But you’re smart enough to know what I mean.

I’m smart enough to know that “seems to oversimplify” or “another broad simplification” is not a worthwhile objection to every statement that you happen to disagree with. Later.

I’m smart enough to know that “seems to oversimplify” or “another broad simplification” is not a worthwhile objection to every statement that you happen to disagree with. — Stan

To oversimplify even more, I evaluate most philosophers as introverts and most entrepreneurs as extroverts. — Stan

I thought we were on the same turf here. You oversimplified and I pointed out another simplification.

I’m not trying to harass you here, just putting my thoughts down as they arise.

This is the core question of the OP;

So why is it that most people that are interested in philosophy aren't interested in Entrepreneurship? — Gitonga

It’s about “most people”. My priority here is to clearly establish just who the philosophers and entrepreneurs are. Some people see entrepreneurs as Gates or Bezo, which warps the idea severely, and some view philosophers as those who do something that resembles academic philosophy.

Of course there’s no crossover there. They probably hate each other. But that leaves plenty of room for crossover between others, don’t you think?

He takes nothing from the state and receives nothing from them. — Brett

Well considering all it did to ensure his residence and very existence and all it does toward his continued survival and security doing so when of sound mind and able body would be pretty egregious come to think of it. What are we going to do next? Start clapping and jumping up and down for joy when our 10 year olds don't piss all over the seat? It's an unfortunate fact that that part was actually worth mentioning. And it is. Again, unfortunately.

Is that all you could take from my post?

Well considering all it did to ensure his residence and very existence — Outlander

What are you referring to?

Isn’t the question then, if there is a difference, what’s the difference between those who philosophise and those who do business?

I was being ironic.

he wanted to be free and independent in the world instead of being beholden to someone who decides what he gets paid, what his hours will be, how he’ll do the job, and what his future might be — Brett

So does everybody. The difference, among those who even take any action to do something about it, is between saying "we shouldn't put up with this! we should all do something about this so nobody has to be beholden to someone else like that!", and those who say "I'm not going to put up with this! I'm going to be the one people are beholden to, not the one beholden to people!"

I don't understand all the cherry picking here.

How do you think jobs are created, where does the tax the government collects come from?

Brett,

you seem to be getting farther and farther from the point you said you were trying to make.

let's just refresh ourselves what this is about.

1. I claimed that the wealth entrepreneurs create benefits no one but themselves.

2. you disagreed.

specifically, I said:

which benefits them and, no one else. — Kaarlo Tuomi

and you replied,

The above is what I disagreed with... — Brett

so, focusing the conversation specifically on wealth creation rather than the other claims previously made for entrepreneurs...

3. I gave a long list of reasons to believe that wealth does not trickle down and benefit anyone other than its creator or owner, and I asked you to provide examples of this in action to prove your point, which you declined to do. I also gave you a selection of rhetorical questions for you to consider, and you have responded to none of this...

4. instead, you describe a mom and pop cafe who generate no wealth at all.

how, exactly, is that making your point?

if the point you wanted to make was that not all entrepreneurs are immoral parasites, then mom and pop might make your point, but no one in this thread has ever made that claim and it has nothing to do with the point you said you were interested in, which was that the wealth entrepreneurs create is a net benefit to society. mom and pop don't do that, and actually make my point rather than yours. mom and pop is a clear demonstration that wealth does not trickle down.


Kaarlo Tuomi

I claimed that the wealth entrepreneurs create benefits no one but themselves. — Kaarlo Tuomi

So you mean the entrepreneur providing a service or a utility doesn't benefit anybody?

How insane is that idea?

So you mean the entrepreneur providing a service or a utility doesn't benefit anybody? — ssu

neither a service nor a utility are wealth.

Kaarlo Tuomi

But that's simply wrong.

An entrepreneur can make a good, and some person can make a transaction with him or her, meaning the person can buy it from the entrepreneur. Now the person has something that is relatively scarce and that can be viewed as an asset.

So if a artist paints paintings and people buy them, the people have paintings. The entrepreneur, the artist, has created wealth. Hence the simple fact is that wealth is created by entrepreneurs, just as in generel wealth is created. (A thing that many people don't understand)

Entrepreneurship consumes an incredible amount of time. Philosophy can consume a large amount of time. The two pursuits don't directly contribute to breakthroughs in the other. — Adam's Off Ox

True it comsumes much of the same time (though I like to akin it to bandwidth) and energy that one person has to expend on their various aspects of their lives. When starting up a company that you hope will have agility and adaptability to withstand the curve balls life will those you, the bandwidth needed is huge and stratified. I don't know of a single successful entrapenuer that did not spend their early days, hyperfocused on the way to succeed no matter what stood in their way only to succeed to Level 1. Level 1 is a bit higher than start up mode with all the same responsibility, all the liability but your best skill is fire putter outter.
Once you reach Level 2 you can start to feel strong enough to bring on help and such goes careful and frugal movement.
At the heart of every company there is a philosopher, not the loud one that thinks they know what is happening, but it's usually the quieter one that sits at the right hand of the CEO.
I say this because the assistant to the CEO knows the philosophy that the company was founded on, and if as I said, we are talking about a successful entrapenuer, that person knew the philosophy they themselves were guided by to get them to where they are today.

Jobs are created by people who have needs, and something to trade for the facilitation of those needs.

In a reasonable world, entrepreneurs would create newer more specific jobs to accomplish those “natural jobs” (fulfilling people’s needs), just like engineers create newer more specific tools out of the “natural tools” given by the universe and discovered by science.

I don’t have any problem at all with entrepreneurship in that regard.

The problem that @Kaarlo Tuomi is on about, that you disagreed with, and that I’m now supporting, is that in the actual world more often than not that isn’t how and why entrepreneurship gets done. There are people with needs and people who would be able to fulfill those needs (i.e. to produce) if only they had the means (of such production, i.e. capital) to do so, which they don’t, because almost everyone is poor and struggling even to meet their own needs. Then you’ve got the tiny fraction of people who control all that capital and want to use it to extract more of it so that they can keep paying other people to satisfy their own needs without ever running out.

Those people, to their own ends, thus agree to let the actual producers use (not have, just use, borrow) their capital as a means of production, on the condition that a large part of the money that the people in need (the customers) pay in exchange for that product go to the capital-owner, rather than the people doing the actual production. And those capital-owners just inserting themselves between the producers and customers get called “entrepreneurs” and “job creators”. Which is like calling the Mafia “security guards”, because so long as you pay them they’ll make sure that your shop doesn’t get wrecked, by them. The capital-owners similarly “create jobs” merely by allowing the use of capital so long as you pay them for it, instead of them just hoarding it all to themselves merely as incentive to make people’s pay them to borrow it.

The problem that Kaarlo Tuomi is on about, that you disagreed with, and that I’m now supporting, is that in the actual world more often than not that isn’t how and why entrepreneurship gets done. There are people with needs and people who would be able to fulfill those needs (i.e. to produce) if only they had the means (of such production, i.e. capital) to do so, which they don’t, because almost everyone is poor and struggling even to meet their own needs. Then you’ve got the tiny fraction of people who control all that capital and want to use it to extract more of it so that they can keep paying other people to satisfy their own needs without ever running out. — Pfhorrest

But that's not in any way what Kaarlo Tuomi is saying:

I was refuting. the claim was, "Entrepreneurs create wealth, they put ideas into practice, They make the world a better place for everyone." — Kaarlo Tuomi

1. I claimed that the wealth entrepreneurs create benefits no one but themselves. — Kaarlo Tuomi

wealth does not trickle down and benefit anyone other than its creator or owner — Kaarlo Tuomi

neither a service nor a utility are wealth. — Kaarlo Tuomi

What you are saying somebody cannot be an entrepreneur because they cannot start their business endeavor. That's totally different what Tuomi is saying. In his answer to actually he argues that the entrepreneur doesn't create any other wealth than for himself, which obviously misses totally the issue of the entrepreneur producing something, a service or a good. Kaarlo thinks this isn't wealth, as if produced goods aren't equivalent to money, which is just a medium of exchange, a value of account and store of value.

In your own answer first you said:

But beyond keeping the business itself going, what the business does can be anything. It doesn't have to be creating new wealth, or making the world a better place. It can just be funneling wealth to its owner. — Pfhorrest

The entrepreneur likely creates a service or a product that you aren't forced to buy to live, so the transaction between you and an entrepreneur is voluntary. Guess then there has to be a reason just why you would give some of your hard earned money to someone else.

What I said is an elaboration of the mechanisms behind what Kaarlo said. “Entrepreneurs” in our capitalist world are more often than not just people with capital who want more of it, so they “create businesses” (lend their capital) where those who do the actual work can produce (using the borrowed capital) for those who pay the actual money, and then the “entrepreneurs“ take their cut off the top of that process. Enabling producers to actually produce and fulfill the needs of customers is incidental: they’ll do as little of that as they can get away with, only as much as they have to in order to achieve their goal of multiplying their capital.

Seems like you are talking about franchising or simply what banking does. Besides, if a philosopher gets his or her income by writing books, that is entrepreneurship. However the smug philosopher usually has tenure in an university today and writes articles to a journal of fellow minded people, so you could call him or her an employee.

Enabling producers to actually produce and fulfill the needs of customers is incidental: they’ll do as little of that as they can get away with, only as much as they have to in order to achieve their goal of multiplying their capital. — Pfhorrest

That's why you need competition and why monopolies tend to suck big time.

Seems like you are talking about franchising or simply what banking does. — ssu

Not just that. Anyone who buys buildings and equipment and then pays other people to operate them is letting others use their capital (the stuff) in exchange for money (the difference between what the customer pays and the employee receives).

The only reason the employees would agree to such an arrangement is because they don’t have and can’t afford the stuff they need to do their jobs themselves.

The philosopher is interested in being right, while the entrepreneur is interested in what works. The philosopher doesn't really face consequences for being wrong, while the entrepreneur could be financially ruined by a misstep or a poor investment. Philosophers theorize and system-build - historically speaking, often from the top down while the entrepreneur needs to be firmly routed in the concrete realities of the economy/market first and foremost. The philosopher has endless time to contemplate while the entrepreneur must make decisions and take risks otherwise there could be great costs.

う

Assuming the philosopher is employed as a philosopher say in a setting with other philosophers and the entrepreneur is stupidly wealthy... you can inverse the two and your post would still be correct.