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)
Capitalism without democracy is possible, but not vice versa.
The theory of democracy is not a theory of what ought to be, but of what is.
Every social environment has its own definition of sin.
The economist is a watchmaker, not a prophet.
History shows that all great civilizations have decayed from within.
The role of the entrepreneur is to introduce new combinations.
In the long run, all is flux.
The market is a mechanism for coordinating the plans of millions of people.
Intellectuals are the prophets of the anti-capitalist crusade.
The essence of the evolutionary process is change.
Beauty is the first test; there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.
The decline of capitalism would not mean an end to progress.
Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it were not so, it would not be worth the while.
Democracy is a method of political organization.
The future is unpredictable, but we can prepare for it.
Economics is a method rather than a doctrine.
The joy of life is in the struggle itself.
Capitalism is the most successful system ever devised.
Wit is the salt of conversation.
The end of capitalism is inevitable.
Contemporaries of Joseph Schumpeter
Other Economicss born within 50 years of Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950).