Excerpt from The Entrepreneurial Imperative
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Why You Should Keep Reading
Why this book? Why now? There are four key reasons.
First, as the numbers make clear, we are in danger of losing our leadership role in the world economy. We do have a lead, one that our entrepreneurial spirit and drive created over the last two hundred and thirty years. But others—especially in Asia—are catching up. We have all the assets and ability to stay ahead, but we need to employ them effectively.
Second, after struggling through a period of stagflation in the 1970s, we have reformed our economy through what I will refer to throughout as entrepreneurial capitalism. This force grows out of our entrepreneurial society and our rich history, our constitutional protections of individual freedom and private property, and our accumulated success in business. Being economically successful is in our genes, and we need to nurture and support this in order to continue to prosper. Our entrepreneurial spirit is the basis of our strength and wealth. And propagating our economic model will only make us stronger.
Third, it is critical for us to maintain economic leadership because it is the basis of our political leadership. And, whether we like it or not, we are the country that must carry democracy and freedom into the world. It is America's historic mission. President Kennedy said so in his inaugural address when he declared that we would "pay any price, bear any burden" to "assure the survival and the success of liberty" and that the United States would not shrink from "the role of defending freedom." That mission has not changed in the intervening four and a half decades.
Finally, entrepreneurship must be the basis of our foreign policy—the American dream is not just for Americans anymore. Engendering economic success within countries is by far the most certain way to support the emergence of democracy. Fostering the means to create wealth in every country will make the world more stable. Schemes such as forgiving debtor nations have a very limited impact. Only when citizens can live in countries where wealth expands can democracy flourish. Failing to advance this model will inevitably result in a worldview that sees the issue of wealth through the lens of redistribution, not expansion.
Of course, the growth of worldwide capitalism will be good for us, since it will provide more markets for our goods, but it will benefit everyone. The opportunity to create wealth in an entrepreneurial way—that is, in a way that has it widely dispersed throughout a society—is the soundest approach to spreading democracy.
Developing and spreading entrepreneurial capitalism will revolutionize the world. It will bring stability, democracy, and expanded markets in which each country can exploit its comparative advantage. At home, creating wealth is the touchstone of our welfare and our freedoms. Every citizen should be prepared to participate.
Harold Evans and others have referred to the twentieth century as the American century. America can enjoy another American century, the twenty-first, built around the worldwide spread of democracy and the expansion of the underlying economy of democracy: entrepreneurial capitalism. But that can only happen if we see entrepreneurial capitalism as our chief comparative advantage and make it our chief export. Consider this book your guide to understanding how that can happen.