Abstract

This article reinterprets Schumpeter’s theory of entrepreneurship in a decidedly un-“Schumpeterian” way, and argues that continued emphasis on Schumpeter’s alleged glorification of the entrepreneur constitutes a missed opportunity for democratic critics of capitalism and neoliberalism. I demonstrate that Schumpeter did not exalt the individual entrepreneur as the paradigm for economic and political leadership in capitalist societies, and I show that he offers a surprisingly robust resource for reconceptualizing entrepreneurship. Schumpeter theorized entrepreneurship: as a phenomenon that could not be exemplified by either individual persons or strictly private entities; as a conceptual mechanism for analyzing change in the history of capitalism; and even as evidence that political and economic leadership should not be conflated in modern democratic societies. By contextualizing Schumpeter’s discussions of the entrepreneur, I suggest that a reconsideration of Schumpeter’s actual theory of entrepreneurship would invigorate contemporary debates about the role of leadership in capitalist economies and liberal-democratic polities.