The profit motive as a social regulator is a modern invention.

Evidence

The concept of profit motive as regulator arose with the advent of modern society. Anthropologists know this well, but anthropologists do not play the central role in our society that economists do. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 59

Categorization

• SEED: Fertile angle: ‘why economists outrank anthropologists as society’s explainers, and what that costs us’ — a piece on who gets to define economic human nature.