Entrepreneurial Value Creation in Society

This seminar presents an intellectual framework for understanding the economic and ethical implications of the forces that promote or hinder the creation of value in society. In particular, the topics in this course will examine value creation within the context of four key principles:

• Competition (a society and its individuals prosper when government policies encourage and promote full and open competition in the marketplace rather than hinder it)
• Power Balance (a society and its individuals prosper when political and economic power and decision-making in society is decentralized rather than centralized)
• Free Exchange (a society and its individuals prosper when people are able to freely exchange goods & services; this follows from the fact that whenever two people conduct an exchange of goods or services BOTH are better off, as long as there is no fraud or coercion involved)
• Alignment of Incentives (government policies that degrade or fail to improve overall societal well-being typically fail because they create adverse or misaligned incentives, at the individual and/or corporate level)

In keeping with the above principles, students will engage in readings, discussions, and periodic interactions with guest lecturers, related to topics such as: individual liberty and responsibility, economic freedom, fairness and equality, justice and injustice, scarcity and property rights, intellectual property, competition and anti-competition, cronyism and despotism, and globalization and free trade. The aforementioned topics will be examined and discussed within the context of governments, institutions, business entities, and consumers, and their collective impact on innovation, entrepreneurship, and advances in societal well-being and human flourishing.

Rules for Interaction within this ‘Community’

• Only the instructor (the admin, @TrostParadox) is allowed to post new (i.e. top-level) topics.
• Please don’t post new (top-level) topics.
• Keep your interactions to Replies only.
• Please be respectful, especially to the students.

Purpose of this ‘Community’

This community represents an experiment being conducted by @TrostParadox related to a seminar currently being taught at Oklahoma State University.

The purpose of this experiment is to expose students to the Hive ecosystem and to demonstrate to other faculty ways to utilize Hive within the context of a university course.

Students will have unique account names, all starting with “osu-” (e.g. osu-wq).

Each week the instructor will post content related to the week’s topic.

Each week the instructor will also create a Discussion Forum for the week’s topic. Students will be publishing Qs related to the topic (as Replies to the week's main Discussion post) and responses to other students’ Qs (as Replies to the Qs they are responding to).

Hivers are welcome to post their own Qs and to respond to the Qs of students and other Hivers (again, as Replies).