Johan Norberg’s talk “Entrepreneurs Are the Heroes of the World,” which offers a peek at his forthcoming book, is now available online. I heard him give it at a Cato Institute event last year and I can say it’s even better heard than read.
Johan Norberg’s talk “Entrepreneurs Are the Heroes of the World,” which offers a peek at his forthcoming book, is now available online. I heard him give it at a Cato Institute event last year and I can say it’s even better heard than read.
Glad to see others talk about entrepreneurs as heroes.
I have done some resarch on this as well. The links are below.
The Creative-Destroyers: Are Entrepreneurs Mythological Heroes? (Presented at the annual meetings of the Western Economic Association, July 1992).
http://www.geocities.com/cyrilmorong@sbcglobal.net/ENTREPRENEUR.doc
“The Calling” of the Entrepreneur
(Published in The New Leaders: The Business Bulletin for Transformative Leadership, November/December 1992.)
http://www.geocities.com/cyrilmorong@sbcglobal.net/ENTREPRENEUR.htm
It’s an extremely good talk (I only have the transcript); I will be recommending it in the econ classes I’m teaching.
Charles,
Glad to see that you will be using this in your classes. Do you know Israel Kirzner? (I see that you go your Ph. D. at New York University) Although I have not met him, reading his work on entrepreneurship was instrumental in getting me interested in the entrepreneurship/hero connections.
In one of his books he said something like “entrepreneurs discover opportunities for economic profit by leading a life of purposeful action.” That made me think of “following your bliss.” Campbell even uses the phrase “creation and destruction” to describe what the hero does.
Cyril