THE CULTIVATOR AS ENTREPRENEUR 209 



that he undertakes a risk, that he sets the forces of 

 production in motion for a speculative reward. The 

 entrepreneur calculates, often unconsciously, that he 

 will be able to sell the finished product at a price 

 higher than it cost him to produce it ; but even in the 

 best-framed calculations there is a margin of un- 

 certainty, an element of chance, which cannot be alto- 

 gether eliminated, and it is this which distinguishes 

 profits from the comparative certainty of rent, interest 

 and wages. 



In all essentials the Indian cultivator performs the 

 functions of an entrepreneur, and the European word 

 seems misapplied to him only because he is generally 

 working on a very small scale, and because, instead of 

 directing gangs of workmen, it is he and his family 

 who provide the labour needed for production ; but 

 his remuneration, like that of the entrepreneur in 

 manufacture, consists of the gross product of industry, 

 diminished by the payments which he has to make for 

 the use of land and capital. We have seen in previous 

 chapters how the landlord and the money-lender have 

 used their position of economic advantage to appro- 

 priate to themselves the increment in the value of the 

 cultivator's product, and that they have been able to 

 exploit him, so that his efforts to improve his con- 

 dition turn to their benefit. The acquisition of occu- 

 pancy rights and the remedial measures directed 

 against usury may put the cultivator in a position to 

 resist the exactions of the landlord and the money- 

 lender, and place him in circumstances in which his 

 economic prosperity will depend directly upon his 

 own exertions. The Government of India has not 

 accepted the principle of laissez faire, and has obviously 

 no intention of allowing the cultivator to become the 

 victim of existing economic forces, and the important 

 question to consider is whether the industrial methods 

 of the cultivator are such as to yield him an abundant 

 livelihood if the deductions made for rent and interest 



14 



