Political Entrepreneur WIKIPEDIA definitions excerpts below - click on term above to see the full definition on WikiPedia
Definition:
a businessman who seeks to gain profit through subsidies, protectionism, government contracts, or other such favorable arrangements with government(s) through political influence (also known as a rent seeker)
The term is also used in a very different way by those that wish to contrast what they see as a pure "market entrepreneur" with someone that uses the political system to further a commercial venture or their own career. On this definition a political entrepreneur is a business entrepreneur who seeks to gain profit through subsidies, protectionism, government contracts, or other such favorable arrangements with government(s) through political influence (also known as corporate welfare).
Ed Younkins (in 2000) wrote: "Political entrepreneurs seek and receive help from the state and, therefore, are not true entrepreneurs."
Similarly, Thomas DiLorenzo says, "a political entrepreneur succeeds primarily by influencing government to subsidize his business or industry, or to enact legislation or regulation that harms his competitors." He says, in contrast, the "market entrepreneur succeeds financially by selling a newer, better, or less expensive product on the free market without any government subsidies, direct or indirect." He gives the example of a mousetrap manufacturer who seeks to gain market share by making a better mousetrap as being a market enterpreneur, and a manufacturer who lobbies Congress to ban the importation of foreign-made mousetraps as a political entrepreneur. (DiLorenzo, Thomas, Chapter 7 of How Capitalism Saved America) [1]
In practice, the division between the market entrepreneur and the political entrepreneur can be hazy. Many business entrepreneurs share both characteristics in varying degrees. The term appears to have been coined by Burton W. Folsom Jr. in his book, The Myth of the Robber Barons.