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Schumpeter and Plausible Capitalism

F. M. Scherer

Journal of Economic Literature 2016

IN THE FALL OF 1942, as the Allied and Axis nations marshalled their forces for decisive battles at Guadalcanal, El Alamein, and Stalingrad, Joseph A. Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (CSD) was published. Perceived by Schumpeter at the time as a little book of essays somewhat in the nature of a potboiler,' it distilled for the intelligent lay reader almost forty years' thought, observation, and research (1942, p. ix) by the Austrian economist-statesman-banker turned Harvard don. Fifty years later, it remains relevant. In particular, it brought into the main stream of economic discourse the question of what market structures were most favorable to technological change and hence economic growth. Both in the United States and abroad, policy debates over that issue persist. Schumpeter's conjectures on market structure, the work by economists to extend them, and the continuing policy puzzles are the main focus of this anniversay essay. II. The Challenge

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