Schumpeterian Entrepreneurship as a Guide to �Transition�

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Author: J. Hanns PICHLER
Published in: Vol:8 No.3 / 2007

      In trying to paintbrush background and scientific "environs" when Schumpeter`s visionary "Theory of Economic Development" (1912) came out, classical and neoclassical thought as well as Marx� "Capital" had been exposed already for some time to scholarly scrutiny by the learned community.
      In neither classical-neoclassical nor Marxian visions, the entrepreneur explicitly figures. It is Schumpeter`s truly seminal interpretation of the capitalist process, wherein the entrepreneur as such takes centre stage as the "pioneering" and driving force in a dialectic sense as, in fact, sort of a villain, as the "antithesis" to the market system. As indeed an element constantly striving to outmanoeuver constraining competition, to "trick" given market conditions and, thereby, forever challenging the �system" itself; or more pointedly still: when and wherever possible to be, or to become, a monopolist.
      When relating this to modern entrepreneurship, its pivotal role in a regional and global or, more specifically so, in a structural as well as developmental context, Schumpeter`s vision, nowadays, more than ever in times of dynamic change may serve as a guide for any entrepreneurially oriented policy formulation.