The values-based creation of value is a more useful aim than profit itself, though accomplishing the creation of values-based value will most likely profit both producers and consumers.
Money, as an abstract representation of value, is quite useful in an exchange economy, but when we begin to behave as if the value is in the money itself rather than in what the money represents in terms of product and service, our values come to be sacrificed on the alter of disembodied profit. From this comes the folk wisdom, “Money is root of all evil”.
I think the tendency for money to become the object of worship, as opposed to value created, is not necessarily inherent in the technology of money. The problem occurs when we adopt a “science” of economics that posits amoral, objective, laws governing human behavior. This mechanistic model legitimizes amorality such that we judge others, not by the values they represent and the value they create, but by they summary data points consisting of net worth in financial terms. We create and cultivate a reality in which financial profit becomes a measure of fitness and therefore, goodness, to which all must aspire. The only crime in such a valueless world, is getting caught doing whatever it takes to maximize gain and other’s losses.
I think that we have bought into an ideological catch 22 in which cunning and deceptively ruthless action is good and “nice guys” always finish last. Surprisingly, in the long run the end game is not “winner takes all”, as we might expect. In the end game, everybody loses.
