The Bozeman area is an excellent site to study entrepreneurship. Right Now Technology and Zoot exemplify commercial entrepreneurial success. Their founders envision new products and develop markets for them. They are among the few who succeed; competition relentlessly filters dreams with reality checks.

Social entrepreneurs identify a purpose not served by the commercial sector. Local examples include Eagle Mount and Warriors and Quiet Waters, both nonprofit foundations. These organizations deliver outdoor experiences such as skiing and fly-fishing to folks with physical impairments. They succeed by mobilizing and directing concern, compassion, and competence toward those with special needs.

Political entrepreneurs, be they officials or private citizens, create new institutional arrangements or rearrange existing ones. This usually benefits specific clientele who reward them with funds. The justification is always “the public interest.” Sometimes it is, usually not. Federal mandates for the production of corn ethanol is an egregious example of plunder by political entrepreneurs.

We should recognize and celebrate the political entrepreneurs who generate genuine public benefits. History’s best and most grand example is surely the authors of the U.S. Constitution. Most simply, this document established a set of rules for making rules that made predation more costly than productivity. Alas, it could not constrain all political opportunism as the sugar subsidy, earmarks, and Sen. Ted Stevens illustrate.

Still, political entrepreneurs can and sometimes do, create public benefits. We suffer from the paucity of such creativity. Here’s a missed opportunity.

After the Milwaukee Railroad suffered bankruptcy in 1977, its gentle right-of-ways could have become a magnificent, 800-mile bike trail. The bridges and tunnels were sound, engineering marvels through some of America’s most spectacular scenery and its well-built brick power substations in remote areas could have become hostels and restaurants.

Political entrepreneurs were needed to convert this potentiality into a reality. It required vision, patience, and new institutional arrangements to recognize and accommodate conflicting property rights. Unfortunately, there was no political entrepreneur pushing for this public purpose and the opportunity was lost. We have only small but delightful remnants of the Milwaukee’s rails-to-trails potential.

Another opportunity for constructive political entrepreneurship lies in Gallatin Gateway, a gateway village for Yellowstone Park. Its most visible employer is Big Timber Works (BTW), a nationally respected timber-framing co-operative. They cut, craft, and complete multi-million dollar homes—and modest structures for ranches such as ours. BTW is a real asset to the community, providing jobs and exhibiting social concern by organizing events like Red Cross blood drives.

This spring BTW erected a magnificent 54-foot tall clock tower made of hewed beams. This landmark is grand scale artisanship. BTW stated, “[T]he steel Gallatin Gateway sign on the west face should leave no doubt as to the location of our understated village.”

Verizon Wireless was planning another tower across the road from BTW. This one, however, wouldn’t be timber frame. Rather, they initially planned a 190-foot galvanized steel structure with a 20 by 40 foot steel mechanical shed surrounded by a chain fence toped with barbed wire. Industrial ugliness threatened this gateway to Yellowstone.

A fundamental rule of political economy explained this pending assault on sensitivities; decisions are based on information and incentives. The proposed Verizon tower was not the fault of bad people and illegal behavior, but rather incentives skewed against the large public interest.

Under existing institutions, landowners have a right to receive a substantial payment for tower placement and a monthly rent. And Verizon has incentives to minimize costs rather than erect an unobtrusive structure as it does when pressured by public opinion and responsive institutions, standard practice where folks mobilize to protect their scenery.

Cell-towers need not assault nature, but rather can blend with it while giving good service. And now it seems, facing community and political pressures Verizon changed design and now promises “stealth landscaping” to minimize visual impact. It may permit emergency services to use the tower, thus enhancing public safety.

Absent political entrepreneurs and aroused community members, the gateway to Yellowstone would have been afflicted by unnecessary ugliness. We missed the opportunity to create the world’s best 800-mile bike trail. Fortunately political entrepreneurs discovered ways to expand cell phone and emergency service while protecting the beauty of America’s gateway to Yellowstone.