Kitsch in entrepreneurship: meal kits, taste and the art of socio-economic enterprise

In the socio-economic world—a world in which we all, as both consumers and producers, live a range of experiences—enterprising exemplars of the kitsch abound. Our most overtly kitschy produced and consumed objects range from the classic lava lamp to products available through enterprising commerce outlets that leverage the idea of kitsch within their brand identity. In this chapter, I argue that while the overtly kitsch may find its niche, a normalised entrepreneurship practice—fashioned through a contemporary dialectic-informed, capitalistic education—risks the promotion of a more subtle, yet insidious form of kitsch in enterprise. Here, given the consensus that socio-economic entrepreneurship (and therefore its education) is vital to the growth of capitalist economies, any deviation from a potential universal value of truth, understood in the theme of this present work, as intended action on the part of the entrepreneurship practitioner toward the realisation of something of the absent other—a truth in a value exchange between producer and consumer—tends to the kitsch in enterprise. Invoking a methodology of applied analytical philosophy, I view the case of the meal-kit through the lens of a faux-art of enterprise. I argue that this faux entrepreneurial phenomenon favours appearance and external form; a form of enterprising value transaction that preys on convenience, prettiness and pleasure in an exemplar of ‘entrepreneurial enterprise for enterprise’s’ sake.