Joseph A. Schumpeter
Joseph A. Schumpeter
Joseph Alois Schumpeter was an Austrian-born American economist and political scientist. He briefly served as Finance Minister of Austria in 1919. In 1932 he became a Professor at Harvard University where he remained until the end of his career. One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, Schumpeter popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth8 February 1883
CountryUnited States of America
Joseph A. Schumpeter quotes about
creative facts essentials
Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.
giving intuition done
The success of everything depends on intuition, the capacity of seeing things in a way which afterwards proves to be true, even though it cannot be established at the moment, and of grasping the essential fact, discarding the unessential, even though one can give no account of the principles by which this is done.
social-unrest civilization logic
Capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.
austria world firsts
I set out to become the greatest lover in Vienna, the greatest horseman in Austria, and the greatest economist in the world. Alas, for the illusions of youth: as a horseman, I was never really first-rate.
heart creative destruction
At the heart of capitalism is creative destruction.
politician saddles bother
Politicians are like bad horsemen who are so preoccupied with staying in the saddle that they can't bother about where they're going.
hate believe thinking
We always plan too much and always think too little. We resent a call to thinking and hate unfamiliar argument that does not tally with what we already believe or would like to believe.
innovation steps
Innovations are changes which cannot be decomposed into infinitessimal steps.
stronger bullets ballots
The ballot is stronger than bullets.
intuition moments prove
Success depends on intuition, on seeing what afterwards proves true but cannot be established at the moment.
organization innovation analysis
The strategic stimulus to economic development in Schumpeter's analysis is innovation, defined as the commercial or industrial application of something new---a new product, process or method of production, a new market or source of supply, a new form of commercial, business or financial organization.
girl queens mean
The capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production which unavoidably also means production for the masses. . . . It is the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and rayon fabric, boots, motorcars and so on that are the typical achievements of capitalist production, and not as a rule improvements that would mean much to the rich man. Queen Elizabeth owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within reach of factory girls.
weather creative storm
Situations emerge in the process of creative destruction in which many firms may have to perish that nevertheless would be able to live on vigorously and usefully if they could weather a particular storm.
real political citizens
The typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. He becomes primitive again.