Mises’s Theory of the Promoter-Entrepreneur

Per Bylund takes up Mises's claim that the entrepreneur-promoter cannot be defined praxeologically and argues the opposite—that the promoter can be pinned down as the actor who breaks the economy free from what Bylund calls the "specialization deadlock." Drawing on his own work, he shows how genuine innovation (not mere task-splitting or arbitrage) drives economic growth in spasmodic leaps, placing the promoter, and the firm as an "island of specialization," at the very core of the Misesian market process.Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on July 23, 2026.Mises University is the world's leading instructional program in the Austrian School of economics, and is the essential training ground for economists who are looking beyond the mainstream.