The profit motive is not my criterion of success.  The capitalist criterion of success is
an optimal maximization of profit. But, the subjective motive is not an objective measure.





Optimal performance in production and distribution would put an end to constant scarcity
and perennial poverty; but, such an optimal performance is not a quantitative measure of
success for capitalism, or for a capitalist business enterprise.





Organizational theory is theory. If profit-maximization is a by-product of some other stated
organizational factors, then a more successful capitalist organization will be one that
organizes the other factors in order to achieve the optimal maximization of company profits.
However, profits are not a peripheral, or minor by-product of capitalist business enterprise;
profits are the cardinal product of a successful capitalist business enterprise. Profits are
the essential and fundamental concern of any and every capitalist business. Profits are the
primary and principal nourishment of capital.

It can be assumed, of course, that no one can really ever tell if they are actually maximizing
profits or not. But, this does not mitigate the assertion that the primary concern of every
capitalist business is to produce as much profit as possible.  For example, no business
proprietor can know the future of the market he or she happens to be in.  It often happens
that a very profitable period is what is necessary for a capitalist enterprise to survive a
non-profitable period.

There are those who will argue that it's not at all clear the maximization of profits is the
ultimate goal of many corporations, that some seem to be quite happy making good
returns in order to have a particular type of reputation--be it environmentally conscious,
the best in their industry, the most exclusive in their industry or simply able to provide the
best benefits to the top management--plush offices, well known art work on the walls,
lavish parties, huge retirment plans or benefits, promotion of particular philanthopic
goals, etc.

However, a lot of the above goals or targets are business costs, and they are all public
relations and advertising tools intended to attract more capital, including the best human
capital -- e.g., the best management that money can buy.





"It is necessary to discredit the fashionable trashing of Marxist thought in the liberal
academy. Besides predictable caricatures of Marxist thought by conservatives, this
trashing principally proceeds from ironic skeptics and aesthetic historicists. The former
shun any theory that promotes political action with purpose; for them, any social project
of transformation reeks of authoritarian aims. The latter highlight wholesale contingency
and indeterminacy, with little concern with how and why change and conflict take place.
So we have disciples of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault who talk about the subtle
relations of rhetoric, knowledge, and power, yet remain silent about concrete ways in
which people are empowered to resist and what can be gained by such resistance.
In addition, we have the so-called 'new historicists,' preoccupied with 'thick descriptions'
of the relativity of cultural products, including those formerly neglected by traditional
bourgeois male critics -- while thoroughly distrustful of social explanatory accounts of
cultural practices.

"Needless to say, crude Marxist perspectives warrant scrutiny and rejection. Yet in these
days of Marxist-bashing, it is often assumed that vulgar Marxist thought exhausts the
Marxist tradition -- as if mono-causal accounts of history, essentialist conceptions of
society, or reductionist readings of culture are all Marxist thought has to offer. One
wonders whether any such critics have read Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire, Class Struggles
 in France, or the Grundrisse.

"Faddish ironic skepticism and aesthetic historicism are contemporary assaults on the
twin pillars of Marxist social theory: historically specific accounts of structures such as
modes of production, state apparatuses and bureaucracies, and socially detailed
analyses of how such structures shape and are shaped by cultural agents. These
pillars require that one's understanding of history, society, and culture highlight latent
and manifest multifarious human struggles for identity, power, status, and resources.
More pointedly, it demands that one bite the explanatory bullet and give analytical
priority to specific forms of struggle over others. For sophisticated Marxists, this does
not mean that class explains every major event in the past or present, or that
economic struggles supersede all others. It simply suggests that in capitalist societies,
the dynamic processes of capital accumulation and the commodification of labor
condition social and cultural practices in an inescapable manner. How such practices
are played out in various countries and regions for different races, classes, and genders
in light of the fundamental capitalist processes will be determined in an experimental
and empirical manner. Like other refined forms of historical sociology, Marxist theory
proceeds within the boundaries of warranted assertable claims and rationally acceptable
conclusions. Its assertions can be wrong in part because they are believed to be right.

"The high intellectual moments of Marxist theory -- Karl Marx's own historical and economic
analyses, Georg Lukács' theory of reification, and Antonio Gramsci's conceptions of
hegemony -- are those that bring together explanatory power, analytical flexibility, and a
passion for social freedom. Yet certain crucial phenomena of the modern world --
nationalism, racism, gender oppression, homophobia, ecological devastation -- have
not been adequately understood by Marxist theorists. My rejoinder simply is that these
complex phenomena cannot be grasped, or changed, without the insights of Marxist
theory, although we do need other theories to account for them fully."
-- Cornel West, The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought, 1991