Kalecki and Marx on effective demand

Conclusion Whereas Marx and Kalecki shared a broad vision of the capitalist system, the convergence of their theories occurred mainly on the ground of effective demand.Marx furnished Kalecki with the idea that deficiencies in aggregate demand are rooted in the normal workings of the capitalist system, but he did so without providing any theoretical demonstration of this proposition. Kalecki was confident, however, that he had solved Marx's unresolved problems by proving that the equations that determine the level of total output are contained in the scheme of extended reproduction.Whether Marx would have considered Kalecki's solution appropriate for the system inCapital is quite another matter. As explained above, Kalecki shifted the emphasis from the production of surplus value to the realization of surplus value and from the conditions of exploitation to the conditions of the market. It is a change that Marx would have had difficulties in accepting. Indeed, it was precisely his reluctance to follow this route that steered Marx away from an attempt at solving the problem of effective demand; a problem he skirted when he was in the process of formulating his schemes of reproduction.If one adds Kalecki's interest in market prices and his distaste for the labor theory of value, it would be difficult to avoid the conclusion that Kalecki was neither a faithful disciple of Marx nor a single-minded articulator of his economic theories. It has been argued that this was precisely Kalecki's strength [Robinson, 1979, p. 253]: With the light that Sraffa has thrown on the theory of value and Kalecki on the process of realization of the surplus, we can develop a complete system, not ofneo-Marxism but ofintelligible Marxism.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Twenty-Sixth Atlantic Economic Society Conference, October 6–9, 1988, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.