The Uncertain Triumph of Democratic Capitalism

作者：Peter Ludwig Berger · 发表于：Journal of democracy · 年份：1992 · DOI：10.1353/jod.1992.0046 · 被引用次数：35 · 研究领域：Economic Theory and Institutions、Political Economy and Marxism

The Uncertain Triumph of Democratic Capitalism Peter L. Berger (bio) In the half-century since it first appeared, Joseph Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy has attained the status of a minor classic, an odd fate given that almost every one of its main propositions has been empirically falsified. I do not know whether the intent behind this symposium is to bury Schumpeter, to praise him, or perhaps to do both. For the most part, I will do none of these, but rather will comment directly on the questions that were posed to the contributors to this volume, questions that can be usefully discussed without particular reference to Schumpeter. Yet I do want to venture one interpretation of this book by an author who, despite his erroneous predictions, continues to be well worth reading. This interpretation, I think, is not without relevance to our present intellectual and political situation. The interpretation rests upon a simple fact that is often overlooked when Schumpeter's contributions are discussed namely, that the man was an Austrian to the core, not only by birth but by temperament and world view. His parental home is located in what subsequently became Czechoslovakia, but Schumpeter was born a German-speaking subject of the Habsburg monarchy. That political entity constituted much more than an empire; it comprised a very distinctive civilization whose special character was most strongly manifested by its educated urban classes. A central trait of this civiliza...