On the "entrepreneur" , it's a noun form of the French word for "go between" or "take between". I'm wondering how the concept of "middleman" fits in to the different business types discussed here. Of course, ancient traders were "middlemen" in some sense, taking goods between towns or societies. Marx points out that commodity exchange originates on the periphery of societies, in "time in memorial". Commodity production only becomes the predominant form of production with capitalism.
Charles On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 9:35 AM, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > John seems to be following a non-Schumpeterian definition of > "entrepreneur" entrepreneurs are simply small business-owners. I > prefer the term "petty bourgeois" for them, though to some extent > definitions are merely a matter of taste. (BTW, I distinguish the > petty bourgeoisie from the professional-managerial "middle layers.") I think this is a misunderstanding. Small business owners e.g. a pizza shop owners are not entrepreneurs. A programmer in a Silicon Valley garage with a good software, or a university professor with a new invention looking to turn their ideas into real products are entrepreneurs. e.g. the founders of Google were entrepreneurs when they started out. *Successful* entrepreneurs (like the Google guys), of course, eventually become capitalists but I don't see why that has to be the case. John V is quite right in pointing out that entrepreneurs are usually victims of capitalists (VCs) just as workers are. -raghu This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
