Joseph Schumpeter, in the discussion of growth in his famous book on the history of economic thought, distinguishes two types of economists by their thinking about growth: the optimists and the pessimists. He argues that most mainstream economists fall within the pessimist group, the strongest pessimists being Malthus, Ricardo, and James Mill. These mainstream economists strongly emphasized decreasing returns, ever-increasing rent, and the stationary state toward which the economy was progressing. They did this even as the economy around them was growing at rates far exceeding those of earlier times. As Schumpeter notes, "They were convinced that technological improvement and increases capital would in the end fail to counteract the fateful law of decreasing returns.