Innovation and National State in the History of Economic Thought: Marx, Schumpeter and neo-Schumpeterians in retrospective

Abstract

Innovation is a fundamental concept in the history of economic thought. Indeed, Marx tried to find the conceptual thread that explained not only the law that governed the movement of innovations in the capitalist system, but also the development of the productive forces regardless of their historical epoch. Schumpeter represented a sudden fork in this theoretical path by rejecting those undertakings that intended to establish general universal laws. This turning point would pave the way for a neo-Schumpeterian evolutionary approach in which scholars sought to continue the legacy of their mentor in the descriptive deepening of the phenomenon and in the discussion of the role of the state within this framework. In the present article, we explore the transformation of the concept of innovation and the manner in which it has been connected with the notion of the national state by reconstructing the advances and setbacks in this process.