Joseph Alois Schumpeter Biography

Austrian-born economist, born in Triesch, Moravia, Austria-Hungary, educated at the University of Vienna. His The Theory of Economic Development (1934), although written first in German (1912), was influential when it appeared in English for introducing into the discussion of the dynamics of the economic process the centrality of innovation and investment undertaken by ‘heroic entrepreneurs’. In probably his best-known book outside economics circles, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), Schumpeter translated what had been principally a theoretical economic argument into a full-blown account of the history of Western civilization and of its future prospects. Its basic argument was that capitalist society was inexorably tending towards a socialist future, in which democratic participation would amount to no more than periodically choosing between specialist managers from the same élite class: a future upon which Schumpeter looked out with regret and dismay. Schumpeter was the author of numerous essays, articles, biographical sketches, and reviews, some of which are collected in his Ten Great Economists (1951) and Essays (1969). The monumental (and unfinished) History of Economic Analysis (1954) was published posthumously, and quickly became a standard reference.