Networking: the Social Relations of Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Malaysia has been given as an example of an economy dominated by a small handful of political elites in an increasingly polarized, class-based society in which the power of the state has grown simply to protect its interests (Crouch 1992). Shamsul A.B. (1986a) has argued that NEP is an elite patronage machine, in which the real beneficiary of NEP ‘poverty eradication’ programmes has been the state itself, comprised of Malay politicians and their ‘clients’. Gomez meticulously outlines how politically connected entrepreneurial groups have formed in Malaysia, demonstrating how, ‘through their abuse of the NEP and government enterprises as well as their rent-seeking activities, influential Malay politicians and a business elite with close links to UMNO leaders’ became so-called entrepreneurs (1994: 6–7). As such, modern ‘entrepreneurship’ in Malaysia is generally seen as a mere reflection of privileged political access and largely ignored.¹