Schumpeter said capitalism runs on a 'perennial gale' of self-destruction

Joseph Schumpeter argued that capitalism's defining feature isn't stable competition but a constant churn he called 'creative destruction': new products and firms endlessly overturning the old ones, the way cars wiped out carriage-makers. He devoted just six pages to the idea in his 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, yet it became the standard lens for explaining innovation-driven growth.

— Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy — Part II, Chapter VII, 1942
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