Googling, Ted Turner, And Job-Creating Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurial capitalism is necessarily disruptive, even destructive, since existing firms and industries are driven out of business, and thousands of workers lose their jobs. The arrival of the automobile destroyed the horse cart industry, but automobiles are an incomparably superior mode of transportation. Likewise, the invention of the airplane dealt a big blow to the railroad and ship industry, but revolutionized the long-distance transportation of both passengers and cargoes. More recently, Googling has replaced library card catalogs as sources of information, and fixed-line telephones have lost vast ground to mobile phones as communication devices. Creative destruction is not without its costs but on the whole, propels mankind forward and upward. Very few, if any, would argue for banning the internet to protect library catalogues or outlawing the automobile to preserve the horse cart industry. Better and cheaper products and technologies are the engines of mankind’s material progress…