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)
Economics is a dismal science, but it is also a fascinating one.
The history of economic thought is largely the history of economists' attempts to come to terms with the problem of change.
I have always been more interested in the dynamics of the economic system than in its statics.
The entrepreneur is not a risk-taker, but a risk-bearer.
The capitalist system is inherently unstable, but it is also incredibly resilient.
The economist's task is not to preach, but to understand.
I have always been a solitary worker, preferring my own company to that of others.
The future of capitalism is uncertain, but its past is glorious.
The intellectual's role is to challenge conventional wisdom, not to confirm it.
The economic process is a process of incessant revolutionizing of the economic structure from within.
I have always been fascinated by the interplay of economic and social forces.
The entrepreneur is the engine of economic progress.
The economist must be a historian, a sociologist, and a psychologist.
My greatest joy is to discover something new, to shed light on a previously obscure phenomenon.
The decline of capitalism is not due to its failures, but to its successes.
The intellectual is a critic of society, not its cheerleader.
The economic process is a process of evolution, not of equilibrium.
I have always been an outsider, an observer of the human condition.
The entrepreneur is the hero of the capitalist story.
The capitalist system is a dynamic system, constantly in motion.
Contemporaries of Joseph Schumpeter
Other Economicss born within 50 years of Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950).