Joseph A. Schumpeter Revisited: Projections for the Twenty-First Century

A loyal subject of the Dual Monarchy by birth, a man of noble if not outright aristocratic inclinations by upbringing, a permanent exile, and a latter day professor at the ivory tower par excellence of disinterested scholarship, namely Harvard University, Joseph A. Schumpeter was well endowed to develop a critical attitude towards the times he lived through. Throughout the many stages of his career, he remained persistently an insider yet outsider to his immediate surroundings. His moral and ideological commitments to the bygone past provided him with a sense of objectivity when it came to passing a judgement on his own times. It is hence no surprise that Schumpeter could at the same time give a positive verdict on the economic performance of capitalism yet argue that it could possibly not survive because of its very own self-destructive thrust. This was indeed a singular attitude at a time when advocates of capitalism tended to argue for its invincibility, whereas its loud critiques maintained that it was bound to collapse because of its failure on economic grounds. Irrespectively of on which side of the debate the scholars were placed, their individual preferences over the success/failure of capitalism happily coincided with their theoretical inferences from their supposedly objective analysis of the facts. Among them all, Schumpeter formed the sole exception. While he would have preferred capitalism to survive, as he was impressed by its economic dynamism and creativity, he concluded that it could not (Schumpeter, 1942: 61). This must have had something to do with the fact that his greatest value commitment was not to capitalism as such, but to the aristocratic era that preceded it. In fact, it is precisely because he was more dedicated to all that capitalism had uprooted and displaced, he could pass a relatively objective assessment on the balance-sheet of capitalism, economic and otherwise

From Stages to Varieties of Capitalism: Lessons, Limits and Prospects

The basic aim of this paper is to take a tour de force in order to put the varieties of capitalism (VoC) approach in perspective and to assess its limits and further prospects. There existed before it a certain stages-ofcapitalism (SoC) approach with a long history. The SoC approach developed largely under the influence of social and anthropological stage theories of progress and of Marxism. Accordingly, capitalism as a mode of production was perceived as progressing through commercial, industrial, and financial stage. In this paper, this link will be recovered for the benefit of further scholarship. We emphasize that the VoC approach, by the weight it puts on efficiency tends to rank circumstantially the variety at issue, thereby implying occasionally a desirable move towards the more efficient form. This means that the elements forming a given variety may actually be matched with the successive stages of a certain progress.Varieties of capitalism, Stages of capitalism, Transition, Convergence, Institutionalism

İki Bilim İnsanına Saygı

Selim İlkin ve İlhan Tekeli bilim insanları olarak Türkiye’de bilim yapılmasında, tarih ve sosyal bilimlerin hemen tüm alanlarına yayılan çok sayıda çalışmalarıyla öncü bir sorumluluk üstlenmişlerdir. Ülkemizde bilimsel gündemin belirlenmesi, bilimsel çıtanın yükselmesi ve bilimsel ufkumuzun genişlemesine büyük hizmetleri süregelmiştir. Selim İlkin ve İlhan Tekeli’nin uyumlu, uzun soluklu ve kalıcı sonuçlar vermiş işbirliği akademik topluluk için çok değerli bir örnek teşkil etmektedir. Bu nedenle biz bu özel sayıyı, bir istisna yaparak, usulden olduğu gibi bir isme değil, iki isme birden armağan etmek istedik.Publisher's Versio

Friedrich List & Joseph Schumpeter: Strange bedfellows in the pedigree of (development) economics?

Arguing that Joseph Schumpeter generalized development economics, whereas List saw it as of limited scope, we take a closer look at List’s approach. We discover that, for List, theories are time- and space-bound, and historical and institutional parameters help define their applicability. When history and institutions matter, mere internal dynamics cannot be taken as the sole motor-force of development and change. While Schumpeter’s approach is associated with evolutionary economics, List’s is affiliated with institutional economics. Institutional economics and evolutionary economics are not exactly the same but they are not poles apart either. This holds the key to understanding the uneasy yet inevitable combination to which List and Schumpeter contribute in the context of contemporary development-friendly economics. It is in this vein that we attempt to compare, contrast and somewhat synthesize List and Schumpeter in terms of their conceptions of capitalist development and economic evolution.Publisher's Versio

Transnational Social Spaces: Agents, Networks and Institutions

Faist T, Özveren E, eds. Transnational Social Spaces: Agents, Networks and Institutions. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate; 2004

The Border-Crossing Expansion of Social Space: Concepts, Questions and Topics

Faist T. The Border-Crossing Expansion of Social Space: Concepts, Questions and Topics. In: Faist T, Özveren E, eds. Transnational Social Spaces: Agents, Networks and Institutions. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate; 2004: 1-36