"Democracy is a political method, that is to say, a certain type of institutional arrangement for arriving at political - legislative and administrative - decisions and hence incapable of being an end in itself"
About this Quote
The subtext is a quiet rebuke to romantic theories of popular will. Schumpeter is writing against the comforting idea that elections automatically channel a coherent public interest. His famous alternative - democracy as competitive leadership selection - lurks behind this line. Voters aren’t philosophers-kingmakers so much as consumers choosing among political entrepreneurs. That framing doesn’t flatter citizens, but it does explain why mass politics so often runs on branding, coalition maintenance, and managed expectations rather than deliberative truth-seeking.
Context matters: interwar Europe and the midcentury crisis of liberal confidence. Fascism and communism had exposed how quickly “the people” could be mobilized against liberal institutions, and how democratic procedures could coexist with demagoguery, inequality, and administrative opacity. Calling democracy “incapable of being an end in itself” is a warning label: if you treat the method as the morality, you stop asking what the method is delivering - rights, stability, competence, legitimacy - and for whom.
Schumpeter’s intent isn’t anti-democratic; it’s anti-sentimental. He’s insisting that democracy must be judged by outcomes and safeguards, not catechism.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reason & Logic |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (Joseph A. Schumpeter, 1942)
Evidence: Democracy is a political method, that is to say, a certain type of institutional arrangement for arriving at political, legislative and administrative, decisions and hence incapable of being an end in itself, irrespective of what decisions it will produce under given historical conditions. (Chapter 21 (“The Classical Doctrine of Democracy”), p. 242 (in later reprints/editions pagination may differ)). This sentence is from Joseph A. Schumpeter’s own work, not a later interview/speech. The wording you provided matches the line commonly cited from Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, in the section discussing democracy as a method rather than an end. Multiple secondary works cite it specifically as “CSD, p. 242” in the standard English-language edition/reprint pagination. However, I did not retrieve a fully viewable scan of the 1942 first edition page itself in this search session, so while the primary-source work and the standard location (CSD, p. 242) are strongly supported, verifying the *first-edition* page number requires checking a physical/scan copy of the 1942 Harper & Brothers printing or a library database that shows the relevant page image. A later commonly cited edition is the 1976 reprint (Routledge) with the same passage also cited around p. 242 in many references. Other candidates (1) Essential Goals in World Politics (Jisi Wang, 2021) compilation99.5% ... Democracy is a political method , that is to say , a certain type of institutional arrangement for arriving at po... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Schumpeter, Joseph A. (2026, February 20). Democracy is a political method, that is to say, a certain type of institutional arrangement for arriving at political - legislative and administrative - decisions and hence incapable of being an end in itself. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/democracy-is-a-political-method-that-is-to-say-a-157233/
Chicago Style
Schumpeter, Joseph A. "Democracy is a political method, that is to say, a certain type of institutional arrangement for arriving at political - legislative and administrative - decisions and hence incapable of being an end in itself." FixQuotes. February 20, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/democracy-is-a-political-method-that-is-to-say-a-157233/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Democracy is a political method, that is to say, a certain type of institutional arrangement for arriving at political - legislative and administrative - decisions and hence incapable of being an end in itself." FixQuotes, 20 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/democracy-is-a-political-method-that-is-to-say-a-157233/. Accessed 9 Mar. 2026.
