Comment by mr_toad
My reading of the Culture novels is that few people produce anything at all, or do any work or labour, and nearly every is produced by the ships, orbitals, and the Minds that control them. It’s not clear who exactly decides what gets produced, but decision making seems to be largely controlled by the Minds.
The Minds are people too. Production happens individually at the small scale and based on collective decisions at the large scale. The Minds sway public opinion, but ultimately the public at large makes large decisions like the Idiran war.