Self-Interest, Profit, Self

A fundamental premise of Capitalism--the equivalence of Self-Interest and Profit--is not as well-grounded as the wide taking for granted of it suggests.  At minimum, its divergence from a better-established principle like Will to Live requires justification.  But it is unclear if Capitalism has the resources for such a justification.  For, as applied Phenomenalism, Smith's system is committed to Hume's concept of the Self as a 'bundle of perceptions'.  So, Capitalism has a fragile basis for any concept of Self-Interest, and less for that of Profit, which, entailing Increase, requires an ordered Temporal development, to which the vague concept of a 'bundle' is hardly adequate. Furthermore, it shares the charge that Phenomenalism faces--that its 'Self' is an alienated concept, i. e. that of a Whole that has been fragmented. Associated with that charge is that Profit is reified Growth, a degradation of a vital principle in inanimate objects, i. e. the contrary of the sublimation of a vital principle.  So, in effect, the Capitalist equivalence of Self-Interest and Profit, in the absence of better grounding, can be diagnosed as a dehumanization of the Selves involved.