Profit appears under capitalism merely as a category in the ledger of an individual enterprise. How successful that enterprise will be in making capitalist profit will depend on the place it has in relationship to all other enterprises. With the development of laissez-faire capitalism into monopoly capitalism, the question of profit became linked with the place of a monopoly or a conglomerate in relation to others in the national and world economies. The building of socialism gives an entirely opposite definition of profit. For the first time, the national economy, and not an individual enterprise or a monopoly, becomes the measure whether an enterprise is profitable or not. To what extent the national economy is profitable has to be determined within a given span of time according to socialist planning and not on the basis of the anarchy of production as it exists under capitalism. For the first time, labor is no longer considered a cost. On the contrary, the entire national social product belongs to the working people as a whole in whose interest it is distributed. The worker is no longer a wage-slave and the constantly rising material and cultural level of the working people becomes the motive of production. Distribution of the national social product, that is all production minus costs, follows the social needs of the economy according to the overall plan, and the consideration of "to each according to his ability, to each according to his work." The question of profit cannot be understood and fully appreciated without studying the historical economic conditions, the mode of production and the contradictions inherent in it. Capitalist profit is *unpaid* labor in a society in which production is based on the making of the maximum capitalist profit as is the case in capitalist countries at this time. In such societies, the only consideration is to make that enterprise most profitable in the sense of maximum capitalist profit even though it may be extremely damaging to the national economy as a whole. The production of armaments is extremely profitable to the owners but is extremely damaging to the national economy as it produces no value either for consumption or means of production. At the same time, certain investments in education, health and social programs may not be profitable in the capitalist sense but they are extremely beneficial to the national economy and the raising of the level of the society. The question of profit cannot be reduced to a technical category, a column in a capitalist's ledger. Capital is nothing more than a social relationship; in the same fashion, the making of maximum capitalist profit is the reproduction of that social relationship. The main content of capital is the relationship between the capitalist owner of the means of production and a human being who possesses nothing but labor power. The development of capitalism is the development of this relationship over and over again in which the rich become richer and the poor poorer with the entire populace becoming more and more proletarianized. Capital in a socialist society reflects an opposite relationship: it reflects on the one hand the relationship of the working people as a whole, as owners of production, applying their capital on nature, and on the other hand, the application of their capital against the capitalist exploiters. Such a relationship in its development creates the conditions for the elimination of this relationship altogether, with humanity eventually producing a community of goods in its own interest. The question of profit cannot be detached from the character of capital, which is to say that the issue of profit cannot be detached from how people derive their living. In capitalist countries, at this time, people have no say in the economy, politics or culture because all the main means of production are the preserve of the capitalist class. The financial oligarchy extracts tribute from the whole of society while people obtain their living by working for them, in which they have no say about any matter. The more capitalist profit is made in capitalist countries, the more it is damaging to the general interests of the society, as it persists in recreating the differentiation between the rich and the poor, between the exploiters and the exploited with capital becoming ever stronger as it amasses profit. The people are forced to confront all the ills of capitalism, such as the jobless recovery, that are reproduced with growing ferocity. The capitalists claim that the health of individual enterprises will improve the health of the economy but this has been proven to be altogether wrong. Record profits in certain sectors of the economy exist side by side with record levels of unemployment and bankruptcies. It is necessary to pay special attention to the health of the national economy, while the monopolies are interested in their own narrow interests nationally and internationally. "What is the use of a healthy national economy if my company is not making maximum profit!" they cry. The health of the national economy cannot be improved without expropriating the monopoly capitalists and creating social property. The capitalists carry on the self-serving propaganda that without making maximum capitalist profits their enterprises cannot be kept going. At the same time, they persist in the propaganda that maximum capitalist profits will provide jobs. In addition, they repeat the anti-communist dogma denigrating socialist planning of the economy as if this will convince the working class that job insecurity, unemployment and poverty are indispensable to their "wellbeing." Nonetheless, the labor aristocracy, which profits the most from this state of affairs, does everything possible to mislead and disorganize the working class so that it does not awaken and build a society fit for human beings. The question of profit can be fully appreciated only from the standpoint of the harmonization of the interests of the individual with those of the collective, and those of the individual and collective with the general interests of the society. The demand of the monopoly capitalists is for maximum capitalist profit at any cost to individuals, the collectives and the society. If imperialist war is the most profitable thing there is, so be it, declares the financial oligarchy. Its responsibility is to itself and its profitability and everything else be damned. It is precisely on this issue that the working class must take a stand on principle. It wants, and should demand and build a national economy for the benefit of all, one that harmonizes the interests of the individual with those of the collective, and the interests of the individuals and collectives with the general interests of the society. The working class must not support what is damaging to the national and world economies, even if there are those for whom it may be extremely profitable. Shawgi Tell University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED]