Entrepreneurship: A Comparative and Historical Study. by Paul H. WilkenReview by: Anthony OberschallSocial Forces, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Sep., 1980), pp. 290-292Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2577848 .

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290 I Social Forces Volume 59:1, September 1980

______. b:1971. "Modernization: A Few Queries." In A. R. Desai (ed.), Essays on Modernization of Underdeveloped Societies. Bombay: Thacker.

Srinivas, M. N., and Panini, M. N. 1973. "The Development of Sociology and Social Anthropology in India." Sociological Bulletin 22:179-215.

Entrepreneurship: A Comparative and Historical Study. By Paul H. Wilken. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1979. 320 pp. $19.95.

Reviewer: ANTHONY OBERSCHALL, Vanderbilt University

This well-written book addresses the question of whether industrial entrepreneur- ship is mainly the result of favorable economic conditions, or whether sociocultural and psychological factors affect the emergence of entrepreneurs and their performance beyond what might be expected from economic conditions alone. Some economists have argued that both entrepreneurship and economic growth occur when favorable economic conditions prevail. Entrepreneurs will then automatically emerge because of some basic human propensity for economic gain. Another way of putting it is that when demand for entrepreneurship increases, the supply will rise irrespective of sociocultural and psychological factors. If this is true, then entrepreneurship cannot be assigned an independent causal force in economic growth.

Others maintain that favorable economic conditions by themselves are not sufficient for entrepreneurship, though there is no consensus on what mix of social-structural, cultural, and psychological factors are needed for its emergence. Wilken's contribution to the controversy is to express it in a concrete, operational form subject to disconfirmation. He argues that where entrepreneurship has a causal influence on growth, entrepreneurs must significantly increase the growth rate beyond what one would expect from prevailing economic opportunities; in the negative case, economic actors fail to take advantage of economic conditions and a lower than expected growth rate occurs. In either situation, the positive or negative impact of entrepreneurship leads to a search for non-economic variables that might account for its vigor or weakness. On the other hand, should the economic growth rate be about what one would expect from prevailing economic conditions, entrepreneurship cannot be attributed a significant causal force. The search for the non-economic factors associated with entrepreneurship might be of interest to stratification theory, but would be of little value to economic growth theory.

Wilken reviews the evidence for Britain, France, Prussia, Germany, Japan, the U.S., and Russia from the beginnings of their industrial revolutions to the date at which industry surpassed agriculture in the national product. The periods studied fall mostly in the nineteenth century; somewhat earlier for Britain, and later for Japan. The focus is on textiles and metallurgical industries. His major conclusion, and a surprising one for a sociologist, is that "entrepreneurship was of little causal significance in the industrial transition in these societies." In Wilken's judgment the observed economic growth rates were about what one would expect given the prevailing economic opportunities. Thus the somewhat lower French growth rate compared to the British is accounted for by less favorable opportunities. The role of the state and foreign entrepreneurs account for some of

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Book Reviews / 291

the unusual spurts of growth during a limited span of years in Russia, Germany, and Japan. There is, however, a fundamental difficulty in Wilken's procedure: it is not possible to determine, in the absence of a widely accepted theory of economic growth, just what the "normal" or "expected" growth rate should be, given some prevailing levels of economic opportunity. It becomes very much a matter of informed judgment whether an observed historic growth rate is above, below, or equal to the "expected" growth rate. As a matter of fact, there is a considerable range of opinion among economic historians about the magnitude of some of the economic opportunity factors (the independent variables) in a given country during the period examined by Wilken. Wilken readily admits that there is a sizeable judgmental component in his study and conclusions, and that this evidence is mostly qualitative. Does his main conclusion ring true? And if so, can it be generalized beyond the six countries and periods examined?

Wilken's procedure in each case follows a set pattern. Economic opportunity is measured by profit potential, the difference between rewards and costs. Favor- able opportunity conditions will offer high profit potential and will be conducive to profit-seeking entrepreneurial behavior relative to other roles. Among the most important potential rewards are a large market, few competitors, population growth, a rising standard of living, and international trade. Potential costs are largely a function of the quantity and quality of factor inputs: land, labor, capital and technology. A financial infrastructure for borrowing capital at low interest, raw materials, skilled labor, cheap energy, etc., make for low production cost. The entrepreneurial role is defined as combining factors of production to initiate changes in the production of goods, either through expansion or through innovation (the production of new goods, new production techniques).

The bulk of the book is taken up with the six cases studied. Wilken assesses from the work of economic historians the extent to which the economic opportunities were favorable, what the entrepreneurial response was, and what industrial growth rate was achieved. He also provides some informed judgments on the non-economic factors that influenced entrepreneurship. These are taken from the extensive literature on that topic and discussed under the headings of legitimacy of the entrepreneurial role, social mobility opportunities, marginality, security of person and property, and supporting ideology (Weber's Protestant ethic would be an instance). State economic actions are also looked at.

I am not familiar enough with the economic histories of the countries and periods Wilken examines to read his cases critically. My gut feeling is that sociologists have probably exaggerated the problem of entrepreneurial supply in settings where technologies and organizational forms were diffusing fast, and capital, skilled labor, raw materials, and growing demand for industrial products were available at least minimally, or else made up by governments bent on catching up with foreign rivals. Wilken presents some of the cases more persuasively than others. For the period 1810 to 1880 in the U.S., in light of very favorable economic conditions, Wilken assigns entrepreneurship a causally "insignificant" role. Why wasn't industrial entrepreneurship more dynamic? Wilken cites the tendency toward "adventurer" capitalism, slavery, and the Civil War, which strikes me as not altogether a satisfactory explanation. Finally, there is some question about the appropriateness of "comparative" study in the subtitle. To be sure, Wilken does make frequent comparisons among his case studies, but he did not select his

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292 / Social Forces Volume 59:1, September 1980

countries and periods with a view to exploiting the advantages of a quasi- experimental desigh.

States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. By Theda Skocpol. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. 407 pp. Cloth, $30.00; paper, $7.95.

Reviewer: DWIGHT B. BILLINGS, University of Kentucky

Theda Skocpol's book is an outstanding empirical and theoretical contribution to the sociological analysis of revolutionary social transformation. Building most directly on Barrington Moore's approach to modernization, Skocpol makes important substantive contributions to a historical understanding of the French, Russian, and Chinese socio-political revolutions. In addition, her work is an exemplar of the comparative-historical method which, though focused on nation- state building in predominantly agrarian societies, has deeply engaging implica- tions for the democratic-socialist transformation of capitalist industrial societies.

Skocpol's "structural perspective" on revolution directly challenges aggre- gate-psychological theorists such as Ted Gurr, system/value-consensus theorists such as Chalmers Johnson, and political-conflict theorists such as Charles Tilly, whose approaches she finds too purposive or voluntaristic. "Revolutions," as she approvingly quotes Wendell Phillips, "are not made; they come." Revolutionary outcomes of social conflict, according to Skocpol, are extremely rare "conjunctures" of "separately determined and not consciously coordinated (or deliberately revolutionary) processes and group efforts." Historically, they have occurred only in agrarian societies when the collapse of absolutist "old regimes," under duress of international economic and military pressures, prevented dominant classes from using state force to suppress revolts from below, especially by peasants. Despite situational and ideological differences in revolutionary outbreaks, outcomes have been similar: centralization, bureaucratization, and mass mobilization. Skocpol's approach is more nearly Marxist than those she criticizes, although her stress on the potential autonomy of the state avoids the "class-struggle reductionism" of classical Marxism. She stresses the importance of international and world-historical contexts but attempts also to avoid what she perceives as the "economic reductionism" of world-system neo-Marxists such as Wallerstein. In skillfully controlled comparisons of France, Russia, China, England, Germany, and Japan, Skocpol demonstrates the effects on revolutionary occurrences and outcomes of such variables as modes of surplus extraction and class conflicts; the structure of absolutist regimes and causes of their breakdown; the extent and character of peasant mobilization; efforts and resources for state-building; old regime legacies; financial and industrial resources; and international competition and military conflicts.

Skocpol refuses to develop a general theory of revolutions since their causes ''necessarily vary according to the historical and international circumstances of the countries involved." In a lamentably, if understandably, brief conclusion, she faults the Marxist theory of revolutions for failing to fit "the actual historical patterns of social revolutions." Classical Marxism, she contends, failed "to foresee or

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