Profit is an uncertainty that is integrated as an inherent part in the process of self-reproduction of culture-society; therefore profit is also a meaning. Like any meaning, profit cannot always be “maximized” here and now: for its maximization, decisions by individuals are not enough, but socio-cultural evolution is required:
“There is an alternative method which treats the decisions and criteria dictated by the economic system as more important than those made by the individuals in it. By backing away from the trees—the optimization calculus by individual units—we can better discern the forest of impersonal market forces. This approach directs attention to the interrelationships of the environment and the prevailing types of economic behavior which appear through a process of economic natural selection. Yet it does not imply that individual foresight and action do not affect the nature of the existing state of affairs” (Alchian 1950, p. 213).
Hence, the self-reproduction of culture-society is built upon both certainty and uncertainty. The process of production, circulation and consumption of goods is a process of overcoming uncertainty. At the same time, as Robert Sapolsky shows, uncertainty is the very condition that makes cooperation between people possible. The prisoner’s dilemma can only be solved on the assumption that the players do not know how many rounds the game will have and therefore behave irrationally (cf. Sapolsky 2017, p. 634).
In the space between certainty and uncertainty, there arises probability (risk). Probability should not be confused with either necessity or accident. According to Keynes’s famous definition, which borrowed from Knight, an event is uncertain if there is no basis for calculating the chances of its occurrence or non-occurrence; in contrast, a probable event is an event whose chances can be calculated (see Keynes 2013, vol. 14, pp. 113-4).
Probability lies between necessity and accident. Unlike strict necessity, it is variable. However, unlike accident, it is finitely variable. Profit is an accident, while cost is a necessity. In between lies probability, or interest. Property and interest have the same root, they are interrelated results of an increase in meanings, the gradual transformation of uncertainty into risk and the division of rights and risks. In the early stages of their evolution in a traditional culture-society, profit and interest are almost equally uncertain: the amount of interest roughly corresponds to the amount of expected profit. The evolution of interest led to its decline in relation to profit. This expresses the nature of interest and property—it is part of the uncertainty that can be transformed into risk.