Over the last couple of days I have been in Newport in Pembrokeshire, which I would recommend to anyone looking for a place for a break in the UK. This is where some of the discussions on what I should do next have been taking place.
On my last afternoon, the weather was not as reliable as it had been, but discussion continued during a walk, with wet gear donned just in case, and my camera left behind because the likelihood of rain seemed too high to take the risk of carrying it.
Despite that - or maybe because I was carrying my phone as if it were a camera - and was using it as such - I was asked what the propose of the photographs I was taking might be, and in that instant I realised that the theme I had been looking for was pictures that might illustrate ideas I try to explain on this blog.
Within minutes, this picture had been taken:
I stress for the sake of the connosieurs that this is a screen shot of an iPhone 15 image lightly edited in Google Photos and not Lightroom or something like that - which it is still my task to learn. Those technicalities are not, in any case, why I am sharing this image.
What I was most interested in was that fishing boat. It represents what capitalism can be to me.
It is clearly a working boat. Someone has accumulated the resources to buy it. They take very obvious risks to fish from it.
The outcome of their activities is uncertain. They face the vagaries of weather, tide, climate change, pollution and much else to land a catch. Given the locality that catch might well be lobster.
But the point is that this is what entrepreneurship is all about. It is the taking of risks in the course of making a living, including the risk that the investment in capital employed in that task might not pay off. The result is something rather special if this boat is supplying the local shellfish company.
The point of this picture, and I suspect many others that I might take, is to also highlight a paradox, which is that most of those who like to claim they are entrepreneurs in this country are nothing of the sort.
No one working for a large business with a guaranteed monthly pay cheque, bonus arrangement with few if any downsides, and a pension scheme, is an entrepreneur, or even a wealth-creator. They are a manager, at best. That they might be an egomaniacal manager with a penchant for overstating their value, is much more likely.
Nor are those renting property entrepreneurs. They are rentiers.
And those setting up tax dodges are simply cheats.
But there are entrepreneurs who really do take risks, and put their money and resources on the line without any guarantees, all in the process of making a living, and maybe to create jobs for others as well. There may, after all, be a crew on that fishing boat on occasion. What I also strongly suspect is that its owner also knows that the price they get for their product is uncertain - they accept they operate in a market.
I have no problem with this real form of capitalism.
I do have a big problem with all the phoney entrepreneurs who claim a status they do not have.
And we do need to differentiate the two. Genuine entrepreneurial activity can create value and is worth encouraging.
The types 0f guaranteed return activity that masquerade as entrepreneurship, but do not even approximate to it, are in reality also much more likely to be part of rentier activity - which is the activity that has much more to do with seeking to screw unearned value out of employees, suppliers, and society at large by creating unaccounted for externalities, than it is to do with any form of actual value creation.
We have to know about, understand, and call out this difference to really hold people to account in our economy.
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Absolutely right. I would add that for small business there is even logic and justice to the ‘residual claimant’ aspect of share ownership – because the unpaid work that inevitably goes into starting and building a business finds its way – if successful – into the later share values’ A political left that is loudly in favour of free enterprise but only within a more socialist framework – free education, healthcare, safety net, etc – and within environmental limits – and is clear that this means disincentivising businesses growing unreasonably large and politically powerful, or individuals accumulating country-sized fortunes – that would I think be a powerful electoral formula.
Very good points Geof. Very similar I think to Richard’s ideas as espoused in The Courageous State.
The state is the coffee cup containing the private sector ‘cappucino’ which cannot operate effectively without the state providing the physical, legal and societal infrastructure needed to operate a properly functioning market system.
So the state provides healthcare, education, social security if needed, a functioning tax system, utilities like power and water and a legal system to police the operation of the market.
A proper mixed economy in other words.
Thanks
As we ponder the difference between the different types of “business” that Richard describes above (the small fishing entrepreneur in Newport, and the exploitative planet-destroying cruise ships featured in TV ads?) we
may find this reflection on Labour’s current relentless focus on “growth” from the always thoughtful Rowan Williams, helpful.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/08/growth-politics-public-good-society-rowan-williams
I wonder how many in the Labour Cabinet will even be capable of understanding it? They continue to be jerked up and down like puppets on strings, by the tiniest movements of so-called growth statistics like GDP, whilst making hugely damaging assaults on the incomes and quality of life of the least well off on our planet, at home and abroad.
Q. “Why are you in politics?”
A. “To increase GDP!”
Give me strength!
Thank you for a most insightful and helpful socio-economic differentiation which valuably refines concepts and their associated language!
“Difficult times help us to differentiate between the real and the fake – not least ideas, ideologies, information and people.” (?)
People often overlook that Scandinavian countries which are progressive and have many social benefits, are also highly rated as a good places to do business.
Hmm, interesting.
In my photography I am drawn to the quality of the light – that is an emotional response (a response to beauty to be honest), and then I have to order what I see to capture an image that works and also captures the light. That is a good picture when both are achieved. That is photography for pleasure and personal objectives (to be a good photographer, to take opportunities).
But I have also started to take photographs that symbolise what I feel about my country. I’ve started to note the dilapidation of its people and it’s infrastructure and I’m working on becoming a documentary photographer of some sort.
Go for it
Having worked in the voluntary service in a playgroup and then a nursery, we were a small team working at the time (25 years ago) for a pittance, helped by volunteers but we loved our jobs, had lots of fun and cared about the children and our community. Unfortunately over the years the love of the job got taken over by so much paperwork when we went into partnership with the council. When I started we had one folder with all the information required and by the time I left 10 years later we had 2 large filing cabinets. Some of the great community organisations we have and which make a real difference to peoples lives are within the voluntary sector. So many though of these great organisations which are there for the greater good of our community and for our natural world are struggling when funding is removed or because of the cost of living. I live on an Island and I am forever in awe of the entrepreneurial activity of the people who live here.
Well yes,and no.
Sometimes you need a large business. For example, in order to make semiconductor chips, which we now all rely on, you need a fab. A fab costs billions of dollars. I would say some of the engineers working in the fab are creating wealth and are not just managers.
But I take what I think is your more general point.
Aside from economics I love the image. Red is always alluring, especially when contrasted with blue. The only thing I would say is that the usual rule of composition is that there should be more space in front of the boat than behind. But you can’t always have everything, and the figures in the distance, although tiny, are essentail.
I like those figures. I took a version without them. The difference is amazing.
Thank you.
In about 2005 IK was on the beach at Aberporth a few miles up the coast talking to one of the fishermen who worked a boat from the beach there.
He was a Brummie who had left and was ‘living the dream’ fishing from Aberporth.
As you have said some forms of self employment are more than just earning money.
Unfortunate that you chose violence-based food production to illustrate entrepreneurship.
Lobsters are typically killed by one of the cruellest methods ever devised – boiling alive!
You’ve defined that exactly, Richard. I have no problem at all with private companies making profits for their shareholders, for example. Private companies which are genuinely “entrepreneurial” do take risks. Sometimes those risks pay off, and sometimes they don’t. Investors/shareholders in such companies know their money is at risk, and are gambling on the venture being successful.
However, private companies which run public services do not take risks. I think, in fact, the Government “derisks” their involvement. Is that correct? They are not entrepreneurs. Their primary duty is to provide dividends for their shareholders. Outside the public sector, I have no problem with that. Within the public sector, it creates an immediate conflict of interest – the provision of a functioning public service is secondary to the profit motive for shareholders. And when (not if) that public service is so run down as to become unprofitable, private companies bang out – having pocketed a great deal of public money.
That is not being an entrepreneur. It is being an asset stripping swarm of locusts.
Much to agree with
I think this is a way to draw someone into your blog – a picture can often say a thousand words , cliche yes , but the way you went from the solitary fishing boat into entrepreneurship to tell your story that capitalism can be good is important , because many on the left just condemn capitalism, full stop . They need to be drawn into the new story just as much as the right, because most on the left do not realise that the small business world is capitalist, and the alternative is Soviet style collectivist shopping / producing hell , which is just as bad as extreme capitalism. An interesting photo could be the lure to your excellent descriptions of all that could be possible.
Thanks
Let’s see if this works. I have some other photos to try with.
I wish there was some discriminating term for the SMEs such as traders, tarring them all as capitalists alongside exploiters rankles with me
Artisans?
Yes
I have not commented on your blog for some time, Richard, since my ‘raison d’etre’- and that of so many of my fellow sheep farmers- was denigrated. However, I felt I ought to point out that the ‘market ‘- the real one where people want/need ones’ produce- has been even more buoyant than ever , so like a good ‘entrepreneur’ I will carry on breeding sheep……
I had some Welsh mutton last week….
It was very good, I admit.
[…] decided to take photos to illustrate economic themes during the course of a walk by the River Nevern in Newport, Pembrokeshire last week, there was more […]
Many large corporations, Amazon, Apple, and Google, to name a few, in reality, hate capitalism. When they talk about free markets, they mean anything but. They have grown to the point where they can strangle the competition, collude with each other, and sit in their “choke points” collecting rent. They don’t innovate, only endlessly polish their turds, through stock buybacks, firing staff to massage year-end figures, and making their products worse for customers and consumers to streamline costs. Capitalism is fine, it gives us nice things. What we have currently isn’t capitalism.
Much to agree with re them.