Creative destruction is supposed to describe a theory of how the destruction of economic order leads to capitalistic economic ideals . A German Marxist sociologist ( Sombart ) is credited for using it first in his 1913 book Krieg und Kapitalismus , which means `` War and Capitalism '' in English . At its most basic , `` creative destruction '' ( German : schÃ pferische ZerstÃ rung ) describes the way in which capitalist economic development arises out of the destruction of some prior economic order , and this is largely the sense implied by the German Marxist sociologist Werner Sombart who has been credited with the first use of these terms in his work Krieg und Kapitalismus ( `` War and Capitalism '' , 1913 ) .