Smith, Bentham and the Development of Contrasting Ideas on Entrepreneurship

Enzo Pesciarelli

No 11, Working Papers from Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali

Abstract: A comparative reading of The Wealth of Nations and of The Theory of Moral Sentiments has made it possible to identify the characteristics of Smith's 'undertaker', and to reveal the irreconcilable nature of these with those that Bentham ascribed to 'projectors'. In particular, Smith developed a multi-functional theory of entrepreneurship, although his analysis essentially focused on the undertaker as risk-bearer. By contrast, Bentham developed a mono-functional theory, one based on the revolutionary concept of the 'innovator' or 'creative entrepreneur'. And it also transpires that he anticipated - sometimes in an extremely surprising fashion - many of the components of Schumpeter's analysis of the subject.

Pages: 29
Date: 1988-06
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://docs.dises.univpm.it/web/quaderni/pdf/011.pdf First version, 1988 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Smith, Bentham, and the Development of Contrasting Ideas on Entrepreneurship (1989)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:anc:wpaper:11

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Maurizio Mariotti ().