics is to be treated with mathemat-
ical methods, they concentrate their efforts upon the
analysis of static states which, of course, allow a
description in sets of simultaneous differential equa-
tions. But this mathematical treatment virtually avoids
any reference to the real problems of economics. It
indulges in quite useless mathematical play without
adding anything to the comprehension of the prob-
lems of human acting and producing. It creates the
misunderstanding as if the analysis of static states were
the main concern of economics. It confuses a merely
ancillary tool of thinking with reality.
The mathematical economist is so blinded by his
epistemological prejudice that he simply fails to see
what the tasks of economics are. He is anxious to
show us that socialism is realizable under static condi-
tions. As static conditions, as he himself admits, are
unrealizable, this amounts merely to the assertion that
in an unrealizable state of the world socialism would
be realizable. A very valuable result, indeed, of a hun-
dred years of the joint work of hundreds of authors,
taught at all universities, publicized in innumerable
LUDWIG VON MISES 53

textbooks and monographs and in scores of allegedly

scientific magazines!
There is no such thing as a static economy. All the
conclusions derived from preoccupation with the
image of static states and static equilibrium are of no
avail for the description of the world as it is and will
always be.
C. THE ALTERNATIVE

A social order based on private control of the

means of production cannot work without entrepre-
neurial action and entrepreneurial profit and, of
course, entrepreneurial loss. The elimination of profit,
whatever methods may be resorted to for its execu-
tion, must transform society into a senseless jumble. It
would create poverty for all.
In a socialist system there are neither entrepre-
neurs nor entrepreneurial profit and loss. The supreme
director of the socialist commonwealth would, how-
ever, have to strive in the same way after a surplus of
proceeds over costs as the entrepreneurs do under
capitalism. It is not the task of this essay to deal with
socialism. Therefore it is not necessary to stress the
point that, not being able to apply any kind of eco-
nomic calculation, the socialist chief would never
know what the costs and what the proceeds of his
operations are.
What matters in this context is merely the fact
that there is no third system feasible. There cannot be
any such thing as a non-socialist system without
entrepreneurial profit and loss. The endeavors to
eliminate profits from the capitalist system are merely

55
56 PROFIT AND LOSS

destructive. They disintegrate capitalism without put-

ting anything in its place. It is this that we have in
mind in maintaining that they result in chaos.
Men must choose between capitalism and social-
ism. They cannot avoid this dilemma by resorting to a
capitalist system without entrepreneurial profit. Every
step toward the elimination of profit is progress on the
way toward social disintegration.
In choosing between capitalism and socialism peo-
ple are implicitly also choosing between all the social
institutions which are the necessary accompaniment of
each of these systems, its “superstructure” as Marx
said. If control of production is shifted from the hands
of entrepreneurs, daily anew elected by a plebiscite of
the consumers, into the hands of the supreme com-
mander of the “industrial armies” (Marx and Engels) or
of the “armed workers” (Lenin), neither representative
government nor any civil liberties can survive. Wall
Street, against which the self-styled idealists are bat-
tling, is merely a symbol. But the walls of the Soviet
prisons within which all dissenters disappear forever
are a hard fact.