Richard Cantillon (1680-1734)
Cantillon was a pre-physiocratic French economist of Irish birth. He is considered among the first of the economists who focused on the entrepreneur. What identifies Cantillon’s prime mover is the distinction that he or she is an arbitrageur, that is, someone who buys producers or commodities at a known low price from producers and sells them at an unknown, hopefully higher price to consumers. He argued that this activity drives the market to equilibrium. However, since the arbitrageur has the further uncertainty of not knowing just what his price will be (and when he might actually make the sale) he is something more than the arbitrageur: he is a speculator.