Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy - Schumpeter (ePub)

Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883 - 1950) was an Austrian economist and political scientist. He is considered one of the most important economists of the first half of the 20th century, and was one of the first to consider technological innovations as a driving force of capitalist development. Furthermore, he profoundly influenced the history of political thought with his democratic theory, which redefined the meaning of democracy, seen as a simple way to generate a legitimate ruling minority, i.e., a procedural definition that became the basis for various subsequent conceptions. Joseph was born in Triesch, now TreSt, Moravia (part of the eastern part of the current Czech Republic), which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1883 - the same year Karl Marx died and John Maynard Keynes was born. The only child of a Catholic family, his parents were ethnically German. His father, a textile manufacturer, died prematurely. His mother then married a high-ranking officer in the Austro-Hungarian army. Young Schumpeter received a typically aristocratic education - strong in the humanities, weak in mathematics and science - at Theresianum, a Jesuit educational institution founded by Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna in 1746. In 1901, Schumpeter enrolled in the Law Faculty at the University of Vienna.