The Role of Troublemakers in Society

We praise entrepreneurship at least as much as it used to be despised, and for the same reason.

The entrepreneur is an innovator, the discoverer of new and useful knowledge. Radical innovations destabilize groups, organizations, industries, and even whole societies. Innovation is the act of a rebel.

The difference between an entrepreneur and an enemy of the state can be a fine one. The great success of capitalism is that it institutionalizes innovation, which is another way of saying it decriminalizes entrepreneurship. Capitalism makes troublemakers legit.

When the social order outlaws innovation, the innovators become outlaws. Consider pirates, for example.