We all know the argument that profit motive is part of human nature is false. Yet I’m still not sure why capital owners pursue profits. Is it the difference of self-interest vs collective interest? If so then wouldn’t that enforce the argument on human nature? Or am I missing a crucial aspect of the Capitalist system? I’m genuinely wondering.
Edit: Sorry for not being able to answer all of the comments, the blocklist of my instance sadly won’t let me see all of the comments.
To my knowledge, profit only exists in systems that produce commodities to be sold in markets. While markets predate capitalism, they were largely optional. In capitalism, there is no choice but to participate in markets and commodity production.
If a society does not produce commodities, there is no profit. If there is no profit, there can be no profit motive. The profit motive cannot be a part of human nature because it was absent from almost every human society that ever existed.
The profit motive may not be a part of human society once it develops beyond capitalism, either. Even in the transitional Soviet Union and China, which had/has a form of state capitalism (depending on who you ask and how they define it), their planned economies undermine commodity production and made/make inroads into profit. In these two examples, the profit motive did/does not drive the state.
Even in capitalism proper, it is only the capitalists who seek profit. By definition, profit is what remains after paying wages and overheads. Some workers benefit from profit. These are labour aristocrats and petit bourgeois. But on the whole, workers are not motivated by profit.
There is no way that the profit motive is part of human nature if: most human societies were not driven by profit; the vast majority of workers living within a system driven by profit do not seek profit; and states that move away from commodity production in a world governed by profit try to live according to other motivations.
If you were asking about why capitalists, specifically, are profit seekers, I’m happy to go into that.
When we make a statement like “profit motive isnt a part of human nature”, I think we need to distinguish between human instincts that are a product of isolated individual academic instincts and introspecions vs the kind of instincts and motive that are inspired in an individual by a system that takes a grand scale.
I say that because it is quite obvious by empirical means that a profit motive does exist in the human occupational pursuit, whatever the source of its existence may be, and hence i believe that its existence and its association to capitalism and other forms of economic system need to be considered and realized as an axiom before developing a dialogue on the issue.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying. But profit is a result of producing commodities. No commodities, no profit. No profit, no profit motive.
Im speaking from a psychological perspective, even if a motive is a result of a sociological condition, it still exists and has a legitimate psychological base for its existence. Which directly implies that its part of the human nature and nothing alien to it.
We can make an argument that it is an immoral part of the human nature, but denying its very existence and association serves no purpose.
Then I’m afraid we’re talking at cross purposes. I was talking about profit as a political economic category. I wasn’t making and moral claims when I said that the profit (and so the profit motive) only exists where commodities are produced.
I thought the OP was also asking about profit as a political economic category, because this is the sense in which the word would be used when asking, to paraphrase, ‘why do capitalists seek profit if the profit motive is not part of human nature?’
The issue begins when bringing in the “Human Nature” in the field and use it as a starting point to study capitalism. How do we assess the human nature if not psychologically? Whether it is philosophical or scientific psychology.
Do you agree that if something is part of human nature, then it will be present in some form in all human societies?
isnt an agreement to that exactly what im trying to represent?
I’m not sure. Possibly. But you also seem to be disagreeing with me, which suggests not.
I’m not starting an analysis of capitalism with human nature. Capitalism is the name of a particular political economy / mode of production that is based on producing commodities.
If capitalism has unique implications, which by definition only arise in capitalism, it stands to reason that those implications (being unique) do not arise in all human societies. If something only arises in specific era, and not in all human societies, it is specific to that era, and not part of human nature.
Edit: To add for clarity: within capitalism, seeking profit is a political economic necessity for capitalists. I’m not making any moral, psychological, or philosophical claims here.