Entrepreneurs

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider if self-employed entrepreneurs, a class of individuals who require enforceable property rights to create new firms and ideas that could increase a society’s material living standards, constitute an individual property rights enforcement mechanism. Design/methodology/approach With data from the General Social Survey, the authors estimate the parameters of mixed-effects categorical regression specifications to measure the effect of self-employment on confidence in the US Supreme Court, raising and donating funds for social or political activities, and on trying to persuade others to share political views. Findings The findings suggest that self-employed entrepreneurs are one of the guarantors of a constitutional democracy based on an ethic of individual property rights, and public policies that are pro-entrepreneurship help mitigate the risk of constitutional failure, and maximize society’s material living and ethical standards. Research limitations/implications The results are based on cross-sectional data, which do not account for dynamic changes in preferences. Practical implications The findings suggest that self-employed entrepreneurs are a enforcement mechanism and a guarantor of an ethic of private property rights necessary for the ongoing success and viability of a constitutional democracy based on individual property rights. Social implications The findings suggest that as entrepreneurs constitute an enforcement mechanism for individual property rights, to the extent that entrepreneurialism also cultivates individual virtue entrepreneurs also serve as guarantors of a moral and ethical society that is based on virtue, which results in a constitutional democracy with high material living and ethical/moral standards. Originality/value This paper is among the first to empirically test whether entrepreneurs are an enforcement mechanism for individual property rights.

The Declaration of Independence and the Mystery of Equality

What were the meanings of “all men are created equal” for the signers of the Declaration, and how was the phrase understood in different states? The chapter traces the natural rights origins of the Declaration and how the idea of natural equality affected ideas and policy on slavery, race, and religion, especially in Massachusetts and Virginia. Public figures everywhere recognized a conflict between their deep commitment to individual property rights and their assertion of equal human rights. Concern for social stability in a time of revolution influenced ideology and practice.

THE CANNIBALIZED CAREER OF LIBERALISM IN COLONIAL INDIA

The interpretation of liberalism as a project that not only masks, but enables, political domination has long held currency in South Asian historiography. Recently, the subject of liberalism and empire in both francophone and anglophone contexts has returned to discussions in broader imperial historiography. One especially pressing question that emerges from these approaches is how to analyze intellectuals of colonized countries, such as India, who themselves claimed liberal terminologies and pressed forth liberal arguments. Are they to be assessed by the same criteria as European liberals who argued for the rights of the individual, the free press, and individual property rights?

HENRY GEORGE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THORSTEIN VEBLEN’S THEORY OF CAPITAL

Henry George, self-taught economist to the common man, developed a strong following outside the halls of academic discourse for his ideas about land, rent, and the single tax. Since he drew the ire of important economists such as John Bates Clark and Alfred Marshall, it should come as no surprise that few professional economists were willing to acknowledge his influence on the economics of the day. Yet, a closer look reveals that at least in the case of Thorstein Veblen, a clear connection can be made between these two important American thinkers. The concept of an unearned increment establishes their shared connection by illustrating the tension that exists between individuals and communities when individual property rights are assigned to community assets.