The urge to create, explore and improve one's lot in life is particularly relevant for our times, writes Carl Schramm.

WE LIVE in increasingly pessimistic times. Nowhere is that pessimism more palpable than in the scaremongering over globalisation or the clash of civilisations. Worse, as it grabs hold of our thinking, it prevents a clear discussion of the challenges facing the world.

Just ask yourself one simple question: If globalisation and/or questions over domestic economic fairness really are the mega-culprit, what is the countervailing force that can be applied equally and everywhere?

Is there perhaps a course of action that can satisfy the needs of all parties and help move past the false dichotomies of protection versus profit, incentives versus welfare - or local versus global?

An in-depth focus on this issue is all the more important as, deep down, virtually every participant in the debate ultimately realises that maintaining a solid growth path is key to securing a better future.

As we chart that path to the future, one thing is for sure - the need for societies to enable their citizens to lead meaningful and productive lives has only increased. For many policymakers and policy advocates, sustainability - social, economic and environmental - is the ultimate answer.

But, like a holy grail, it remains elusive. Then, there are those who put their stock into entrepreneurship. They argue that humans have long put their energies into commerce - combining curiosity and risk. In that effort, entrepreneurs have helped shrink distances around the world for millennia.

Rather than regard entrepreneurship and sustainability as mutually exclusive, it is vital to recognise that they go hand in hand.

The human urge to create, explore and to improve one's lot in life is particularly relevant for our times.

Why? Because it has the potential to be a democratising force - as well as a key tool to achieving sustainability around the globe.

Enabling entrepreneurship promotes democracy exactly because it disrupts the existing social order - breaking up entrenched social hierarchies and classes who stifle competition and rely on playing political favourites. What emerges instead is a meritocracy that strengthens democratic society.

From business-visionaries down to the humble shopkeeper, entrepreneurs succeed only to the extent that the innovations they bring to market offer a veritable and lasting improvement in the lives of their customers.

Too often, entrepreneurship is confused with a crass version of capitalism - but it is important to recognise that entrepreneurship is not, first and foremost, about profit maximisation.

Entrepreneurs are the innovators who help create the backbone of domestic society. It is they who adapt existing technologies to local tastes and costs, who create and revolutionise basic services, who drive the adaptation and learning that allows societies to remain dynamic, and who assume the risks required for societies to reap any rewards.

Whether in the case of the small businesses that empower the poor by creating jobs and providing goods, or the large businesses that lower costs and strengthen the national and global economy - the work of entrepreneurs is at the core of development, and economic and social sustainability, as well as a prerequisite for any welfare state.

By empowering the poor - creating wealth and raising living standards - entrepreneurs open up opportunities for newcomers, and move their entire society towards lasting social change.

Lest we forget, it has often, if not always, been the dynamism of entrepreneurs that has helped stagnant and moribund societies to overcome political abuse and a deliberate suppression of economic opportunity.

Given the multitude of pressures on the global agenda, along with the question of limited and diminishing resources, it is also rapidly becoming clear just how vital "real" entrepreneurs are on the road toward achieving sustainability and social progress in developing Asia, the Middle East or Africa.

Take the environment as another example. Given the clear-cut environmental pressures facing the global community, it is self-evident that significant future profits will accrue to those who - using their know-how, capital and sense of risk-taking - develop cost-effective solutions to what currently still seem to be intractable problems.

The people who succeed in that task are widely hailed as change agents. In fact, they are likely to be the key change agents of our time.

In settings far removed from the sphere of entrepreneurs, it is striking how the phrase "change agent" has become such an honorific, and not just in the parlance of the ongoing US presidential campaign.

While the title is gladly bestowed upon some policymakers and more broadly upon social activists, it is rarely used to describe entrepreneurs. And yet, both types of innovator share a desire to create the type of upheaval and disruption that changes society for the better.

It is high time to consider entrepreneurs as the quintessential change agents. They are a global democratising force that everyone should embrace and welcome.

Carl Schramm is co-author of Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism - and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity