> > On 9/19/07, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
> >
>> Carl Remick wrote:
>> >
>> > > "Schumpeter is just Marx with the adjectives changed" [Joan Robinson]
>> >
>> >Excellent! I've mentioned at least a couple of times on the list that
>> >Schumpeter got it all backwards and that the phenomenon he described
>> >was actually "destructive creation."
>>
> > But word order here means nothing. Schumpeter was merely elaborating
>on Marx's ultra-succinct characterization of technological progress
under capitalism: "One capitalist kills many.
>Word order here means everything. Schumpeter's claim that capitalism
>caused "creative destruction" clearly means that capitalism destroyed
>the outmoded to create something new and improved. In reality
>capitalism blindly destroys things that retain value in order to
>deliver spurious innovations -- things that are New! and Improved!
>only in terms of advertising puffery....
Marx and Schumpeter were talking about technological progress in the *means of production* under capitalism with its *concomitant* destruction of "capital values." The economic analysis of neither is in the least concerned with their own subjective views of the worthiness of particular consumption goods offered on the market. To condemn capitalism because of the alleged "spuriousness" of those use-values is to wallow in what both Marx and Schumpeter would unhesitatingly call philistine sentimentality.
Shane Mage
"The reproach moved against [Ricardo], that he is unconcerned about 'human beings' and has an eye solely for the development of the productive forces, whatever the cost in human beings and capital-values--it is precisely that which is the most important thing about him." v.3 p.304