ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines three alternative systems of enterprise, and describes one of them in greater detail in order that we may proceed to a study of capitalist undertaking. First, the Entrepreneur Function could be fulfilled by a large number of small independent producers, connected by a number of independent middlemen who operated with fairly small capitals and were in free competition with one another. Second, the Entrepreneur Function might be performed by agents of the community, who operated with communal resources on the community’s behalf. The third way in which the Entrepreneur Function can be performed is that which is illustrated by the present system. The various elements of the undertaking function have been entirely separated and specialized, and each separate element has become assimilated to one or other of the factors of production. In consequence, the problem of measuring them and the conception of a demand price per unit has become much simplified.
