7
already in 1956). Kalecki warned me of mathematics and the
computer as means of covering up emptiness. Kalecki's analysis
of 1933 was further developed in 1939, 1943, 1954 and 1968.
No less important than his economic theory was a brief
sociological paper on what he called the "political business
cycle" (1943). Anticipating the stop-go cycles of post
war Britain it showed that the difficulties of maintaining full
employment lay wholly in the political field, in the opposition
of interests it created, connected not the least with the
strengthening of the material and political position of the
workers by lasting full employment. The paper shows a side of
Kalecki's talent which has found little expression in writing
and in print. We are worse off for it!
Beside the theoretical analysis extends the wide field of
economic policy in which he was continuously engaged. He
combined a keen sense of political realities with great in
ventiveness. His general rationing scheme for war-time Britain,
although it was not adopted a such, found expression in the use
of comprehensive rationing as an instrument of war finance. For
the post-war time he developed a policy of full employment with
appropriate fiscal and taxation policies. For the Keynes plan
of an international currency union he substituted, together
with E.F.Schuhmacher, a more ambitious plan in which credits to
development countries were linked to spending in industrial
countries with structural payments deficit.