Is Entrepreneurship good?
Comments (1) My career to a certain degree benefits from what I see as a positive bias toward entrepreneurship and small business. I admit that I have held this view, that entrepreneurship is always good. However, as I’ve thought about it more and done more research, I have come to believe that, at least in America, we have built up entrepreneurship as some panacea. Politicians of every shade of political leaning keep saying that what we need is entrepreneurship. I think that this is a sign that perhaps we might be building the starting of a business up to be a secular religion.
This article from the Economist provides one point of information that indicates that perhaps not all statistics of entrepreneurship and small business are signs of economic prowess. I think that their point, that having a lot of startups or a lot of small businesses is not necessarily a good thing, makes sense.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/09/entrepreneurship
There are many reasons that companies are small or big that likely drive statistics. So the answer to “Is entrepreneurship good?” is most likely, “It depends.” I think that the problem is that people with a set ideology try to find statistics that support their view, even if they don’t understand the statistics. Moreover, they are never willing to admit that there are conditions where they could be wrong. Finally, there is not sufficient statistical understanding that the public can think through false claims. I hope that academics can play an increased role in helping to provide better information and better interpretation of the data that we have.
