Although the notion of "good of society" lacks a logical or scientific definition, it is nevertheless rhetorically appealing, because most people imagine that it embraces the ends that they personally regard as "good." The very vagueness of the notion masks human differences. When such phrases are uttered by politicians or journalists, people imagine that they hear echoes of their individual aspirations, much as they imagine references to their personal lives in horoscopes. When attempts are made to put such specious, unexamined notions into practice, the results can be devastating.

"Good of society" and equivalent notions are based on win/lose relationships. For instance, the interests of apple orchard farmers may be sacrificed to those of a polluting factory owner, in the name of "a greater public interest." Exchanges in a free market, in contrast, are based on win/win relationships: all who participate do so in order to maximize their subjective value. Whether such a system also maximizes objective value is an issue of ethics rather than praxeology. Let us now return to ethics, examining the specific traits and actions by which the egoist realizes his or her objective values.