Introduction to the Theory of Growth in a Socialist Economy.

First edition in English. Small 8vo. vi, 125, [1] pp. Original brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt, dust jacket (ownership inscription of 'Barry Johnson' to half title, otherwise a near fine copy). Oxford, Basil Blackwell.

The Polish economist Michal Kalecki is undoubtedly most famous for discovering 'many of the basic elements of the Keynesian system three years before Keynes published his General Theory, and he went beyond Keynes in embedding those elements in a model that incorporated the phenomena of imperfect competition' (Blaug).

Less well-known, however, is Kalecki's studies concerned with the problems of planning in socialist economies in general and the theory of growth in particular. 'His general approach can be summarised by saying that, while he sought a departure from the system of bureaucratic centralism, he thought that the main parameters of development in an economy should be centrally planned, with the market mechanism used in a subordinate role.

Kalecki’s approach to growth under socialism can be illustrated by reference to the basic relationship in which the growth of output is equal to the impact on productive potential of new investment minus the loss of the production through depreciation plus the change in the utilization of productive capacity. Much of Kalecki’s theoretical work stemmed from this equation for the growth of output, with modifications for foreign trade, limited labour supply and technical progress. The emphasis was on the identification, and then pushing back, of the effective constraints on economic growth' (New Palgrave).

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