The Call of the Entrepreneur

I've never liked the way Hollywood and the mainstream media  depicts the world of business as if everyone in business were greedy, arrogant and corrupt.  So, I was happy to learn about a new documentary entitled  The Call of the Entrepreneur  that follows the stories of three entrepreneurs, a farmer, a merchant banker and a fashion CEO.  The trailer gives a fine taste of

In his review at First Things Saint Duncan of Wall Street, Ryan Anderson finds that commerce can be a pathway to holiness.

So, what do these three stories in The Call of the Entrepreneur demonstrate? They show that an entrepreneur—even when just trying to keep his family farm afloat—is always other-regarding: always looking and reaching outside of himself to think of a product that others need and of innovative ways to make it. And in this creative act he cooperates with God and participates in divine creativity. Creation is an ongoing reality in which God upholds the world and empowers human agents to participate.

The emphasis, thus, is not on free markets as an end in themselves but rather, as Gilder points out, as a means to free human beings—free inventors, free producers, and free consumers. Brad Morgan took an unlikely resource and turned it into a highly demanded product. Frank Hanna identified the people who had entrepreneurial vision and enabled them to succeed. And Jimmy Lai worked his way from factory worker to fashion and media CEO thanks to the structures in place in Hong Kong. He now works to make the freedom and prosperity he enjoys available to the country he left behind.