SCHUMPETER'S PERSPECTIVE ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE DIALECTIC OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

This paper contends that Joseph Schumpeter’s position on entrepreneurship, espoused in his concept of “Creative Destruction”, is fundamentally rooted in a materialist dialectic influenced by Marxist and Hegelian philosophical schools of thought. Schumpeter’s perspective presents a dynamic, internally causative (endogenous) view of economic change. This work reviews the Schumpeterian concept from the initial level of “Circular Flow" (Thesis), through “Entrepreneurial Innovation" (Antithesis), to the emerging “New Economic Structure" (Synthesis). The article introduces the concept as a conflict-driven series of actions that systematically facilitates change. The discussion also presents Schumpeter’s shift from Mark I to Mark II as a meta-dialectical evolution in the history of capitalism, moving from heroic individual entrepreneurial innovators who facilitate change and progress to corporate Research and Development (R&D) laboratories that harbour those who influence economic change through their activities, thereby eliminating the prominence of creative and heroic individual entrepreneurs. This dialectical approach influences an application of the position to the contemporary digital economy, especially in countries and regional blocks such as the European Union (EU) where antitrust measures, such as the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), function as institutional efforts to restore balance in the Schumpeterian dialectic by counteracting the dominance of Mark II firms, which threaten to reduce the disruptive capacity of Mark I entrants permanently.