Kalecki and Kowalik on the Dilemma of ‘Crucial Reform’ in the United States and Poland

This chapter reflects on one of the recurrent themes in the work of Michał Kalecki and Tadeusz Kowalik — the challenge of the ‘crucial reform.’ During World War II, Kalecki posed the question of whether capitalist growth would face a limit due to constraints emanating from tensions between capitalists and workers regarding the conditions for political consent and the conditions for sustained growth. One possibility to avoid the threatened slowdown in economic growth would be a ‘crucial reform’ in the political and economic configuration underlying the capitalist economy. In the post-war period, this crucial reform was undertaken, making possible the period of relatively sustained growth and rising wages that is often termed the ‘golden age of capitalism’ (Marglin and Schor, 1991). As events unfolded in the 1970s and 1980s, ‘golden age’ growth was undermined, and the question was posed whether another ‘crucial reform’ would be possible. This same time period brought the socialist economies of Eastern Europe face-to-face with their own need for a ‘crucial reform’.