Worldcom, Kodak, Pullman, NOKIA, Digital Equipment Corporation, British Leyland--all once as strong as dinosaurs, all now just as extinct. Destruction of businesses, fortunes, products, and careers is the price of progress toward a better material life. No one understood this foundation of economic principle better than Joseph A. Schumpeter. "Creative destruction," he said, is the driving force of capitalism. A simple Google search on the term, returns about 250 million results. What few seem to recognize is that Schumpeter is also the «inventor» of the term business strategy.
Not until the late 20th century, long after his death, did the significance of his emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurship, business strategy, creative destruction, and ample credit as the driving forces of economic growth, become fully clear.
Described by John Kenneth Galbraith as "the most sophisticated conservative" of the twentieth century, Schumpeter made his mark as the prophet of never-ending change. His vision was plain: Nearly all businesses fail, victims of innovation by their competitors. Businesspeople who ignore this lesson, may cause the death of their organization. Yet in Schumpeter's view, the general prosperity produced by the "capitalist engine" far outweighs the wreckage it leaves behind.
During a tumultuous life spanning two world wars, the Great Depression, and the early Cold War, Schumpeter reinvented himself many times. From boy wonder in turn-of-the-century Vienna to charming Harvard professor, he was stalked by tragedy and haunted by the specter of his rival, John Maynard Keynes, who barely paid attention to Schumpeter.
In 1983 – 100 years after the birth of both men - the American business magazine Forbes defined Schumpeter, not Keynes, as the best navigator through the turbulent seas of globalization. Time has proved that assessment accurate. From his extremely productive pen, Schumpeter leaves behind numerous articles, lectures, letters, and four major books: The Theory of Economic Development (1911), Business Cycles (1939), Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), and History of Economic Analysis (posthumt in 1954).
"Prophet of Innovation" is also the private story of a man rescued constantly by women who loved him and put his well-being above their own. Without them, he would likely not have survived, so fierce were the conflicts between his reason and his emotions. Drawing on all of Schumpeter's writings, including many intimate diaries and letters never before used, this biography paints the full portrait of a compelling figure who aspired to become the world's greatest economist, lover, and horseman--and admitted to failure only with the horses.
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