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Kalecki on the Political Aspects of Full Employment — David Andolfatto

Summary:
Kalecki creeps into the mainstream. First it was Minsky and now Kalecki. Can Marx be far behind? I have always had pleasant interactions with David Andolfatto and he has been open to argument about MMT. He is a careful thinker and wants to be convinced, which is, of course, a good trait. While I think Kalecki's political reasons for the chronic lack of full employment in capital and the recurrent economic downturns that are quite convincing, David Andolfatto is skeptical, since as Kalecki admits that profits would be higher with a flatter employment curve.  This is where I think Marx comes it. According to Marx, capitalist expropriation of surplus value is the driver of capitalism as an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production. If that is the

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Kalecki creeps into the mainstream. First it was Minsky and now Kalecki. Can Marx be far behind?

I have always had pleasant interactions with David Andolfatto and he has been open to argument about MMT. He is a careful thinker and wants to be convinced, which is, of course, a good trait.

While I think Kalecki's political reasons for the chronic lack of full employment in capital and the recurrent economic downturns that are quite convincing, David Andolfatto is skeptical, since as Kalecki admits that profits would be higher with a flatter employment curve. 

This is where I think Marx comes it. According to Marx, capitalist expropriation of surplus value is the driver of capitalism as an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production.

If that is the case, I think there is a good case to made for it, then the question becomes what role does unemployment play in this?

Kalecki alludes to it, without citing in Marx's theory. Marxian analysis is based on social embeddness in contrast to individual agents acting in their own interest independently of other influences. Societies are structured on the basis of class, and according to Kalecki's analysis, the ownership class, under capitalism the capitalists, just as under feudalism the feudal lord, is more interested in maintaining the class structure than individual gain. They exhibit solidarity in this, in contrast to the lack of solidarity among workers. And it is in employers' interests to maintain class cohesion at the top while preventing it from arising or fracturing it at the bottom. Spartacus is their worst fear. 

MacroMania
Kalecki on the Political Aspects of Full Employment
David Andolfatto | Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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