The chancellor has called for a "cultural revolution" stretching from the classroom to the boardroom in a bid to boost enterprise.

Gordon Brown said initiatives such as "enterprise week" - to be held for the first time next year - were essential if Britain was to remain ahead of its competitors.

Britain should follow the example set by the US, he said, and the European Union should seek to reduce levels of regulation.

"At every stage - starting up, investing, hiring, training, seeking equity, starting to export - government should remove all the old barriers holding the enterprising back," the chancellor wrote in an article for the Times.

Brown said this autumn's pre-Budget report would "make it easier to start up, help to bridge the equity gaps, and encourage small business to export".

"The last of the old permanent industrial subsidies should be swept away," he said.

"A government on the side of enterprise will do only what it should do: entrench stability, deliver the best competitive environment and promote trade by removing barriers to transatlantic commerce."

Brown added that there would be "no no-go areas" for these reforms.

"The way forward is neither more benefit offices nor bricks-and-mortar subsidies, but profitable businesses," he said.

And he said the government would "pioneer new approaches not traditionally associated with the left, including a vigorous private rental sector in housing".

Brown has also pledged to call on EU finance ministers to reject any policies that increase the red tape burden on businesses.

"Today, America is enterprising but not seen as fair, and Europe is seen as socially cohesive but not enterprising," he wrote.

"A revolution that champions enterprise open to all can make Britain first in the global economy for advancing economic efficiency and fairness together."

Shadow chancellor Michael Howard said Brown's comments were "the very opposite of the truth".

"He says we should deregulate, but Labour have piled on regulations. He says we should become more flexible, but the economy under Labour is less flexible. He says he wants self-reliance, but an insidious means-tested dependency culture is booming under Labour," he said.

"In the real world, Labour has increased taxes 60 times. It has not reformed the public services. We are not seeing the improvements in public services Labour promised. In business, Labour has imposed £15 billion tax and red tape costs. In the real world, Labour is taxing and spending and failing."