Joseph Schumpeter's Two Theories of Democracy

272 Pages·2001·3.364 MB·English

by  John Medearis

Joseph Schumpeter's Two Theories of Democracy
Thomas J. Wilson Prize
The Board of Syndics of Harvard University Press
has selected this book as cowinner of the thirtieth annual
Thomas J. Wilson Prize, honoring the late director of the Press.
The prize is awarded to books chosen by the
Syndics as best first books accepted
by the Press during the calendar year.

Joseph Schumpeter's Two Theories
of Democracy
John Medearis
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2001
To my mother,
Mary Ellen Marble Medearis,
and to the memory of my father,
Donald Norman Medearis, Jr.
(August 22, 1927-September 29, 1997)
Copyright © 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library oj Congress Catalaging-in-Publication Data
Medearis, John.
Joseph Schumpeter's two theories of democracy/John Medearis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-00480-9 (alk. paper)
1. Schumpeter, Joseph Alois, 1883-1950—Contributions in political
science. 2. Democracy. 3. Elite (Social sciences) I. Title.
JC251.S37 M43 2001
321.8—dc21 2001016577
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction 1
2 Tory Democracy, Transformative Democracy 19
3 The New Deal and Transformative Democracy 78
4 Schumpeter's Elite Conception of Democracy as Method 99
5 Schumpeter's Vision of Social Science 140
6 Democracy and Equilibrium 177
7 Conclusion 200
Notes 215
References 239
Index 257

Acknowledgments
Carole Pateman inspired me to rethink my conception of democracy in
the contemporary world, and has provided invaluable guidance and crit-
icism throughout the preparation of this book. I knew Richard Ashcraft
for only a few years before his death, but in that time he continually
challenged me, and helped me to hone the interpretive tools I used to
uncover a different story about Joseph Schumpeter. Jeffrey C. Alexander
and Eugene Victor Wolfenstein offered far more counsel and support
along the way than I could have reasonably asked for. Especially in the
early years of this project, a special group of friends and colleagues—
Clyde Barrow, Timothy Gaffaney, Jessica Goodheart, Danise Kimball,
Mike Miller, William Niemi, Daniel O'Connor, Eugene Sheppard, and
Keith Topper—prodded me to refine and clarify my ideas. Eugene
Goodheart commented thoroughly, sympathetically, and helpfully on a
version of Chapter 3. Amy Reynolds was a superb research assistant and
helped enormously in preparing the manuscript. Stephan Mayer assisted
my translation of portions of "Sozialistische Möglichkeiten von heute."
Ian Shapiro and Richard Swedberg very generously sent me advance
copies of materials that were going to press as I finished this work. I
have been lucky to find in Michael Aronson, my editor at Harvard Uni-
versity Press, an astute reader and an able guide to the editing and pub-
lishing process. Julie Ericksen Hägen, my copy editor, smoothed the
rougher edges of my prose. The staffs of the Österreichisches
Staatsarchiv in Vienna, the SOWIDOK archive of the Kammer für
Arbeiter und Angestellte in Vienna, the Bundesarchiv in Potsdam, the
Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek in Bonn, and the Harvard University
Archives in Cambridge facilitated my research patiently and resource-
fully. I would also like to thank the Harvard University Archives for per-
mission to quote from materials in its possession. Portions of Chapters
1,3, and 4 are drawn from my article "Schumpeter, the New Deal, and
viii Acknowledgments
Democracy," American Political Science Review 91, no. 4 (December
1997). Portions of Chapters 5 and 6 are drawn from "Ideology, Democ-
racy, and the Limits of Equilibrium: A Schumpeterian Critique," British
Journal of Political Science 31, no. 2 (April 2001). I would like to thank
both journals for permission to incorporate materials from those articles
in this book.
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Introduction
Publicly, at least, Joseph Schumpeter disdained his own 1942 book, Cap-
italism, Socialism, and Democracy. But that cannot be said for the genera-
tions of political scientists who came of age during their discipline's
crucial postwar development. The book that Schumpeter dubbed a "pot-
boiler" has had an "extraordinary impact" on Anglo-American political
science and theory during the past half century (Allen 1991, 2: 133;
Held 1987, 164). In it, Schumpeter treated democracy as a form of
elite political competition, and this conception of democracy deeply in-
fluenced some of the texts that have shaped political science, helping
to originate a school of democratic theory that is variously labeled "con-
temporary," "equilibrium," "elite," or "empirical" (Ashcraft 1995, 1;
Bachrach 1967, 18-22; Held 1987, 164; Macpherson 1977, 77; Pateman
1970, 3-5; Shapiro 1994, 125; Skinner 1973, 287; Swedberg 1991a, 278
n. 141). Scholars have learned from Schumpeter to define democracy as
a "method" or "institutional arrangement" for arriving at political deci-
sions, to identify democracy with "competitive leadership" and "the rule
of the politician" rather than mass participation and popular rule, and to
decouple the discussion of democracy from any set of ends or values, es-
pecially those associated with what he called "the classical doctrine of
democracy" ([1942] 1976, 250-264, 269, 270, 282, 284, 285).
Even figures who loom large in political science in their own right
have been almost eulogistic in acknowledging Schumpeter's influence.
Anthony Downs wrote that Schumpeter's "profound analysis of democ-
racy" provided the "inspiration and foundation" for the "whole thesis"
of An Economic Theory of Democracy, and added that his "debt and grati-
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