Creative Destruction
A term for the process of an industrial cycle that revolutionizes the economic structure with periodic extinction of industries as new industries emerge to meet societal needs.
EverydayConcepts.io
Origin
Karl Marx described capitalism's drive to continually destroy old productive systems in the Communist Manifesto (1848), and German sociologist Werner Sombart first used the phrase in Krieg und Kapitalismus (1913). Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized it in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), calling it a "gale of creative destruction" as innovations render old industries obsolete.
Updated February 22, 2026