Exercise for the student: go back over the past several hundred years or so and tally up what percentage of the great voyages of exploration and other endeavors to open the frontier were motivated by profit.

While you're exercising... look at how many of those were funded by - and for the exclusive profit of - the State. Spain and Portugal especially, but also the Dutch, French, and English. Don't just look at exploration of the New World, either - go back far enough to include the voyages that eventually found a route around Africa. I think you'll find a long gap in commercial ventures between Marco Polo and the Dutch and British chartered Companies.

[Quick reference hint: try The Discoverers, by Daniel J. Boorstin; Parts VI, VII, and VIII (chapters 20 - 37, pp. 146 - 293).]

Yes, it is also true that, for instance, the French Jesuit fathers who get credit for first exploring the interior of the US (Marquette, Joliet, etc.) were accompanied by fur traders. The Lewis and Clark expedition, whose bicentennial celebration has just begun, was as much the Core of Exploitation as it was a Corps of Discovery.

Even so - who put up the money? Who rode whose coattails?