The entrepreneurial age: full circle or a spiral?

Welcome to the entrepreneurial age! ‘Entrepreneurship’ is the new buzzword. It is now at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the sentence. It is also tweaked to suit circumstances — ‘technopreneur, ‘femipreneur’, global entrepreneurs,’ cultural entrepreneurs’ et cetera. It represents aspiration and involves a lot of hard work. This indicates a global shift in structural framework of production.We are going to work and earn very differently from the way we have done in the last century or so. But not everything about it is entirely new. There have been other ages before.Our ancestors started off by hunting and gathering. They had the freedom and they could eat fresh and natural food every day.Without the risk of obesity and its related problems (ever seen a fat bushman?). All the running and climbing was good exercise. But it was not sustainable as they were too dependent on nature and its fluctuations and risks.Historians tell us that the best thing that happened to man was the invention of fire. It contributed greatly to the rise of the agrarian age/revolution. Food could be cooked (thus preserved) and diet expanded (are you aware that some of the food eat could poison you to death if eaten raw?).Food could also now be cultivated and some animals domesticated. People stopped being nomadic and settled down. This led to stability and human population started rising.Bronze and iron ages more or less evolved from the agrarian age. With a rising population, better tools were needed for better farming and to stop the unwelcome neighbours from encroaching –war.But you can’t be a farmer, a blacksmith and a cattle keeper at the same time, thus the rise of trade. Trading centers became cities and population shot up even further, as did war. Growth of metallurgy, transport (roads, horses and chariots), better farming methods (remember shadufs?), are attributed to this age.The Middle Ages occasioned the flourishing of education, music, art and religion. This is where ‘soft skills’ were appreciated most.Universities took hold here as did research and development. Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci came up with outrageous ideas like ‘the earth is round’ and a ‘flying machine’ that were at best frowned upon but later became reality.Industrial age was a big shift. The rise of industries moved peasants from farms to urban industries. Machines that could farm land 1000 times better were invented. Need for raw materials and more labor brought us colonialism and slave trade.The concept of organization of work into hours and working in groups and strata crystallized here. Every power was also looking for market supremacy for their products hence the world wars.The newest has been the information age. Computers , internet, iphones, ipads, drones, wikipaedia (and its accompanying wikileaks), facebook (and its revolution in North Africa) have meant that productivity has been characterized by smaller groups making bigger impact.Space and time are not a key requirement for business to happen. You can shop, choose, pay and ship in a car from Korea whilst seated at your desk. The local dealer cannot sit pretty. This has fast forwarded the entrepreneurial age.With all the competition, with our population surge — thus the rising unemployment; the spirit of enterprise has to take precedence, in a very real way too. We will relook the doctrine of working hours, structuralism, et al and throw them out of the window. At most you need 8 hours of sleep.You now work for 8 hours; what are you doing with the other 8? With all the technology, you can work for the Americans and the Chinese for part of the night and for Rwandan’s at daytime. It means more income for you and for Rwanda.However, there is a typical human flaw that should be avoided. Every time a new thing comes we discard the old. This need not be, we still need agriculture to eat (despite its discovery during agrarian times).The growth from one age to another tends to be more evolutionary, thus cumulative than revolutionary. We only improve on the aspects of the previous period(s). When you embrace change, you only change what needs to be changed. As Winston Churchill said, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. It is called development.Perhaps we should think more of the entrepreneurial ‘edge’ and not ‘age’?