Political and Social Entrepreneurship

Both “political entrepreneur” and “social entrepreneur” have emerged in recent years as descriptive phrases (unless noted, all citations in this section are from Wikipedia):

“A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact s/he has on society as well as in profit and return. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many now are working in the private and governmental sectors and making important impacts on society.”

The phrase “political entrepreneur” is sometimes used in this sense (the quote is from Choi Taewook):

“A political entrepreneur refers to a political player who seeks to gain certain political and social benefits in return for providing the common goods that can be shared by an unorganized general public. These common goods that political entrepreneurs attempt to provide to the populace generally include foreign- and domestic-related public policy, while the benefits they hope to gain involve voter support, public recognition, and personal popularity.”

“Political entrepreneurs” are sometimes contrasted unfavorably with “real entrepreneurs”:

“Ed Younkins (in 2000) wrote: 'Political entrepreneurs seek and receive help from the state and, therefore, are not true entrepreneurs.' Similarly, Thomas DiLorenzo says, 'a political entrepreneur succeeds primarily by influencing government to subsidize his business or industry, or to enact legislation or regulation that harms his competitors.' He says, in contrast, the 'market entrepreneur succeeds financially by selling a newer, better, or less expensive product on the free market without any government subsidies, direct or indirect.'"

In Original Meanings, an historical study of the U.S. Constitution, Prof. Jack Rakove refers to the Founding Fathers as “political entrepreneurs”. They could be viewed in the context of Choi Taewook's definition, although their work product went beyond “common goods that can be shared”, and included the foundational framework of Federal government. Economic interpreters of the Constitution, such as historian Charles Beard, might view the Founders' “political entrepreneurship” as also encompassing the characterizations of Younkins and DiLorenzo.

In my political activity, I have been describing myself as a “political entrepreneur”. I associate this term with Choi Taewook's rendering, and Prof. Rakove's rendering.  I plan to broaden the description of my activities to “political and social entrepreneur.”