J. Bradford DeLong has a thought-provoking essay on Joseph Schumpeter in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here's a key quote:
It is important to stress that a Schumpeterian entrepreneur is not an inventor, but an innovator. The innovator shows that a product, a process, or a mode of organization can be efficient and profitable, and that elevates the entire economy. But it also destroys those organizations and people who suddenly find their technologies and routines outmoded and unprofitable. There is, Schumpeter was certain, no way of avoiding this: Capitalism cannot progress without creating short-term losers alongside its short- and long-term winners: 'Without innovations, no entrepreneurs; without entrepreneurial achievement, no capitalist ... propulsion. The atmosphere of industrial revolutions ... is the only one in which capitalism can survive.'
The market brings instability and new forms of power and coercion. DeLong is skeptical of Schumpeter's claim that the market grows at democracy's expense, however:
Perhaps this next century will give Schumpeter's work its proper place as the power of innovation to transform, create, enrich, and destroy makes itself manifest globally. And while we marvel at how much he got right, we can hope Schumpeter was wrong in his political analysis. One great test of our era will be whether creative destruction can flourish alongside public order and political liberty. If not, we're in big trouble. But if so - and I'm an optimist on the point - the results could be a marvel.
This is a well-written essay that deserves to be read in full.