Entrepreneurs

This first part of the Essai is where Cantillon makes the distinction between entrepreneurs and workers ... Accordingly, ... there are at least 110 separate references to the word "entrepreneur" ... This term is thought to have been first used by Cantillon, and it was later popularized by John Stuart Mill ... Cantillon visualizes the entrepreneur as being a risk-taker, dealing with uncertain returns in a market where prices and quantities are non-fixed and unknown. This bearing of risk, on the part of the entrepreneur, is what warrants him an appropriate profit in exchanges with willing buyers.

Home-ownership is far more widespread among ordinary people today than in the past because of entrepreneurs who have figured out how to produce more, bigger and better houses at prices that more and more people could afford. But can you name any of those entrepreneurs who have been celebrated for their contributions to their fellow human beings? Probably not. In California, anyone in the business of producing housing is more likely to be demonized as a "developer," a word that causes hostile reactions among Californians conditioned to respond negatively — and automatically, like Pavlov's dog.