The first businesses were for service. People doing things for other people, for which they received a benefit. The services were of manual labor as that is all they had to offer.

The next businesses would have been related to agriculture. Using their own labor and that of others, probably family, and perhaps slaves or some form of employees. The business would have been dependent on property rights and weather. Due to a lack of understanding weather was thought to be a form of greater power pleasure or wrath and religions were formed by those using crowd ignorance as a means or power and crowd control. The right to use physical property on which to grow crops or keep animals was the basis for early laws and conventions as well as a desire for control of more property as property ownership or control was the first measure of wealth.

Next came making things and then the need for transporting goods and people. Transportation could have been personal carrying, the ownership of and use of animals or land vehicles and sea vessels. Businesses required both things and people. Those wanting to use the things and people had to compensate those having them and barter was the most logical means before there were measures of recognized value and eventually some form of money.

Thousands of years later came non-royalty or government-controlled enterprise in the form of commercial affiliations, partnerships, group ownerships, companies and eventually the fragmentation of ownership in the form of securities. The idea that people with assets would, to profit, transfer some amount of their assts for a share of a business, represented by a piece of paper, was of epoch proportion. Of course, now the paper certificates are a thing of the past, replaced by digits on computers.

That which has remained is the need for profit to be earned by serving the wants and needs of those having the ability to pay and the right to be in business. The right can be granted by a controlling government or other body, such as a landowner. The right is to do something, perhaps granted exclusively, such as a utility or frequency-using communications company. The right can be the personal service of an entertainer or professional athlete. It’s all doing something of perceived value for a reward.

As large population country governments are in the business of crowd control and ostensibly population benefit, they are ever in the need of greater amounts of money. Therefore, they will tax more heavily on all within their control or print more currency. Eventually, there will be confrontations between governments and businesses as to the amounts of taxation and control of the businesses. The governments will have to win the conflicts, as otherwise there will be chaos. In the end there will likely be start overs in some form and previously successful investors will be financially penalized.

In the meantime, it will probably be better for investors to own percentages of defined revenue flows, than of the companies seeking to profit from generating the revenues.

The basic nature of relationships will prevail. Those who help others will have the ability to benefit and therefore it is important for those in business to identify the needs of people who are able to pay for what they want.

 

Arthur Lipper, Chairman                          arthurlipper@gmail.com
British Far East Holdings Ltd.                 858 793 7100 PST