The Cold Arithmetic of Profit

Waking up with creaky joints, less hair, and more wrinkles isn’t great, but age does bring perspective. The longer you live, the clearer it becomes what matters—and what doesn’t. The more friends and former colleagues appear in the obituaries, the more I’ve found myself thinking about time. It is our most finite resource, yet we squander it in service of a misguided obsession.

Ask yourself: what force drains the joy from modern life? If you’re tempted to blame government overreach, social decay, or your least favorite political party, think again. The real culprit is subtler, more pervasive, and universally worshipped: the relentless pursuit of profit.

Consider the auto industry. If you owned a car company, your mission would be simple—charge the highest price possible while keeping costs as low as possible. That’s business. But note what’s missing: making the best car, the safest car, or the most durable car. Those goals exist only insofar as they serve the bottom line.

Ah, but capitalism incentivizes quality, you say! Just look at my 2007 Honda with 252,000 New England miles on it. A testament to reliability! Indeed—but here’s the catch: if Honda built cars to last twice as long, would people buy half the number of cars? Profit dictates that a car must last long enough to justify its price, but not so long that it threatens future sales. This isn’t conspiracy; it’s just the cold arithmetic of capitalism. Everything—design, durability, even obsolescence—is calibrated not for human benefit, but for corporate margins.

Now, let’s move from cars to people. Imagine the ABC Widget Corporation. Management discovers it can shave costs by supplying its restrooms with only cold water. It cuts costs further by increasing cafeteria food prices while cutting quality, forcing employees to either overpay or fend for themselves. These moves may marginally boost profits, but at what cost to the people who spend most of their waking hours there?

Here’s a wild thought: what if ABC Widget Co. installed hot-water taps and more plush bathrooms just because it would make employees’ lives a little better? What if it subsidized a cafeteria that served great meals—not as a productivity hack, but as a simple act of decency? Imagine prioritizing human comfort without demanding an ROI spreadsheet to justify it.

“But businesses can’t operate that way!” the free-market faithful will exclaim. Perhaps. But if your company is so fragile that hot water in the bathrooms threatens bankruptcy, maybe you’re in the wrong business.

This obsession with maximizing profit warps our entire culture. Why must a lawyer bill 70 hours a week to prove their worth? Is a handsome salary that still allows you time to coach Little League not enough? It used to be that a billion dollars represented something.  Have we reached the point where $2 billion is pedestrian and $200 billion is aspirational? At some point, profit-seeking ceases to be rational and becomes a pathology.

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m no socialist. I believe in hard work, competition, and the dignity of earning one’s keep. But I also believe that a life spent only in pursuit of profit is a life misspent. Do people die wishing they had squeezed an extra percentage point of efficiency from the supply chain? No one I know has. We all leave this world empty-handed. The least we can do is make the time we have—our own and each other’s—less burdensome.

That doesn’t require revolution. It requires perspective. And maybe, just maybe, a little hot water.