The indignation shown by many people today at the mention of the very word “profits” indicates how little understanding there is of the vital function that profits play in our economy. To increase our understanding, we shall go over again some of the ground already covered in chapter 14 on the price system, but we shall view the subject from a different angle. Profits actually do not bulk large in our total economy. The net income of incorporated business in the fifteen years from 1929 to 1943, to take an illustrative figure, averaged less than 5 percent of the total national income. Yet “profits” are the form of income toward which there is most hostility. It is significant that while there is a word “profiteer” to stigmatize those who make allegedly excessive profits, there is no such word as “wageer”—or “losseer.” Yet the profits of the owner of a barber shop may average much less not merely than the salary of a motion picture star or the hired head of a steel corporation, but less even than the average wage for skilled labor.