The gentleman who discovered the beating heart of capitalism
He called it 'creative destruction.' AI could prove him right
Joseph Schumpeter’s mother had an overriding ambition for her only child: to turn him into an English gentleman.
Born in what is now Czechoslovakia, Schumpeter began living like a gentleman in his 20s, when he left Vienna for a grand tour of European capitals. Visiting London, the future economist rented an apartment and rode his own horse in Hyde Park. He met and married the daughter of a Church of England official.
As biographer Thomas K. McCraw noted, Schumpeter never learned to cook, do laundry, drive a car or type his own manuscripts. But he did know how to wear a hand-tailored suit, seduce a woman and live beyond his means.
Schumpeter came from a German-speaking Catholic family that had operated a textile business in a small Czech town for generations. When his father died, apparently in a hunting accident, Joseph was four years old.
His mother Johanna took him to Graz, Austria’s second-largest city…
