in industry are commonly referred to indiscriminately as business men,
middlemen, or entrepreneurs. [Footnote: the term "entrepreneur" is
awkward and little known, but no more satisfactory term is available.]
The meaning of these three terms is distinguished with difficulty, but
to avoid confusion later on the essential character of each should be
pointed out here. The term business man is very wide, and is commonly
inclusive of all who actively engage in any sort of business. The
primary function of the middleman is to act as a connecting link
between various industrial enterprises. The entrepreneur, on the other
hand, is primarily an individual who coördinates land, labor, and
capital with the intention of initiating and conducting a business
enterprise. In so far as he acts as a connecting link between other
industrial agents, the entrepreneur is a middleman, but the middleman
is usually thought of as an individual who connects up existing
businesses, rather than initiating a new enterprise. To the functions
of the entrepreneur we shall return in the next chapter; here it is
the middleman proper who is our chief concern.

77. IMPORTANCE OF THE MIDDLEMAN.--The chief stages of shoe manufacture
may serve to illustrate the great importance of the middleman in
exchange. The middleman, anticipating a demand for beef and hides,
connects the cattle grower with the live-stock market. Still later it
is a middleman who offers raw hides to the tanner, and who sees that
the wholesale leather merchant comes into business contact with the
tanner. The banker or broker who connects the entrepreneur with the
money with which to set up a shoe factory may be called a middleman,
as may the individual who aids the entrepreneur in getting the
required amounts of land and labor with which to start manufacturing.
When, under the direction of the entrepreneur, the shoe has been
manufactured, it is often a middleman who connects the shoe wholesaler