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Social Entrepreneurship

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DanielMuff Posted: Mon, Apr 5 2010 8:25 PM

What say you of social entrepreneurship?

To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process.
Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!"
Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."

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Just a feel good way of making money for commies. (;

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AndrewR replied on Tue, Apr 6 2010 3:06 AM

'Social Entrepreneurship' was a popular new module at my university and, like Kaju says, nothing more than a feel-good buzzword for commies. Profit isn't everything, you know! Enslavmen… er, 'responsibility' to the community is much more important. I think Naomi Klein was on the reading list, too.

It was encouraging people to become charitable organisations as opposed to profit seeking business ventures, essentially – and thoroughly demonising the latter.

Just another day at your average business school, I suppose.

 

Ludwig von Mises: "We must see conditions as they really are, not as we want them to be."

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kiba replied on Tue, Apr 6 2010 4:12 AM

You don't need to feel fussy, warm, nice, and not greedy to help people. You just help people, for profit and fun.

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From what I gather, social entrepreneurship attempts to solve government-created problems, while blaming said problems on the market.

To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process.
Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!"
Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."

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Merlin replied on Wed, Apr 7 2010 7:43 AM

Daniel Muffinburg:

From what I gather, social entrepreneurship attempts to solve government-created problems, while blaming said problems on the market.

Wow, that's a new tacticSmile

 

The Regression theorem is a memetic equivalent of the Theory of Evolution. To say that the former precludes the free emergence of fiat currencies makes no more sense that to hold that the latter precludes the natural emergence of multicellular organisms.
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Nielsio replied on Wed, Apr 7 2010 8:10 AM

From Wikipedia:

Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur focuses on creating social capital. Thus, the main aim of social entrepreneurship is to further social and environmental goals. However, whilst social entrepreneurs are most commonly associated with the voluntary and not-for-profit sectors, this need not necessarily be incompatible with making a profit.

 

Last time I checked, consumers express what they value through their choices in trading. If you make a profit (using voluntary means) you are by definition being socially beneficial.

Conclusion: 'social entrepreneurship' is a load of dung.

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Here's this from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business' Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship's homepage:

Social entrepreneurship is a phenomenon that has captivated the public, the media, activists, philanthropists, and social change agents alike. Around the world, social entrepreneurs are revolutionizing our approaches to problems like education, the environment, poverty, healthcare, and social justice.

There's no free market in education, the environment, poverty, healthcare, nor social justice.

To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process.
Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!"
Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."

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Nielsio replied on Wed, Apr 7 2010 12:13 PM

Daniel Muffinburg:

Here's this from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business' Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship's homepage:

Social entrepreneurship is a phenomenon that has captivated the public, the media, activists, philanthropists, and social change agents alike. Around the world, social entrepreneurs are revolutionizing our approaches to problems like education, the environment, poverty, healthcare, and social justice.

There's no free market in education, the environment, poverty, healthcare, nor social justice.

That's why it's been captivated (held captive).

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Nielsio:

Last time I checked, consumers express what they value through their choices in trading. If you make a profit (using voluntary means) you are by definition being socially beneficial.

Conclusion: 'social entrepreneurship' is a load of dung.

Tell that to the average person and they'll have you hanged.

The point isn't that private businesses that profit without resorting to fraud, theft or violence. The point is that their primary motivation isn't about "caring"

These social entrepreneurs provide "social capital" and go under pretty quickly without government aid. Most people will damn the evil nature of humankind and the market. I think it's because they fail to realize why the company failed. It failed because it didn't effectively meet the most pressing needs of people, which was the goal of social entrepreneurship in the first place! The "social capital" they strive for is better provided by the ethical private firms that are largely interested in profit!

I guess it comes from the fallacy that businesses don't provide anything and that they just seek to produce profit. How to come across profit without producing anything, I don't know. I'll let the non-economists explain that to me.

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Social entrepreneurship is fine as long as their is no coercion or aggression involved.  Profit goes beyond financial gain.  IIRC, the term Mises uses is psychic profit.  So doing things for the benefit of other people because doing so provides satisfaction to you will suffice. 

By the same token, it would be extremely difficult to be a successful social entrepreneur if their were no financial gain.

 

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