Burger Chef and the McDonald’s Happy Meal: A Case Study in Creative Destruction

Burger Chef and the McDonald’s Happy Meal: A Case Study in Creative Destruction

Joseph Schumpeter famously said that creative destruction is the “essential fact about capitalism.”  Entrepreneurs are the moving force in Schumpeter’s drama, but they are victims as often as heroes. The reason is that having an idea is not enough; you have to make it work in the marketplace. The invention of ideas, and the fast borrowing of those ideas, reflect both the destruction and the creation of Schumpeter’s insight. Or, as Milton Friedma…

Burger Chef and the McDonald's Happy Meal: A Case Study in Creative Destruction

Joseph Schumpeter famously said that creative destruction is the “essential fact about capitalism.”  Entrepreneurs are the moving force in Schumpeter’s drama, but they are victims as often as heroes. The reason is that having an idea is not enough; you have to make it work in the marketplace. The invention of ideas, and the fast borrowing of those ideas, reflect both the destruction and the creation of Schumpeter’s insight. Or, as Milton Friedma…