Shared ideas amid mutual incomprehension: Kalecki and Cambridge

Abstract

Discussions about the relationship between Michał Kalecki and John Maynard Keynes have rightly focussed upon the compatibility of the ideas of the two men. Interpretations of Keynes have not always found Kalecki to be complementary to Keynes. Joan Robinson famously did (Robinson 1964). But her close associate in Cambridge, Richard Kahn, did not (see, for example, Kahn 1972). Both Kahn and Robinson had worked closely with Keynes and Kalecki. Kalecki’s collaboration with Joan Robinson and Richard Kahn occurred during 1939, when Robinson and Kahn supervised Kalecki’s research. This chapter focuses on what the fate of that collaboration reveals about the methodological preconceptions of Keynes and Kalecki.