| Joseph Schumpeter's theory of the entrepreneur constitutes both the subject matter and the major reference point for this analysis of the conflict between the dynamism of entrepreneurial capitalism and the tendency of managerial capitalism to become monopolistic and bureaucratic. As the risk-taking, innovative-creative entrepreneur seems to be vanishing, the entrepreneurial function of generating economic development by introducing innovations no longer seems to lie primarily in the hands of individual entrepreneurs. Instead, the entrepreneurial function increasingly becomes the domain of larger organizations, such as corporations, multinationals, or the state, where the rationalization of production and investment often approaches a state of economic planning.; Schumpeter presented his theory of the entrepreneur in his two most important works, The Theory of Economic Development (1911) and Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942). In the early work, within a largely economic framework, Schumpeter examined the economic, social, and cultural origins of change and innovation in the process of economic development. He concluded that the entrepreneur is the ultimate source of qualitative economic development. In the later work, his interest is more "politico-economic", tending toward the "sociological." Schumpeter viewed the development of capitalism over the long term to anticipate the destiny of the entrepreneur in highly differentiated economies that, in becoming successful, erode their very normative foundations. He concludes that the more successful and complex an economy becomes, the less the entrepreneur is needed.; Although Schumpeter claimed to examine the dynamics of capitalist development in "purely economic" terms, his perspective is more broadly social-scientific. The overall framework of Schumpeter's theoretical and historical investigations was geared toward the methodological standards of neoclassical economic theory, but he considered elements of economic history, political economy, sociology, social economics, and Marxism to such an extent that he exceeded the bounds of neoclassical economics by far.; Schumpeter's theory is a unique contribution to the economic sociology and the social theory of advanced capitalism at the transition from competitive to corporate capitalism. It also provides the starting point for a theoretical analysis of the changing relationship of economy and society. |
