While the basic idea of this is, of course, not new, its prevalence is. For most of human history, "businesses" have been primarily about providing a service o

While the basic idea of this is, of course, not new, its prevalence is. For most of human history, "businesses" have been primarily about providing a service or producing a good—farming was about producing food, carpentry was about creating products out of wood, etc. The money was, of course, the incentive for them to produce this specific thing for that specific person, but the purpose of the business was still to produce the best damn wooden chairs they could make (or whatever). Naturally, as I said, there have always been people who want to make the most money for the least effort. We have clay tablets from the ancient city-state of Ur, nearly 4000 years ago, complaining about a copper merchant who was (supposedly) fraudulently selling low-grade copper ingots as highest-quality ingots. But for most of human history, that has been the exception. In the past few decades (I'd be hesitant to try drawing a bright line as to when), I feel that this has flipped, and people who think that the purpose of a business is to make as much money as possible (with providing a good or service being a necessary evil to that end) have taken over, at least in the US. I also very strongly believe that this is an unhealthy, destructive mindset to have about the purpose of a business, and continuing to hold it up as the ideal is part and parcel of the problems of inequality and its effects that have plagued us in recent decades.