Assignment:
Read the excerpt below from Schumpeter 1942 book, "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy."
Capitalism (..) is by nature a form or method of economic change and not only never is but never can be stationary. [...] The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumers' goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates. [...] The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation [...] that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in.
Now pick one of the entrepreneurs below and describe how their innovations have or are contributing to creative destruction Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Walt Disney, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, JP Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt
Answer the following with a paragraph or two for each question:
1. Describe the concept of creative destruction presented by Schumpeter.
2. What industry did your entrepreneur disrupt?
3. How does the creative destruction concept apply to the industry of your selected entrepreneur?
4. Has that disruption continued to be the dominant market force or has another innovation overtaken it?
5. How does this process contribute to economic growth and/or an increase in our quality of life?