- Aug 2024
-
www.researchgate.net www.researchgate.net
-
ven successfulentrepreneurs, who are as unwittingly influenced by neoliberal ideals asthe next person, are still plagued by psychological and emotional angst
key observation
-
subjectivity is being shaped by externalities beyond their control.
sometimes external pressures are technical and regulatory, sometimes they're social...
-
sense of straitjacketing
ouch!
I was reading a recent reminiscence of Norm Macdonald, the comic who rarely played by the rules and whose ultimate success was probably limited as a result. The straightjacketing of our popularity-based culture is evoked in the following comment: "When you are young you picture an authentic way of living, free from the petty concerns — rules, money, public opinion — that encourage us all toward cowardice. Then you get older and realize that the freedom you have been imagining is death." Dang!
-
we present a more nuancedview of entrepreneurial behavior, one that details not only the de-terminants of success, but also the quiet desperation, the self-doubt, thewaning ambition that can also constitute part of the entrepreneurialjourne
how come there are not more stories that highlight the "dark side" of entrepreneurship?
-
One might imagine that the continuous scramble for viewers andsubscribers would lead to an endless diversity of original and creativecontent.
hah!
-
being an autopreneur can result in a considerable bout of neuroticsoul-searchin
!! obsessing over success also frequently entails obsessing over one's self (one's looks, one's public image, one's brand (and ability to connect to others).
-
All conform to a common criterion of beauty with onlysubtle deviations, a requisite tattoo here, a piercing there, all throwninto the mix as a nod to individuality.
ouch! (again)... our self-discipline turns us into non-unique selves...
-
Perhaps, as our research suggests, the autopreneurs –not to di-minish their photogenic talents and undoubted ability to speak to thecoveted and illusive millennial audience –are merely akin to attractivemannequin models in a shop window that are posed, controlled anddressed as others would like
yowza! this argues that the real power lies in the hold that audiences have over them... hmmm
-
The creativity dispositif
analyzing autopreneurs for evidence of the 2nd "wellspring"
-
It's a delicate balance to somehow stand out, while remainingessentially on song with one's target audience
yep
-
The real locus of power in this relatively new industry iswielded by agent intermediaries who work on behalf of vloggers, pre-senting, cultivating and packaging their clients for the big brand ad-vertisers. These intermediaries who we label inter-preneurs manage,govern and control the most marketable of the young YouTubers.
Whew! Perhaps the most damning comment of all. Autopreneurs might appear to be the most entrepreneurial figure, taking advantage of new techs to shape their selves and cultivate an audience, but inter-preneurs hold the real power (the Scooter Brauns of the world and the nameless others behind the institutions of influence). What do you think about this?
-
Others are, even despite having an entrepreneurialmindset and obvious talent, less certain, and prone to bouts of despair.Like pan handlers who turn up too late at the gold rush, they under-stand that competition is extreme, and that finding success with theirvideo channel will be extremely difficult. They attribute a number offactors as responsible for this state of affairs. Some simply believe thatthey lack the ruthless egotism and self-confidence to make it big
promote yourself or die. Or die from the need to incessantly promote oneself... a catch-22 ...
-
The fetishization of ‘communicative capitalism’(Dean, 2009)championed by anyone with a social media presence where “socialworth is measured, in part, by the number of Facebook friends youhave, or by the number of re-tweets your last Twitter posting gained
yep ...
-
It is clear that people like David have deeply internalized the pro-mise of neoliberalism
!!
-
Technologies of the self
thoughts on the 3rd wellspring...
-
llustrating how orienting concepts from neo-liberal theory shape and govern how they think and act
the aim of the article -- suggest what informs and guides the thoughts and actions of auto-preneurs...
-
Structure of feeling, drawnfrom Raymond Williams' theoretical repertoire, encapsulates the livedexperience of meaning and values. It is a totality of ideology, feelings,and emotions. It conveys the complexity and contradictory nature ofsocial experience, while maintaining that thoughts and feelings aresocially determined
contrary to the uber-individualism of entrepreneurial discourse, they emphasize the collective and contextual influences on people's actions. Our agency is often the product of social practices and cultivated habits that we don't even think about and aren't typically aware of...
-
he Dynamics of competition
providing evidence of that first "wellspring"...
-
social platforms, theycan enable people to cultivate new selves
new tech provides new means to fashion new selves (but to what end...?) Are we endlessly competing for more likes, more followers, or more happiness? How is success defined?
-
a woman may thinkit is entirely her natural choice ‘to erotically subjectify’herself, butundoubtedly technologies of the self also play an influential role in theprocess of subjectification
men too! (and, if you're "ok" with some "salty" language, read on ...) In an online post titled, "EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL AND NO ONE IS HORNY," RS Benedict writes of neoliberal subjectivity (even though she never labels it as such):
"A body is no longer a holistic system. It is not the vehicle through which we experience joy and pleasure during our brief time in the land of the living. It is not a home to live in and be happy. It, too, is a collection of features: six pack, thigh gap, cum gutters. And these features exist not to make our lives more comfortable, but to increase the value of our assets. Our bodies are investments, which must always be optimized to bring us… what, exactly? Some vague sense of better living? Is a life without bread objectively better than a life with it? When we were children, did we dream of counting every calorie and logging every step?
A generation or two ago, it was normal for adults to engage in sports not purely as self-improvement but as an act of leisure. People danced for fun; couples socialized over tennis; kids played stickball for lack of anything else to do. Solitary exercise at the gym also had a social, rather than moral, purpose. People worked out to look hot so they could attract other hot people and fuck them. Whatever the ethos behind it, the ultimate goal was pleasure. Not so today. Now, we are perfect islands of emotional self-reliance, and it is seen as embarrassing and co-dependent to want to be touched. We are doing this for ourselves, because we, apropos of nothing, desperately want to achieve a physical standard set by some invisible Other in an insurance office somewhere.
Contemporary gym ads focus on rigidly isolated self-improvement: be your best self. Create a new you. We don’t exercise, we don’t work out: we train, and we train in fitness programs with names like Booty Bootcamp, as if we’re getting our booties battle-ready to fight in the Great Booty War. There is no promise of intimacy. Like our heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like Rico and Dizzy and all the other infantry in Starship Troopers, we are horny only for annihilation."
-
Consider,for instance, the neoliberal ideal of what constitutes an enviable body.Stereotypically, it is toned, lean and exudes vitality and health; mus-cularly-tapered to the waist if you are man, or hour-glass-shaped, if youare a woman.
We are exposed to representation(s) that fuel our desire, and we desire to make ourselves over in line with those representations. We seek out such content and our subjectivity gets increasingly solidified as our self-image gets reinforced with the images we self-select.
-
various “operations on their ownbodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being that people makeeither by themselves or with the help of others in order to transformthemselves to reach a state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, orimmortality”
a crucial observation for this article (and for entrepreneurial subjectivity in general). people share their identity, their bodies, and their thoughts in order to improve them and shape them to be more in line with their own (and society's) liking. Not everyone does this the same way, of course, but everyone does this in some way!
-
all the tales told of teenagers in their bedrooms,“striking it rich with a video camera, youth media created seeminglywithout industrial intervention, content created by youth for youth”(Woods, 2016, p. 237), become part of the creativity dispotif, whichyoung people subsequently seek to emulate
what I just said, above. the challenge and excitement of providing for yourself and freeing oneself from the drudgery of the mundane 9-5 life (ooh - transgression!) ... who wouldn't want this? Well... people who crave the comfort and security that comes from the "social contract"...
-
For centuries,ongoing popular rhetoric on the rise of individualism (Perelman, 2005)and the march of meritocracy (Frank, 2016), myths though they un-doubtedly are, have collectively espoused “the entrepreneurial ideal”which holds that through hard work and talent any individual can reapenormous rewards
link back to the Horatio Alger myth...
-
the kind of governmentality that most affectsyoung people trying to build careers for themselves on YouTube or inother spheres of creativity has been identified by McRobbie (2016) asthe ‘creativity dispositif’
ok - the language that follows this quote made me write "ugh" -- the point is that the thing we can most control is our creativity. And yet our creativity is inspired by that of others around us (we get clues as to what might work -- crocheting, live-streaming video games, makeup tutorials, etc) from the powerful, agentic personalities we also see online...
-
people thinkthey are entirely autonomous and self-directing when, in reality, theiragentic personalities are subject to neoliberal logic. Neoliberalism thuscreates people who feel entirely responsible for the conditions in whichthey live.
the "genius" of governmentality (or what I referred to earlier as self-discipline). Why do you drive on the right side of the road? Because it's the "right" side of the road? Or because we'll be given a ticket if we don't drive "properly"? The threat of police action (the punitive arm of GOVERNMENT -- remember good ole "repressive state agencies" from COMM1F90?) causes us to take action ourselves to prevent such repression -- we control our own actions (or "police" ourselves). Often we do this because we think it's how we "ought" to behave and we reward ourselves by thinking we made the right choice... we inflate our sense of importance by thinking we are the ones making the choice. No-one is forcing you to make certain decisions, but we do so thinking we're going to be successful or it is the "right thing to do"
-
Individualism is said to be “anideology based on self-determination, where free actors are assumed tomake choices that have direct consequences for their own unique des-tiny”
The ideology of individualism! How you situate yourself relative to this world-view defines whether you internalize and agree with neoliberal values or whether you resist them!
-
Technologies of the self
Wellspring #3!
-
Creativity dispositif
Wellspring #2!
-
each of us canmake it big with the right amount of pluck and entrepreneurial de-termination”
Is this a lie (or at least a socially endorsed myth)? Or is it reality (and some are just to weak or unwilling to sacrifice what is necessary to reap the rewards of their own hard labour)?
-
Dynamic of competition
Wellspring #1!
-
he self is subject to neoliberal ideals such as: “self-re-liance, personal responsibility, boldness and a willingness to take risksin the pursuit of goals”
entrepreneurial subjectivity internalizes neoliberal thinking
-
“a dominant ideology of global ca-pitalism”and as “a form of governmentality and hegemony”
neoliberalism accords with self-discipline (control of the self) which also internalizes the logic of capitalism and entrepreneurial subjectivity (take care of oneself because no-one else will...)
-
meritocracy’, as McNamee andMiller, 2009, p. 1) state, is the firm belief that, “if you work hard en-ough and are talented enough, you can overcome any obstacle andachieve success”
"pull yourself up by your bootstraps" ...
-
we live in “a societysubject to the dynamic of competition. Not a supermarket society, butan enterprise society.
Does this make sense to you? How does this make you feel? -- impassioned? empowered? under pressure? perpetually stressed?
-
the neoliberal subject is “an entrepreneur of himself...beingfor himself his producer, being for himself his own capital, being forhimself the source of [his] earnings.”
the entrepreneur of the self, being for one's self (link back to Gill and the death of the "social contract" or "common weal")
-
utopreneurs internalize ‘a structure offeeling’, divined from neoliberal ideology, that shapes, directs andgoverns their everyday affairs. We find that three main wellsprings –the dynamics of competition, the creativity dispositif, and technologies ofthe self –detrimentally affect the quality of their lives and collectivelyinstitute a ‘cruel optimism’which promises much but delivers little
autopreneurs may be the "archetypal" heroic figure of neoliberal entrepreneurialism... introduces 3 "wellsprings"& the idea of "cruel optimism" (which was also used by Szeman to contextualize entrepreneur culture today)
-
the ideology of neoli-beralism, which has precipitated unprecedented cultural change byappealing to the values of “...individual freedom, creativity and he-donism”
the ideologies of entrepreneurialism and neoliberalism are interconnected (even mutually constituting)
-
At best, they are ‘micro-celebrities’(Marwick, 2013), small timers who scrape a living or use their still-meagre earning to supplement a day job from which they long to es-cape. Many others are still scrambling, still dreaming of acquiring asignificant following, of one day having bestowed upon them thecoveted title of ‘digital influencer’. Essentially though, YouTubers, of allsorts, embrace the sociotechnical capabilities of the YouTube platformto effectively sell their brand of networked individualism and as suchthey are –whether they know it or not –the unrivalled manifestationsof living, breathing neoliberal idealists
autopreneurs = aspirational, but also precarious. Constantly striving for more, and idealized as the model for self-sufficiency and self-improvement in an environment that demands both, such YouTube content producers are neoliberalism writ large...
-
entrepreneurial precarity
the context for this article. Not just autobiographical entrepreneurs on YouTube, but everyone (context for side-hustles, too, to hearken back to Szeman...)
-
the imperatives of the neoliberal world shapeand govern how entrepreneurs think and act.
link to the other article this week (Gill)
-
he literary genre that best encapsulates the entirefield of entrepreneurship is that of “heroic drama”. Successful en-trepreneurs, as protagonists in these dramas are invariably portrayed ashardworking, risk-taking, exceptionally talented and entirely praise-worthy.
link back to last week...
-
We also introduce the notion of ‘autopreneurs’to describe the en-terprising YouTubers who form the representative context of this study.This portmanteau of the terms ‘autobiographical’and ‘entrepreneur’succinctly conveys their intensely enterprising and confessional ten-dencies
new term ... but not entirely new terrain...
-
researchers have failed to understand en-trepreneurship as a struggle with failure
!!
-
-
www.researchgate.net www.researchgate.net
-
he is familiar, but novel; within our grasp, butjust out of reach
entrepreneurial "man" is adept at navigating liminality (I like this phrase!) ... always on the threshold of something new, but recognizable in terms of familiar archetypes so as to not be upsetting or too disruptive...
-
Under personal capitalism, a philanthropic mindset was intendedto be an everyday aspect of being self made. Under entrepreneurial capitalism,philanthropy is a large-scale, global phenomenon undertaken once an entrepreneurhas already achieved great wealth
really interesting distinction / "evolution"
-
On one hand, entrepreneurialman appeals to the individualist, progress-focused, ‘‘everyman’’ aspects of deeply-rooted American dream ideology. Yet, influenced by neoliberal appeals to individu-alism and wealth creation, entrepreneurial man also represents an elite, privilegedsensibility.
(having your cake and eating it too!)
-
I had highlighted this exact phrase too (you got to it before I did!) While we still want to believe in the self-made person, we can't help but see how much easier it is to make it if you have wealth and elite networking on your side.
-
Do organization (wo)men still exist, and how dothey interpret or give meaning to the entrepreneurial man archetype?
A good question...
-
the rule*according to the business periodicals*is that entrepreneursare inherently ethical and valuable societal members, because they are bringingneoliberal individualism to life
this seems to be an example of (bad) circular logic: entrepreneurs are inherently valuable (to society) because they generate wealth, yet this wealth is mostly valuable to individuals who realize an individualistic, inward-looking work-is-life ethos.
-
The American dream has become alarmingly out ofreach for those who are already disadvantaged; or the (entrepreneurial) Americandream is just as available, if not more so, than it ever was.
A war of ideas -- a discursive struggle! Not really a paradox since both can't be simultaneously true (yet each side vehemently defends their position and derides the opposing one!
-
This paper argues that the power of entrepreneurialism lays in its ability to meshneoliberal and historical ideologies of individualism to form the entrepreneurial manarchetype
yes -- the entrepreneurial figure (man) is not ahistorical, but woven through with historically significant elements
-
the American dream is now reserved forwealthy capitalists and even the corporation-as-person
ouch! See the documentary "the corporation" for more details on this ...
-
rejecting the conformity encouragedunder managerial capitalism yet retaining the organization man’s patriarchalheternormativity
...
-
the entrepreneurial man archetype recalls the rugged, adventuresomemasculinity of the self made man and rejects the conformity, but not the patriarchy,of the organization man.
how the entrepreneur (as undertaker of risky ventures) becomes the caretaker of the public good (because the private market becomes synonymous with public domain)
-
At the end of the day, the selfmade archetype aligns entrepreneurial man with the responsibility and instinctualdecision making of personal capitalism
recap redux
-
Yet, in the second entwining of theself made, organization, and entrepreneurial archetypes, the potential for ethicalcritique of the entrepreneurial man is assuaged by appeals to the rational sensibility ofthe organization man.
fancy lingo ...
-
Instead of challenginghegemonic masculinity, the consumerist heterosexuality of masculinity remainssalient
recap...
-
this study highlights that neoliberal entrepreneurialism signals a revival ofpersonal capitalism, though without the implied social contract. In moving beyondmanagerial capitalism, neoliberal entrepreneurialism actually hearkens back to acapitalist economy characterized by inward-focused intuition and decision making
ouch!
-
entrepreneurial man rejects self made man’simplicit social contract where, in exchange for an opportunity to advance, thehumble young man would become a responsible member of society.
ah, but the new rejects some parts of the old... this seems to be a damning critique of the neoliberal order...
-
the self made man, organization man, and neoliberalideology as entwined within neoliberal entrepreneurialism
all 3 contained in the current discourse...
-
the entrepreneurial man archetype emerges within the contemporaryeconomic milieu of entrepreneurial capitalism, where innovation, technology, andwealth creation signal successful entrepreneurship
old is new again (not news...)
-
Part of the allure of the entrepreneurial man and entrepreneurial capi-talism lays in this selective mobilization/rejection of previous archetypes
yep...
-
Paternalism was mostobvious in how entrepreneurs were often linked to wives and children depicted asneeding stability, care, and protection
paternalism...
-
As culture and institutions have shifted,the ideology of the American dream has also begun to be re-storied in the language ofprivatization. Here, the entrepreneurial man archetype models the ideal contempor-ary individual as someone who is in society but not of society, who is focused on self-interest in the form of personal wealth.
private individuals, self-worth and self-interest (self-interested individuals).
-
being labeled the ‘‘right kind’’ of entrepreneur(i.e., masculine, technological, innovative, wealth-generating) automatically char-acterizes one as an upstanding citizen
so interesting...
-
The depiction of entrepreneurs as masculine in traditional as well as alternativeways surfaces neoliberal entrepreneurialism as advancing what we might call a ‘‘newold’’ masculinity*one that constructs the entrepreneur as adventuresome along thelines of the self made man, but as ‘‘safe’’ along the lines of the paternal,heternormative organization man
new and old at the same time ... different but familiar.
-
Finally, a significant characteristic of entrepreneurs as represented in the businessperiodicals was that they were cast as unreservedly masculine
yep...
-
This paternalistic care extended to the‘‘public good’’ role that entrepreneurs supposedly enact in the economy
systemic paternalism!
-
entrepreneurs were describedas individuals who possessed traditional qualities of hegemonic masculinity(Kimmell, 1997) such as strength and adventurousness, rationality and emotionalcontrol, and a public and patriarchal persona.4 Entrepreneurs were, for instance,described in terms symbolizing war and sports.
typical...
-
venture capitalists were the robberbarons, and entrepreneurs the ‘‘little guy’’ in the American dream story. Entrepre-neurial morality therefore became underscored by the notion that entrepreneurs arejust trying to do the ‘‘right thing.’
history...
-
Such stories positioned the entrepreneur as hailing from humbleor difficult roots to work (usually) his way into success or as possessed with a uniqueand innate inclination for entrepreneurship that he purposefully fostered
indeed...
-
Even the masculinity of ‘‘failed’’ entrepreneurswas reassured because, like boxers, entrepreneurs ‘‘take a punch and then get up offthe canvas to win the fight.’’
hegemonic masculinity...
-
entrepreneurswere positioned in opposition to venture capitalists, the individuals and groups whosefinancial sponsorship was named fundamental to entrepreneurial development.
Think "Dragon's Den" / "Shark Tank"
-
The entrepreneur origin story presents an ontological paradox: Entrepreneurs aresimultaneously ‘‘everyman’’ but are also unique.
the unique everyman (oxymoronic? or paradoxical?)
-
weare able to see the entrepreneur as couched within a seemingly ‘‘new’’ economicmilieu that indicates a preference for technologically innovative and elite forms ofentrepreneurship. Second, we can begin to see how these preferences hearken back tothe Industrial Revolution (e.g., reference to Thomas Edison) and therefore recall thearchetype of the self-made man
moving forward by looking back ... new wine in old bottles...
-
Notably, the preferred path to innovation was found in technology
underwhelming ...
-
the periodicalsdepicted growth and profit as the essence of entrepreneurialism
starting with the obvious...
-
, entrepreneurship was predicated on the need for entrepreneursto continually generate profit
not that "innovative" of an insight ... yet...
-
s anew economy archetype, entrepreneurial man is a paradoxically unique everymanconstructed at the intersection of three multidimensional tropes: (1) entrepreneurialcapitalism, (2) ethical familiarity, and (3) traditional and alternative masculinity.
kind of a thesis statement, developed conceptually...
-
A significant trope in the periodicals championed entrepreneurial capitalism byhighlighting entrepreneurs involved with wealth creation, innovation, and technol-ogy.
D'uh...
-
My interrogation of entrepreneurial discourse laysin my own fascination with entrepreneurs
I love this self-reflexive declaration. You too can start with an object of fascination that motivates you ...
-
a secondtrope of entrepreneurial man is that he is rendered familiar and painted as inherentlytrustworthy, thereby evoking ethical assumptions associated with the American dream
not threatening but reassuring...
-
looking for patterns, inclusions/exclusions, and an understanding of context as related to power, control, andoppression.
the method of analysis, in basic language...
-
entrepreneur in business discourse? What coherent image(s), if any, represents theidealized entrepreneur? and, How does this idealization compare to previousorganizational archetypes?
3 guiding questions...
-
The economic system of the self made man was that of personal capitalism
personal capitalism = interesting. You have to be entrepreneurial to take care of yourself (not a corporation or stock value ...)
-
The ability for an individual to ‘‘make something’’ of oneself in an ever-growing,connected society came to signify the ideology of the ‘American dream.’
to prevent highlighting an awful lot of the previous paragraph, I just highlighted this -- the search for a new life, the ideal of ever-possible technological progress, Protestant work-ethic, pulling oneself up by the bootstraps ideology ... it all comes together...
-
Throughthe blending of these qualities of character, this genre also promoted a rags-to-respectability mentality, although Alger’s stories are typically mis-remembered aspromoting rags-to-riches
through self-made, entrepreneurial action, one can "move on up" both in terms of spending power and in terms of the opinions of others...
-
Gone were the assumptions of men as self-defining individualists, and insteadmen looked to replicate the paternalism that they received from the company
This differs radically from the Steve Jobs entrepreneurial archetype (sacrificing family for time with the company)
-
enthusiasm for technology, innovation, andindividualism that underpins entrepreneurial capitalism
good condensing statement
-
The organization man archetype, made popular by Whyte’s (1956) critique,became a symbol for a different kind of American dream, characterized bycareerism and company loyalty. Rejecting the unpredictability of small and familybusiness, organization men sought definite tasks and working hours (Fraser, 2002),bankable promotions and raises, retirement pensions, and job security in exchangefor their loyalty (Erickson & Pierce, 2005). The organization man did not makewaves and was not overly ambitious, but rose up the ranks systematically, in themanner prescribed by the organization
This archetype doesn't "rock the boat" but rather plays by the rules and gets rewarded in the end... not for their imagination, ingenuity, or innovation, but for their fealty.
-
This energetic Americandream implied that ‘‘through hard work, innate talent, and a little bit of pluck andluck, anyone can achieve anything’’
!! Not THAT dissimilar from a lot of discourses today about "just do-ing it" ...
-
neoliberal entrepreneurialism,scholarship in this area tends to assume that this ideology is fairly new
this is the entire rationale for this article -- to disprove such a limited focus...
-
entrepreneurial capitalism, where entrepreneurial endeavors represent monetarysuccess and moral fulfillment
wow - we often focus on monetary (but not moral) fulfilment. Any thoughts? Capitalism as moral force for betterment?
-
privatization and arejection of bureaucracy position the individual as the central agent in managing thesocioeconomic status of him/herself and others.
neoliberal context...
-
Scholars have observed thatentrepreneurs are expected to be ‘‘risk takers and perhaps ...daredevils’’ (Ahl,2004, p. 45) and to espouse a kind of aggression that is reflected in ‘‘a fast-paced,semi-fantasy life, detached playfulness, compulsion to work and succeed, manipula-tiveness, toughness and domination’
yes indeed - the aforementioned achievement is sought through "traditionally" and stereotypically masculine traits of risky, aggressive behaviour.
-
there is certainly a privileged performance of masculinity (that dovetails with a privileged discourse of race, for sure) All of which ties in with an individual-focused discourse of achievement
-
According to some, we have entered an era where ‘‘very ordinary people are the mainplayers
aha! neoliberalism accords with the supposed democratizing of opportunity!
-
By comparing today’sarchetype with previous archetypes, we can understand how today’s entrepreneurmeshes characteristics from other archetypes with neoliberal individualism torender the archetype sensible
yep - our current archetypes didn't form in a vacuum
-
The mid-twentieth century saw a shift away from self made, pioneer individualismand toward organizational conformity
The organizational man (working for a large corporation) cometh...
-
The self made man and personal capitalism were idealized in the popular stories ofHoratio Alger, where being self made was associated with personal morality.
hard work is good for you (both good for your social-economic status, and good for your character!)
-
Unlike the individualism and manifest destiny located in Alger’s stories, theRockwellian hero celebrated consumer comfort and conformity, and located moralityin one’s becoming the proverbial cog in the machine.
Ouch! That's a fabulously evocative image...
-
The economic milieu of this archetype was managerial capitalism.
the organization man is not a self-made man. Managerial capitalism doesn't depend upon personal capitalism!
-
The interest in entrepreneurship signals a sea change in the images of the‘‘organization man’’ that dominated much of the twentieth century. Characterizedby loyalty and conformity, the organization man looked to the paternalisticorganization for job security
William Whyte, who wrote "The Organization Man" (and it was always men...) said, "This book is about the organization man. If the term is vague, it is because I can think of no other way to describe the people I am talking about.... They are the ones of our middle class who have left home, spiritually as well as physically, to take the vows of organization life, and it is they who are the mind and soul of our great self-perpetuating institutions." This is fascinating stuff -- "taking the vows" not to mention providing the "mind and soul" of our great self-perpetuating institutions. The entrepreneurial man was not lauded as the engine of the economy or even the source of one's own financial security in the mid-20th century as much as those who gave themselves over to the promise of corporate growth and the career-ladder in the mighty firms of modernity...
-
asthe archetype inspires awe, mystery, and romance, it is also ambiguous andunpredictable to the degree that it may manifest differently in various contexts.
getting into the (productive) qualities of archetypes -- they are influential, inspirational, and aspirational.
-
archetypes represent idealistic images of whowe should or should not be (or aspire to be),
building on the definition of archetypes, now we're getting to understand how they function...
-
Entrepreneurs do not have to work in an organization in order to be influenced byorganizational discourse.
obviously...
-
The promise of stablework is no longer an expectation and careers are now understood as ‘‘boundaryless’
clear link to the other reading...
-
enterprise culture in organizations encouragesemployees to internalize the values of excellence and customer service, and tobecome an ‘‘entrepreneur of the self,’’ where the achievement of success is dictated byone’s consumerist, innovative, and youthful performance
interesting
-
the archetype has been defined as anatavistic, patterned, and universal symbolic image rooted in shared understandingsand representative of influential and desirable values and ideas.
initial definition of archetype - mostly helpful for explaining the hero archetype (and therefore linking it to last week's theme -- the (heroic) entrepreneurial figure who is both influential and embodies desirable values [and qualities])
-
we might similarlyconsider the entrepreneur as a transcendent identity construct
connects with the myths of entrepreneurship ... and the ideal figuration of heroes...
-
I turnnow to identifying the archetype of the entrepreneurial man
moving on from conceptual background to showing how these concepts are manifest over time...
-
archetypes have been defined as symbols that are ‘‘commonly understood and possesssimilar meanings across diverse situations
the easier-to-understand definition...
-
entrepreneurialism presupposes the entrepreneur as White, masculine,and otherwise privileged, and marginalizes the involvement of women and minorityentrepreneurs (Ahl, 2004).
identity politics ... socially constructed out of communication (discourse!)
-
To contextualize*and thereby texturize*neoliberal entrepreneurialism
aha - texturize means contextualize. Huh.
-
To frame the study at hand, I first introduce archetypes as idealizedmanifestations of organizational identity. Second, I introduce the entrepreneurialman archetype as reflective of today’s new economy. Finally, I provide a historio-graphical overview of the self made and organization man archetypes before movingto a discussion of methods
really nice synopsis -- tell the reader what's about to come, and then do it. Clear structure.
-
he preference for theindividual in the development of capitalism, where the deemphasis on family andcommunity left individuals searching for leadership and meaning, for which theyturned to the authoritarian or managed state, including organizations.
sounds right... Whereas the entrepreneurial individual still thrives in capitalism but tends to turn away from managerial relationships and institutions in the search for meaning...
-
archetypes
this paper is all about archetypes!
-
entrepreneurialism today is not ahistorical butgains hegemonic influence by selectively drawing from previous individualistarchetypes.
all righty then! That's a thesis statement...
-
Examining the meshing of the self made, organization, and entrepreneurialarchetypes provides insight into how entrepreneurialism taps into already formedcultural ideologies so as to be compelling
the trajectory, the rationale...
-
shaping individualsinto enterprising selves
I like this term. It's filled with promise and pitfalls alike...
-
provide a tempered, nuanced understanding for the shift from organization man toentrepreneurial man.
Gill's mission with this article...
-
entrepreneurship and neoliberalismare productively, and also problematically, entwined
yep
-
neoliberal ideology has fostered a cultof the individual that eschews a collective mindset and discounts collaborative orcommunity-centric practice. Instead, the private individual is idealized as the soleagent in her or his life and community
neoliberalism ... the force pulling the strings, so to speak, in entrepreneurial culture...
-
seek to texturizeentrepreneurialism by tracing the evolution of individualist archetypes in the US
cool ... could be a thesis statement if everyone understood what "texturize" meant here...
-
‘boundaryless careers’
also the "gig economy" ... where you have no (institutional) job security and have to be working (or prepared to work all the time). At the same time, you have the "freedom" to work from wherever (not constrained to a 9-5 ritual or a particular place).
-
-
www.researchgate.net www.researchgate.net
-
Although there may be a gleaming ‘whiter-than-white’ depiction of entrepreneur-ship, this seems to represent but the tip of the iceberg and beneath the surface, so far largelyignored, exists a large hidden enterprise culture composed of entrepreneurs not alwaysplaying within the bounds of the law.
!
-
there seems to be marked discrepancy between such textbook celebratory odesto the entrepreneur as legitimate super heroes and the lived realities of entrepreneurship
do you find that this is true when it comes to those "enterprising" individuals you know?
-
intrapreneurship
a crucial term -- while the traditional entrepreneur is seen as a (heroic) individual, there are many individuals with entrepreneurial characteristics who innovate within existing organizations. These people are called “intrapreneurs.”
-
‘parasitic’ wholly off-the-books business venture. When visiting clients for his company, he would whenever appropriategive them a quote for the company doing the job and another for him doing the job privately atthe weekend or in the evening. Unlike others starting-up a business on the side, he had no inten-tion of leaving his formal job since this gave him the necessary contacts for his own micro-enterprise.
I've known many a contractor (or contracted labourer) who, while on the job, will do just this.While it may not be wholly professional, it may end up being more profitable...
-
the superordinate ‘us’ (namely entrepre-neurship), is endowed with positivity and privileged over the separate subordinate ‘other’(non-entrepreneurship) which is endowed withnegativity and whose meaning is establishedsolely in relation to its superordinate opposite
the hegemonic dualism ...to be clear, a pattern of thinking and not a historical reality...
-
two dis-tinct groups can be identified: the ‘transitional’ self-employed in the process of formalising theirservice businesses and ‘serial’ off-the-books traders who have no intention of fully legitimisingtheir services
ok - this is just what I was referring to... which might you be?
-
Theremaining third (36%) operate service businesses that arose out of what Stebbins (2004) calls‘serious leisure’ pursuits such as a hobby or interest that leads them to set up enterprisesselling services resulting from it.
arguably, this might be growing faster than the other group given the internet and web-based social networks of interest (not to mention pandemic-related growth in personal hobbies)
-
Such a finding reinforces the evi-dence elsewhere that those starting-up enterprises tend to be people in waged employment
this links to the growth of side-hustles (where a lot of the "income" might be shielded from the state if one doesn't declare it ... especially the case of the sale of hobby-based goods and services... (early stage self-employed might view such undertakings as a risk-reduction strategy...)
-
AsTable 2 displays, they find that the words used to represent entrepreneurship near enoughalways construct entrepreneurship as something inherently good for society and for people.
again, Table 2 is a brilliant distillation of positive associations with entrepreneurship vs. negative associations with the "other" (the qualities of lesser mortals and negative social conditions...)
-
What type of work do these early-stage off-the-books entrepreneurs engage in? Of thosesetting up an enterprise, about two-thirds (64%) use the skills, tools and/or social networksdirectly related to their current or previous formal employment and/or employment-place intheir off-the-books business ventures.
think of people you know ... does this resonate with you too?
-
if you scratch an entrepreneur you will find a “spiv”’
"Spiv" is British slang for "slacker" (also someone who dresses "spiffy" and is likely a little sleazy (recalling the stereotype of the used car salesman who will do or say anything to make a sale). A spiv is likely to engage in illegal (or at least disreputable) activities...
-
many operating in the off-the-books economy display entrepreneurial qualities
it seems silly to even ask if you agree or not... (especially based on how I've been framing entrepreneurship so far this year...)
-
Whether the ‘great person’ school is adopted thatviews them as born (rather than made)
here's that question again...
-
An important outcome of reading entrepreneurs as objects of desire, as will become apparentbelow, is that forms of entrepreneurship which do not reinforce this positive, wholesome andvirtuous ideal-type are either placed outside the boundaries of entrepreneurship, depicted as tem-porary or transient, ignored or simply consigned to the margins by portraying them not as ‘main-stream’ entrepreneurship.
this can be understood as a really good link to the "Branson" reading...
-
hunting the heffalump
(as I described in the "recommended reading" I posted for the first week of class...)
-
transactions involving illegal goods and services (e.g.drug dealing) are excluded from the off-the-books economy, as are unpaid transactions
providing illegal goods and services can certainly be entrepreneurial. Consider what Jones & Spicer said on pg. 1 of their book "Unmasking the entrepreneur": "We found all these appealing and heroic allusions somewhat unsatisfying. They did not capture the darker side of the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship. ... [We] discard the celebratory ways of thinking about the entrepreneur and consider some more dismal ones: the bankrupt, the petty criminal, the swinger, the oppressed factory worker. But one image stuck in our minds, and we came back to it again and again. A beggar with a sign claiming to be an entrepreneur."
-
off-the-books workers as a ‘hidden enterprise culture
we will likely come back to this, but for some, being "enterprising" is the same as being "entrepreneurial". For others, enterprise culture and entrepreneurial culture are similar but distinct. As Hjorth & Holt argue (in an article titled "It's entrepreneurship, not enterprise: Ai Weiwei as entrepreneur"), work that is the product of individual inventiveness and alertness and commercial success is enterprising. But when it opens up the social capacity of those involved in its creation, it is distinctly entrepreneurial. In other words, the economic is underscored in enterprise, whereas the social is emphasized in entrepreneurship. They suggest that "skewing the field toward enterprise constitutes a reduction to economy, preventing us from grasping entrepreneurship in its full variety."
-
I love this statement -- glad you highlighted it before I did!
-
for many years off-the-books work was largely believed tobe mostly composed of exploitative ‘sweatshop-like’ waged employment rather than entrepreneur-ial endeavour
!
-
Although entrepreneurs are commonly depicted as risk-takers, the literature on entrepreneurshiphas so far seldom asked whether this means that they conduct their business affairs wholly by therulebook.
off-the-books entrepreneurs don't get the same respect ...
-
Table 1 summarises the qualities that Burns (2001) finds most lists suggest entre-preneurs possess, along with their antonyms. These qualities construct what is in effect a romanticportrait of the entrepreneur as a wholesome and virtuous heroic figure, as can be clearly seen whenthese qualities are inverted to depict the dualistic opposite, the ‘non-entrepreneur’
Check out this table. Who wouldn't want to have the qualities of entrepreneurs? They sound globally positive. The opposite of those qualities is not something anyone would "desire" (to use a term from the other reading). Thus the entrepreneurial personality is the fantasy of the independent, achieving, confident, fabulous figure.
-
a marked discrepancy between theideal-type representation of entrepreneurs as legitimate and wholesome super heroes and thelived practice of entrepreneurship
kind of a thesis statement ... the lived practice of entrepreneurship isn't the experience of the squeaky clean, wholesome hero...
-
Off-the-books work, or what has been variously called ‘informalemployment’, the ‘underground sector’, ‘shadow work’ and the ‘hidden economy’, reflecting thestrong consensus in the literature, is here defined as the paid production and sale of goods andservices that are legitimate in all respects besides the fact that they are unregistered by, or hiddenfrom the state for tax and/or benefit purposes
setting the stage with a crucial definition
-
-
watermark.silverchair.com watermark.silverchair.com
-
s is, in the main, inevitable in the new world of the devices and gadgets that increasingly mediate our lives. What made this article about Boomtrain distin
-
The language of risk and uncertainty that has always accompanied entrepreneurial activity has today become generalized.
risk again! Highlighted here because I've included an example of this idea of "universal risk and uncertainty" in the "food for thought" forum this week (managing a pandemic and the '2020' Tokyo Olympics...)
-
The affect attendant to entrepreneur-ialism is not one that dissipates the energies for change through a faux rec-onciliation with the present, as mediated by optimistic fantasies of the future. Rather, it affirms the desirability of the present circumstances that enable entrepreneurialism and equates subjects’ systems of attachment with an ideal system of belonging and behaving such that, even as entrepreneurs insist on the significance of their contributions in shaping the future, they occupy an ahistorical social landscape in which time stands still.
This is some really "heavy" language (and seemingly awfully fatalistic too).
Don't worry if it twists your melon a bit.
-
We are all entrepreneurs now; everyone will have to become an entrepre-neur.
I've provided an example of this in the "food for thought" forum for this week. You can, of course, do the same... There are so many examples of "everyday" entrepreneurialism ...
-
the traits required for the kind of celebrated entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and Waterloo, Ontario, are just as necessary for the hawkers, import-ers, bootleggers, market merchants, restaurateurs, scavengers, mechanics, and other entrepreneurial subjects whose labor takes place off the books all over the world
This statement stood out and made me say hmmm!
This foreshadows subsequent weeks of the course (Entrepreneurialism, innovation, and self-reliance are crucial elements of what Baron calls “Tools Entrepreneurs Need for Converting Dreams To Reality—And Achieving Success.” And these are also key to "unconventional entrepreneurship").
It also begs the question, "can anyone be an entrepreneur?" and "can anyone be entrepreneurial"? We easily give the label 'entrepreneur' to people like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or even less known business successes like Sarah Blakely, but what about hawkers, scavengers, etc? By this logic, who isn't an entrepreneur (or at least entrepreneurial)? Can anyone be an "informal" entrepreneur? This really underscores Szeman's earlier comment/thesis statement that we're all entrepreneurs now (or will have to act or think along those lines) even if we're not aspiring to be prototypical success stories like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Must, etc...
-
The concept of entrepreneurship extends back to the eighteenth cen-tury, when economist Richard Cantillon (2010) famously described the term “entrepreneur” as a “bearer of risk.”
The concept of managing risk (and welcoming it, vs. avoiding it in a more secure job working for an institution rather than for yourself) is a major theme of entrepreneurship...
You'll see how this keeps coming up in this article (as well as many others we'll be reading this semester). It is obvious at the bottom of pg. 475 and implicit in the later discussions of (flirting with) failure.
-
the designation of entrepreneur as a new ideal of contemporary subjectivity has produced a change in how the poor understand themselves. Many now feel that they have no way to escape poverty other than by becoming entre-preneurs,
I'm curious what you think of this statement -- this also applies to all sorts of precarious employment or people like yourselves seeking a better job, or a permanent job and being told that looking for a job is a full time job ... so one protects oneself by becoming one's own source of income (side-hustle or entrepreneurial initiatives are posited as the only (or the surest) way to escape one's current position...
-
We are all entrepreneurs now
This is the "modus operandi" for the whole course! What does this mean (for you)?
p.s. - this refrain is repeated at the bottom of pg. 474...
-
Entrepreneurs are both dreamers and doers,
Elsewhere in the academic literature on entrepreneurship, this idea of mindset is defined more explicitly when it comes to asking the question, 'Why are some individuals able to identify and successfully act upon opportunities in uncertain environments while others are unable to do so?' In Entrepreneurial Cognition: Exploring the Mindset of Entrepreneurs, Shepherd and Patzelt argue the following:
An entrepreneurial mindset [is] the ability to rapidly sense, act, and mobilize, even under uncertain conditions. Such a notion implies the ability to both notice and adapt to uncertainty is a key skill. When conceptualizing the notion of an entrepreneurial mindset, Ireland et al. (2003) described cognitive tasks, such as interpreting opportunities as goal change, continually reflecting on and challenging one’s “dominant logic” in changing environments, and reconsidering “deceptively simple questions” about what one believes to be true. The cognitive tasks associated with an entrepreneurial mindset embody what we more generally call cognitive adaptability. Cognitive adaptability refers to the degree to which people are dynamic, flexible, self-regulating, and engaged in developing numerous decision frameworks aimed at sensing and processing environmental changes and then choosing from those various alternatives to successfully understand, plan, and implement an array of personal, social, and organizational objectives in a shifting world (120-121).
Whew! That was a mouthful. Fundamentally, though, this "mindset" is crucial to understanding the centrality and the power of entrepreneurship in contemporary society. If you have it, you're a "winner" and if you don't have it, you're consigned to a lesser fate, less likely to flourish in today's society, unable to grasp the opportunities that come your way or unwilling to put yourself in a position to make your own opportunities (or so the story goes).
What specific qualities do you think are associated with an entrepreneurial mindset and the capacity to both dream something and to do it, to make it happen! ...?
And where have you seen these trumpeted or underscored in your own experience?
-
“cruel optimism”
I think this is a very powerful concept -- as a former student said, entrepreneurs must have cruel optimism, individuals must be able to adapt and ride out whatever wave or obstacle comes around.
Berlant uses the term cruel optimism to refer to our our investments in “compromised conditions of possibility whose realization is discovered to be impossible, sheer fantasy.” (i.e., we keep cheering for a team we know will lose; we maintain hope in an unattainable romantic ideal promulgated by Hollywood or pursue happiness based on unrealistic beauty standards; we engage in small acts of environmental stewardship like recycling or buying a hybrid in the face of potentially unstoppable climate change...) Berlant basically means that the thing we seek to achieve, the thing (or state of being) that we desire (or the act of seeking and desiring itself) might actually threaten our well-being (that's what makes it cruel!). As she put it succinctly, “a relation of cruel optimism exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing.”
This relates to entrepreneurialism in so many ways: Engaging in the gig economy or a side-hustle as a way to increase one's income (or security) in uncertain times is cruel and optimistic. Similarly, we encounter aspirational labour in the form of internships or any form of unpaid labour while looking for a "real" job. Perhaps you feel the pressure of cultivating a sense of employability. According to Frayne (2015), today, students are expected “to improve their prospects by training, acquiring educational credentials, networking, learning how to project the right kind of personality, and gaining life experiences that match up with the values sought by employers.” In other words, they have to act entrepreneurially even to get a non-entrepreneurial job. As Hawzen et al. (2018) assert, this incites anxiety and results in a colonization of one’s entire life by work-related demands as students feel the need to separate themselves from the competition, doing things like volunteering to gain an advantage or to get a "foot in the door"... We also see it to a certain extent in the example of entrepreneurial vloggers in the sense that the fantasy of a “good life” through fame and fortune is rarely realized. The cruel conditions of precocity are, for most, more of a reality than the fantasy... and we take up this theme explicitly in two weeks hence with digital 'autopreneurs'
Overall, this also highlights one of the reasons I chose this article -- rather than just highlighting how entrepreneurs are certain types of people (or motivated by certain types of things), it emphasizes how entrepreneurship is a mental orientation, not just a business concept but a way of living. But it's not all sunshine and happiness. Cruel optimism, indeed!
What about you? Are you familiar with the feeling of 'cruel optimism'? Does it define the current times or your current disposition?
-
“Starting a company has become the way for ambitious young people to do something that seems simultaneously careerist and heroic
foreshadowing next week...
-
what has changed is the status of the entrepreneur,
fascinating stuff -- also foreshadowing the 2nd last week in the course when we talk not just about the mental health (and happiness) of entrepreneurs, but emphasize how an entrepreneurial attitude may not be the secret to the meaning of life but can help give life meaning... money isn't everything...
-
enterprising citizens free to take up and solve any challenge outside the constraints of race, gender, sexuality, class, and his-tory.
Is it really the case that enterprising citizens are so powerful, such agents of change and emancipation? How straightforward is it to transcend one’s personal circumstances and systemic conditions and make your life better (much less, the world, a better place)? Is anyone free to do so (or more importantly, equally empowered to do so)? Obviously not. What then, does this say about entrepreneurial culture?
Is "enterprising citizen" a synonym for entrepreneur?
FYI -- this is a potentially interesting subject for a final paper if you're interested in addressing the question of systemic imbalances of power and opportunities when it comes to the intersection of race, gender and entrepreneurialism. Specific sub-populations experience entrepreneurialism differently...
-
thought to exist outside of the sphere of business and labor, such as artistic and cultural production, have been colonized by discourses of entrepreneur-ship
Can you relate this to your own experience or to news and information from beyond the reading? Can you find an example of this?
Please note - this is connected to a later question (can anyone be an entrepreneur or entrepreneurial). This is also an explicit foreshadowing of subsequent course content when we address cultural and creative entrepreneurship.
-
We can see this misrecognition of the lived realities of contemporary society
Szeman's point of view being ably emphasized...
-
Even fields commonly
-
“ideology of micro-entrepreneurship” that sees the poor as creative entrepreneurs
discourse of social entrepreneurship (again)
-
contemporary life is lived in increasingly difficult and precarious circum-stances
this notion of precariousness should be a recurring theme in the third week of the course too (when we put neoliberalism into greater focus)
But it also begs the question -- do you agree? And do you think entrepreneurialism is the solution to this problem or one of the root causes of it?
-
the world is not replete with divisions of power and privilege that skew one’s opportunities within it, predetermining possibilities through a game of social and economic fate
this statement highlights the "can-do" attitude of the entrepreneurial subject. Szeman isn't describing reality, but the way that entrepreneurs see it and process it ...
-
the sharing economy via companies like AirBnB, Uber, Lyft
what do you think of the idea of these operators as "micro-entrepreneurs"? Definitely not the same as "mom & pop" shops...
-
a better, more fulfilling world peopled by autopoetic microentrepreneurs
foreshadowing "social entrepreneurship"
-
entrepreneurship is a mindset
We will be dealing with this idea all semester long (as we talk about the traits/characteristics of entrepreneurs and the mentality of being entrepreneurial). Szeman's critical cultural studies approach highlights the "subjectivity" of entrepreneurs which is another way of saying the same thing...
What do you think about this? Is entrepreneurship less a mode of being/acting and more a mode of engaging with the world and seeing it through a certain lens?
-
a space of unfettered possi-bility and excitement
entrepreneurial culture seems to be just this -- filled with perpetual promise, fuelled by your own attitude.
Do you find this encouraging or unrealistic?
-
In the entrepreneurial imaginary, we all start on equal footing.
What do you think of this?
-
“everyone will have to become an entrepreneur”
Do you agree? Is this good or bad?
-
entrepreneurial individualism,
-
not only are we all expected to be entrepreneurs today, we are all expected to like it; from the perspective of entrepreneurial common sense, there are no unhappy entrepreneurs.
This sentence foreshadows our later week on mental health (where we highlight happiness!)
But seriously -- Whoa! I think that this statement is (potentially) controversial and ought to be queried/challenged. Clearly, this is not true when it's taken at face-value; there are many unhappy entrepreneurs who have not realized the success they envisioned or who have not recovered from their previous ventures beset by mistakes and misfortunes (having failed to learn the lesson inherent in their failed venture).
What do you think of Szeman's statement?
-
perhaps the common sense of entrepre-neurial success that I have been describing through much of this introduc-tion, with its belief in freedom to achieve on a level playing field that exists outside the constraining barriers of privilege, in fact occupies the most priv-ileged position of all
this statement should serve as ample evidence that Szeman isn't trumpeting entrepreneurialism as a beneficent force for equity. He's highlighting the very opposite!
-
entrepreneurial subjects embrace and even seek out failure as an important, even essential, dimension of their activ-ity
When he says this, he also foreshadows our subsequent week on grit and perseverance...
But definitely check out the memes -- I start out with this Beckett bit....
-
For the entrepreneurial subject, failure might well be more important than success.
He's talking about the entrepreneurial mindset. We highlight this again in the week on "successful intelligence" later on.
For now, though, ask how is this possible? Do you agree?
-
women accessing microfinance
foreshadowing the week on social entrepreneurship
-
Entrepre-neurs have unrealistic ideas of success and unhealthy fantasies about the productivity and necessity of failure
What do you think about this statement? (Check out the memes that distill this into sound-byte culture...)
A student last year asked, "Is normalizing failure a way of conditioning people to never expect real success?" Yowza!
-
Still, there is a kernel of political possibility, a hint of imaginative self-reliance and rejection of the status quo, in the desire to produce one’s own life, failure or no, against the dictates of class or origin, that speaks to political inventiveness and possibilities just over the horizon.
His final words lead us to conclude that amongst all the fear, the caution, and the critique, there is still some hope to be found, some inspiration to be taken from the philosophy and the psychology at the root of entrepreneurial culture. This is why entrepreneurialism is everywhere and why it is the subtext of so many self-help books and inspirational content online. The dream of a better tomorrow can motivate us to get past the trials and tribulations of today. Both bane and boon, entrepreneurial culture promises that our ability to transcend the mundane is entirely dependent upon our own efforts. This means we don't have to depend on anyone (or anything) else (such as governments or communities, or corporations) to generate happiness or success; we are entirely free agents, constructing our own future. This also means that we have no-one to blame but ourselves if that future turns out less rosy than we hoped...
-
Entrepreneurship would appear at first glance to exemplify such a mode of indirect control sans responsibility.
Yep - so much of entrepreneurship is Neo-liberalism writ large! You're in it for yourself because you can't count on anyone else (especially the state). Collective forms of entrepreneurship are the exception, rather than the rule (here I'm thinking in particular of indigenous versions...)
-
We have now all been given the freedom
He doesn't mean this as a good thing...
-
The production of subjects responsible only for themselves
Clearly, Szeman is critical of our contemporary condition in which the figure of the entrepreneur is cast as the salve for all our problems yet also produces "subjects responsible only for themselves" We ought not be fooled into thinking Szeman is advocating for entrepreneurialism -- instead, he's alerting everyone to how it's a tsunami overtaking culture (and advocating that we stay alert to its potential dangers...)
-
It is a mechanism of self hood and subject formation that begins from the premise that there is no one to count on, no one who can do anything for you other than you yourself.
This certainly seems to sum up the attitude of a lot of entrepreneurs -- and seems to describe the "common sense" reality of their endeavours. Do you think that this describes your reality?
-
The endless drive to exceed one’s capacities across hitherto distinct spheres of life activity
this is what I was referring to earlier ... gotta get more, be more, be fitter, healthier, happier, wealthier.
Is the "entrepreneurial self" a constant work-in-progress exemplifying the ethos of the Daft Punk song "harder, better, faster, stronger"? In fact, the lyrics have a definite Neo-liberal twist to them (something lost in the recycling of the song by Kanye West with his version, "Stronger"):
"Work it harder Make it better Do it faster Makes us stronger More than ever Hour after Our work is Never over
-
hould we not welcome the cracks that might appear in the operations of biopolitics at its fullest oper-ation?
Even with all of the criticisms he's outlined, Szeman ends on a conditional but hopeful note. This reminds me of a song lyric:
Leonard Cohen sang "Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in."
Which leads me to my final note...
-
Governments cannot be entrepreneurial, nor can NGOs.
This is a contested statement. Certainly some governments and NGOs would say the exact opposite!
-
The demand to produce ever more is part of a system in which an imperative exists to enjoy and to become ever more.
remember this when we deal with the latter weeks that highlight themes of self-actualization, well-being, and wellness. Are we ever content with what we have? What does it mean to be constantly striving for more? Does entrepreneurship encourage only this (or anything approximating a sense of "balance" also...)?
-
creating an enterprise and creating a self is the same activ-ity.
This strikes me as really important for my vision of the course. Part of what we're going to be examining this term is how this idea of "the entrepreneurial self" is constituted. A passion project or a side-hustle isn't the only thing an entrepreneurial person is building (or working on). They're also constructing themselves...
-
The status of entrepreneurship as a new common sense of subjectivity and economic practice
Remember at the beginning of the article (when Szeman says "we are all entrepreneurs now") (p. 472)? He doesn't mean that we are all creating business start-ups. Rather, he's suggesting that there is a spirit-of-the-times wherein entrepreneurship has become this new common-sense reality. It is both a dominant way of thinking about how we ought to act, AND an informal rulebook for how economies (and other forms of practice) ought to function too... In other words, entrepreneurship isn't just about undertaking profit-making (and risk-inducing) economic practices in capitalism. Rather, it's about undertaking a new subjectivity, a new identity when it comes to how we think of ourselves, how we relate to others, and how we respond to our wider social, cultural, political, and economic environment.
-
the entrepreneur is the neo-liberal subject par excellence
remember this term (neoliberal) for two weeks hence!
-
The figure of the entrepreneur embodies the values and attributes that are celebrated as essential for the economy to operate smoothly and for the contemporary human being to flourish.
remember this rhetorical nod to "flourishing" (which we'll revisit in earnest in the 2nd or 3rd last week of the semester...)
-
the entrepreneur is abstracted and universal-ized into a model for all citizens
-
definitely stay tuned in week 3 (when we talk about the "auto-preneur") as the success vs. hardship struggle becomes paramount. Also, passion projects are the very root of "unconventional" entrepreneurs (perhaps even more so than "conventional" ones...)
-
Gary Vee is a fine example! You've also linked perfectly to next week (as we idolize such figures, making them into heroes of either capitalist achievement or pinnacles of success in other fields (like sports -- some of which aren't necessarily roads to financial success, like a lot of Olympic pursuits...).
-
This is the "modus operandi" for the whole course! What does this mean (for you)?
-
I love this comment. It links brilliantly to next week's content...
-
To quote a silly Netflix series about baking escapades, you "nailed it"
-