{"id":7066,"date":"2015-05-20T22:49:12","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T06:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=7066"},"modified":"2015-05-21T04:35:21","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T12:35:21","slug":"on-the-meaning-of-entrepreneur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=7066","title":{"rendered":"On the Meaning of <q>Entrepreneur<\/q>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There has been and is a lot of confusion over the English word <q>entrepreneur<\/q>.  Now, I say <q>English word<\/q> advisedly, because, though <q>entrepreneur<\/q> was derived from a <em>French<\/em> word spelled <em>exactly<\/em> the same way, a <em>word<\/em> is not merely a <em>sequence of symbols<\/em>, but such a sequence in association with a <em>concept<\/em> or set of concepts, and the <em>English<\/em><em> word <q>entrepreneur<\/q> doesn't have quite the same <\/em><em>meaning<\/em> as the French word.<\/p> <p>The French word means <span style=\"font-style: italic ;\">contractor<\/span> or, more generally, <span style=\"font-style: italic ;\">one who undertakes<\/span>.<\/p> <p>We didn't need a new word for <span style=\"font-style: italic ;\">contractor<\/span>; it would be contemptible affectation of one sort or of another to introduce a longer French word for such purpose.  In fact, there was some attempt to engage in that sort of affectation in the 19th Century, first in the entertainment industry.<\/p> <p>But the sequence <q>entrepreneur<\/q> was re&iuml;ntroduced to English in the mid-20th Century with the intention of identifying a <em>narrower<\/em> concept that meritted a word of its own.  That concept was of <span style=\"font-style: italic ;\">a person who attempts to create a market where one does not exist<\/span> &mdash; offering a new sort of product, or offering a sort of product to those who have not been purchasers of such things.<\/p> <p>The <span style=\"font-style: italic ;\">entrepreneur<\/span> is not merely a small business person, nor an active business person, nor an independent contractor, nor some combination of the three.  The <span style=\"font-style: italic ;\">entrepreneur<\/span> is an <em>economic explorer<\/em>, seeking to cultivate new territory &mdash; typically with pecuniary profit in mind, but sometimes just for the satisfaction of <em>having brought a market into existence<\/em>.<\/p> <p>Whatever the motivation, it is in the r&ocirc;le of attempting to create markets that <em>the entrepreneur is the great hero and the entrepreneuse the great heroine of the market economy<\/em>.  And some unconscious sense of that heroism has passed through our society, causing business people aren't such explorers to want to label themselves <q>entrepreneur<\/q>.  The word has become <em>diluted<\/em> in general use, and many people are using it as if, well, it meant no more than the French word from which it were derived.  Economists with a fair understanding of the market process shake their heads in dismay.  We need a word for those heroes.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There has been and is a lot of confusion over the English word entrepreneur. Now, I say English word advisedly, because, though entrepreneur was derived from a French word spelled exactly the same way, a word is not merely a sequence of symbols, but such a sequence in association with a concept or set of [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,117,36,4],"tags":[947,1267,287,1265,232,1266,1268,914,148,811],"class_list":["post-7066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-communication","category-economics","category-public","tag-definitions","tag-economic-discovery","tag-english","tag-entrepeneuses","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-french","tag-language","tag-markets","tag-meaning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}