Entrepreneurship

There is a very thoughtful piece on Vaughan Roderick's blog on the Welsh spirit of entrepreneurship and how this has travelled the world.

I've long been convinced that somehow or another over the past 100 years we've lost something as a people. Just over 100 years ago my great grandfather set up the Aberdare Leader (with a loan of £50), and over decades built up a thriving newspaper business. He was educated in night classes and in his mid twenties when he took the plunge. I wonder how many budding young business people are there today looking for an opportunity to launch a successful business.

The answer is probably far fewer than there were a 100 years ago. But I don't think that's how it has to be. Kevin Morgan at a seminar in Pontypridd argued that as Valleys people we were entrepreneurial - but our energies were directed at social causes, at building the social fabric of our communities and activities such as the trade union movement. While this may have been the case in the past, in order to raise the Valleys out of relative poverty, I think we need to discover again some of that entrepreneurial spirit.

I also think there are far more opportunities these days for enterprises that involve all their workers (and indeed customers) as stakeholders. More recently Kevin Morgan has written with Jenny O'Hara an article in the Western Mail on social entrepreneurship, and my experience of being on the board of a community cooperative - Cycle Training Wales is really positive. By channelling great ideas and sharing a sense of ownership, I think there's at least a chance that entrepreneurship can flourish again in the Valleys.

What government can do to assist this will be a topic of a future post. Some government support is critical I believe to assist some of my electors I have recently met who want to set up small scale childcare businesses or develop their service industries. They've got the ideas - all they need is a hand up (not a hand out).