> what happens when everyone is an entrepreneur? who will work the actual jobs?
If everyone is an entrepreneur, then all of the production is being done by entrepreneurs. That means the "actual jobs" are now being done by entrepreneurs, i.e., people who own their own businesses (or a significant share in them) and produce as owners instead of employees. There is nothing at all impossible about such an economy, although of course it would be a loss for many entities in our current economy (such as large corporations who owe their profits to rent seeking, buying favorable regulations from the government, artificial monopolies, etc. instead of to actual productive advantage).
> That means the "actual jobs" are now being done by entrepreneurs, i.e., people who own their own businesses (or a significant share in them) and produce as owners instead of employees.
In cases where whatever is being produced inherently cannot be produced without a very large number of people acting in coordination (for example, designing and building cars in a large factory), yes, the mode of production I am describing would basically be a co-op. The problem at that scale, of course, is that each individual owner's share is now so small that they lose confidence that their input will have significant weight in business decisions. It's not impossible to operate co-ops effectively at this scale, but observation suggests it's very difficult, which is why such co-ops are rare compared to conventional corporations for operations at this scale.
But there is no reason why all production, or even a majority of production, needs to be of a kind that must be produced that way. Most entrepreneurs own small businesses, and most businesses in existence are small businesses, and in some sectors of the economy (for example, many kinds of services), small businesses actually do most of the production, and much of the production is indeed done by the owners, not by employees they hire. So in an economy where everyone was an entrepreneur, much if not most of the production would be done that way, much as it is now, only more so.
one could posit that a reason that large monolithic businesses exist (with centralized control etc) is because at scale you can get efficiency (to a limit i suppose)
with many small sized business interacting i wonder how it could keep efficiency with so many interacting parts (many middle-men for lack of a better word)?
> one could posit that a reason that large monolithic businesses exist (with centralized control etc) is because at scale you can get efficiency (to a limit i suppose)
Exactly--to a limit. But if you look at how large corporations work, it is at least highly plausible that they are over the limit--i.e., that they are larger, in some cases much larger, than the optimal size of a firm in their particular line of business.
The reason such large corporations can survive while being well over the optimal size of a firm in their line of business is government regulation. Government regulations favor larger businesses because the larger the business, the easier it is to absorb the costs of regulatory compliance. (And also the easier it is to buy regulations that favor your company.)
> with many small sized business interacting i wonder how it could keep efficiency with so many interacting parts
A free market does this naturally via the price mechanism. You can still have economies of scale, and in a free market we would expect most businesses to be at or near the optimal size of firm for their line of business.
Large corporations have coordination problems too--that's a key reason why there are limits to economies of scale. At some point the coordination problems outweigh any efficiencies from scale and the business gets less efficient overall if it continues to get larger.
>what happens when everyone is an entrepreneur? who will work the actual jobs?
I think you might be surprised by how few people actually want to be business owners. Lots talk about wanting to be a big baller, but to actually put your capital on the line and put in the hours year after year with risk of losing it all, not to mention being where the buck stops for all decision making - it's just not something most people want to do, if they can avoid it.
> I think you might be surprised by how few people actually want to be business owners.
I'm not surprised by it at all (though I'm not the poster you were responding directly to--that poster might be, I don't know).
I'm just pointing out that you can't avoid the tradeoff I described: if you are not a business owner, you are putting yourself at the mercy of those who are, since you are going to have to be employed by one of them. At the end of the day, business risks are real and cannot be avoided, and those who do not want to be directly exposed to those risks must realize that they are forgoing the associated rewards.
It also means you spend every waking hour running a business. Which is fine if you want to, but if you love programming/baking/gardening/etc, one realizes you'll spend very little time doing that, and most of your time doing everything but. Running a business is fun for some, but not everyone actually wants to do that.
