The Philosophy of Action and Authority in the Entrepreneurial and Managerial Ethics

The ancient philosophical principles that define and justify notions of public action, political freedom, and the exercise of public authority, especially as explored by Arendt, are shown to extend to an American frontier-cultural foundation for the entrepreneurial ethos. It is argued here that the initiation of and development of business organizations should be properly viewed as a category of action that is a modern substitute for the ancient civic activity (involvement in the polis). This differs from the routine “management as maintenance” approach with its lack of creative action. But both entrepreneurial and routine management activities can also be motivated by a desire to achieve social separation through wealth. As a result, one of the two classic motivations for ethical behavior, namely the fear of social ostracism (the other being living with the inner dialogue of conscience), is shown to be weakened by an entrepreneurial and/or managerial culture that is motivated to achieve a sort of “lordship” to use the description of Joseph Schumpeter. Recent relevant psychological experimental studies are also reviewed. These are shown to reinforce this notion of ethical “weakening” resulting from social separation by wealth.