The entrepreneurship argument is supposed to show that private property is necessary because only an individual private entrepreneur who owns the productive assets and appropriates the profits, if any, from their use, will have the incentive to be smart and careful with the assets. Thiscargumentnisbavdismal failure,more fluted by the modern corporation, among other things, where the entrepreneurs are typically managerial employees who own little if any of the assets they manage.
Put rationally Hayek's point about the need for entrepreneurs is that some people involved in production have to have the vision, energy,imagination, talent, and drive to come up with projects and see how they fly. Entrepreneurs may work very hard and I would not be surprised if they do. So do scholars who care about their work, academic or scholarly entrepreneurs, if you will. Surely you do not object if that is how some people choose to spend their time, or would you prefer the French solution of make sure that there are no rate busters by enforcing a shorter workweek via police action? This may be a myth, btw.
We are on the same page with your las paragraph and that is one way of putting Hayek's basic point about economic calculation.
Sent from my iPad
On Oct 12, 2012, at 9:36 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Andie: " nothing in Hayek's argument requires the entrepreneurs be
> individual private owners rather than employees of a cooperative,
> regardless of where title lies."
>
> [WS:] So why does being employees of a planning agency disqualifies
> them? If it is not the title but rather entrepreneurship, why cannot
> entrepreneurs be employed by a planning agency?
>
>> From what I read I see that what you seem to be arguing is the merits
> of wiki vs. centralized management e.g. Wikipedia vs. Encyclopaedia
> Britannica. As I see it, both have merits, but the former has lower
> costs due to the use of volunteers (the other one uses paid staff.) I
> also understand that most so called entrepreneurs work long hours as
> volunteers hoping that they will eventually succeed, whereas employees
> of a planning agency have paid 9-5 jobs.
>
>> From that pov, the entrepreneur system is more efficient than the
> planning system, but it is so largely due to hyper-exploitation
> (unpaid work) - hardly the basis for any claim to any superiority.
>
> If, otoh, you are arguing that perfect planning is not possible
> because there will be always unforeseen consequences, and that a
> decentralized entrepreneur system is better equipped in dealing with
> these contingencies than centralized planning because it can
> "localize" or contain the unforeseen costs instead of spreading them
> through the system - you got one sympathetic ear.
>
>
> --
> Wojtek
>
> "An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."
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