Title Page
IMPERIALISM
Social Classes
two essays by JOSEPH SCHUMPETER
Introduction by Bert Hoselitz
Translated by Heinz Norden
Meridian Books
THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
Cleveland and New York
Copyright Page
A MERIDIAN BOOK
Published by The World Publishing Company
2231 West 110th Street, Cleveland, Ohio 44102
First Meridian printing January 1955.
Ninth Printing December 1966.
Copyright © 1951 by the Trustees of Elizabeth B. Schumpeter.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
Introduction
When Joseph Schumpeter died, in January 1950, one month before his sixty-seventh birthday, he was generally acknowledged to have been one of the three or four greatest economists of his time.
I. The Sociology of Imperialisms
1. The Problem
Our problem arises from the fact that aggressive attitudes on the part of states—or of such earlier organizational structures as history may record—can be explained, directly and unequivocally, only in part by the real and concrete interests of the people. Examples will best illustrate what we mean.
2. Imperialism as a Catch Phrase
3. Imperialism in Practice
What imperialism looks like when it is not mere words, and what problems it offers, can best be illustrated by examples from antiquity. We shall select the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Persian empires and later add certain examples from a more recent period of history. We shall find characteristic differences among them, as well as one basic trait common to all, even the most modern brand of imperialism—a trait which for that reason alone cannot very well be the product of modern economic evolution.
4. Imperialism in the Modern Absolute Monarchy
At the threshold of modern Europe there stands a form of imperialism that is of special interest to us. It is rooted in the nature of the absolutist state of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which was, everywhere on the Continent, the result of the victory of the monarchy over the estates and classes.
5. Imperialism and Capitalism
II. Social Classes in an Ethnically Homogeneous Environment
