Growth versus development from Schumpeter to Georgescu-Roegen

Since the early 1750's economists have elaborate two approaches in order to deal with economic history: a stage theory and a theory of continuing, quantitative growth. J. Schumpeter argued forcibly in favour of the development approach while N. Georgescu-Roegen endorsed the Schumpeterian distinction and considered the stage theory as sketched in Smith or Marx. He proposed a more radical version of his own, embedded in East European history, distinguishing agrarian economies from industrial ones. The paper provides an analysis of the views of both authors on evolution by analysing others aspects such as the relationship between the qualitative change and the stationary state, the linkages between the evolution and the question of time, and the implications of the dialectical nature of the economic process from a methodological viewpoint (measurability of change, pattern of economic evolution, lessons from the flow-fund model of production) as well as the two stage theory of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen.