The Entrepreneur as Social Hero

A couple days ago Arnold Kling reported a conversation he had with Arthur Brooks of AEI on free market evangelism. He writes:

Brooks thinks that the case for markets must be made in moral terms rather than in material terms. Young members of the cognitive elite (my term, not his) take affluence for granted, as well they might. They are focused on other values (you may recall the Russ Roberts podcast with Dan Pink, talking about autonomy, mastery, and sense of purpose).

Brooks would like to reverse the usual tenor of the debate in which the opponents of capitalism make moral arguments and the defenders of capitalism make material arguments. He would like to leave the opponents of capitalism arguing for material equality in the context of a sterile, corporatist-statist economy that stifles individual creativity. He would like to have the defenders of capitalism argue that human flourishing requires allowing people to strive for and earn their success.

In the upcoming Facebook movie, several entrepreneurs will be portrayed as needy and insecure or conniving, arrogant and greedy. From what I hear, the truth value of this film is close to zero, which is unfortunate, because the real people are far more interesting than Justin Timberlake. It is telling that we live in a society that cares more about Timberlake’s success than that of the man he plays, Sean Parker. Arthur Brooks and other evangelists need to address that problem. One place to begin would be Schumpeter’s angle on the entrepreneur as someone motivated by “the joy of creating and getting things done.”

Vanity Fair has a profile of Sean Parker in which he expresses some views that might resonate with the “cognitive elite,” a class obsessed with social transformation and betterment. From VF:

There is hardly a topic—literary, political, medical, or technological—about which [Parker] cannot offer an informed and nuanced opinion in his rapid-fire patter. (Don’t get him started on Ben Franklin’s role as a media pioneer.) Most of all, he turns his knowledge and instincts toward Internet business strategy as a way, he says, of “re-architecting society. It’s technology, not business or government, that’s the real driving force behind large-scale societal shifts.”

Emphasis mine. And:

To Parker, the implication is that people in his position have almost an obligation to do what they can with the tools at their disposal—software and the Internet—to free up society through disruptive technology. As he muses, it is clear that he sees entrepreneurship and invention as handmaidens of social transformation.

The entrepreneur as social liberator…the rock stars have fallen silent and grown anemic…who will inspire in their place?…I can’t get no….I can’t get no….satisfaction…uh, no, no, no…hey, hey, hey…you want social action? Start company by solving a problem. That’s what I say.

Read the original story at Let A Thousand Nations Bloom