Entrepreneurs

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider if self-employed entrepreneurs, a class of individuals who require enforceable property rights to create new firms and ideas that could increase a society’s material living standards, constitute an individual property rights enforcement mechanism. Design/methodology/approach With data from the General Social Survey, the authors estimate the parameters of mixed-effects categorical regression specifications to measure the effect of self-employment on confidence in the US Supreme Court, raising and donating funds for social or political activities, and on trying to persuade others to share political views. Findings The findings suggest that self-employed entrepreneurs are one of the guarantors of a constitutional democracy based on an ethic of individual property rights, and public policies that are pro-entrepreneurship help mitigate the risk of constitutional failure, and maximize society’s material living and ethical standards. Research limitations/implications The results are based on cross-sectional data, which do not account for dynamic changes in preferences. Practical implications The findings suggest that self-employed entrepreneurs are a enforcement mechanism and a guarantor of an ethic of private property rights necessary for the ongoing success and viability of a constitutional democracy based on individual property rights. Social implications The findings suggest that as entrepreneurs constitute an enforcement mechanism for individual property rights, to the extent that entrepreneurialism also cultivates individual virtue entrepreneurs also serve as guarantors of a moral and ethical society that is based on virtue, which results in a constitutional democracy with high material living and ethical/moral standards. Originality/value This paper is among the first to empirically test whether entrepreneurs are an enforcement mechanism for individual property rights.