Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T14:54:57.599Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Schumpeter, the New Deal, and Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

John Medearis*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract

Joseph Schumpeter is known to American political scientists as the originator of an elite conception of democracy as a political “method,” a conception found in his Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942). But I show in this paper that in Schumpeter's study of the development of liberal capitalist societies, he also treated democracy as a socially transformative historical tendency, one of several that he thought were propelling such societies toward a form of “democratic” socialism. Schumpeter regarded the politics of labor and the reorientation of state policy in the New Deal era as evidence of these tendencies—especially of a tendency toward the democratic reconstruction of workplace hierarchy, which he deplored. In his later work, Schumpeter sketched the outlines of a “democratic” socialist society in which the most harmful of these tendencies, in his estimation, would be curbed.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1983. The Classical Attempt at Synthesis: Max Weber. Vol. 3, Theoretical Logic in Sociology. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert Loring. 1991. Opening Doors: The Life and Work of Joseph Schumpeter. 2 vols. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Ashcraft, Richard. 1995. “Joseph Schumpeter and the Problem of Democracy.” Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles. Typescript.Google Scholar
Bachrach, Peter. 1967. The Theory of Democratic Elitism, A Critique. In Basic Studies in Politics, ed. Wolin, S. S.. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Berelson, Bernard, Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and McPhee, William N.. 1954. Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bottomore, Tom. 1992. Between Marginalism and Marxism: The Economic Sociology of J. A. Schumpeter. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Douglas V., Chamberlin, Edward, Harris, Seymour E., Leontief, Wassily W., Mason, Edward S., Schumpeter, Joseph A., and Taylor, Overton H.. 1934. The Economics of the Recovery Program. New York and London: Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1956. A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 1935. Liberalism and Social Action. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Foner, Philip S. 1965. The Industrial Workers of the World, 1905–1917. Vol. 4, History of the Labor Movement in the United States. New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar
Fraser, Steve. 1989. “The ‘Labor Question.’” In The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930–1980, ed. Fraser, S. and Gerstle, G.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, Joshua, Lichtenstein, Nelson, Brier, Stephen, Bensman, David, Bensman, Susan Porter, Brundage, David, Eynon, Bret, Levine, Bruce, and Palmer, Bryan. 1992. From the Gilded Age to the Present. Vol. 2 of Who Built America? Working People and the Nation's Economy, Politics, Culture and Society, ed. Brier, S.. 2 vols. American Social History Project. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Held, David. 1987. Models of Democracy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1984. “Will More Countries Become Democratic?Political Science Quarterly 99(Summer):193218.Google Scholar
LeBon, Gustave. [1895] 1981. The Crowd, A Study of the Popular Mind. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1959. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” American Political Science Review 53(03):69105.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1960. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Lukes, Steven. 1977. Essays in Social Theory. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macpherson, C. B. 1977. The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mannheim, Karl. [1936] 1985. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. Trans. Wirth, Louis and Shils, Edward. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Oakley, Allen. 1990. Schumpeter's Theory of Capitalist Motion: A Critical Exposition and Reassessment. Hants, Eng.: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Orren, Karen. 1991. Belated Feudalism: Labor, the Law, and Liberal Development in the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1970. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1996. “Democracy and Democratization, Presidential Address, XVIth World Congress, IPSA.” International Political Science Review 17(1):512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plotke, David. 1989. “The Wagner Act, Again: Politics and Labor, 1935–37.” Studies in American Political Development 3:105–56.Google Scholar
Sale, Kirkpatrick. 1973. SDS. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Sarle, Charles F. 1935. Letter to Joseph A. Schumpeter, 28 October 1935. Schumpeter Papers. Harvard University Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph. 19201921. “Sozialistische Möglichkeiten von heute.” Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 48:305–60.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1933. Letter to Alvin Hansen, 9 April 1933. Schumpeter Papers. Harvard University Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. [1911] 1934. The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest and the Business Cycle. Trans. Opie, Redvers. Vol. 46, Harvard Economic Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1939. Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process. 2 vols. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1946. “Review: The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich A. Hayek.” Journal of Political Economy 54(3):269–70.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. [1942] 1947. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. 2d ed. New York: Harper & Brothers.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. [1928] 1951. “The Instability of Capitalism.” In Essays of J. A. Schumpeter, ed. Clemence, R. V.. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1954. History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. [1942] 1976. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. 3d ed. New York: Harper Torchbooks.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. [1949] 1976. “The March into Socialism.” In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper Torchbooks.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1985. Aufsätze zur Wirtschaftspolitik. Ed. Stolper, W. F. and Seidl, C.. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1991. “The Meaning of Rationality in the Social Sciences.” In The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism, ed. Swedberg, R.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. [1918] 1991. “The Crisis of the Tax State.” In The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism, ed. Swedberg, R.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. [1927] 1991. “Social Classes in an Ethnically Homogeneous Environment.” In The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism, ed. Swedberg, R.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. [1936] 1991. “Can Capitalism Survive?” In The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism, ed. Swedberg, R.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. [1941] 1991. “An Economic Interpretation of Our Time: The Lowell Lectures.” In The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism, ed. Swedberg, R.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. [1948] 1991. “Wage and Tax Policy in Transitional States of Society.” In The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism, ed. Swedberg, R.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1992. Politische Reden. Ed. Seidl, C. and Stolper, W. F.. Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Ian. 1994. “Three Ways to Be a Democrat.” Political Theory 22(1):124–51.Google Scholar
Shionoya, Yuichi. 1990. “The Origin of the Schumpeterian Research Program: A Chapter Omitted from Schumpeter's Theory of Economic Development.” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 146(2):314–27.Google Scholar
Shionoya, Yuichi. 1991. “Schumpeter on Schmoller and Weber: A Methodology of Economic Sociology.” History of Political Economy 23(2):193219.Google Scholar
Sinclair, Upton. 1970. “The Industrial Republic.” In Socialism in America, From the Shakers to the Third International, A Documentary History, ed. Fried, A.. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Skinner, Quentin. 1973. “The Empirical Theorists of Democracy and Their Critics: A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Political Theory 1(3):287306.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Michael I. 1985. Joseph Alois Schumpeter, A Bibliography, 1905–1984. Bibliographies and Indexes in Economics and Economic History, Number 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Stolper, Wolfgang F. 1994. Joseph Alois Schumpeter: The Public Life of a Private Man. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Swedberg, Richard. 1991a. “The Man and His Work.” In The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism, ed. Swedberg, R.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Swedberg, Richard. 1991b. Joseph A. Schumpeter: His Life and Work. Cambridge, Eng.: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, Norman. 1938. Socialism on the Defensive. New York: Harper & Brothers.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Trans. Fischoff, Ephraim, Gerth, Hans, Henderson, A. M., Kolegar, Ferdinand, Mills, C. Wright, Parsons, Talcott, Rheinstein, Max, Roth, Guenther, Shils, Edward, Wittich, Claus. Ed. Roth, G. and Wittich, C.. 2 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.