"The Creative-Destroyers: Are Entrepreneurs Mythological Heroes?" (Part 3)

This is the title of a paper I presented at the Western Economic Association Meetings in 1992 in San Francisco. I will be posting this paper in parts. There will be 5 parts. This last part has the bibliography and a transcript of the radio interview when Joseph Campbell said entrepreneurs are heroes. Part 4 has footnotes.

Part 1. Part 2.  Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. 

COMPARING THE HERO AND ENTREPRENEUR

It should be recalled that the hero either leaves his native land and takes the risk of facing a new environment alone or challenges the authority of his society. In either case, he is taking a risk based on a belief in his own personal integrity and creativity. Just like the entrepreneur, the hero is a creator and risk taker.

Some of the possible parallels between the hero's adventure and the activity of the entrepreneur can be seen by examining the section titled "The Hero and the God" from Campbell (1968). (see p. 6) First, the basic pattern of the myth needs to be recalled: a separation from the world, a penetration to some source of power, and a life-enhancing return. An entrepreneur must step out of the ordinary way of producing and into his imagination about the way things could be to discover the previously undreamt of technique or product. The "fabulous forces" might be applying the assembly line technique or interchangeable parts to producing automobiles or building microcomputers in a garage. The mysterious adventure is the time spent tinkering in research and development. But once those techniques are discovered or developed the hero-entrepreneur now has the power to bestow this boon on the rest of mankind.

Campbell (1968) also has a section called "The Cosmogonic Cycle" which "unrolls the great vision of the creation and destruction of the world which is vouchsafed as revelation to the successful hero" (p. 38). The connection to Schumpeter's theory of creative destruction is clear. A successful entrepreneur simultaneously destroys and creates a new world, or at least a new way of life. Henry Ford, for example, destroyed the horse and buggy age while creating the age of the automobile. But even more to the point is the fact that the hero finds that the world "suffers from a symbolical deficiency" (p. 37) and that "the hero appears on the scene in various forms according to the changing needs of the race" (p. 38). The changing needs and the deficiency may directly correspond to the changing market conditions or the changing desires for products. The entrepreneur IS the first person to perceive the need or opportunity for market profits.

A summary of the basic parallels between the hero's adventure and the activity of the entrepreneur is as follows: both the entrepreneur and the hero must go through separation. For the hero this may mean leaving his native land. For the entrepreneur it may mean leaving a present job or company to start out on his own. The hero is usually initiated by a mentor who teaches him the use of some supernatural aids. The entrepreneur may need to learn from his mentor how to manage and organize people and production (once the product has been developed) or perhaps some technical or research skills necessary to develop the new product. In the return stage the hero brings back a "boon" to mankind. Examples that Campbell gives are Prometheus (fire) and Jason (the golden fleece) (p. 30). The entrepreneur steps out of his workshop and returns with an idea that may also be a boon to mankind. Heilbroner (1989) provides a good example from history in James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine (p. 74).

Comparing the Hero's Adventure with the Process of Entrepreneurship

This section shows the similarities between some of the details from the various phases of the hero's adventure with events that happen during entrepreneurship. What the various writers have written about entrepreneurship will be cited as evidence of these similarities for each phase, which will be discussed one by one, in the order that they were presented by Campbell. Each phase belonged to the three stages of the adventure, Separation or departure, Initiation, and Return. The salient facts of each phase necessary for the comparison will be noted.

Separation

This is the separation from the world.

Before discussing the details of each phase of each stage of the hero's adventure, some general similarities between the process of entrepreneurship and the Separation will be given. It will be recalled here that the "hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder." In what way is there a separation and such a venturing forth for entrepreneurs? Gilder (1984) makes many observations about entrepreneurship that indicate that a kind of separation occurs. These are:

1. The entrepreneur starts in "rebellion against established firms" (p. 247).

2. The "endlessly recurring miracles of capitalism" are carried out by "outcasts and orphans"(p. 257).

3. "The fastest-growing new firms often arise through defections of restive managers and engineers from large corporations or through the initiatives of immigrants and outcasts beyond the established circles of commerce" (p. 132).

4. "In the beginning of the entrepreneurial life there is nearly always a crisis of breaking away" (p. 26).

Shapero and Sokol (1982) mention that entrepreneurs are very often outsiders (p. 74). They see the road to entrepreneurship as one of displacement, which takes on many forms. But only some people will see a given event as a displacement and turn it into an opportunity. Campbell says that few people are heroes, while Gilder and Schumpeter say that only a rare person does or can become an entrepreneur. Perhaps those people believe in locus of control. It is interesting to note, that in criticizing Marxism, Campbell (1988) says that we are responsible for our own fates (p. 161). So he describes the hero in two ways that are similar to the advocates of entrepreneurship: he attacks Marxism and says the hero believes in locus of control. This goes along with Brockhaus's (1982) finding of a high correlation between the need for achievement and belief in internal locus-of-control (p. 43).

Shapero and Sokol (1982) also report that many entrepreneurs start their ventures at the time of their midlife crisis (p. 81). Reynolds (1991) reports that "those most likely to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities are those with post-secondary education, in their late thirties, and with an established career record (p. 63). Segal (1990) says that the Jungian hero of Campbell is one who is starting out on the journey of self discovery in the second half of life (p. 42).

Brockhaus (1982) also supports the idea that entrepreneurs separate as do heroes because he says that many entrepreneurs are immigrants, refugees and those dissatisfied with their jobs (p. 53).

Finally, Leeming (1973) sums up the Jungian importance of myths with:

"The person who lives without myths lives without roots, without links to the collective self which is finally what we are all about. He is literally isolated from reality. The person who lives with a myth gains 'a sense of wider meaning' to his existence and is raised 'beyond mere getting and spending. "' (p. 321).

For the entrepreneur, this process of getting and spending may be secondary because Burch (1986) and Levenhagen and Thomas (1990) argue that money and profit maximization are only secondary motives. Below each phase of the adventure will be summarized followed by a description of how it is similar to entrepreneurship.

The Call to Adventure. The "Call to Adventure," or the signs of the vocation of the hero is the first phase of the Separation stage. Here the hero is awakened by some herald (which may be luck, a wandering eye, or a meeting with a strange creature) which touches the unconscious world and the hero's creative destiny. The call to adventure takes the hero out of his familiar surroundings into a new world of both pain and creative power. Campbell also says that very often a well or some such similar device is used to symbolically represent the infinitely deep unconscious of the human mind.

Entrepreneur: According to Kirzner (1979), the essence of entrepreneurship is "unawareness both by the entrepreneur himself and by the market in general that he in fact possesses the resources of vision at all" (p. 180). The hero does not know he has creative power until the call comes. There is some herald which signals this. Kirzner has noted that entrepreneurs may be lucky, or alert (the wandering eye) (p. 169-170).

In "The Call" the hero awakes to his creative destiny and Gilder (1984) says that "The entrepreneurial start-up is the most creative domain in American enterprise because it affords the best learning process" (p. 247) The entrepreneur learns by "stepping into the often greasy and fetid bins of creation" (p. 247). These bins are like the dark wells of Campbell mentioned above. And just as the hero sets out into unknown territory, the entrepreneur tries to "discover the unknown continents of the real economy."

Furthermore, Burch (1986) says that entrepreneurs "All have a yen to adventure," (p. 15) are drawn to new ventures and quests, and are irresistibly drawn to the unknown (p. 36).

Refusal of the Call. This is a very dull case, when the adventure is refused because the subject refuses to give up what he thinks is his own best interest (to stay where he is, either figuratively or literally). The result is not only boredom but separation from the vast creative power he could have realized. Campbell (1968) also calls this phase the folly of the flight from god (p. 37). Gilder sees the entrepreneur who has answered the call as someone who not only has not fled from God but actually knows the laws of God. So both the hero and the entrepreneur avoid the folly of the flight from god.

Supernatural Aid. The hero receives aid from a mentor who himself has taken on his own adventures. The mentor is a protective figure who represents the peace of Paradise and the forces of nature. Here Campbell (1968) also said that "the hero's act coincides with that for which his society is itself ready. He seems to ride on the great rhythm of the historical process" (p. 71-2).

Entrepreneur: Schumpeter, of course, has referred to this as creative destruction. Gilder (1984) says that the entrepreneur prevails by creating a new situation to which the rest of the world will have to react, if successful. It is the successful entrepreneur who is the source of the historical process of creative destruction. He further looks to the historical process with "The spirit of enterprise wells up from the wisdom of the ages and the history of the West and infuses the most modern technological adventures" (emphasis added) (p. 258).

Burch (1986) says that entrepreneurs tend to imitate a personal hero from childhood (p. 30). This is like aid from the mentor since Campbell says that the characters in the myth represent feelings from our infantile psychology.

Shapero and Sokol (1982) emphasize the role that mentors had In inspiring and influencing the budding entrepreneur. In fact, in many of the cases they cited, the entrepreneur came to the know their mentors unexpectedly because they were from other countries or cultures (p. 52). This is similar to the hero being called to the adventure by some surprising or unexpected herald. Brockhaus (1982) supported the importance of mentors (p. 52). It must be noted the word mentor comes from Greek mythology. Mentor was the name of Odysseus's trusty friend and counselor.

The Crossing of the First Threshold. Before the hero can enter the zone of unknown powers, he must first cross a threshold which is guarded by demons who are also a source of power to the hero because he must give up his ego to face them and enter the belly of the whale. In Campbell (1968) the crossing releases the "divine enthusiasm that overturns the reason and releases the forces of the destructive-creative dark" (p. 81-2). Entrepreneur: Where Gilder says that entrepreneurship makes up the real economy, he refers to the enthusiasm of entrepreneurs. The word enthusiasm means full of god, from the Greek, with en meaning in and theos meaning god. It is interesting that Campbell uses the term destructive-creative along with enthusiasm because it is the enthusiastic entrepreneurs who generate the creative destruction in capitalism.

Gilder (1984) also says of entrepreneurs that they are able to "penetrate the frontiers of the darkness that is always closing in on mortal minds, and [can] reach-in risk and worship-for the inestimable treasures of light beyond" (p. 67). Campbell (1968) has a similar passage: "The adventure of the hero represents the moment in his life when he achieved illumination-the nuclear moment when, while still alive, he found and opened the road to the light beyond the dark walls of our living death" (p. 259).

Gilder (1984) suggests that the entrepreneur must kill his ego with "Entrepreneurs can be pompous and vain where it doesn't count; but in their own enterprise, the first law is listen. They must be men meek enough and shrewd enough to endure the humbling eclipse of self that comes in profound learning from others" (p. 246). Again, the entrepreneur taps into the vast well of creative ideas not by being arrogant but by being humble enough to listen to others.

Another quote from Gilder (1984) illustrates this point. "Their self interest succumbs to their deeper interest and engagement in the world beyond themselves (this recalls separation and crossing the threshold) impelled by their curiosity, imagination, and faith" (p. 254).

Burch (1986) adds to be a successful entrepreneur "You must be able to travel an uncharted course" (p. 32) and that entrepreneurs are willing to enter a tunnel of darkness (p. 36).

The Belly of the Whale. The entering of the whale symbolizes the hero's realization of his creative ability by giving himself up to a higher power.

Entrepreneur: Kirzner refers to the instant of an entrepreneurial leap of faith. This is when the entrepreneur gives himself up to a higher power in order to be more creative. According to Burch (1986) he gives up the logic of his ego and listens to his imagination. Entrepreneurial activity is a result of imagination more than of logic (p. 29). Gilder (1984) adds "Any breakthrough, in science or art, enterprise or love, depends on glimpsing and engaging some higher some higher realm of life" (p. 70).