Joseph Schumpeter
Creative destruction, entrepreneurship theory
Most quoted
"In capitalist reality as distinct from its textbook picture, it is not that kind of competition which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organization which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives."
— from Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942
"The function of the entrepreneur is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention or, more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on."
— from The Theory of Economic Development, 1934
"The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one."
— from Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942
All quotes by Joseph Schumpeter (318)
The capitalist process, by its very nature, tends to destroy the institutional framework of capitalist society.
The economic system is not a machine that produces goods, but an organism that evolves.
The capitalist process is a process of incessant revolutionizing of the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.
The capitalist class is doomed to extinction, not by its failures, but by its successes.
The process of creative destruction is the fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion.
The capitalist system is not merely a system of production and distribution, but a system of cultural and social transformation.
The entrepreneur is the leader who introduces new methods of production, new products, new markets, new sources of supply, and new forms of organization.
The capitalist process tends to mechanize progress itself.
The entrepreneur is the man who sees the opportunity and acts upon it.
The capitalist system is not a system of perfect competition, but a system of monopolistic competition.
The process of creative destruction is the driving force of capitalism.
The capitalist process is a process of incessant economic change and transformation.
The entrepreneur is the man who breaks the circular flow of economic life.
The capitalist system is not a system of static efficiency, but a system of dynamic efficiency.
The capitalist process tends to destroy the very foundations of its own existence.
The capitalist system is not a system of perfect foresight, but a system of uncertainty and risk.
The process of creative destruction is the essence of capitalism.
The entrepreneur is the man who carries out innovations.
The capitalist system is not a system of perfect information, but a system of imperfect information.
The capitalist process is a process of incessant economic transformation.
Contemporaries of Joseph Schumpeter
Other Economicss born within 50 years of Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950).