ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the paradox as highlighted by the political context of Schumpeter’s career, or ‘Democracy’, the argument on socialism and capitalism as presented in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy and the notion of evolution. Schumpeter’s right-wing political views were well known to his friends and close academic circles. The relationship between Comte and Blainville was complex and discontinuous. The oligopoly profits, then, may create the conditions for stagnation, as the internal accumulation therefore tends to exceed the amount required for the expansion of capital equipment in these industries. In different moments, Schumpeter opposed the nomination of some colleagues of Jewish descent, but this should be attributed mostly to their political activism. A truly general theory ought to include equilibrium and statics, as well as disequilibrium and dynamics, i.e. economic processes describing the reality of capitalism. Comte strongly influenced the evolution of John Stuart Mill, and this was indeed the main reason for the latter’s rupture with the Benthamite School.
