The End of the Empire that Entrepreneurship Built: How Seven Sources of Rot will Undo the West

Wim Naudé

Foundations and Trends(R) in Entrepreneurship, 2024, vol. 20, issue 5, 481-573

Abstract: Warfare EconomyThe West is the empire that entrepreneurship built. All empires in the past have at some point collapsed. In recent years attention has been turning to concerns that the global economy is facing the polycrisis, and that collapse may be imminent. In this light, this monograph argues that there are at least seven sources of rot that affect entrepreneurship. These sources of rot follow from an analysis of the sources of rot which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is argued that all of these sources of rot are relevant in the West. The West has an increasingly powerful military-industrial complex which thrives on a , science and research are declining, innovation is being disincentivised, the West is becoming a stop-button society that is seeing technological conservatism just when new technological innovations may most be needed, and the flow of information is increasingly hampering the role of entrepreneurs as knowledge spillover conduits as well as the functioning of democracy. While these factors impacted the Soviet Union, the West is now also facing the end of the hydrocarbon age and has to face the consequences of the financialization of the economy. From the analyses of how these sources of rot undermine entrepreneurial growth, follows two implications. One is that, given that the underlying sources of rot are similar in outline in an empire that has been built by entrepreneurship, and in an empire that has not been, then entrepreneurship is not a solution to avert collapse. A second is that if collapse is not extinction, it may be a reset to a system that has become too costly and too exploitative to maintain. Collapse may be welcomed, and may even be a feature, and not a “bug” of the evolution of society. These implications suggest that the West should be getting busy with succession planning.

Date: 2024
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