Joseph Schumpeter

Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883–1950) was an Austrian political economist who served briefly as Finance Minister of Austria in 1919 before emigrating to the United States to become a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his theory of the entrepreneur as the driver of economic innovation and for popularizing the concept of creative destruction, the process by which innovation replaces outdated practices and technologies. His most influential works include The Theory of Economic Development (1912) and Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942).