From the article:
He sees the capitalist order proceeding from a "rationalizing attitude"--"an attitude which spurns allegiance to extra-rational values." Modern capitalism is "the propelling force of the rationalizing of human behavior," but this critical mind doesn't stop at the gates of modern factories, but also wages war to the very system it should hold dear, breeding egalitarian challenges to the legitimacy of capitalist inequality.
The argument in favor of capitalism, for Schumpeter, is a difficult one, that the masses naturally overlook: "any pro-capitalist argument must rest on long-run considerations. In the short run, it is profits and inefficiencies that dominate the picture."
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For Schumpeter, intellectuals as we know them are a creation of a capitalist society. True, we always had "people who wield the power of the spoken and the written word": but they were few in number, and their words could be accessed, debated and learned by a tiny fraction of the population. Capitalism nurtures intellectuals: on the one hand, a capitalist society is less keen to curb freedom of speech and discussion than any previous set of social institutions. On the other, innovation multiplies the means for the public debate: books become increasingly cheaper, newspapers mushroom everywhere, then of course you had radio and tv, and today social networks. Also, "one of the most important features of the later stages of capitalist civilization is the vigorous expansion of the educational apparatus and particularly of the facilities for higher education."
Yet this apparatus produces more intellectuals than could thrive economically, and this creates resentment. Schumpeter didn't think that hostility against capitalism could be considered just a feature of the intellectuals as a social group: but assigned them a particular role. Modern capitalism creates opponents of a different kind, especially among those to whom the long-term benefits of the market system are less apparent, namely workers. But they yearn for leaders and narratives. Intellectuals do not often enter politics or labour unions directly, but "they staff political bureaus, write party pamphlets and speeches, act as secretaries and advisers" etc. "In doing these things they to some extent impress their mentality on almost everything that is being done."
Source: Alberto Mingardi, "Schumpeter, Intellectuals and Capitalism," econlog, April 25, 2014
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