IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecanth/v10y2023i2p169-176.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The value of values: Sufficiency among single‐person businesses in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Dawn R. Rivers

Abstract

According to the cultural consensus model of business ownership in the United States, business entities seek to grow both in organization size and in revenues. To borrow the framing used by Patrick Bigger and Morgan Robertson (2017), business firms create value for their owners and/or shareholders through growth and maximization of profit, but the underlying societal value of business growth is the foundational semiotic value of the orderly conduct of US society, which, it could be argued, flows from the moralized, economic value (Braverman, [1974] 1998) of human material well‐being. In this article, I examine nonemployer (single‐person) businesses in the context of the economic values of capitalism and the fundamental societal values underlying the capitalist values. In doing so, I ask: What is the noneconomic value contributed to the United States by its 27 million nonemployer business firms? What value does the operation of a nonemployer business firm offer to its owner? My research suggests that nonemployer business firms, through practices of sufficiency, create both economic and social value for their owners. Their foundational societal semiotic value is self‐produced, material self‐sufficiency, which flows from the almost‐mythically American values of independence, freedom, and humility.

Suggested Citation

  • Dawn R. Rivers, 2023. "The value of values: Sufficiency among single‐person businesses in the United States," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 169-176, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:10:y:2023:i:2:p:169-176
    DOI: 10.1002/sea2.12289
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12289
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sea2.12289?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Hurst & Benjamin Wild Pugsley, 2011. "What Do Small Businesses Do?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(2 (Fall)), pages 73-142.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Duygan-Bump, Burcu & Levkov, Alexey & Montoriol-Garriga, Judit, 2015. "Financing constraints and unemployment: Evidence from the Great Recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 89-105.
    2. J. David Brown & John S. Earle & Mee Jung Kim & Kyung Min Lee, 2019. "Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Innovation in the US High-Tech Sector," NBER Chapters, in: The Roles of Immigrants and Foreign Students in US Science, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, pages 149-171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Poschke, Markus, 2013. "The Decision to Become an Entrepreneur and the Firm Size Distribution: A Unifying Framework for Policy Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 7757, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. William Gale & Samuel Brown, 2013. "Small Business, Innovation, and Tax Policy: A Review," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 66(4), pages 871-892, December.
    5. Kyle Herkenhoff, 2016. "The Impact of Consumer Credit Access on Employment, Earnings and Entrepreneurship," 2016 Meeting Papers 781, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Ola Bengtsson & John R. M. Hand, 2013. "Employee Compensation in Entrepreneurial Companies," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 312-340, June.
    7. Miriam Bruhn & Dean Karlan & Antoinette Schoar, 2018. "The Impact of Consulting Services on Small and Medium Enterprises: Evidence from a Randomized Trial in Mexico," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 635-687.
    8. Opromolla, Luca David & Dell’Era, Michele & Santos-Pinto, Luis, 2018. "A General Equilibrium Theory of Occupational Choice under Optimistic Beliefs about Entrepreneurial Ability," CEPR Discussion Papers 13225, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Anmol Bhandari & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2017. "Sweat Equity in U.S. Private Business," Staff Report 560, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    10. Andrea Colciago & Volker Lindenthal & Antonella Trigari, 2019. "Who Creates and Destroys Jobs over the Business Cycle?," DNB Working Papers 628, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    11. Oriana Bandiera & Renata Lemos & Andrea Prat & Raffaella Sadun, 2018. "Managing the Family Firm: Evidence from CEOs at Work," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(5), pages 1605-1653.
    12. Rafael La Porta & Andrei Shleifer, 2014. "Informality and Development," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 109-126, Summer.
    13. Daphne Chen & Shi Qi & Don Schlagenhauf, 2018. "Corporate Income Tax, Legal Form of Organization, and Employment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 270-304, October.
    14. Saul Estrin & Julia Korosteleva & Tomasz Mickiewicz, 2022. "Schumpeterian Entry: Innovation, Exporting, and Growth Aspirations of Entrepreneurs," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 46(2), pages 269-296, March.
    15. Marco Caliendo & Alexander S. Kritikos & Claudia Stier, 2023. "The influence of start-up motivation on entrepreneurial performance," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 869-889, October.
    16. Monica Garcia-Perez & Christopher Goetz & John Haltiwanger & Kristin Sandusky, 2013. "Don't Quit Your Day Job: Using Wage and Salary Earnings to Support a New Business," Working Papers 13-45, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    17. Philippe Bracke & Christian Hilber & Olmo Silva, 2014. "Homeownership and Entrepreneurship: The Role of Mortgage Debt and Commitment," CESifo Working Paper Series 5048, CESifo.
    18. Allub, Lian & Erosa, Andrés, 2019. "Financial frictions, occupational choice and economic inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 63-76.
    19. Epstein, Brendan & Finkelstein Shapiro, Alan, 2017. "Employment and firm heterogeneity, capital allocation, and countercyclical labor market policies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 25-41.
    20. Christopher Goetz & Henry Hyatt & Erika McEntarfer & Kristin Sandusky, 2016. "The Promise and Potential of Linked Employer-Employee Data for Entrepreneurship Research," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses: Current Knowledge and Challenges, pages 433-462, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:10:y:2023:i:2:p:169-176. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=2330-4847 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.