President George W Bush was once believed to have said that the French lack a word for “entrepreneur”. What a pity this is a myth, for in one anecdote it skewered two typically Anglo-Saxon shortcomings — a refusal to master any tongue beyond English, and unthinking infatuation with entrepreneurship.
It is one based on a hazy grasp of its subject. As explained by The Finance Foundation think-tank, “there are numerous, often misleading, definitions of what an entrepreneur actually is”. These lead to misconceptions and misguided political interventions.
The original French word suggests “a go-between” — like Shakespeare's merchant of Venice, a man with “an argosy bound to Tripoli, another to the Indies . . . a third at Mexico, a fourth for England”. To buy where goods are cheap and sell where they are dear is the essence of entrepreneurship. This allows different places to specialise in what they do best, to the benefit of all.
