Creative destruction

Michael Perelman looks at Schumpeter and Stolper.

I did find that one of these economists, David A. Wells, a name well known at Harvard, did clearly anticipate the theory of creative destruction (see Perelman 1995, p. 192). For Wells, the measure of success of an invention is the extent to which it can destroy capital values. He offered as an example “[t]he notable destruction or great impairment in the value of ships consequent upon the opening of the [Suez] Canal” (Wells 1889, p. 30). Wells asserted that each generation of ships becomes obsolete in a decade. From here, he concluded, “nothing marks more clearly the rate of material progress than the rapidity with which that which is old and has been considered wealth is destroyed by the results of new inventions and discoveries” (Ibid., p. 31).