History of Entrepreneurship

Today, entrepreneurship is one of the most profitable activities. Not always and not for all, it was successful, but, nevertheless, survived the most difficult times and still continues to exist. What were the main stages of business development?

Entrepreneurs of antiquity

This type of activity began to develop along with commodity-money relations. In ancient times, and in the Middle Ages, the notion of "entrepreneurship" is most associated with trade. In ancient times, the glory of the merchant people was first acquired by the Phoenicians, who founded a large number of colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Emerging as trading settlements, the colonies eventually became independent states and subordinated to themselves significant territories. A vivid example could be Carthage, which became a powerful Mediterranean power. Over time, the history of entrepreneurship has been supplemented by other examples of active trade. The ancient Greeks, who became no less talented seafarers than the Phoenicians, traded with various countries of the East and with their colonies dispersed along the coast of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. From the Black Sea colonies, Greece received wax, leather, honey, grain, cattle. From Africa they carried ivory. Egypt supplied linen cloth, Carthage supplied carpets. The Greeks themselves were famous for wine and olive oil.

Some historians believe that the economic way of ancient civilizations can be called capitalistic. After all, there were already private property, commodity-money relations, and exports with imports. But the predominance of forced, slave labor as something with capitalism does not fit.

From merchants and artisans to entrepreneurs

The history of entrepreneurship covers the Middle Ages. Here the main type of business activity was also trade operations. Old Russian merchants led an active trade with Byzantium, receiving from there luxury goods and Greek wine, which the princes of Kiev liked to use. They traded with the countries of the East and the Greek colonies in the Crimea. To businessmen in Russia, as well as in the ancient states, it is possible to carry artisans. After all, they, like merchants, worked for themselves: they produced goods, sold them, invested money in raw materials and equipment.

In medieval Europe, merchants and artisans are beginning to create their unions, which in the trading sphere were called guilds, and in the craft industry - guilds. Without these organizations, the history of enterprise development would be incomplete. Trade unions, such as the Hansa in medieval Germany, eventually became powerful organizations, some kind of states in the state. The shops that monitored the quality and prices of products later became the basis for the emergence of the first capitalist enterprises-manufactories, where the masters of yesterday turned into masters, and the apprentices into wage-workers. However, this was not always the case: often the shop organization only hampered the development of entrepreneurship. After all, the shops were not interested in fluctuations in product prices, or in the introduction of new inventions that increase labor productivity.

Entrepreneurship dominates

Entirely beyond trade, entrepreneurship emerged in the late Middle Ages. Strictly speaking, from this moment the history of entrepreneurship begins in our usual understanding. At the end of the fourteenth century the first manufactories appeared, enterprises where manual labor of wage workers was used at all stages of production. In many European countries, the nobility is actively involved in entrepreneurial activity , which begins to engage in commodity management, raising sheep or growing grain. The 16th century can be considered the time of the appearance of the first joint-stock companies, for example, as a Moscow company established in England for trade with Russia. At the end of the 17th century, the first banks were created on the basis of joint-stock companies.

At the end of the 18th century, a new stage in the development of entrepreneurial activity began. The first factories appear, where the use of machines increases labor productivity and reduces the cost of production. The joint-stock form of organization of enterprises is actively developing, which contributes to the development of large-scale entrepreneurship. In the nineteenth century, capitalist relations finally became dominant in the world economy.

The history of entrepreneurship is not over. This kind of activity continues to develop now. Despite the fact that it is not an easy business to conduct own business, especially in the post-Soviet space, entrepreneurship still does not lose its attractiveness for many people.