Entrepreneurs, Capitalism, and Emancipation

Marx misunderstood entrepreneurs and how they liberated the world

Entrepreneurs are equally, if not more, important to the expansion and growth of the world economy -- and hence human flourishing  -- than capitalists because it's entrepreneurs that drive innovation.  

Capitalists are just the backers who provide incentives, resources, and knowledge.

This distinction then is substantial.

Marx famously directed his dialectical vitriol toward capitalists for exploiting the laboring masses.

But instead what capitalists did was incentivize entrepreneurs to create the inventions that free humanity from a number of perennial problems.

After all entrepreneurs brought light to dark times -- literally.  Edison’s invention of the light bulb did more to facilitate human achievement than any of Marx’s dictatorships of the proletariat.

But because of Marx’s misunderstanding about what capitalists actually do millions of potential entrepreneurs have been discouraged from bringing all of their brilliant, emancipatory, and liberating ideas into the world market.

Instead many people who would have otherwise been entrepreneurs have operated under the belief that freeing humanity requires a communist redistribution of capitalist resources.  In reality all this does is suck resources from the entrepreneurs who literally want to build a better world.

But of course for Marx all the talk about liberation is just a communist marketing ploy for a social product that will never be brought to the market. 

And perhaps that’s ultimately why entrepreneurs and their open markets will prevail -- the citizens of the world prefer their liberation to take place through the power of innovative and time saving goods and services rather than perennial theorizing about a utopia that never has been nor will ever be.

Zigmund Reichenbach has an M.A. in Philosophy from West Chester University.  You can support his work at https://ko-fi.com/zigmundreichenbach