At the age of 42 Joseph Alois Schumpeter married the 20 years younger Anna (“Annie”) Josefina Reisinger. Joseph Schumpeter is looking forward to being a father, and the couple have a child, Joseph, but both Annie and the baby dies during confinement. The tragedy is a fact, and Schumpeter loses the joy of scientific creativity and concentration. His existence is concurrently burdened by private financial problems. He holds fast to his creative youth work, Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, which is a companion through life and the foundation stone of modern entrepreneurial research worldwide. The article analyzes the important events in Schumpeter’s life and its importance to scientific development in economic theory.
The article analyzes the important events in Schumpeter’s life and its importance to scientific development in economic theory. Theorie der wirtshaftlichen Entwicklung (English title; The Theory of Economic Development) was first published in 1912. After emigration to Harvard in 1934, the third edition was translated into English and opened up for a broader readership worldwide. However, the seventh chapter was omitted from the second and third edition, which formed the basis for the translation into English. It is a fact that the English version of 1934 in turn has served as the basis for translation to many other languages. How well known and understood was actually Schumpeter’s innovative and independent scientific contribution from his early days, and what are the consequences of the Lost Chapter in economic theory? The author of the article walks in the early Schumpeter’s footsteps by visiting places where the famous economist used to live and work, and thereby making interviews with key persons on sites to analyze the background for the historical development in economic philosophy. The article concludes that personal freedom, especially in connection with wage labor and market profit are preconditions for scientific independent activity.

Keywords: Joseph A. Schumpeter, wages, innovation, debt, emigration, economic development.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/1728-2667.2015/174-9/11

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