lE. King Michael Kalecki (1899-1970) was one of the most important, and
also one of the most underrated, economists of the twentieth century. In
the 1930s he made a series of fundamental contributions to macroeconomic
theory which anticipated, complemented and in some ways surpassed those
of Keynes. Almost entirely self-educated in economics, and influenced
rul much by Marxism as by mainstream theory, Kalecki very largely
escaped the fatal embrace of pre-Keynesian orthodoxy, which blunted the
thrust of the General Theory. Many Post Keynesians, in particular, have
found in his work the elements of a convincing alternative to what Joan
Robinson -Kalecki's greatest advocate in the English-speaking world -
was scathingly to describe as 'bastard Keynesianism' . But Kalecki was
never interested in theory for its own sake. He approached economics
from a practical perspective, wrote extensively on applied and policy
questions, and in the [mal decades of his life turned his attention
increasingly to problems of economic development and the management of
state socialist economies.