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Marxian and Monetary Aspects of Kalecki

Jan Toporowski (SOAS University of London, UK)

Polish Marxism after Luxemburg

ISBN: 978-1-80117-891-4, eISBN: 978-1-80117-890-7

Publication date: 9 December 2022

Abstract

The chapter presents a short biography of Kalecki, from his early years in Łódź, through his economics research and development of his theory of business cycles, participation in the Keynesian Revolution and work after the Second World War on the economics of socialism and the developing countries. The key role of capital accumulation (investment) in determining levels of employment and total output is put forward as Kalecki's main innovation. There are evident similarities between Kalecki's theory of the business cycle and that of the Austro-Marxist Emil Lederer, as well as in the distributional analysis of Rudolf Hilferding. Kalecki's analysis of monetary circulation, and the centrality of his theory of profits was anticipated by Rosa Luxemburg in her Anti-Critique. But that monetary theory is rooted in a Marxian understanding of money as a means of settlement between capitalists.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Bernard D'Mello, Joseph Halevi, Robert Calvert Jump and Riccardo Bellofiore for comments on an earlier draft commemorating Karl Marx's bicentenary. I am grateful too for financial support from the Leverhulme Trust and the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Citation

Toporowski, J. (2022), "Marxian and Monetary Aspects of Kalecki", Toporowski, J. (Ed.) Polish Marxism after Luxemburg (Research in Political Economy, Vol. 37), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 113-127. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0161-723020220000037008

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023 Jan Toporowski. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited