The only relevant and meaningful question is whether the profit motive is the socially most efficient one of the available directions in which the drive for power can be channeled. But we can say that of the channels available and known to us, the profit motive has a very high, if not the highest, social efficiency. All the other known forms in which the lust for power can be expressed offer satisfaction by giving the ambitious man direct power and domination over his fellow men. The profit motive alone gives fulfillment through power over things.
