The emergence of the entrepreneurial society

Abstract

The topic of my talk today is what I term the entrepreneurial society or the emergence of the entrepreneurial society, which suggests that something has changed. The Director and I were speaking on the way here about the fall of the Berlin Wall which was nearly twenty years ago, in November 1989, shortly before we first met. A lot of euphoria followed not only because Germany was reuniting but because Europe was reuniting, and there was also the end of the Cold War. In this euphoria people expected an economic surge to follow, freed from the burden of supporting the Cold War military, but also the related social and political burden. However, we know the 1990s that followed were actually pretty tough – perhaps not for those of you here in Ireland – but all across the rest of Europe.