Man of Action: Murray N. Rothbard’s Contributions to the Theory of Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Even though entrepreneurship underlies Rothbard’s economic theorizing, his contributions to this topic are spread among many writings. This paper traces a comprehensive idea of Rothbard’s “Man of Action,” the capitalist-entrepreneur in the causal-realist tradition of the Austrian School, organizing his thinking. Rothbard defines the entrepreneur as the economic agent who judges at the present about the future and directs production processes by controlling and allocating productive resources in search for profit. By organizing his ideas, I demonstrate how they differ from arguably similar approaches—notably Kirzner’s and Schumpeter’s—and argue that his strand of theorizing is the one in line with praxeology in the lineage of Menger, Böhm-Bawerk and Mises. I show that his contributions influenced others and are reflected in contemporaneous developments in both causal-realist and mainstream discussions. To close, I suggest how to use his ideas to continue to advance the theoretical understanding of the engine of the market process.