Question

How is social entrepreneurship different from governments?

Answer 1

Social entreprenurship

Social entrepreneurs are ‘individuals who address a serious societal problem with innovative ideas and approaches that have not been tried successfully by private, public, or nonprofit sector entities’. It suggests that social entrepreneurship combines the passion for a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination. Social entrepreneurship is the creator of new models that provide products and services that directly meet the basic human needs that are still unsatisfied in current economic or social institutions. Another point of view is that social entrepreneurship is about construction, evaluation, and the pursuit of opportunities for social change. Social entrepreneurship is a group of innovative and effective activities. Its strategic focus is to solve social market failures, systematically using new resources and organizational forms to create new opportunities, increase social values, maximize social impact, and achieve change. Social entrepreneurship is also expressed as “innovative, social value creation activities occurring within non-profit, commercial, and/or public/government sectors or across sectors”

Government

Government is a broader term instead of providing basic amenities in social entrepreneurship they also provide much more than that-

Preserve Order

Recall Thomas Hobbes' grim view of humans when ungoverned by a central authority. Maintaining social peace is perhaps the the fundamental purpose of government. The US Constitution's preamble refers to this function specifically when it declares its intent to "ensure domestic tranquility," an elegant phrase to describe the government's role as society's policeman.

Defend Against External Enemies

While anthropologists continue to debate whether or not humans are an inherently warlike species, war has been a constant in the human condition since the dawn of recorded civilization. A a growing body of scholarship suggests that the state evolved into its present, modern form because of its superior capacity for waging war vis-à-vis competing for forms of political organization. While the development of nuclear weapons in the mid-20th century makes the outright conflict between powerful states less likely but more dangerous, one of the government's chief functions is still the protection of societies against outside aggression.

Manage Economic Conditions

Modern governments are expected to create economic growth and material prosperity conditions. While not all governments do this successfully, it is a function assumed in modern democracies. In the United States, the economic policy leaves most decisions to the private markets, where individual choice, competition, and exchange are presumed to lead to a growing economy. But even free markets need government regulation in the form of enforceable property rights, consumer protection, enforcement of contracts, and health and safety laws to work fairly and efficiently.

Redistribute Income and Resources

Governments in economically developed countries are expected to make the economic pie grow larger and distribute the fruits of prosperity. Governments tax wealthier citizens and transfer income and services to certain categories of individuals who are thought to need them. Thus all modern governments can be characterized as welfare states. Welfare states don't just redistribute money from wealthier individuals to poorer ones; they redistribute resources from the young to the old, the disabled, and the socially challenged. Wealthier governments provide subsidized housing, food, and health care to the poor and provide pensions for the elderly.

Provide Collective (Public) Goods

Public goods are resources that governments play a crucial role in providing. These are usually services that typically private markets cannot provide, or they can provide but only inefficiently or unfairly. National security is a good example. Can private markets provide military security? Sure, military security can be outsourced. Wealthy individuals and governments could hire private mercenaries. But history proves that reliance on mercenaries is a risky strategy for protecting populations because mercenaries may turn on the governments that hired them. They may threaten the very people they are hired to protect. For this reason, effective governments tend to monopolize national security. Once provided, everyone shares in its benefits. The same is true of clean air, the postal service, and the interstate highway system. Certain goods are best provided by the government, though individuals often disagree over what those are.