To the Editor:
In case there are any budding social entrepreneurs who are having second thoughts after reading Daniel Prada's '12 ("Every entrepreneur is a social entrepreneur," Feb. 14) gross mischaracterization of the field, I wanted to offer some words of encouragement.
That for-profit enterprises have brought tremendous social benefits is undeniable. Capitalism is the source of much of our prosperity. But Prada paints a sugarcoated capitalist fantasy, where the market properly rewards every businessperson in proportion to his or her contribution to social wealth, and where every potential contributor to social wealth draws his or her most valuable motivation from the promise of future profits.
In the real world, externalities, collective action problems and other concerns operate to limit profitability as a measure of social wealth improvement. Moreover, there are individuals who draw tremendous motivation from the social impact of their work, rather than from potential profit. These people aren't broken. They aren't lazy or stupid. They shouldn't give up their value system and go be an "actual entrepreneur," Prada's euphemism for someone who, like him, is principally motivated by profits. We should encourage that behavior, not shun it.
All around us, there are examples of social enterprises changing the world. The Wikimedia Foundation runs the sixth most popular website in the world on a tiny fraction of the budget of the remaining top 100. The GNU/Linux operating system enables so much of the for-profit activity that Prada holds so dear; it and the vital tools that run on it are developed largely by social entrepreneurs. BUILD, a social enterprise founded by Suzanne McKechnie Klahr '94, uses entrepreneurship as a tool to keep at-risk high school students in school. The list goes on.
Matt Gelfand '08
