Businessperson[edit]

The term Political entrepreneur may also be used to contrast a pure "market entrepreneur" with someone that uses the political system to further a commercial venture or their own career. On this definition a political entrepreneur is a business entrepreneur who seeks to gain profit through subsidies, protectionism, government contracts, or other such favorable arrangements with government agents through political influence and lobbying (also referred to as corporate welfare).


Ed Younkins (in 2000) wrote: "Political entrepreneurs seek and receive help from the state and, therefore, are not true entrepreneurs." Similarly, Thomas DiLorenzo says, "a political entrepreneur succeeds primarily by influencing government to subsidize his business or industry, or to enact legislation or regulation that harms his competitors." He says, in contrast, the "market entrepreneur succeeds financially by selling a newer, better, or less expensive product on the free market without any government subsidies, direct or indirect." He gives the example of a mousetrap manufacturer who seeks to gain market share by making a better mousetrap as a market entrepreneur, and a manufacturer who lobbies Congress to ban the importation of foreign-made mousetraps as a political entrepreneur. (DiLorenzo, Thomas, Chapter 7 of How Capitalism Saved America) [1]


In practice, the division between the market entrepreneur and the political entrepreneur can have overlap. Many share characteristics of both types of entrepreneur—political and business—to varying degrees. The term appears to have been coined by Burton W. Folsom Jr. in his book, The Myth of the Robber Barons.^[3]