ABSTRACT
A private enterprise, or even a public enterprise, comprises a segment of the economy, often a very small segment. More importantly, whatever the means it employs in pursuing its objectives whether rules of thumb or more formalized techniques such as mathematical programming or operations research the private enterprise, at least, is guided by ordinary commercial criteria that require revenues to exceed costs. The fact that its activities are guided by the profit motive is not to deny that it confers benefits on a large number of people other than its shareholders. It also confers benefits on its employees, on consumers and – through the taxes it pays – on the public. If it makes losses, the enterprise cannot survive unless it receives a public subsidy. There is the metaphor of the 'invisible hand'; the deus ex machina discovered by Adam Smith that so directs the self-seeking proclivities of the business world that it confers benefits on society as a whole.