Is Entrepreneurialism Free?

I said don't get me started LOL

Ruby, loved your comments. I think that after reading your posts that we can agree on one things...distaste for big government.

I don't think entreprenurship necessarily involves risks, other than the risk of failure. However this is a facet of all activities in life, and I do not believe that the risk of failure is any higher in enterprise than in any other activity (and is probably less, if one has a supportive operating environment and training to hand). Nor is the consequence of failure any more onerous than other activities, and again may well be less depending on the operating environment.

I feel we are perhaps at cross-purposes to some degree, as I see entrepreneurship as the use of one's own skills, talents and efforts to create 'wealth' (at whatever level) on behalf of oneself rather than on behalf of someone else. The question is therefore about the structure within one effects one's entrepreneurship rather than the actual behaviour of the individual.

For example, a person acting as if an entrepreneur, but within a company that they do not own (for example as a Sales Development Director, or a Network Marketing Distributor) is carrying out the same functions as a 'real' entrepreneur (standalone business owner). It is therefore not the behaviour which is different, but the environment within which the behaviour happens.

Furthermore, all activity that we carry out as a job task is activity that we could carry out as an entrepreneur. For example, a cleaning technician may be employed or freelance, but their work activities are the same.

For this reason, there is no reason why actual entrepreneurship would not be suitable for everyone, in my view.

My feeling is that people may well be content to remain employed, and if that is there preference then of course they should be free to do so. However, my feeling is that people generally remain employed because they do not feel that they are able or capable of any alternative. Thankfully, the internet is changing that perception. I welcome the opportunity it gives each and every person to determine their own destiny.

Finally, and I am sorry for banging on (you got me started LOL), freedom can not be conditional. If capitalism gives freedom to those content to work for someone else then it must also give freedom to those who chose not to work at all. Clearly this is not the case due to our monetary economy where all growth and commerce is linked to cash transactioning.

A person's function within the economy is to produce (at a price which allows profit for the capital owner) and to consume (again at a price which allows profit to the capital owner). Therefore, not only do people have to work to survive and participate in the economy (and by extrapolation society), it is their very existence which both provides the profit AND pays the profit to a third party. This, to me, is more akin to being a farm animal than a free human being.

And this is why I see enterprise on an individual level as being the key to freedom, not only for ourselves individually, but ultimately for the human population as a whole.

And for God's sake don't get me started on Government ;)

It has never been my practice to involve my life with government other than to vote, watch, listen, and act when I feel moved to. Mr. Romney stated my feelings clearly and I make no apologies either. We live in a world where anything is possible so no matter what we think will happen there is always a chance where it won’t, or visa versa. No matter who is in government controlling what happens from their perspective, there is a much larger force controlling the universe to which I place my fate whether I am an entrepreneur or employee. Do I want to continue to have free liberties? Of course. Would I fight for them? If I felt moved to yes. Knowledge is power, but the real power comes from forces that are unseen. That is the only power I trust no matter how much knowledge I acquire.

Have to agree with you that Entrepreneurship and Freedom are one and the same, but don't agree with you about the capitalism part. Capitalism (literally) is the generation of profit on the basis of existing wealth. That's not what entrepreneurism is. Capitalism requires (and exploits) the labour of people who have no capital, therefore it enslaves. So freedom and capitalism are not the same thing either.

Giving everyone the ability to create their own independence and wealth, without the need for starting capital, and without the necessary exploitation of others, THAT is freedom (IMO). Freedom breeds entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurship breeds freedom.

That's why I call it Radical Enterprise. It changes the world, one life at a time :)