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Schumpeter’s theory of democracy has recently been studied as grounded on a cognitive theory of individual behaviors, making it close to cognitive or behavioral economics. In this paper, in line with these perspectives, we emphasize Schumpeter's original assumptions and approach to individual behavior in the political sphere. But we expand the subject, stressing that Schumpeter's theory of democracy can be analyzed through the lens of the concept of autonomy. As a key argument in Schumpeter's discussion of the collapse of capitalism, the interaction of both political and economic spheres, as two systems led by their own operating modes, can therefore be analyzed with the help of autopoietic system theory. Comparing Schumpeter and Luhmann, we emphasize a Schumpeter-Parsons-Luhmann connection, and show that re-reading Schumpeter’s theory of democracy in terms of complex system theory could help to overcome the elitist conception of Schumpeter's model of democracy and give theoretical keys to build a bridge between individual and collective cognitive processes and integrate a theory of ideology