BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 50
ENTREPRENEURS
ENTREPRENEURS
OF THE WORLD
UNITE!
S
Roger Bootle
celebrating
25 years
of Capital
Economics
By Roger Bootle
A leading City economist and Daily
Telegraph columnist, Roger Bootle
is the founder of Capital Economics,
one of the world’s largest independent
macroeconomics consultancies. His
books include Money For Nothing,
which anticipated the global 昀椀nancial
crisis, and “The AI Economy – Work,
Wealth and Welfare in the Robot
Age”.
ome years ago, when
President George W. Bush
was trying to explain France’s
apparent lack of economic
success, he said: “The trouble with the
French is that they don’t have a word
for entrepreneur”.
The great irony, of course, is that we
British (and hence the Americans)
don’t have a word for entrepreneur.
If you look up the English synonyms
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ISSUE 24
for this French word you get things
like “businessperson, tycoon, founder,
innovator, pioneer, industrialist,
magnate, impresario or proprietor.”
None of these words quite hits the
spot the way that “entrepreneur”
does. Isn’t it funny that, although
English seems to be easily a superior
language to French, when it comes to
so many important concepts, we rely
on a French word without there being
any adequate English alternative –
ambience, cuisine, decor. The English
equivalents lack that je ne sais quoi.
