Every now and then, usually entirely by accident, somebody comes along and tells members of Congress something really important.

Just think of iconic moments like John Kerry asking the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?” Or Oliver North taking it on the chin over the Iran-Contra affair, viewed by so many as a hero because he was viewed by so many as a scapegoat.

It does happen.

It doesn’t happen very often before either of the Congressional Small Business Committee and certainly nobody expects it there.

That is why, when it happens there, it is so easily missed by everybody involved. And that is probably what happened last week.

During the hearing before the House Committee on Small Business that is covered in this week’s MicroEnterprise Journal, I listened to small business owners describing the ways it is possible to use technology to expand capacity, to accommodate flexible working conditions to improve worker satisfaction, to reduce operating costs.

As I listened, I realized that there was one thing that I was hearing and one other thing that I was not hearing.

What I heard was this: ladies and gentlemen, what we are describing is the future of doing business. Technology will change the way we operate, as we become able to accomplish more with our lean, über-efficient operations. We invite you to gaze upon the future of small business.

What I did not hear was this: oh, by the way, operating in this lean and efficient way will mean we will probably find it unnecessary to hire as many people to staff our firms as we used to.

In fact, we will generally not be handling our human capital needs in the same way as our predecessors did back in the mid-20th century. Instead, we will outsource quite a lot of our non-core functions, hiring other small businesses to do that work for us.

It’ll be okay, because there will still be work to be done and there will still be people who will get paid to do that work.

What I did not hear was this: ladies and gentlemen, the way we do business in the future very closely resembles the way microbusinesses do business right now.

As I said, I have no way of knowing whether the lawmakers involved actually realized what they were listening to but that’s okay.

I’m sure somebody will come along and connect the dots for them. Eventually.