The First Cup of Coffee in the Morning: Brought to You by the Pursuit of Profit

Describing the benefits that accrue from the pursuit of profit is not an easy task, because they are so obvious that we usually take them for granted. When our clock radios wake us in the morning to our favorite music mixed with reports about traffic conditions and the weather, we drag ourselves out of bed in our central-heated and air-conditioned homes take hot showers. We then sit down with coffee that was automatically brewed when the clock radio turned on, eat precooked breakfasts that were prepared in microwave ovens and read newspapers that were hand-delivered to our homes. We finally put on our clothes, get into our cars, and drive to work on expressways that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build.
I'll bet a dollar to a penny that most of us have never interrupted our cycle of living and acknowledged, even for a moment, that the quality of our lives is directly related to the pursuit of profit. We just take these blessings for granted.
I remember a student in one of my classes who asked me to be more specific about the benefits we receive from the pursuit of profit. In response to his request, I asked him to look around the classroom, his home, and his community. I pointed out that they wouldn't exist if it were not for the pursuit of profit. I also told him that public goods and services such as our streets, highways, county hospitals, public universities, police protection, fire protection, and national defense all owe their existence to you guessed it, the pursuit of profit. To this day, I don't believe he has gotten the message.