Joseph Alois Schumpeter

Along with Keynes, he is one of the leading economists of the first half of the 20th century. He was born in 1883 in Trüsz, Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic), the same year that Marx died and Keynes was born. As an adult, he entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna. He was initially interested in history, but later switched to economics and was strongly influenced by Böhm-Bawerk. He was a professor at the University of Czernowitz and the University of Graz, and served as Minister of Finance for the Austrian government for a period immediately after World War I, and also worked in the business world as president of a private bank in the country. He became a professor at the University of Bonn in 1925, and moved to the United States in 1932 and became a professor at Harvard University. He was one of the founders of the Econometric Society, and served as its president and the president of the American Economic Association. He died on January 7, 1950, in Taconic, Massachusetts, USA.

Schumpeter wrote his debut work, The Essence and Principal Contents of Theoretical Economics (1908), at the age of 25, and four years later, his work The Theory of Economic Development (1912) made him famous worldwide. The former was written under the strong influence of Walras' static general equilibrium theory and the Austrian school of the time, but the latter had already attempted to make it dynamic. Schumpeter's theory of economic development, which can be said to be the core of economics, is characterized by its focus on the "entrepreneurial function" as the driving force behind capitalist development.

According to him, the driving force behind economic development is innovation (technological progress, improvements in production organization, new product development, development of new sales channels, etc.) introduced by entrepreneurs as the drivers of capitalist development, and what makes this possible is credit creation by banks. This central idea was continued in his later masterpiece, Business Cycle Theory (1939), in which he made an effort to support his idea that "creative destruction" caused by the introduction of innovation is the source of business cycles with theoretical, historical, and statistical analysis. However, in his later masterpiece, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942), he derived a unique theory of the collapse of capitalism from economic sociology, citing factors such as the decline of entrepreneurial functions as capitalism develops and the weakening of private vitality due to increased government intervention, and he also broadened his perspective to a comparative system theory of how socialism can become democratic. He also produced other excellent works, such as the posthumously published History of Economic Analysis (1954).

[Tsuneaki Sato]

"A Guide to Modern Economics: Profiles of People and Theories" (1985), edited and published by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

ケインズと並ぶ20世紀前半の代表的経済学者の一人。マルクスが死に、ケインズが生まれた同じ1883年に現チェコ領モラビアのトリューシュで生まれ、長じてウィーン大学法学部に入学。初め歴史学に関心をもったが、のち経済学に転じ、ベーム・バベルクの強い影響を受けた。チェルノウィッツ大学、グラーツ大学の教授を歴任し、第一次世界大戦直後の一時期、オーストリア政府の大蔵大臣を務め、同国の民間銀行の頭取として実業界で働いたこともある。1925年にボン大学の教授となり、32年以降はアメリカに移住してハーバード大学の教授となった。計量経済学会の創立者の一人で、その会長やアメリカ経済学会の会長も務めたことがある。1950年1月7日、アメリカのマサチューセッツ州タコニックで死去。

　シュンペーターは25歳のときに処女作『理論経済学の本質と主要内容』（1908）を著し、ついで4年後の著作『経済発展の理論』（1912）で一躍、世界的にその名を知られるようになった。前者は、ワルラスの静学的一般均衡理論や当時のオーストリア学派の強い影響のもとに書かれたものであったが、後者ではすでにその動学化が図られている。シュンペーター経済学の核心ともいうべき経済発展の理論は、資本主義発展の原動力としての「企業者機能」に焦点をあてたところに特色がある。

　彼によれば、資本主義発展の担い手としての企業者が導入する新機軸innovation（技術進歩、生産組織の改善、新製品開発、新しい販路の開拓など）が経済発展の動力であり、それを可能にするのが銀行による信用創造であるという。この中心的な構想は、後年の大作『景気循環論』（1939）でも受け継がれ、新機軸導入による「創造的破壊」が景気循環を生み出す源泉であるとして、理論的、歴史的、統計的分析によって裏づける努力がなされている。ところが、晩年の代表作『資本主義・社会主義・民主主義』（1942）では、経済社会学的な考察から、資本主義の発展につれてこの企業者機能が衰退することや、政府介入の増大に伴う民間活力の弱化などの要因とあわせて、独特の資本主義崩壊論を導き出すとともに、社会主義がいかにすれば民主主義的になりうるか、という比較体制論的なところまで視野を広げている。そのほか、死後刊行された『経済分析の歴史』（1954）などの優れた著作がある。

［佐藤経明］

『日本経済新聞社編・刊『現代経済学ガイド――人と理論のプロフィール』（1985）』

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