Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The challenge for the government [is] managing the creative destruction so that capitalism does not ... destroy itself for ... political reasons

--- Brad DeLong paraphrasing Schumpeter, in Creative Destruction's Reconstruction: Joseph Schumpeter Revisited, The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 7, 2007

Fuller quote:
“Schumpeter, like his contemporary Karl Polanyi, feared for the long-term survival of capitalism. Bureaucrats and ideologues threatened by creative destruction would resist it. The challenge for the government in managing the market thus becomes not just the Adam Smithian task of securing property rights, enforcing contracts, and providing civil order, but also the tremendously difficult job of managing the creative destruction so that capitalism does not undermine and destroy itself for essentially political reasons. Schumpeter did not think the beast could be managed, because democracy is hostile to great inequalities, and socialism even more so.”