Schmölders framed entrepreneurship research as a response to capitalism’s own success obscuring its foundations.

Evidence

In his opening address, Schmölders made three points to undergird the new focus on entrepreneurs. First, postwar capitalism had been hugely successful, but its very success obscured the foundations of the market system, which were considered old-fashioned or even reactionary by much of the public. This required a new effort to examine the functioning of the system, with entrepreneurs as one of the critical aspects. Second, this effort could help to atone for the longstanding sin of omission, namely the missing focus on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in economics. Much like Kirzner, Schmölders argued that attention needed to shift from abstractions like capital or economic laws to the real actors. Third, the public opinion of entrepreneurs was as important as the role of the entrepreneur in the functioning of the economy. Only the deep knowledge of “opinions on facts” allowed responsible politicians and their advisors to develop an understanding of preference formation processes in economic and economic policy questions. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 282

Categorization

• XREF: Links to Kirzner’s Austrian entrepreneur focus; also connects to behavioral economics lineage in Mont Pèlerin thought.
• SEED: An essay on how successful systems become invisible — Schmölders’ claim that capitalism’s very success hides its foundations maps onto an ideological-critique angle about prosperity-induced blindness.