The latter is not true for out type.
In one sense, he may indeed be called the most rational and the most egoistical of all.
For, as we have seen, conscious rationality enters much more into the carrying out of new plans, which themselves have to be worked out before they can be acted upon, than into the mere runnning of an established business, which is largely a matter of routine.
And the typical entrepreneur is more self-centred than other types, because he relies less than they do on tradition and because his characteristic task - theoretically as well as historically - consists precisely in breaking up old, and creating new, tradition.
Although this applies primarily to his economic action, it also extends to the moral, cultural, and social consequences of it.
And, as a rule it has been neither dare-devil and unscrupulous speculators, economic adventurers such as we meet at all periods of economic history, nor simply great financiers who have carried through this change, outwardly so inconspicuous, but nevertheless so decisive for the penetration of economic life with the spirit.
adventurer
【名】
冒険家、野心家、遊び人、ヤマ師(speculator)、いかさま師、策士、相場師、投機師
冒険［金・刺激］のために雇われる［志願する］軍人◆【同】soldier of fortune
outwardly
【副】
外見上は
On the contrary, they were men who had grown up in the hard school of life, calculating and daring at the same time , about all temperate and reliable, shrewd and completely devoted to their business, with strictly bourgeois opinions and princiles.
The people filled with the spirit of capitalism to-day tend to be indifferent, if not hostile to the Church. … If you ask them what is the meaning of their restless activity, why they are never satisfied with what they have, thus appearing so senseless to any purely worldly view of life, they would perhaps give the anser (… that motive is … simply:)… that business with its continuous work has become a necessary part of their lives.
That is in fact the only possible motivation, but it at the same time expresses what is, seen from the view-point of personal happiness, so irrational about this sourt of life, where a man exists for the sake of his business, instead of the reverse.
He [The ideal type of the capitalistic entrepreneur] avoids ostentation and unnecessary expenditure, as well as conscious enjoyment of his power, and is embarrassed by the outward sign of the social recognition which he receuve. His manner of life is, in other words, often, and we shall have to investigate the histrical significance of just this important fact, distinguished by a certain ascetictendency.
But his condution and his motive are "rational" in no other sense.
And in no sense is his characteristic motivation of the hedonist kind.
If we define hedonist motive of action as the wish to satisfy one's wants, we may indeed make "wants" include any impulse whatsoever, just as we may define egoism so as to include all altruistic values too, on the strength of the fact that they also mean something in the way of self-gratification.
But this would reduce our definition to tautology.
If we wish to give it meaning, we must restrict it to such wants as are capable of being satisfied by the consumpotion of goods, and to that kind of satisfaction which is expected from it.
Then it is no longer true that our type is acting on a wish to satisfy his wants.
For unless we assume that individuals of our type are driven along by an insatiable craving for hedonist satisfaction, the operations of Gossen's law would in the case of business leaders soon put a stop to further effort.
