On Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at 10:11 PM, Michael Meeropol wrote: > > Schumpeter certainly was an anti-socialist but he feared that socialism > was the future --- he didn't realize the incredible political power that > the capitalist class had -- even over democratic societies -- > >
Back in 1969, Paul Samuelson wrote in his Newsweek column an account the great debate between Joseph Schumpeter and Paul Sweezy that took place in 1947 at Harvard: > > > > When Diaghilev revived his ballet company he had the original Bakst sets > redone in even more vivid colors, explaining, “so they would be as > brilliant as people remember them.” Recent events on college campuses have > recalled to my inward eye one of the great happenings of my own lifetime. > > > > Joseph Schumpeter, Harvard’s brilliant economist and social prophet, was > to debate with Paul Sweezy on “The Future of Capitalism.” Wassily Leontief > was in the chair as moderator, and the Littauer Auditrium could not > accommodate the packed house. > > > > Let me set the stage. Schumpeter was a scion of the aristocracy of Franz > Josef’s Austria. It was Schumpeter who had confessed to three wishes in > life: to be the greatest lover in Vienna, the best horseman in Europe, and > the greatest economist in the world. “But unfortunately,” as he used to > say modestly, “the seat I inherited was never of the topmost caliber.” > enfant terrible of the Austrian school of economists. Steward to an > Egyptian princess, owner of a stable of race horses, onetime Finance > Minister of Austria, Schumpeter could look at the prospects for bourgeois > society with the objectivity of one whose feudal world had come to an end > in 1914. His message and vision can be read in his classical work of a > quarter-century ago, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. > > > > Whom the Gods Envy > > > > Opposed to the foxy Merlin was young Sir Galahad. Son of an executive of > J.P. Morgan’s bank, Paul Sweezy was the best that Exeter and Harvard can > produce…[and] had early established himself as among the most promising > economists of his generation. But tiring of the conventional wisdom of his > age, and spurred on by the events of the Great Depression, Sweezy became > one of America’s few Marxists. (As he used to say, you could count the > noses of U.S. academic economists who were Marxists on the thumbs of your > two hands: the late Paul Baran of Stanford; and, in an occasional summer > school of unwonted tolerance, Paul Sweezy.) > > > > Unfairly, the gods had given Paul Sweezy, along with a brilliant mind, a > beautiful face and wit. With what William Buckley would desperately wish > to see in the mirror, Sweezy faced the world. If lightning had struck him > that night, people would truly have said that he had incurred the envy of > the gods. > > > > So much for the cast. I would have to be William Hazlitt to recall for you > the interchange of wit, the neat parrying and thrust, and all made more > pleasurable by the obvious affection that the two men had for each other > despite the polar opposition of their views. > > > Compare and contrast with the Harvard Crimson's colorless account of that debate. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1947/3/28/schumpeter-sees-peaceful-socialist-spread-as/ ( https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1947/3/28/schumpeter-sees-peaceful-socialist-spread-as/ ) As Paul Samuelson noted, Schumpeter laid out his prognosis for capitalism in his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy ( https://eet.pixel-online.org/files/etranslation/original/Schumpeter,%20Capitalism,%20Socialism%20and%20Democracy.pdf ) In chapter xiii, he wrote: > > > > FROM the analysis of the two preceding chapters, it should not be > difficult to understand how the capitalist process produced that > atmosphere of almost universal hostility to its own social order to which > I have referred at the threshold of this part. The phenomenon is so > striking and both the Marxian and the popular explanations are so > inadequate that it is desirable to develop the theory of it a little > further. > > > > 1. The capitalist process, so we have seen, eventually decreases the > importance of the function by which the capitalist class lives. We have > also seen that it tends to wear away protective strata, to break down its > own defenses, to disperse the garrisons of its entrenchments. And we have > finally seen that capitalism creates a critical frame of mind which, after > having destroyed the moral authority of so many other institutions, in the > end turns against its own; the bourgeois finds to his amazement that the > rationalist attitude does not stop at the credentials of kings and popes > but goes on to attack private property and the whole scheme of bourgeois > values. The bourgeois fortress thus becomes politically defenseless. > Defenseless fortresses invite aggression especially if there is rich booty > in them. Aggressors will work themselves up into a state of rationalizing > hostility 1 —aggressors always do. No doubt it is possible, for a time, to > buy them off. But this last resource fails as soon as they discover that > they can have all. In part, this explains what we are out to explain. So > far as it goes—it does not go the whole way of course—this element of our > theory is verified by the high correlation that exists historically > between bourgeois defenselessness and hostility to the capitalist order: > there was very little hostility on principle as long as the bourgeois > position was safe, although there was then much more reason for it; it > spread pari passu with the crumbling of the protecting walls. > > > In that same chapter, Schumpeter went on to describe the rise of intellectuals within capitalist societies and how their growing influence throughout society would lead to the undermining of the values upon which capitalism rests. In Schumpeter’s view, the intellectuals promote values that are antithetical to the entrepreneurialism which has been responsible for the success of capitalism. In the political sphere, social democratic parties will become increasingly dominant, and both social democratic and non-social democratic parties will pass legislation that will choke the entrepreneurialism that underlies capitalism. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39480): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39480 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116463374/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
