ABSTRACT
In popular thinking, profit seekers cannot be virtuous because what they do is bad: taking from society by whatever amount they profit. Profit seekers can also be virtuous people, if three conditions are all met. First is, the exchanges are truly voluntary, or "euvoluntary," in a sense authors shall explain. Second is, the profits are "real" profits, earned through a competitive market process, and not "rent seeking" profits, obtained through a privilege-based political process. Third is, the intent of the profit seeker is virtuous. Within a process of profit and loss, entrepreneurs are not net takers but net creators of value. The age-old complaint is not that middlemen trade but that they trade for profit. Profits are made "at the expense of others" and so profit seeking is a vice. Aquinas was right to say that there is neither virtue nor vice in what profit seekers do.
