entrepreneurship (was: Debunking Economics)

["Alan G. Isaac" <aisaac@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John,

I do not know what is most surprising here:
your removal of Schumpeter from the Austrian canon,
or your elevation of Kirzner.
In any case, you have completely misrepresented
Austrian thought on the role of entrepreneurship.
For example, Mises writes:
  http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap15sec8.asp
``Like every acting man, the entrepreneur is always a speculator.
He deals with the uncertain conditions of the future.
His success or failure depends on the correctness of his anticipation of
uncertain events. . . . The specific entrepreneurial function consists in
determining the employment of the factors of
production. The entrepreneur is the man who
dedicates them to special purposes.
. . . A prospective entrepreneur does not consult
the calculus of probability which is of no avail
in the field of understanding.
He trusts his own ability to understand future market
conditions better than his less gifted fellow men.''

To avoid misunderstanding, let me emphasize that I am
merely contributing to a discussion of schools of thought
here.  I am not advocating ``the'' Austrian school, which
like every school has its strengths and weaknesses.

Alan



"John M. Legge" wrote:

> The Austrian entrepreneur, in Kirzner's description, is an arbitrageur, pure
> and simple.  Innovation, in the Schumpeterian sense of new products, new
> qualities of product, new processes, new sources of supply and new forms of
> industry organisation is conspicuous by its absence from Austrian theory.
> To Kirzner, and so to the Austrian school in general, "there is nothing new
> under the sun".