Freedom, Entrepreneurship and Economic Progress

Abstract

All countries have people with an entrepreneurial spirit, but in far too many of them their talent and drive lie fallow. We argue that the most fertile soil for the seeds of entrepreneurship consists of the freedom and informed discipline that characterise market economies. In markets, freedom and informed discipline reinforce each other in ways that allow entrepreneurial failures to be tolerated through a process of restraint and knowledge creation, which converts them into engines of economic progress. Unfortunately, when economies become overly politicised, entrepreneurial ventures can become suppressed, not because of their failures, but because of their successes.