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Yes, it it true, but David A. Wells came pretty close. Schumpeter
followed him closely. Here is a snippit from an article I published
on the subject:
David Wells's Theory of Creative Destruction At this point, Wells
developed his own Theory of Creative Destruction, although he
lacked the rhetorical genius to coin such a paradoxical term.
Instead, Wells wrote of "the relentless impartiality with which the
destructive influences of material progress coincidentally affect
capital (property) as well as labor" (Wells 1889, p. 369). He
concluded: ##It seems to be in the nature of a natural law that no
advanced stage of civilization can be attained, except at the
expense of destroying in a greater or less degree the value of the
instrumentalities by which all previous attainments have been
affected. [ibid.] For Wells, the measure of success of an
invention is the extent to which it can destroy capital values (Ibid.).
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). Wells claimed no
originality for his work, writing: ##by an economic law, which Mr.
[Edward] Atkinson, of Boston, more than others, has recognized
and formulated, all material progress is affected through the
destruction of capital by invention and discovery, and the rapidity of
such destruction is the best indicator of the rapidity of progress.
[Wells 1885, p. 146; see also, p. 238; and Atkinson 1889]
Michael Perelman
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