Włodzimierz Brus and the Law of Value Under Socialism

Jan Toporowski

A chapter in Polish Marxism after Luxemburg, 2022, vol. 37, pp 173-185 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: This paper surveys the intellectual trajectory of the Polish political economist Włodzimierz Brus, who took up the arguments for use of the ‘price mechanism’ in socialism from the pre-War work of Oskar Lange. Brus advanced the idea that a ‘Law of Value’ applied under socialism, which would allow prices and appropriate material incentives to bring the socialist economy into equilibrium. Kalecki, however, opposed the use of cost-minimising incentives, and Brus never fully resolved the problem of how investment is to be guided in a decentralised way. A lively discussion of ‘market socialism’ did not survive the 1960s. In exile from 1972, Brus participated in China's post-Mao discussions on economic reform. But his interest in prices and markets under socialism ceased effectively with the fall of Communism at the end of the 1980s.

Keywords: Włodzimierz Brus; Oskar Lange; Michał Kalecki; market socialism; prices; incentives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:rpeczz:s0161-723020220000037011

DOI: 10.1108/S0161-723020220000037011

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