16. Schumpeter's Theory of Business Cycles
Joseph Schumpeter's business cycle theory is one of the very few that attempts to integrate an explanation of the business cycle with an analysis of the entire economic system.
The theory was presented in essence in his Theory of Economic Development, published in 1912.
This analysis formed the basis for the first approximation of his more elaborate doctrine presented in the two volume Business Cycles, published in 1939.
The latter volume, however, was a distinct retrogression from the former, for it attempted to explain the business cycle by postulating three superimposed cycles,
cycles. Each of which was explainable according to his first approximation. Each of these cycles
is supposed to be roughly periodic in length. They are alleged by Schumpeter to be the three-year
Kitchen cycle, the nine-year Uglar, and the very long fifty-year Kondratiev. These cycles are
are conceived as independent entities, combining in various ways to yield the aggregate cyclical
pattern.
Any such multi-cyclic approach must be set down as a mystical adoption of the fallacy
of conceptual realism.
There is no reality or meaning to the allegedly independent sets of cycles.
The market is one interdependent unit, and the more developed it is, the greater the
interrelations among market elements.
It is therefore impossible for several or numerous independent cycles to co-exist as
self-contained units.
It is precisely the characteristic of a business cycle that it permeates all market activities.
Many theorists have assumed the existence of periodic cycles, where the length of each
successive cycle is uniform, even down to the precise number of months.
The quest for periodicity is a chimerical hankering after the laws of physics.
In human action, there are no quantitative constants.
It is best, then, to discard Schumpeter's multicyclical schema entirely, and to consider
his more interesting one-cycle approximation as presented in his earlier book, which he
attempts to derive from his general economic analysis.
Schumpeter begins his study with the economy in a state of circular flow equilibrium, that
is, what amounts to a picture of an evenly rotating economy.
This is proper, since it is only by hypothetically investigating the disturbances of an imaginary
state of equilibrium that we can mentally isolate the causal factors of the business
cycle.
First, Schumpeter describes the E.R.E., where all anticipations are fulfilled, every individual
and economic element is in equilibrium, profits and losses are zero, all based on given values
and resources.
Then, asks Schumpeter, what can impel changes in this setup?
First, there are possible changes in consumer tastes and demands.
This is cavalierly dismissed by Schumpeter as unimportant.
There are possible changes in population and therefore in the labor supply, but these are
gradual and entrepreneurs can readily adapt to them.
Third, there can be new saving and investment.
Wisely, Schumpeter sees that changes in saving investment rates imply no business cycle.
New saving will cause continuous growth.
Sudden changes in the rate of saving, when unanticipated by the market, can cause dislocations,
of course, as may any sudden unanticipated change.
But there is nothing cyclic or mysterious about these effects.
Instead of concluding from this survey, as he should have done, that there can be no
business cycle on the free market, Schumpeter turned to a fourth element, which for him
was the generator of all growth as well as of business cycles, innovation in productive
techniques.
We have seen that innovations cannot be considered the prime mover of the economy, since innovations
can work their effects only through saving and investment, and since there are always
a great many investments that could improve techniques within the corpus of existing knowledge
but which are not made for lack of adequate savings.
This consideration alone is enough to invalidate Schumpeter's business cycle theory.
A further consideration is that Schumpeter's own theory relies specifically for the financing
of innovations on newly expanded bank credit, on new money issued by the banks.
Without delving into Schumpeter's theory of bank credit and its consequences, it is
clear that Schumpeter assumes a hampered market, for we have seen that there could not be any
Money Monetary Credit Expansion on a Free Market.
Schumpeter, therefore, cannot establish a business cycle theory for a purely unhampered
market.
Finally, Schumpeter's explanation of innovations as the trigger for the business cycle necessarily
assumes that there is a recurrent cluster of innovations that takes place in each boom
period.
Why should there be such a cluster of innovations?
Why are innovations not more or less continuous, as we would expect?
Schumpeter cannot answer this question satisfactorily.
The fact that a bold few begin innovating, and that they are followed by imitators, does
not yield a cluster, for this process could be continuous, with new innovators arriving
on the scene.
Schumpeter offers two explanations for the slackening of innovatory activity toward the
end of the boom, a slackening essential to his theory.
On the one hand, the release of new products yielded by the new investments creates difficulties
for old producers and leads to a period of uncertainty and need for rest.
In contrast, in equilibrium periods, the risk of failure and uncertainty is less than in
other periods.
But here Schumpeter mistakes the auxiliary construction of the ERE for the real world.
There is never in existence any actual period of certainty.
All periods are uncertain, and there is no reason why increased production should cause
Schumpeter's second explanation is that innovations cluster in only one or a few industries, and
and that these innovation opportunities are therefore limited.
After a while they become exhausted, and the cluster of innovations ceases.
This is obviously related to the Hansen stagnation thesis, in the sense that there are alleged
to be a certain limited number of investment opportunities, here innovation opportunities,
at any time, and that once these are exhausted, there is temporarily no further room for investments
or innovations.
The whole concept of opportunity in this connection, however, is meaningless.
There is no limit on opportunity as long as wants remain unfulfilled.
The only other limit on investment or innovation is saved capital available to embark on the
Projects. But this has nothing to do with vaguely available opportunities which become exhausted.
The existence of saved capital is a continuing factor. As for innovations, there is no reason
why innovations cannot be continuous or take place in many industries or why the
as Kuznets has shown, a cluster of innovation must assume a cluster of entrepreneurial ability as well, and this is clearly unwarranted.
Clements and Doody, Schumpeterian disciples, countered that entrepreneurial ability is exhausted in the act of founding a new firm.
is exhausted in the act of founding a new firm, but to view entrepreneurship as
simply the founding of new firms is completely invalid. Entrepreneurship is
not just the founding of new firms, it is not merely innovation, it is adjustment,
adjustment to the uncertain changing conditions of the future. This adjustment
takes place, perforce, all the time, and is not exhausted in any single act of investment.
We must conclude that Schumpeter's praiseworthy attempt to derive a business cycle theory
from general economic analysis is a failure.
Schumpeter almost hit on the right explanation when he stated that the only other explanation
One that could be found for the business cycle would be a cluster of errors by entrepreneurs,
and he saw no reason, no objective cause, why there should be such a cluster of errors.
That is perfectly true, for the free unhampered market.