me: >> "creative destruction" also describes the normal trajectory of >> capitalist accumulation: create profits (and accumulate power) by >> destroying nature, exploiting people, undermining preexisting social >> structures, etc. It is "ignited by the sparks thrown off from class >> struggle" but it also intensifies class struggle. It's a two-way >> street (or, to use an old-fashioned term, dialectic).
Shane: > Do you think any of that was part of Schumpeter's meaning for the term? As I understand him, Schumpeter's meaning only includes the role of innovation (and imitation by followers) in product markets, referring to new products and/or new ways of producing them. He assumed that innovation was always a good thing. (Crack cocaine?) However, I think the concept should be extended to include "bad" product and process innovation and the broader impact on all markets and all aspects of nature and human life. It should also be called destructive creation. I see nothing wrong with appropriating Schumpeter's concept and using it against his free-market biases. -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac. Social science is in the middle.... and usually in a muddle. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
