Summers And Greenspan Embrace Hitlerian "Creative Destructiveness"

Both Larry Summers and former Fed Chairman Alan "Ayn Rand" Greenspan are devout followers of the fascist economist Joseph Schumpeter, the most famous proponent of "creative destruction." A more recent devotee of this fascist outlook is the once-human Michael Liebig, a longtime associate of Lyndon LaRouche, who, upon departing from the European LaRouche movement, became a rabid proponent of "creative destruction" and the other writings of Schumpeter.

In Summers' case, the devotion to Schumpeter was slavish. From the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation (sic), the following post by Larry Summers on Sept. 21, 2009 is of exemplary:

"An important aspect of any economic expansion is the role innovation plays as an engine of economic growth. In this regard, the most important economist of the twenty-first century might actually turn out to be not Smith or Keynes, but Joseph Schumpeter. One of Schumpeter's most important contributions was the emphasis he placed on the tremendous power of innovation and entrepreneurial initiative to drive growth through a process he famously characterized as 'creative destruction.' His work captured not only an economic truth, but also the particular source of America's strength and dynamism."

In Congressional testimony, while still head of the Fed, Greenspan praised globalization, and said that the United States was the greatest beneficiary of globalization, but, he acknowledged that globalization is also a process of creative destruction. There is considerable destruction and turmoil under globalization. For example, one million workers per week in the United States are fired and hired. There is a huge churning. Those on the destruction side of globalization are a large enough minority that we must address this. (Video of Greenspan's comments can be found on Youtube.)

Neoconservative author Michael Ledeen, the self-professed universal fascist, argued in his 2002 book The War Against the Terror Masters that America is a revolutionary nation, undoing traditional societies: "Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law."

While Joseph Schumpeter left Germany in 1932 and lived the rest of his life in the United States, teaching at Harvard, the man who first promoted the concept of "creative destruction" was a died-in-the-wool Nazi named Werner Sombart. Sombart credited Friedrich Nietzsche with the origin of the term and concept, but passed it along to Schumpeter. Sombart, who was denounced by Rosa Luxemburg as a one-time Marxist who became an apologist for German imperialism, was a close friend of both Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger. In the mid-1930s, he wrote a book called Jews and the Economy, in which he wrote that the chief task of German National Socialism was to destroy the "Jewish spirit." Efforts to rehabilitate Sombart after World War II, like similar efforts to cleanse Schmitt and Heidegger of their Nazi ties, proved futile. Nevertheless, Elena Kagan, President Obama's recent appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court, was a proponent of Sombart during her Harvard days.

As in the case of Schmitt, there is also a leftwing fascist apparatus that promotes the work of Schumpeter. Cambridge University's Joan Robinson was a strong supporter of Schumpeter, and Monthly Review founder Paul Sweezy was Schumpeter's graduate assistant at Harvard and an avid follower.