In phrasing more complete than that of “making money,” Economics is the science of making money by earning it. Getting money without earning it is related to Economics only in a science-disturbing sense. It disturbs the normal Economic relations of effect to cause in the production and dissemination of humanly desirable objects. To realize the truth of that statement, the student need only momentarily conceive of theft as universal. Since universal theft as an Economic phenomenon would be utterly destructive of normal Economic relationships, of beneficial effects from normal causes, so must theft to any extent operate destructively to that extent. The only thinkable relation of theft to Economics is analogous to the relation of murder to the human race. That Economic study may comprise considerations of how to exclude stealing from Economic customs, does not go to prove that stealing is a factor in Economic science. It goes no farther than to prove that stealing may become an Economic parasite. Even as a parasite, stealing could hardly have wormed its way to the Economic border line, much less across it, but for a disposition among advanced students to confuse normal Economic phenomena with arbitrary business customs. “Business” might indeed be the nearest approach to a synonym for “Economics.” It would be an exact synonym but for one variation. Whereas Economics relates to a comprehensive social organism which (notwithstanding “scientific” contentions to the contrary) is subject to natural laws of human association (sequences of cause and effect), Business is but a limited collection of individual interests or private organizations that are influenced and largely governed by arbitrary customs. These customs may or may not be in harmony with the normal relations of cause and effect in Economics. And as to each particular business, it is operated, as accountants frankly admit, only “for the benefit of its proprietor.”[1] [1] The quotation is from “Modern Business”, by Thomas W. Mitchell, Ph. D. New York: Alexander Hamilton Institute. 1918–1919. In some of its vulgar connotations Business might very well answer to the insolent definition that it consists in the adventures of sprightly gentlemen trying to sell nothing for something to other sprightly gentlemen who are trying to buy something for nothing. In so far, however, as that definition may be appropriate, it applies only to business abuses, not to Business as a possible synonym for Economics. It defines Business only as theft might define morality.