13-4d4d A man is necessarily a consumer, but not necessarily a producer

A man is necessarily a consumer—because one has to consume some amount in the present—but is a man necessarily an entrepreneur, an investor, a producer?revisit

Consumers only have to think about themselves—but entrepreneurs (which include both producers and investors) have to think about others (see Ludwig Lachmann pp. 120-125). And since nothing differentiates businessmen (i.e., producers or operators) from investors, the former’s emphasis on prioritizing customer (i.e., thinking about consumers—e.g., see Sam Walton and Jeff Bezos) also applies to the latter in the sense that they also have to think about others—particularly the knowledge status of others. Afterall, people’s wants are constrained by their knowledge at any given time.

“Every man must consume in the present, and this drastically limits his savings regardless of the interest rate. After a certain point, a man’s time preference for the present becomes infinite.” – Murray Rothbard

“There is, in fact, never any need to worry about the maintenance of consumer spending.” – Murray Rothbard (p. 403)

Next:

• 13-4d4e All the consumer has to do is to think about himself—in contrast, the entrepreneur (e.g., producer, investor, operator) is primarily about others

Related:

• The interest rate is not the cause
  • 13-5f The interest rate is determined by the time-preference schedules, rather than vice versa
• On producing
  • 5-3e Matt Ridley - ‘Knowledge is both a public good and a temporarily private one. Knowledge is expensive to produce, but can sometimes pay for itself.‘
  • 7-1b0 The creator-user (or producer-consumer) distinction is arbitrary. There are no ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’ in the non-human world.
  • 13-1a3a2d The more extended the market, the more will exchange-values (as compared to direct use-values) predominate in the decisions of the producer
  • 13-1a3a2e Some products are produced because of the greater extent of the market
• The capitalists have to consider others because they are constrained by them
  • 13-5e The capitalists are constrained by the aggregated time-preference schedules just as sellers of any other present goods are constrained by the aggregated demand schedules of the consumers
• 7-1b0a The producer-consumer distinction is blurred in non-profit organizations and open source projects. Likely why their diffusions are slow.revisit
• 13-9a1 A value scale consists of goods with which the individual is familiar—the good will not be on the value scale if the individual does not know about that good