When a former Minister of Welsh Affairs, Sir Keith Joseph, told an audience in Cardiff that the Welsh language had no word for “entrepreneur” he was asked what the equivalent English word was (Vinen 2009, 212).

Vinen, R. 2009. Thatcher’s Britain: the politics and social upheaval of the 1980s. London: Simon and Shuster. 

RL 

----- Original Message -----
From: "mason gaffney" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, 20 September, 2013 9:21:16 AM
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Use of Entrepreneur in English

I venture (not as an entrepreneur or entrepreneuse, however) that we bend
our best efforts to minimize or eliminate the word and concept of
entrepreneur, undertaker, adventurer, or other synonym from our vocabulary.
Why?  It conflates socially functional with socially dysfunctional and
predatory and destructive and parasitic activities.  A pirate is an
entrepreneur; so is a slaver, and many of the early “adventurers” were quite
frankly and openly so.  Banditry is a form of entrepreneurship.  A pimp is
an entrepreneur of sorts.  The “Sooners” who grabbed the best lands of
Oklahoma in its land rush (and proceeded to turn it into a Dust Bowl in 40
years) were simple rent-seekers; likewise the “prior appropriators” who
seized for themselves the precious waters of the arid and semi-arid states.

 

Keynes had many faults, but he clearly distinguished “income-creating”
investing from acquiring existing assets.  The concept of entrepreneurship
blurs this vital distinction completely. 

 

Turgot earlier wrote that investing is “the beneficial and fruitful
circulation that animates all the work of society, …”.  That concept leaves
out pirating, gambling, mergers and acquisitions, rent-seeking, and gets
right to the point of social economics. Over the 250 or so years since
Turgot too many economists have lost his ability to get to the essentials of
economics; and that loss of focus is epitomized in the word “entrepreneur”. 

 

Mason Gaffney

 

 

 

 

 

From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of José Manuel Menudo
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 6:21 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Use of Entrepreneur in English

 

Dear Steve Kates:

The literature points out J.S. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (1848)
as the first use of entrepreneur in English language. In a footnote, Mill
remarked the superiority of the French term for this purpose: “It is to be
regretted that this word, in this sense, is not familiar to an English ear.
French political economists enjoy a great advantage in being able to speak
currently of les profits de l'entrepreneur.” However, Mill still utilizes
undertaker. Frank Knight (in Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, chapter 2) noted
the first use of the term entrepreneur in USA was the work of Francis A.
Walker (Political Economy, 1887). 

About the uses of the terms undertaker and entrepreneur, you can see Robert
F. Hébert and Albert N. Link, “Historical Perspectives on the entrepreneur”,
Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship, Volume 2, issue 4, 2006.

 José M. Menudo

 

 




 

-- 
José Manuel Menudo
Department of Economics
Universidad Pablo de Olavide
Ctra. de Utrera, Km.1
41013 Sevilla
Spain
www.upo.es/econ/menudo