"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."