"Production *is* profit; and profit *is* production. They are not merely related; they are the same thing."

"[Observe] such meaningless phrases as 'production for use and not for profit.' ... Production is profit; and profit is production. They are not merely related; they are the same thing. They are not merely related; they are the same thing. When a man plants potatoes, if he does not get back more than he put in, he has produced nothing. This would be obvious if he put a potato in the ground today and dug up the same potato tomorrow; but it is all the same if he plants one potato and gets only one potato as a crop. His labour is wasted; then he must starve, or someone else must feed him, if he has no reserve from previous production. 
    "The objection to profit is as if a bystander, observing the planter digging his crop, should say: 'You put in only one potato and you are taking out a dozen. You must have taken them away from someone else; those extra potatoes cannot be yours by right.' If profit is denounced, it must be assumed that running at a loss is admirable. On the contrary, that is what requires justification. Profit is self-justifying."

~ Isabel Paterson, from her 1943 book The God of the Machine (p. 221). Hat tip Robert White, who notes that anyone producing goods that nobody buys has, of course, not made a profit at all. "Potatoes are not profitable if they sit on the shelf unpurchased. A sufficient number of people have to judge the good a value in the context of their own lives for a businessman to make a profit."

The source of all invention ...

"All the inventions of man have individualism as their end, because they spring from the individual function of intelligence, which is the creative and productive source."

          ~ Isabel Paterson, from her book The God of the Machine

"Neither evidence nor logic penetrates the fog in which they have been reared. It is difficult to bring one to any conclusion, when detached from the group. They will say, 'Well, I just don't think so,' as if there could be no facts or connected mental processes which should lead to one opinion rather than another, or distinguish a conviction from a taste." #QotD

"Western education has moved steadily towards the [group] basis; that is its 'progressive' tendency. Class acitivities, group interests, social influences have become predominant. And the prevailing philosophy with which pupils are indoctrinated is that of 'instrumentalism' [i.e., pragmatism], which  denies that there are any universal or permanent [facts], moral values, or standards.
    "The most striking result is precisely that ... neither evidence nor logic penetrates the fog in which they have been reared. It is difficult to bring one to any conclusion, when detached from the group. They will say, 'Well, I just don't think so,' as if there could be no facts or connected mental processes which should lead to one opinion rather than another, or distinguish a conviction from a taste.
    "They have an impression that 'everything is different now' from anything that may have been in the past; though they have no idea what or how. Do not two and two still make four? Does not a lever operate on exactly the same principle today as it did for Archimedes? They do not quite know. They may say, 'Oh, I don't agree with you,' but they can give no reason for dissent. They are 'not quite convinced,' but they can offer no argument in rebuttal.
    "That is to say, when called upon to think, they cannot, because they have been trained to accept the class, the group, the 'social trend,' as the sole authority. As far as it can be done, they have been reduced to 'ganglions,' neural processes in a collective 'body,' instead of persons."
        ~ Isabel Paterson, from her 1943 book The God of the Machine.

“Poverty can be brought about by law; it cannot be forbidden by law.” #QotD

“Poverty can be brought about by law; it cannot be forbidden by law.”
          ~ Isabel Paterson, from her book The God of the Machine.