The Entrepreneur in Economic Theory

Abstract

At the beginning of our science stands the great discovery of un? planned regularity in the affairs of the market. This was Adam Smith's conception of the invisible hand which pushes every man in every one of his actions?pursued only in the furtherance of personal affairs, ?and known only to his Maker and to himself?into the proper place in the grand scheme. Perception of this unplanned regularity in the affairs of men was not altogether lacking among the ancients, nor among the medieval moralists. The Romans conceived a natural law quod per aeque apud omnes gentes custoditur, and they contrasted this regularity with the planned regularity of the civil law. The jus gentium was another recog? nition of such an unplanned regularity as it was placed in juxtaposition to the moral law. In fact, it may be said that from its beginnings juris? prudence is the great attempt to discover the relationships between the unplanned social regularities and the moral law. However, neither the ancients nor the medieval moralists concerned themselves directly with the unplanned order of the economic sphere, although they sometimes did so indirectly. They were preoccupied with another problem, viz. with the fact of deviation from regularity, or the fact that the individual buyer or seller can do many different things. They did not ask the question, how can there be order if each man can pursue seemingly unco-ordinated aims ? To ask this question, and thus to found a new science, is the merit of the 18th century. I have likened unplanned economic order to the jus gentium mainly to indicate as forcefully as I can that in economics as in international law the great problem remains: what are the relations between the un? planned regularities and the moral law? In economics we must know: how can there possibly be an economic policy, if there is economic law? What is the relation between economics and morality ? I propose to show that the answer to these questions has been in the making by those who have studied the concept of the entrepreneur, after they received from the classics the conception of the unplanned economic order.