What is Business?

Here is a working definition of "business" as a core concept for this blog:

A business is an organization that sells a product to generate a profit for its owners.

It's likely this definition will be refined and reworked as I progress, but I feel this is a good starting point.

To expound upon this definition:

I define business as an organization because it is primarily a group of people who are assembled into an ordered structure. I cannot presently conceive of a business in which people are not involved, and while a business might consist of only one person, that tends to be unusual.

While business generally involves a collection of capital resources, my sense is that this is not a distinguishing characteristic. These items are incidental, necessary to support the operations of a business, but are not strictly essential.

The activity of selling is also a distinguishing feature of a business. Perhaps it is unnecessary to state, as it would be absurd to have an business that does not "sell" anything - but my present purpose is to use this term to encompass businesses that create a product from raw materials (manufacturing) as well as those who purchase an existing product and re-sells it to another party. The point being that how the product is created or obtained is incidental, and the key activity is the selling of the product.

The term product is also an abstraction, meant to characterize both material goods as well as services. I favor this term because it carries with it the notion that the item or service must be produced - and "produce" can denote manufacture or other activities required to render a benefit.

I foresee that discussion in this blog will largely focus on material goods, as they are more concrete that services and easier to conceptualize. However, much of what can be said of goods is also true of services, though there may be instances where it is necessary to consider the essential differences between them.

The notion of profit is also a distinguishing characteristic of business. There are other organizations (charities and government agencies) that may provide a product with the goal of satisfying need, with no generation of profit. A charity or government may also engage in selling, receiving money in exchange for the product, though in these instances the intention is merely to cover costs or fund other operations, not to generate wealth by means of profit.