Kirzner redefined entrepreneurship as equilibrating action, not Schumpeterian disruption

Evidence

According to him, Schumpeter’s failure to recognize the entrepreneur as a decision-maker, and his exclusive emphasis on disruptive innovation, left market-correcting policies to planners. Kirzner’s own concept considered entrepreneurship decisive to explain the equilibrating adjustments over time, replacing static equilibrium by intertemporal equilibrium. Kirzner distinguished two entrepreneurship issues: a) the discovery of the best way of action, and b) actually carrying out activities no matter if best or second or third best. According to him, the focus of the existing entrepreneurship discussion was on the first—calculative—dimension whereas he conceived of the need to recognize the second dimension as the real entrepreneurial function. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 277

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the Kirzner vs Schumpeter distinction — the crux separating the Austrian and Schumpeterian entrepreneurial traditions.
• XREF: Directly parallels the tension between disruption-oriented and equilibrium-restoring framings of entrepreneurship discussed across the broader neoliberal literature that fractures the unitary caricature. — connects to: Giersch fused German location economics with Schumpeterian evolutionary dynamics. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 296; Entrepreneurship is a perpetual alertness function, not a rare talent. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 298; Mises defined entrepreneurship as universal human choice-making, not elite innovation — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 273 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Kirzner reframed entrepreneurship from heroic innovation to mere market alertness #expands (0.95) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 279
• Kirzner saw the real entrepreneurial function as seizing market opportunities, not calculation #corroborates (0.90) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 277