SCHUMPETER'S "LOST" SEVENTH CHAPTER: A CRITICAL OVERVIEW

Abstract

The "lost" seventh chapter to Schumpeter's first edition of The Theory of Economic Development was planned as a synthesis of the results and as presenting the overall configuration of the economy, as the title of the chapter "The economy as a whole" indicates. The article discusses Schumpeter's exposition of the core process, external data changes and his reception of the classics. Further the article discusses Schumpeter's views on the notion of the organic unity of the economy, the welfare problem, his synthesis of statics and dynamics, the "greatness" of entrepreneurs and their role in culture. The conclusion is that an elaborated systems approach comparable to that of Sombart is (still) missing. The plan of a general theory of culture, society and economy, following the insight of Chapter 7 that the social process is one indivisible whole, was formulated but not realized. It is argued that Schumpeter's later work Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942) comes closest to this program. Chapter 7 is not only an important document in the history of economic thought but is also one of the first explicit claims to develop a holistic, evolutionary and dynamic approach to economy and society.