He offered a synthesis that integrated class analysis of Marxism and the new literature on oligopoly theory, and his work had a significant influence on both the neo-Marxian (Monopoly Capital)[2] and post-Keynesian schools of economic thought.

In 1929 Kalecki applied for work at the Institute of Research on Business Cycles and Prices (Instytut Badania Koniunktur Gospodarczych i Cen) in Warsaw and obtained a job there because of his ability to use statistics.

In 1933 Kalecki wrote Próba teorii koniunktury ('An Attempt at the Theory of the Business Cycle'), an essay that brought together many of the issues that dominated his thought for the rest of his life.

"[7] Except for a small number of economists (in particular econometricians) familiar with his work, Kalecki's contributions, originally in Polish, failed to gain recognition.

[4] In October 1933 he read his essay to the International Econometrics Association in Leiden and in 1935 published it in two major journals: Revue d'Economie Politique and Econometrica.

Although his conception changed through the years, all the essential elements of Kaleckian economics were already present in this work: in a sense his subsequent publications would consist of mere elaborations on the ideas propounded here.

While Kalecki was generally enthusiastic about the Keynesian Revolution, in his article Political Aspects of Full Employment, which Anatole Kaletsky called one of the most prescient economic papers ever published, he predicted it would not endure.

He was instrumental in the establishment and functioning of the Department of Economic Problems in Developing Countries, operated jointly by Warsaw University and the School of Planning and Statistics.

Kalecki gave a University Lecture on the theories of growth under various social systems, after which he was greatly applauded for the soundness of his arguments as well as for the overall trajectory of his life.

[4][6] Keynes had said that knowledge of the laws governing capitalist economy would make people more prosperous, happy and more responsible regarding economic decisions taken.

Kalecki contested this view, arguing that the idea of political business cycle (governments can force situations to their advantage) seems to point in the opposite direction.

Michał Kalecki died on 18 April 1970 at the age of 70, and although he was bitterly disappointed with political developments, he lived long enough to see the recognition of the value of his many original contributions to economics.

He demanded perfection, or at least an unalloyed commitment to that goal, he could not tolerate slovenly thought or superficial minds, and, most significant, he simply would not compromise his principles.

Looking back over his troubled years, Kalecki once made the sad but true observation that the story of his life could be compressed into a series of resignations in protest-against tyranny, prejudice, and oppression.

He was contemptuous of abstract research and declined Keynes's invitation to undertake a critique of Jan Tinbergen's econometric business cycle work, for which he would also lack an in-depth knowledge of statistical theory.

Their class instinct tells them that lasting full employment is unsound from their point of view and that unemployment is an integral part of the normal capitalist system.'

[18][19] The economics of Kalecki was based, more explicitly and systematically than that of Keynes, on the principle of the circular flow of income that goes back to the Physiocrat François Quesnay.

Quesnay's circular flow of income fell into disrepute in the political economy of the 19th century, when the idea that prices integrate exchange decisions gained ground, but was revived by Joseph Schumpeter, who pointed out the necessity of considering the circular flow of income (recognition of the economic cycle) as an integrating factor in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the total economic process in a given period.

[b] Economist Jan Toporowski said that Kalecki's theory of the business cycle remains "the most serious challenge to general equilibrium macroeconomics", which has prevailed since the late 19th century.

More than Keynes, Kalecki was skeptical about government's ability to sustain fiscal and monetary stimulus policies or of business support for full employment.

Polish economist Oskar Lange, who worked with Kalecki also on centrally planned socialist economies of the Soviet Bloc, characterized him as a "leftist Keynesian".

Unlike Keynes, who followed the partial equilibrium approach, for Kalecki economic dynamics was synonymous with the business cycle, where "the circular flow of income generates cumulative changes from one period to the next".

Kalecki and Lange stressed the necessity of analysis of actually-functioning capitalism in both the advanced and developing countries, before economic theories could be built or courses of action prescribed.

Although in most of his articles he returned to the same subjects (business cycles, determinants of investment, socialist planning), he often did it from a slightly unusual perspective and with original contributions.

Kalecki, whose early influences came from Marxian economists,[24] thought that the volume of profits and their sharing in a capitalist society were vital points to be treated.

This followed from Karl Marx's work on relationships such as the rate of surplus value or the organic composition of capital (and even a forecast about the overall trend of profits).

To do this, Kalecki assumes that industries compete in imperfectly competitive markets, more particularly in oligopolistic markets where firms set a mark-up on their variable average costs (raw materials, wages of employees on the shop floor that are supposed to be variable) in order to cover their overhead costs (salaries to senior management and administration), to obtain a certain amount of profit.

"[28]In the first half of the 1990s, Oxford University Press published 7 volumes of Collected Works of Michal Kalecki, referring to him as "one of the most distinguished economists of the 20th century."

[29] a.^ British economist Jan Toporowski spoke of "the inability of capitalism to secure the rational use of resources because of the blocking political, social and financial power of the capitalist class", a phenomenon expounded by Kalecki in carefully reasoned analysis, without resorting to the presently commonly practiced accusations of partiality, injustice or bad faith.

Toporowski said that in the 21st century we urgently need to recover Kalecki's concepts and the rule of the circular flow of income as an integrating factor of macroeconomic analysis.