The idea that you can act ethically while still making a profit dates back to the Rennaisance - and I wouldn't say it's necessarily wrong. The idea that massive

The idea that you can act ethically while still making a profit dates back to the Rennaisance - and I wouldn't say it's necessarily wrong. The idea that massive profits combined with accumulation of capital totally disproportionate to actual labour input when luck plays only a small role is a newer idea (and a newer phenomenon), though there are ethicists who don't see a problem with that either. I think some 19th C. German philosophers correctly decided not to pursue a moral route when they criticized capital accumulation. I think the ethical problem, if there is one, can't lie with the simple fact of making profit (or the profit motive) - rather, it must lie either in how that profit came about, or how that profit is utilized. Most ethicists do not suppose an ethical problem with employment in itself, nor with reinvesting capital in itself.