ABSTRACT
Joseph Schumpeter conceived of Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, and he worked on it as such between late 1939 and early 1942. When Schumpeter worked on Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy then, he was drawing on material long ago placed on his "sacred decade" agenda, material that finally reached fruition when he was nearly sixty years old. Schumpeter recognized his own long-standing interest in capitalism and socialism in the book's preface when he said that the work "is the result of an effort to weld into readable form the bulk of almost forty years' thought, observation and research on the subject of socialism". In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Schumpeter returned to his thesis that the economy moves in waves of economic change that periodically restructure the productive processes. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy was widely and favorably reviewed, and nearly all the reviewers were impressed.
