Introduction: Why We Read Mill and Schumpeter Today?

Historically, democracy has been considered identical to liberalism as a political regime, and the concept of liberal democracy has been used to describe this approach. Thus, there has been a correlation between the development of democracy and liberalism. The development of capitalism during the nineteenth century led to a conflict between the economic inequality induced by capitalism and equality, freedom, and justice demand of the masses. J. S. Mill (1806–1873) and J. A. Schumpeter (1883–1950) were aware of the conflict between freedom and equality in liberal democratic theory. ​​It was hardly noticed that Mill’s ideas would enlighten our approach to the current conflict between capitalism and democracy. It was argued that the studies on Mill mainly helped us understand his era. Schumpeter was another philosopher who identified the conflict between democracy and capitalism and attempted to come up with a solution. Schumpeter prioritized the representative democracy and political participation approach developed by Mill in the nineteenth century and his ideas about the role of elites in democracy.