Abstract
While he was in Mexico, the first proofs arrived in New York of Kalecki’s new book, Theory of Economic Dynamics. The book arose from an enquiry in May 1948 by Kalecki to his publisher, George Allen and Unwin as to ‘whether there is any chance of your reprinting ESSAYS IN THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC FLUCTUATIONS and STUDIES IN ECONOMIC DYNAMICS in the near future. As a matter of fact I have had many enquiries on the subject. If your paper quota does not permit it, perhaps it would be possible to make an arrangement with another firm. (As far as I recall a book of Mrs. Robinson published initially by Macmillan has been now reprinted by Blackwell.)’ Allen and Unwin eventually wrote back to say that they might consider a reprint, but that the small number of orders made it difficult to give priority to the book of essays, and would Kalecki consider perhaps an entirely new book, and not essays, which are difficult to sell, but ‘a single connected whole.’ Kalecki wrote back on 2 August 1948, ‘I have no intention to replace my Essays in Economic Fluctuations by an entirely new book.’ He asked Allen and Unwin to consider ‘my negotiating the reprint of my books with another British firm and possibly with an American firm with regard to the U.S. market.’ This evoked a response from the publisher to the effect that new orders had been received, and supply conditions had improved (‘due to the general falling off in the sale of books.’) By the end of October 1948, Kalecki had started work ‘on the preparation of corrections for the new edition of my Essays in Economic Fluctuations, and I shall send them to you as soon as I have them ready. In the main the corrections amount to replacing the statistical data not so much by bringing them up to date as by using new estimates that have been made available since 1939.’
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Notes
- 1.
Letter of Michał Kalecki to George Allen and Unwin dated 12 May 1948, Allen and Unwin Papers Letters/10/Kalecki.
- 2.
Letter of George Allen and Unwin to Michał Kalecki, dated 20 July 1948, Allen and Unwin Papers Letters/10/Kalecki.
- 3.
Letter of Michał Kalecki to George Allen and Unwin dated 2 August 1948, Allen and Unwin Papers Letters/10/Kalecki.
- 4.
Letter of George Allen and Unwin to Michał Kalecki, dated 6 August 1948, Allen and Unwin Papers Letters/10/Kalecki.
- 5.
Letter of Michał Kalecki to George Allen and Unwin dated 8 October 1948, Allen and Unwin Papers Letters/10/Kalecki.
- 6.
Letter of Adela Kalecka to Blanka Bronstein dated 14 March 1949, copy in the author’s possession.
- 7.
Letter of George Allen and Unwin to Michał Kalecki, dated 5 February 1951, Allen and Unwin Papers SPEC—COLLS/6.
- 8.
Letter of Michał Kalecki to George Allen and Unwin dated 5 March 1951, Allen and Unwin Papers SPEC—COLLS/6.
- 9.
Letter of George Allen and Unwin to Michał Kalecki, dated 8 March 1951, Allen and Unwin Papers SPEC—COLLS/6.
- 10.
Letter of Michał Kalecki to George Allen and Unwin dated 14 March 1951, Allen and Unwin Papers SPEC—COLLS/6.
- 11.
Letter of Michał Kalecki to George Allen and Unwin dated 18 October 1951, Allen and Unwin Papers SPEC—COLLS/6. The ‘friends’ were, sadly, unspecified.
- 12.
Letter of Michał Kalecki to George Allen and Unwin dated 21 January 1952, Allen and Unwin Papers Letters/Kalecki 1952/18.
- 13.
Letter of D.J. Morgan to George Allen and Unwin dated 8 March 1952, Allen and Unwin Papers Letters/Kalecki/1952/18. David Morgan was the official historian of British colonial development.
- 14.
Letter of Michał Kalecki to George Allen and Unwin dated 27 March 1952, Allen and Unwin Papers Letters/Kalecki 1952/18.
- 15.
Kalecki, ‘Preface’ Theory of Economic Dynamics 1954a.
- 16.
Kalecki, Theory of Economic Dynamics 1954a, p. 161.
- 17.
Osiatyński Collected Works of Michał Kalecki Volume II 1991, p. 554.
- 18.
Kalecki, Theory of Economic Dynamics 1954a, p. 50.
- 19.
Kalecki ‘Essay on the Business Cycle Theory’ 1933b.
- 20.
FBI ‘Michael Kalecki’ file number 65-58960 reports NY 65-15246, 1 November 1951, copy in the author’s possession.
- 21.
FBI ‘Michael Kalecki’ file number 65-58960 reports NY 65-15246, 12 February 1955, copy in the author’s possession.
- 22.
A. Kalecka ‘Z okazji zgonu Senatora McCarthy’ (On the death of Senator Joseph McCarthy) typescript, copy in the author’s possession.
- 23.
Toye and Toye The UN and Global Political Economy 2004, pp. 79–80.
- 24.
Notes from interview with Eprime Eshag, May 1993, in the author’s possession.
- 25.
Osiatyński ‘On Michał Kalecki’s Work for the United Nations’ in Osiatyński (ed.) Collected Works of Michał Kalecki Volume VII 1997, p. 555. S. Braun ‘Note on Kalecki’s resignation’ Kalecki Papers PAN III—319.
- 26.
Osiatyński ‘On Michał Kalecki’s Work for the United Nations’ in Osiatyński (ed.) Collected Works of Michał Kalecki Volume VII 1997, p. 556.
- 27.
Minutes of the 120th meeting of the divisional directors of the Department of Economic Affairs, 14 October 1954, cited in Osiatyński ‘On Michał Kalecki’s Work for the United Nations’ in Osiatyński (ed.) Collected Works of Michał Kalecki Volume VII 1997, pp. 556–557.
- 28.
Robinson ‘John Maynard Keynes 1883–1946’ 1947.
- 29.
Klein ‘The Life of John Maynard Keynes’ 1951.
- 30.
Robinson The Rate of Interest and Other Essays 1952, p. 159. See also Patinkin Anticipations of the General Theory? 1982, pp. 59–61.
- 31.
Harry Johnson, who studied in Cambridge in the 1940s and came to be very critical of the respect accorded in Cambridge to Keynes and Kalecki, was later to recall that ‘…the dominant influence on Joan Robinson’s Keynesianism was not Keynes, but the Polish economist Michal Kalecki, who had developed a Marxist version of Keynes’s theory earlier in time than, and in some respects theoretically superior to, Keynes’s General Theory, but was unfortunate enough to publish in Polish, his native language, and doubly unfortunate in that, when he finally arrived in Cambridge, he proved to lack all the social and cultural graces necessary for acceptance in the British academic system and establishment… In Joan Robinson’s discussion of theory in the early 1950s, “Keynes” was just the name of an author she had known at one time as a very senior colleague and was not always entirely patient with; but her eyes lit up with admiration whenever she mentioned Kalecki and his works.’ Johnson ‘Cambridge in the 1950s’ 1974, pp. 158–159.
- 32.
Kowalik ‘Michał Kalecki, kim był, jakim go znałem i podziwiałem’ 2006. In 1964, Kalecki told Kowalik that he (Kalecki) had tried to persuade Robinson and Kahn to meet with Keynes to raise the matter of Kalecki’s priority, and, when they failed to do so, Kalecki had summoned up his courage to go to Keynes and raise it with him directly. According to this account, Keynes responded with a grandiloquent speech on his own unique genius.
- 33.
S. Braun ‘Note on Kalecki’s resignation’ Kalecki Papers PAN III—319.
- 34.
FBI ‘Michael Kalecki’ file number 65-58960 reports NY 65-15246, 15 February 1955, copy in the author’s possession.
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Toporowski, J. (2018). The Disenchantment at the United Nations. In: Michał Kalecki: An Intellectual Biography. Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69664-5_11
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