Entrepreneurs and their Perceptions

Abstract

The entrepreneurial middle stratum plays a key role in income distribution, social cohesion and economic sustainability. Their position is intricately linked to the dynamics of the Mikado game and its reallocation rounds, but small business entrepreneurs operate in an increasingly autonomous market domain. Compared to the oligarchs and courtiers or apparatchiks their business structures are detached from the major sources of economic fortune: oil, mining and cotton. In many cases they barely know anything about the business deals of these major sectors, beyond rumours. Instead, they aim to insulate their market positions through closely interlinked business operations. Nevertheless, they also function as subordinates and functionaries of the upper layers of stratification in both social and economic senses. As illustrated in the quotes above, many entrepreneurs have deep contempt for those in the upper strata and disdain their subservient role in the market.

The state is doing business; our job.

We do the state’s job by acting as social providers.

This should be reversed.

An entrepreneur, Karaganda, Kazakhstan

Here there is no business group but the state.

An entrepreneur, Tashkent, Uzbekistan