The Entrepreneur

The Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture sponsored by James Walker.

Subsidies, government quotas, and regulations of workers won't make us richer or better off. Only private owners and entrepreneurs can determine the best way to use labor (and capital). 

For some people, there's nothing that can’t be improved by a big dose of government regulation. Now, even the virtual economies of video games are being targeted as the next frontier in labor laws, price controls, and more.

“Austrian insights distill the complexity of what we business owners do down to a very simple mantra: satisfy the desires of others. That's it. That's all any of us are trying to do.”

This week, the Federal Reserve raised the target Federal Funds Rate ever so slightly. The Fed perhaps felt it had to raise rates to protect its credibility, as credibility problems seem to be plaguing similar institutions worldwide.

Statistics can only go so far in telling us about patients, so doctors must deal with uncertainty every day while applying the skills of entrepreneurs. In a way, the best doctors are often the best entrepreneurs.

The biggest technology problem we face today is not the rise of technology in the private sector. New technologies only improve worker productivity and wealth accumulation. The real problem is in the many ways that the state will use technology against us.

It's the age-old question: is success the result of natural talent or simply hard work? This problem is especially important for entrepreneurs.

The true lessons of Thanksgiving are that private property, the market economy, and personal responsibility lead to prosperity, while government intervention makes us all poorer.