Common perception here suggests one becomes an entrepreneur only if there is no other option.

Global Entrepreneurship Week continues with events held in almost a hundred countries. Number of participants of the events over the last two years is said to be above ten million. This weekend I participated in the meeting held in Ankara at Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey. The slogan of the event was 'awaken the entrepreneur within you'. It is easy to say, of course. Turkey is not yet one of the countries where entrepreneurship is democratized. Though it has to, it is not.

What do we understand from the term entrepreneurship here? It reads as follows: "My son/daughter is unemployed. Let's set a business for him/her, then." This is what research says. The sole aim here is to secure that your son/daughter provides for themselves. However, in essence entrepreneurship implies that you provide not only for yourself but also for others. Here in Turkey only 6 out of 100 people become an entrepreneur. As the common perception here suggests, one becomes an entrepreneur only if there is no other option.  But this is definitely not what entrepreneurship means.

I do not know what the above slogan evoked in your mind. But when I first heard it, I thought "Are we Clark Kent that you expect us to change quickly and become the Superman? Is this the deal here?" But in fact, it sort of is. To be an entrepreneur necessitates noticing the opportunity for conducting you business better, whatever that business is and than fulfilling the prerequisites for seizing such opportunity. Once you recognize the opportunity, the rest happens automatically. Not in Turkey of course; in other countries. I believe the entrepreneurship of the era has paved the way toward capitalism without capital. Compared with the past, we are living at a time where everyone can become an entrepreneur; where entrepreneurship is democratized.

History of capitalism is at the same time the history of a process where the privileges used to be enjoyed by a limited group are extended to larger masses. Over the nineteenth and partially the twentieth century, your family mattered as to whether you could become an entrepreneur and establish a business. You first needed to have the capital. But this has changed just as the possibility to benefit from global investment opportunities did. Remember, in 19^th century London, investing at colonies was a privilege enjoyed only by a limited number of people. The investment technology then enabled the seizure of investment opportunity only by few people. Nowadays any individual from any social class can benefit from international investment opportunities simply via retirement funds. The advancement in investment technologies for instance has democratized international investments. And the same applies also for entrepreneurship.

Now it is time to democratize entrepreneurship in Turkey as well. So what does this process imply? Currently in Turkey, an entrepreneur needs to have a good idea, the knowledge to commercialize that idea and the patenting system to secure the commercial idea, and then to establish a business to use the patent in practice, find finance for the operations of the business and manage that business. Nonetheless, democratization of entrepreneurship means that the entrepreneur will not handle all of these activities alone. Mechanisms to undertake some of the necessary functions will be already established. Silicon Valley owes to the American state that has established and supported the existing institutional infrastructure. Entrepreneurship in today's world is a matter of institutional infrastructure. And this is exactly what Turkey lacks.

For instance, entrepreneurship develops relatively more easily in countries where universities are autonomous and where intervention of the state in universities' affairs is minimal. But please try expressing this to YOK (Higher Education Board of Turkey).

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 09.11.2010