Kalecki and the ‘Post-Keynesians’

The term ‘post-Keynesian’ originally indicate1 the stream of thought linked to Keynes’s closer disciples, which was chiefly concerned with the relationships among distribution, accumulation and steady-growth dynamics. More recently, other economists have been gathered under this label who, though interested in different topics, refer to a core of common propositions: on one hand, the rebuttal of the neo-classical approach to value and the conception of income distribution as a phenomenon ruled by circumstances which are outside the productive process; on the other, the introduction into the Keynesian matrix — featured, first of all, by the income multiplier and by the autonomy of some components of demand — of a number of specifications and integrations (especially concerning prices and distribution) which were foreign or, at least, not explicit to it. The widening of the criterion of classification, of course, amplified the range of approaches which can be termed ‘post-Keynesian’ — from disciples of Keynes and Kalecki to some neo-Marxist branches, from those referring to Sraffa to American institutionalists, and so on — and has led to a live debate even within the stream. This state of things renders the post-Keynesian approach a source of stimulating ideas and impulses but, at the same time, makes it difficult to set up a unique theoretical corpus, a new paradigm to match the neoclassical one.