Continuing from the previous post, Kalecki And Keynes …

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was published in January, 1936.

Meanwhile, … , Michal Kalecki had found the same solution.

His book, Essays in the Theory of Business Cycles, published in Polish in 1933, clearly states the principle of effective demand in mathematical form. At the same time he was already exploring the implications of the analysis for the problem of a country’s balance of trade, along the same lines that I followed in drawing riders from the General Theory in essays published in 1937.

The version of his theory set out in prose (published in ‘Polska Gospodarcza’ No. 43, X, 1935) could very well be used today as an introduction to the theory of employment.

He opens by attacking the orthodox theory at the most vital point – the view that unemployment could be reduced  by cutting money wage rates. And he shows (a point that Keynesians came to much later, and under his influence) that , of monopolistic influences prevent prices from falling when wage costs are lowered, the situation is still worse, because reduced purchasing power causes a fall in sales on consumption goods …

…

Michal Kalecki’s claim to priority of publication is indisputable.

– Joan Robinson, Kalecki And Keynes in Essays In Honour Of Michal Kalecki, 1964.