Entrepreneurial Responsibility

Nov 5
07:58

2010

Dr. Marlene McMillan

Dr. Marlene McMillan

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What is the difference between an employee and an entrepreneur? Entrepreneurs control their own success. Employees depend on the success of others.

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Entrepreneurs are responsible for their mistakes and their successes. When they mess up,Entrepreneurial Responsibility Articles they must accept the consequences. When an employee messes up, the company and shareholders live with the consequences.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of the American economy because they continually innovate, expand, and create new goods and services that are exported around the world. They are also one of the few sectors of society that understands the principles of liberty, because their very livelihood depends on it.

Liberty is the opportunity to make a choice to assume responsibility and accept the consequences. This describes the life of the entrepreneur very well. They make a choice to assume responsibility for a business concept, and accept the consequences; hopefully profit, but possibly failure. Entrepreneurs operate in liberty and cannot operate when they are under control or restraint from external sources. No opportunity means no entrepreneurs.

The risks of ownership are higher than the risks of being an employee. As an employee, you get paid even if the owner makes a mistake. But the rewards of ownership are much higher than the rewards of being an employee. As an owner, you can make profits while your employees do most of the grunt work. You just keep everything on track, and are free to live the life you want. As an employee, you are under someone's control and direction. As an owner, you control and direct others. This brings much freedom as well as much responsibility.

If your company grows, you bear the responsibility for success, and the burden to care for your employees. They depend on you for their living. If you make a mistake, it affects more than just you. Think about how the failures and mistakes of relatively few people at the top of the world's biggest financial institutions caused disastrous consequences for millions of people worldwide when the economy collapsed in 2008.

Liberty is vital to entrepreneurs since it determines the degree to which they can utilize their talents, resources, and opportunities. But liberty is dependent on the ability of people to govern themselves, and that ability comes from a strong moral foundation. When the moral foundation of a country is strong, entrepreneurs can thrive because the government does not need to exercise extensive control. Only when people fail to govern themselves must an external source step in to fill the void. The leaders of the financial institutions failed to govern their behavior and exercise moral restraint in decision-making, and as a result, the government drastically increased its regulatory capacity of the financial sector in 2008. Individuals must either be governed by an internal source or an external source. The values of liberty are championed when people can govern themselves. Otherwise, liberty is lost.

The founders of America made a huge initial deposit of liberty that has enabled continued prosperity for over 200 years. But that deposit will not last forever. The principles of liberty must be championed by a new generation, or the entrepreneurial spirit of America may be lost among the continual inability for citizens to govern themselves.

The preservation and sustainment of Liberty depends on you. It's time to discover liberty or lose it.