Schumpeter

[ViennaSausage]

Was Schumpeter an Austrian? Or just from Austria? Wikipedia suggests he is part of the Austrian School:

Joseph Schumpeter

Also, what was Schumpeter take on capitalism? Was he the one that said it will eventually destruct?

[Esuric]

@ViennaSausage

Was Schumpeter an Austrian? Or just from Austria? Wikipedia suggests he is part of the Austrian School:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter

Also, what was Schumpeter take on capitalism? Was he the one that said it will eventually destruct?

Schumpeter was born in Austria, and he was a student of Bohm-Bawerk; but he left the Austrian school to pursue general equilibrium theory with Leon Walras (who was the greatest economist of all time, according to Schumpeter). He takes credit for the Austrian positions he picked up in Vienna, namely the notion of ‘creative destruction’ and dynamic efficiency over static efficiency. These were introduced and cultivated, first in Spain, during the 17th century, and later by the Viennese economists. Though modern day professors and students credit Schumpeter.

[Nitroadict]

@ViennaSausage

Was Schumpeter an Austrian? Or just from Austria? Wikipedia suggests he is part of the Austrian School:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter

Also, what was Schumpeter take on capitalism? Was he the one that said it will eventually destruct?

Some have said proto-Austrian (which doesn’t make sense to me unless you use it in comparison to Austrian economists after him, methinks), but I’ve read him referred to more frequently as a Walrasian Economist:

from: http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard105.html

Notes

[1] Joseph Schumpeter’s valuable and monumental History of Economic Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954) has sometimes been referred to as “Austrian.” But while Schumpeter was raised in Austria and studied under the great Austrian Böhm-Bawerk, he himself was a dedicated Walrasian, and his History was, in addition, eclectic and idiosyncratic.

Also, what was Schumpeter take on capitalism? Was he the one that said it will eventually destruct?

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumpeter#Schumpeter_and_capitalism.27s_demise

Schumpeter’s most popular book in English is probably Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.

This book opens with a treatment of Karl Marx. While he is sympathetic to Marx’s theory that capitalism will collapse and will be replaced by socialism, Schumpeter concludes that this will not come about in the way Marx predicted.

To describe it he borrowed the phrase “creative destruction,” and made it famous by using it to describe a process in which the old ways of doing things are endogenously destroyed and replaced by new ways.

Schumpeter’s theory is that the success of capitalism will lead to a form of corporatism and a fostering of values hostile to capitalism, especially among intellectuals.

The intellectual and social climate needed to allow entrepreneurship to thrive will not exist in advanced capitalism; it will be replaced by socialism in some form.

There will not be a revolution, but merely a trend in parliaments to elect social democratic parties of one stripe or another.

He argued that capitalism’s collapse from within will come about as democratic majorities vote for the creation of a welfare state and place restrictions upon entrepreneurship that will burden and destroy the capitalist structure.

Schumpeter emphasizes throughout this book that he is analyzing trends, not engaging in political advocacy.

In his vision, the intellectual class will play an important role in capitalism’s demise.

The term “intellectuals” denotes a class of persons in a position to develop critiques of societal matters for which they are not directly responsible and able to stand up for the interests of strata to which they themselves do not belong.

One of the great advantages of capitalism, he argues, is that as compared with pre-capitalist periods, when education was a privilege of the few, more and more people acquire (higher) education.

The availability of fulfilling work is however limited and this, coupled with the experience of unemployment, produces discontent.

The intellectual class is then able to organise protest and develop critical ideas.

In Schumpeter’s view, socialism will ensure that the production of goods and services is directed towards meeting the authentic needs of people and will overcome some innate tendencies of capitalism such as conjecture fluctuation, unemployment and waning acceptance of the system.^[5]

I also own the book, and from little I’ve read so far (I read so many I often have to restart more than one book…), it’s pretty good stuff.

Knowing even a little Schumpeter (the wiki is enough since most leftists will just call it a day after consulting wikipedia) gives you the perfect counter-argument to most of the Marxist nonsense & arrogance about the superiority of their position, as a capitalist such as Schumpeter managed to out-compete Marx in giving a possible scenario of capitalism’s demise, which ironically, if you read further, is due to democracy.

From then on, you could correlate that Marx’s explanation of the “demise of capitalism” is merley a self-fufilling prophecy that anyone can & might buy into, as they further implement the very thing that while help destory capitalism, in the name of “saving it” (social democracy) or “saving the people” (more radical socialism / communism).