"The Creative-Destroyers: Are Entrepreneurs Mythological Heroes?" (Part 5)

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.

REFERENCES

Barnaby, K. and P. D'Acierno, eds., 1990. C. G. Jung and the Humanities, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Berger, B. 1991. The Culture of Entrepreneurship. The Institute for Contemporary Studies: San Francisco.

Burch, J. G. 1986. Entrepreneurship. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Brockhaus, R. 1982. “Elaborations on the psychology of the entrepreneur.” In Kent, C. A., D. L. Sexton, and K. H. Vesper, eds., Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship. Engelwood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Bull, I. and Willard, G. E. 1993. “Towards a theory of entrepreneurship.” Journal of Business Venturing. 8(3):183-196.

Bygrave, W. B. 1993. “Theory building in the entrepreneurship paradigm.” Journal of Business Venturing. 8(3):255-280.

Campbell, J. 1968. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Campbell, J. 1988. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday.

Catford, L. and Ray, M. 1991. The Path of the Everyday Hero: Drawing on the Power of Myth to Meet Life's Most Important Challenges. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher.

Cousineau, P. 1990. The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work. San Francisco: Harper.

Eliade, M. 1969. The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion. The University of Chicago Press.

Eliade, M. 1990. “Myths and mythical thought.” In A. Eliot The Universal Myths: Heroes, Gods, Tricksters, and Others. New York: Penguin/Meridian.

Eliot. 1990 The Universal Myths: Heroes, Gods, Tricksters, and Others. New York: Penguin/Meridian.

Gilder, G. 1981. Wealth and Poverty. New York: Bantom Books.

Gilder, G. 1984. The Spirit of Enterprise. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Heilbroner, R. 1989. The Making of Economic Society. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Hughes, J. (1986). The Vital Few: The Entrepreneur and American Economic Progress. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kent, C. A, D. L. Sexton, and K. H. Vesper, eds., 1982. Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship. Engelwood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Jung, C.G. 1956. Symbols of Transformation. New York: Harper Torchbooks/The Bollingen Library.

Jung, C.G. and C. Kerenyi.1951. Introduction to a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Child and the Mysteries of Eleusis. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Jung, Carl G. 1964. Man and His Symbols. New York: Dell Publishing.

Kirzner, 1. M. 1979. Perception, Opportunity, and Profit. The University of Chicago Press.

Leeming, D. A. 1973. Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero. Philadelphia: J. B.Lippincott Company.

Levenhagen, M. and Thomas, H. 1990. “Entrepreneurship, cognition and framing complex environments: Evidence from computer software start-ups.” University of Illinois, unpublished manuscript.

Mitroff, I. I. 1983. “Archetypal Social Systems Analysis: On the Deeper Structure of Human Systems.” Academy of Management Review. 8(3):387-397.

Murdock, M. 1990. The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest for Wholeness. Boston: Shambhala.

New Dimensions. San Francisco: 1991. The Call of The Hero. Audio Tape # 1901. New Dimensions Foundation.

O'Donnell, R. M. 1989. Keynes: Philosophy, Economics, and Politics. The Philosophical Foundations of Keynes's Thought and their Influence on his Economics and Politics. St. Martin's Press: New York.

Pearson, C. S. and K. Pope 1981. The Female Hero in American and British Literature. New York: R. R. Bowker.

Putka, G. 1993. “Heroes of Business, Tragic or Not, Get Classical Treatment: School Compares Executives to Agamemnon and Jesus, Other Persons of Renown.” The Wall Street Journal. 91(46): Al and A9.

Ray, Michael and John Renesch. 1994. The New Entrepreneurs: Business Visionaries for the 21st Century. San Francisco: Sterling and Stone, Inc.

Reynolds, P. D .. 1991. Sociology and Entrepreneurship: Concepts and Contributions. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. 16(2): 71-92.

Rostow, W. W. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge University Press: New York.

Sarachek, B. 1978. American Entrepreneurs and the Horatio Alger Myth. Journal of Economic History. 38(2): 439-456.

Schumpeter, J. 1962. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.

Schumpeter, J. (1983). The Theory of Economic Development. New Brunswick: Transactions.

Segal, R. A. 1990. Joseph Campbell: An Introduction. New York: Penguin/Mentor.

Shapero, A. and Sokol, L. 1982. “The social dimensions of entrepreneurship. In Kent,” C. A., D. L. Sexton, and K. H. Vesper, eds., Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship. Engelwood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Silver, M., ed., 1991. Ancient Economy in Mythology: East and West. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Taylor, A. 1964. "The Biographical Pattern in Traditional Narrative." Journal of the Folklore Institute. 1:114-129

Willis, Roy. 1993. World Mythology. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Appendix

Tape #1901: "Call of the Hero" with Joseph Campbell interviewed by Michael Toms New Dimensions Foundation audio tape from a live interview on San  Francisco's radio station KQED

The following exchange was part of a discussion of the question of: What IS creativity?

Toms: In a sense it's the going for, the jumping over the edge and moving into the adventure that really catalyzes the creativity, isn't it?

Campbell: I would say so, you don't have creativity otherwise.

Toms: Otherwise there's no fire, you're just following somebody else's rules.

Campbell: Well, my wife is a dancer. She has had dance companies for many, many years. I don't know whether I should talk about this. But when the young people are really adventuring, it's amazing what guts they have and what meager lives they can be living, and yet the richness of the action in the studio. Then, you are going to have a concert season. They all have to join a union. And as soon as they join a union, their character changes. (emphasis added, but Campbell changed the tone of his voice) There are rules of how many hours a day you can rehearse. There are certain rules of how many weeks of rehearsal you can have. They bring this down like a sledge hammer on the whole thing. There are two mentalities. There's the mentality of security, of money. And there's the mentality of open risk.

Toms: In other societies we can look and see that there are those that honor elders. In our society it seems much like the elders are part of the main stream and there is a continual kind of wanting to turn away from what the elders have to say, the way it is, the way to do it. The union example is a typical one, where the authority, institution, namely the union comes in and says this is the way it's done. And then one has to fall into line or one has to find something else to do.

Campbell: That's right.

Toms: And it's like treating this dichotomy between elders and the sons and daughters of the elders. How do you see that in relationship to other cultures?

Campbell: This comes to the conflict of the art, the creative art and economic security. I don't think I have seen it in other cultures. The artist doesn't have to buck against quite the odds that he has to buck against today.

Toms: The artist is honored in other cultures.

Campbell: He is honored and quickly honored. But you might hit it off, something that really strikes the need and requirements of the day. Then you've given your gift early. But basically it is a real risk. I think that is so in any adventure, even in business, the man who has the idea of a new kind of gift (emphasis added) to society and he is willing to risk it (this is exactly what George Gilder says in chapter three, "The Returns of Giving" in his book Wealth and Poverty). Then the workers come in and claim they  are the ones that did it. Then he (the entrepreneur) can't afford to perform his performance. It's a grotesque conflict, I think between the security and the creativity ideas. The entrepreneur is a creator, he's running a risk.

Toms: Maybe in American capitalistic society the entrepreneur is the creative hero in some sense.

Campbell: Oh, I think he is, I mean the real one. Most people go into economic activities not for risk but for security. You see what I mean. And the elder psychology tends to take over.

This discussion ended and after a short break a new topic was discussed.