Kazimierz Łaski and the scope and significance of the price mechanism

Artikel

Kazimierz Łaski's first contributions to economics were on the theory of growth and equilibrium in the socialist economy. He gravitated in between Włodzimierz Brus, who argued that the economy could be brought into equilibrium through market mechanisms, and the most profound influence on Łaski, Michał Kalecki. In Kalecki's view, the socialist economy is brought into equilibrium by means of investment and an appropriate wage policy, determined by central planners. Markets and price mechanisms cannot bring about general equilibrium but function to distribute profits among enterprises in the economy. With cost minimisation, markets and prices in socialism, if left to themselves, generate similar deflationary tendencies to the ones that obtain under capitalism. The scope and significance of the price mechanism thus goes beyond its rather trivial application to market equilibrium.

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• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention (EJEEP) ; ISSN: 2052-7772 ; Volume: 16 ; Year: 2019 ; Issue: 3 ; Pages: 318-326

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; History of Economic Thought since 1925: Socialist; Marxist; Sraffian ; History of Economic Thought: Individuals ; General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium: Other ; General Aggregative Models: Marxian; Sraffian; Kaleckian ; Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Planning, Coordination, and Reform ; Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Prices
• Subject: market socialism ; central planning ; price equilibrium ; Kalecki ; Łaski ; Brus

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Toporowski, Jan
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Edward Elgar Publishing
• (where): Cheltenham
• (when): 2019

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.4337/ejeep.2019.0055
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/277454