| Why is it important to establish the moral status of | | | | entrepreneurship is the ticket to a decent chance for |
| entrepreneurship? Unless it can be shown that the | | | | wealth. Certainly one can agree that between stealing |
| entrepreneur does what is morally worthwhile as an | | | | and producing, the latter is more honorable. However |
| entrepreneur, that his role is ethically praiseworthy, | | | | what if quietism - the form of religious mysticism that |
| not only his or her status in the market but the | | | | involves complete extinction of the human will, |
| market itself becomes vulnerable to serious moral | | | | drawing away from worldly things - is proposed as an |
| criticism. This is because it is well recognised that | | | | alternative? |
| ethics are the free market's life line. Many economists | | | | How about asceticism - the religious ideal that one |
| are beginning to realise this. Indeed, it is | | | | can reach a higher spiritual state by self-discipline and |
| entrepreneurial activity that makes the best sense of | | | | self-denial? How will the system that is hospitable to |
| profit - another vital part of capitalism. | | | | entrepreneurship be defended in the light of such |
| However, without also demonstrating that | | | | powerful challenges? |
| entrepreneurship is ethical, the market would at most | | | | The most serious challenges to capitalism come from |
| be hospitable to morally indifferent kinds of behavior; | | | | those who contend that by making entrepreneurial |
| at worst it would encourage moral callousness and | | | | effort possible - by protecting the rights to private |
| discourage the pursuit of presumably morally more | | | | property and the pursuit of happiness here on earth - |
| significant objectives, such as order, self-restraint, | | | | this system corrupts human life. It tends to permit |
| artistic excellence, family values. | | | | the commercialisation of human relationships, making |
| When a system is vulnerable in one of its essential | | | | us self-interested economic agents instead of what |
| ingredients, competing systems that lack this | | | | we really ought be, altruistic members of our |
| weakness become very powerful if not immediately | | | | community. |
| successful alternatives. Their images improve, even if | | | | It is insufficient to reply that the capitalist system |
| their actual performance leaves a lot to be desired. | | | | makes it possible for people to attain a better life |
| Some argue that all we need is the hospitable | | | | here on earth. That is just what is in need of |
| environment, but this is false. Even in the freest of | | | | defense. Why should we strive for such a life in the |
| societies many, many potential market agents can be | | | | first place? |
| lazy. Not that laziness is encouraged but that it is | | | | In a society of just human relationships, there must |
| clearly not foreclosed. That is partly what freedom | | | | be a consistent and constant hospitality to |
| means. One has a genuine choice whether to be | | | | entrepreneurship because without this, an important |
| productive or not. It is not enough to show that | | | | moral dimension of human life would be suppressed |
| under capitalism human beings are free, unless the | | | | or at least seriously distorted. Without such a |
| kind of uses to which such a system puts human | | | | welcome, public policy and law would yield to more |
| effort can themselves bemorally worthwhile. So the | | | | widely accepted but sadly misguided moral |
| question needs to be addressed. Why should one be | | | | sentiments, for example, the call forgreater and |
| productive? Why should entrepreneurship be | | | | greater state power to regiment or re-engineer |
| practiced? What is good about it? | | | | society instead of making it safe for natural human |
| It is not enough by a long shot to answer that | | | | initiative. |