Although it is correct to see Joseph A. Schumpeter as a heterodox social scientist, our understanding of this heterodoxy must be radically rethought. To do this we must go beyond simply recognising the strong link between economics and sociology in his work and try instead to understand the paradoxical 'impolitical' (not apolitical) nature of this heterodoxy. For in his concept of the autonomy of the economic sciences the presence of the 'political' had to be recognised whilst also being circumscribed and held back. As a result, economics as a social science remained an unsolvable puzzle for him. This book maintains that this was the crucial gamble of his entire life's work, and the starting point for his conservative radicalism.
