Abstract: The socalled autistic economy (here autarkic)—the economy of one—has been employed by Austrian theorists as a useful analytic baseline on which to build catallactic (market process) theory, which has included a theory of entrepreneurship. But so far, the autarkic economy has been examined almost exclusively in this way. In this article it is argued that the autarkic economy must brought forward in our theorizing to be understood not as a mere analytic tool, but as a real and significant aspect of praxeology.

Abstract: The word entrepreneur originally meant someone who is active, risky, and even violent. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was used to denote a contractor who built large structures and fortifications for the government or provided supplies for the military for a contracted price but largely uncertain future costs. In contrast, Cantillon (1755) defined the entrepreneur as someone buying goods and resources at current market prices to be sold in the future at uncertain prices.

The new special double issue on entrepreneurship is here!