Week 13 Response - The Differences Between Political and Market Entrepreneurs

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This post is a response to the question ["Do people tend to confuse political and market entrepreneurs? Do most people even understand that there is a difference?"] (@haydenhirzel12/week-13-questions-the-differences) posed by @haydendenhirzel12.

I believe most people do not even know that there is a difference between political and market entrepreneurs. I did even know there were different types before we came across this week’s topic. A political entrepreneur is a person that creates a business to make a profit through subsidies, government contracts, or other things like that from the government. It means that these people are creating business in order to make a profit off of the government not a free market. A market entrepreneur is a person who creates a business and tries to succeed in a free market. These people have to adjust their product and their prices in order to get everyday people to buy their products while receiving no aid from the government.

Market entrepreneurs are a great thing. They help grow the economy and create competition in the marketplace. They create things to help fill a void that no one else has recognized yet. Overall, they are a great addition to other growing business in the United States. On the other hand, I believe we could do with less political entrepreneurs. These people are going into business with the government in order to control a certain market in a certain area while lining their pockets with government funds. I also believe that this is not helping certain other countries’ economies with the United States giving them subsidies. In our poverty section, we talked about how Haiti had a booming rice industry where rice was a luxury good. That was until the United States came in with the rice and its subsidies. This completely destroyed their market. It not only put farmers out of jobs, but also majorly hurt their economy. I am not an expert on either market or political entrepreneurs, but I hope to have a better understanding after this week’s speaker.