 Michał Kalecki and the General TheoryDon Patinkin Chapter 3 in Kalecki’s Relevance Today, 1989, pp 25-44 from Palgrave Macmillan Abstract: Abstract In his well-known paper on the phenomenon of independent multiple scientific discoveries, Robert Merton (1961, p. 356) contended that this phenomenon constitutes the ‘dominant pattern’ in science: that indeed ‘all scientific discoveries are in principle multiples’. An example of this contention from our own discipline which is frequently given — and which was, of course, one of the major concerns of the Perugia conference — is the alleged independent discovery of Michał Kalecki of the theory which John Maynard Keynes presented in his celebrated General Theory of Employment Interest and Money (1936). (For convenience, I shall refer to this theory as the General Theory.) It is this claim that I wish to examine. In doing so, I shall place great emphasis on what I shall call the ‘central message’ of a scientist’s writings — the extent to which they show that he ‘really meant it’. Indeed, for reasons that I explain in my book (1982 Chapter 4), I claim that a scientist should not be credited with having made a discovery unless it is part of his central message. Keywords: General Theory; Business Cycle; Aggregate Demand; Central Message; Capitalist Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-10376-8_3 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-10376-8_3 Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan |
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