Social Entrepreneurs - Definitions of

The School for Social Entrepreneurs discusses the definition of Social Entrepreneur provided by Martin and Osberg in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and discussed in an earlier Gifthub post. If a Social Entrepreneur makes the world better, or more just, for a targeted group, through disruptive change, leading to a new equilibrium, was Rousseau a Social Entrepreneur? Robespierre? Tom Paine? George Washington? Harriett Beecher Stowe? General Sherman? Lenin? How about Dante? Gallileo? Machiavelli? Confucius? Can a great social entrepreneur, like a great writer, go unheralded, and die forgotten, without achieving a real world effect? Or, is success part of the definition? So that we call a failed social entrepreneur, a "loser" and leave it at that? I would think that social entrepreneurship to be a useful concept would need to have better boundaries, and clearer contrasting terms, not just be a fuzzy honorific, or puffery. I would think at the very least a social entrepreneur by definition must be under the impression or delusion that markets are the best avenue to a better world. A social entrepreneur is one who looks to business as a high calling, or sees business methods as the preferred means to high and noble ends. That definition would then set social entrepreneurs apart from heroic figures in the arts, sciences, war craft, diplomacy, law, religion, philosophy, and other walks of life that may in fact have far greater effect than entrepreneurs per se can or should.

When did shopkeers and entrepreneurial upstarts first become moral heroes? How about Moll Flanders?  Or, Macheath? Today, we find it commonplace to look up to entrepreneurs in all their cultural narrowness, presumption, and vulgarity. There was a time when to admit you consorted with an entrepreneur (then called a "Projector" or a "Virtuoso"; see the Novak tome linked here) brought dishonor on a person of good breeding and good taste. An entrepreneur would not have been admitted to any drawing room in the time of good Queen Anne. Now, it is the cultured people, the carriers on of intellectual, artistic, ethical, and spiritual traditions, who are in the Dumpster, as the bumptious MBAs laud one another as world historical figures, seers, world changers. How sad if it be so.  They sure don't write like they are in touch with the World Spirit.  For the Social Entrepreneurs among us, here is a link to the word bumptious, so you won't have to look it up. The definition could have your picture on it.

Comments

[Stuart Johnson]

Ouch, baby, ouch! Sizzle, sizzle from one who asserts, but not, presumably, crudely. Bump-alicious!

The World Spirit has succumbed to the bean counters’ metrics. This is a good thing, perhaps. No more dictatorship of the silver-tongued, no more aspirational fluff anchored by that morbid liberal arts nostalgie de la boue. Show me your answer and I’ll tell you if it's right.

[Phil]

I read you name Stuart and did a double take. I knew I knew you from somewhere. White Courtesy Telephone, the Trouble Makers of Philanthropy. Stuart your not unbumptious comment is not unwelcome.

[Gerry]

There is much more to say here. Metrics are a good thing if they are not abused. The foundation of our thinking about currencies connects with any kind of flow, including moneys but not limited to that.

The questions about metrics and measurement that go beyond the numbers and equations, to how and why they are applied in the world. What are the dynamics of monetary systems and economies? How does a currency help or hurt economic flows? When you look at these questions deeply you will be questioning not only the equity, but the efficacy of the monetary/financial systems that we have.

What I take from Fitts is that we can create new institutions formed from networks of local businesses and individuals where we (the community, the network) create new financial tools and institutions. We can experimentally answer questions posed above and tune the internal flow metrics (implemented with targeted currencies) to respond and maximize signals correlated with community health. Rather than concentrating wealth unproductively, the wealth is spread out and locally managed. We will have the most for everyone to share, the humans and all the living things.

[Phil]

What else to take from Catherine is the scale and difficulty of making a significant change. She tells me that even to do a "design book" for a community, outlining what must be done to put the community on a multi-sectoral path towards an upward double bottom line, might cost millions, before the work moves the practical "to do phase."

[Gerry]

But doesn't significant change start small, as a kernel of truth and simple moves in the world. Collectively millions are involved, but it is in small segments with immediate results. The main change is creating an investment space where moves that are good for the whole are rewarded differentially more than other investments, and tapeworm activities are charged against your operation.

[Phil]

How to start small is the question. In what small ways to redirect cash flows from what she calls the tapeworm of tax-driven or big company driven solutions, to the more human scale, face to face communities in which we live? That seems an ideal that unites liberals, libertarians, and small town conservatives. So many of us wish we could get control of our lives and our immediate life-world. Who does not dream of owning a farm and being self-sufficient? Or maybe investing in a farm, so that you at least have the basics covered come what may? Yet we send our money to central banks in NY and they loan it to corporations moving jobs offshore. Why not move the money back where we have face to face commitments? Catherine is no dreamer, but she shares that dream and is trying to pioneer it, with all the tenacity and ingenuity of a former deal maker from Dillon Reid.