Schumpeterian Evolutionary Dynamics and the Collapse of Soviet-Bloc Socialism

The problem of the collapse of socialism within the former Soviet bloc is examined from the perspective of a Schumpeterian view of technological change and discontinuous evolutionary dynamics. The Schumpeterian mechanism of 'creative destruction' was frustrated in the traditional socialist system with revolutionary technological changes tending not to be adopted. In largely capitalist economies Schumpeter saw these as being adopted in clusters at critical points in long waves, but planned socialism substantially reduces such cycles for output, if not quite as much for investment. The crisis of Soviet-style socialism came with the attempt to leap to the higher 'technique cluster' of information technologies and broke down in the effort to do so as political changes reflected conflict between the production requirements of that technology with the central control of the planned socialist system.