Kalecki and Keynes: Two Economists Who Independently Arrived at Nearly Identical Answers

In the 1930s, when the Great Depression hit, Michal Kalecki and John Maynard Keynes respectively put forward their own theories of effective demand. This article starts from Michal Kalecki to compare the two economists, explore their disputes, and examine the similarities and differences. Regarding Kalecki and Keynes, due to different perspectives in existing literature, the understanding is naturally different. Kalecki’s followers emphasize more on “Kalecki’s criticism of Keynes”, thereby highlighting Kalecki’s superiority. However, this is only one side of the coin; the other side is “Keynes’ criticism of Kalecki”. Ignoring the latter aspect may lead researchers to have a biased evaluation of Kalecki. Kalecki and Keynes have differences in theoretical construction, argumentation methods, and ideology. Nevertheless, their relationship should be complementary rather than competitive. For researchers, what is truly important is how to integrate Kalecki and Keynes to enable economic theory analysis to have a more complete picture. This is the common intellectual legacy left by the two economists to future generations.