LE CRÉDIT ET LE CAPITALISME : LA CONTRIBUTION DE J. A. SCHUMPETER À LA THÉORIE MONÉTAIRE

This paper aims at considering money, not as a simple aspect, but as the logical starting point of the whole schumpeterian research project: grasping the complex phenomena underlying a capitalist economy. Schumpeter’s monetary theory is based on the concept of social accounting, providing us with an analytical framework explaining altogether equilibrium situations in the economy, and the disequilibrium rendering the dynamism of its cyclic evolution. The study of money, credit and banking offers a specific answer to the problem of economic coordination in the capitalist evolution. More than the market, it is the rules and constraints defined by and inside the payment system that frame the action of the innovators.