Technology and History in Capitalism: Marxian and Neo-Schumpeterian Perspectives

Abstract

The equilibrium models of neoclassical economics fail to account adequately for one of the most striking facts of capitalism, its unprecedented technological dynamism. Extrapolating from Schumpeter's notion of `creative destruction', contemporary neo-Schumpeterian economists have formulated a devastating critique of the neoclassical theory of technological change.2 Their position can be provisionally defined in terms of the following six theses:technological change is endogenous to capitalism;science tends to become increasingly central to production;`learning by doing' is of fundamental importance in the innovation process;technological change cannot be adequately comprehended in abstraction from the institutional context in which it occurs, including the organizational structures of firms and the technology policies of states;capitalism is characterized by radical uncertainty and disequilibrium tendencies due to technological change; anddifferent technologies and forms of social organization play leading roles in different periods of capitalist development.3