The case for creative destruction

Economic policy across much of the West remains anchored in the logic of preservation: saving jobs, protecting legacy sectors, and subsidising existing structures. According to Koen Dejonckheere, that reflex is increasingly misaligned with today’s realities.

As CEO of GIMV, he argues that demographic decline, energy constraints and global competition are forcing a shift away from a Keynesian subsidy model toward a Schumpeterian logic of creative destruction. In a context of sharply falling birth rates, job preservation becomes less central than productivity, capital reallocation and long-term investment.

Dejonckheere has suggested that Belgium could position itself as the Singapore of Europe: compact, outward-looking and focused on future-oriented industries rather than industrial nostalgia.

A conversation about letting go of the past, and what it takes to invest in the future.