Encouraging business start-ups is one of the most important economic development gardening programs that a region can have, for two reasons. Number one, despite all the pain and sacrifice involved in starting businesses, including the odds against success, self-employment can be a very important source of family economic viability, satisfaction, hope, and a kind of security. Number two, and this is critically important, the minority of small business that do grow up, do create jobs in very large numbers. In the ecology of market capitalism, jobs are clearly subordinate to enterprise. Enterprise comes first, jobs second.
Jobs are a byproduct of successful enterprise.
The idea of enterprise is to produce value with as few jobs as possible, since each job in the enterprise represents cost, of which there can only be so much if the enterprise to be self-sustaining. However, some enterprises grow large enough to generate jobs. A few enterprises grow large enough to produce lots of jobs. Now linking to advanced telecommunications, telematics if you will. Jobs are relentlessly abolished or moved geographically in this process.