Neoliberal thinkers reframed corporate wage-labor as entrepreneurial to counter Schumpeterian decline fears.

Evidence

The unfolding revival agenda at this point in time can be best summarized as an exercise in defensive optimism. Speakers at the 1970 MPS conference observed a decline of owner-entrepreneurs along the lines expected by Schumpeter. Contrasting the concerns and fears voiced in conservative and neoliberal circles during the 1950s and 1960s, the speakers in Munich highlighted surprising sources of optimism with regard to the future of the market economy. Authors pointed to considerable entrepreneurship in large corporations and to the changing behavior of average citizens. Fertig observed that 12 percent of Americans owned shares, for example, and reported a strong increase in the volume of investment funds. The former read like a preview of the “intrapreneurship” and innovation system discourse to be further discussed below, and the latter pointed to the impending expansion of scope of the entrepreneurship discussion. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 284

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the key move of recasting intra-corporate workers as ‘intrapreneurs’ — a conceptual innovation central to later neoliberalism.
• XREF: Connects to later literature on the ‘entrepreneurial self’ and the spread of share-ownership rhetoric from Thatcher/Reagan era stock-market expansions. — connects to: Schumpeter saw capitalism’s rationalization destroying the entrepreneur’s heroic social function — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 350; Schumpeter predicted capitalism’s end from entrepreneurial decline. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 263; Giersch democratized Schumpeterian creative destruction into teamwork within firms — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 305 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• The 1970 MPS conference ended Schumpeterian pessimism about entrepreneurship #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 290
• Neoliberal ideas reframed anti-union business positions as good judgment rather than reactionary politics #corroborates (0.82) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1474
• Kirzner redefined entrepreneurship as equilibrating action, not Schumpeterian disruption #complicates (0.82) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 277
• Neo-liberalism collapses labor into capital and frames the individual as an enterprise #expands (0.78) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1218
• Corporate capitalism arose from a long decline of entrepreneurial and proletarian phases #qualifies (0.75)
• Capitalism’s socialized labor is experienced by individuals as alien market relations #complicates (0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 889
• Neoliberalism generalizes the enterprise form across the entire social body #expands (0.73) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 823
• Early neoliberals saw large unions as monopoly threats distorting wages #corroborates (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 968
• Neoliberal entrepreneurship rhetoric masks a reality of collective corporate effort #responds-to (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 306