ABSTRACT
"Business principles" are corollaries under the main proposition of ownership; they are principles of property, — pecuniary principles. These principles are of older date than the machine industry, although their full development belongs within the machine era. The discipline of the machine process enforces a standardization of conduct and of knowledge in terms of quantitative precision, and inculcates a habit of apprehending and explaining facts in terms of material cause and effect. The all-dominating issue in business is the question of gain and loss. Investments are made for profit, and industrial plants and processes are capitalized on the basis of their profit-yielding capacity. In the accepted scheme of things among business men, profits are included as intrinsic to the conduct of business. The ultimate conditioning force in the conduct and aims of business is coming to be the prospective profit-yielding capacity of any given business move, rather than the aggregate holdings or the recorded output of product.
