Below them, often as their tenants or debtors, were small entrepreneurs, middlemen in trade (or between local industry and regional trade), master craftsmen, and bankers; and below all and increasingly restive was a swelling class of impoverished artisans, servants, vagabonds, and beggars.
Arms deals – undertaken by governments, their intelligence agencies, large and small manufacturers, middlemen, dealers and financiers – stretch across a continuum of legality and ethics from the official, or formal trade, to the grey and black markets, which I call the shadow world.
By inventing the general merchandise mail-order catalog, Mr. Ward could keep prices low through bypassing the middlemen, like small-town shopkeepers and itinerant salesmen.
The cuts going to middlemen are smaller, and many markets are deeper and more liquid than ever.
Of course somebody will suffer: those middlemen, the small-time traders.
Ahmed pays the middlemen a small fee of around £250 per trip; Hajj doesn't.
Thieves also set up roadside stands or sell to people who act as middlemen, gathering small amounts until they have enough to head to the broker.
He relied on a small circle of trusted middlemen to handle the details and often shared his views on legislative matters at news conferences downtown.
In its capital and in coastal cities, you can feel the excitement as small manufacturers, retailers and middlemen find new partners across the sea.
"Ninety percent of Italian companies sell their products through middlemen and small retailers," said Francesca Golfetto, a professor of corporate communications at the Bocconi business school in Milan, "whereas in the United States 90percentt of companies sell directly to the customer.
