Kirchhoff blends economics, business, and governemnt policy to demonstrate that entrepreneurship's role in business formation and growth energizes and maintains the viability of capitalism. Entrepreneurs convert new ideas into marketable products and services and use these to grab market shares from older, established firms. This process not only produces economic growth, but also redistributes resources so as to assure equitable distribution within society. Acknowledging that this perception is descriptive but lacks predictive power, Kirchhoff offers a typology to assist in predictive theory building and to guide government policy development.