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.

中文翻译：

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价值观的价值：美国个体企业的充足性

根据美国企业所有权的文化共识模式，企业实体寻求组织规模和收入的增长。借用 Patrick Bigger 和 Morgan Robertson（2017）的框架，商业公司通过增长和利润最大化为其所有者和/或股东创造价值，但商业增长的潜在社会价值是有序行为的基本符号学价值可以说，它源于人类物质福祉的道德经济价值（Braverman，[1974]1998）。在本文中，我在资本主义的经济价值观和资本主义价值观背后的基本社会价值观的背景下研究非雇主（个人）企业。在此过程中，我问：2700 万家非雇主商业公司为美国贡献了多少非经济价值？非雇主商业公司的运营为其所有者提供什么价值？我的研究表明，非雇主商业公司通过充分实践，为其所有者创造经济和社会价值。他们的基本社会符号学价值是自我生产、物质自给自足，这源于近乎神话般的美国独立、自由和谦逊价值观。