(1) The evolution of the Swedish economy closely followed Shumpeter's predictions until about 1980: Large firms became increasingly predominant in production and innovative activity, ownership of firms became more and more concentrated, individual entrepreneurship waned in importance, the general public grew increasingly hostile towards capitalism, and by the late 1970s explicit proposals for a gradual transfer of ownership of firms from private hands were launched.
(2) Design of tax and industrial policies fueled a development of the economy along the lines predicted by Schumpeter. In general, the policies discouraged private wealth accumulation. In particular, the policies favored concentration of firms and concentration of private ownership.
(3) The turning point away from the path to socialism coincides with real world developments that disclosed two major flaws in Schumpeter´s analysis. First, the ever more obvious failure of socialism in Eastern Europe went against Schumpeter's assertion that socialism can work. Second, Schumpeter, who thought that modern technology would make the giant corporation increasingly predominant, did not foresee the revival of entrepreneurship that took place in the Western countries around 1980.">
In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy Joseph A. Schumpeter concluded that socialism would eventually displace capitalism in Western democracies. This would come about as a result of the superior performance of capitalism. We extract six "stylized" propositions that are essential elements of Schumpeter's prediction about the fate of capitalism. These propositions are confronted with the development of the Swedish economy. The three main results of the analysis are:
(1) The evolution of the Swedish economy closely followed Shumpeter's predictions until about 1980: Large firms became increasingly predominant in production and innovative activity, ownership of firms became more and more concentrated, individual entrepreneurship waned in importance, the general public grew increasingly hostile towards capitalism, and by the late 1970s explicit proposals for a gradual transfer of ownership of firms from private hands were launched.
(2) Design of tax and industrial policies fueled a development of the economy along the lines predicted by Schumpeter. In general, the policies discouraged private wealth accumulation. In particular, the policies favored concentration of firms and concentration of private ownership.
(3) The turning point away from the path to socialism coincides with real world developments that disclosed two major flaws in Schumpeter´s analysis. First, the ever more obvious failure of socialism in Eastern Europe went against Schumpeter's assertion that socialism can work. Second, Schumpeter, who thought that modern technology would make the giant corporation increasingly predominant, did not foresee the revival of entrepreneurship that took place in the Western countries around 1980.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Length: 29 pages Date of creation: 03 Apr 2000 Date of revision: Publication status: Published in Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2001, pages 331-358. Handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0370
Contact details of provider: Postal: The Economic Research Institute, Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46-(0)8-736 90 00 Fax: +46-(0)8-31 01 57 Email: Web page: http://www.hhs.se/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Helena Lundin).
Find related papers by JEL classification: M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups O38 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Government Policy P16 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - Political Economy of Capitalism
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Blanchflower, David G & Oswald, Andrew J, 1998.
"What Makes an Entrepreneur?,"
Journal of Labor Economics,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 26-60, January.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Did you know? Citation analysis on IDEAS includes online papers that are freely accessible and whose text could be automatically analyzed, currently about 150000 papers.