Capitalism’s take on creative destruction | Letters

For Schumpeter it was the creation that caused the economy to advance, the destruction was a regrettable consequence, writes Michael Heaslip; while Susanne MacGregor says Schumpeter would have seen the crises relished by Brexiters as a political choices

Joseph Schumpeter might have regretted describing the process of economic development as "creative destruction" had he known that disaster capitalists would misinterpret its meaning and invert cause and effect (Darroch's fate is a taste of the chaos to come, Simon Jenkins, 12 July). Schumpeter described a process of innovation creating new market conditions which destroyed the old: where are the farriers, loco firemen, telephonists and typists now? For Schumpeter it was the creation that caused the economy to advance; the destruction was a regrettable consequence, not a cause of the innovation. "Destructive creation" would have put the emphasis on the substantive element of the process.

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. But you must have a plan to create the omelette; you can't just break some eggs and trust that an omelette will then appear as if by magic - unless of course, you live in the looking-glass world of Brexit.
Michael Heaslip
Workington, Cumbria

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