‘Crucial Reform’ in Post-War Socialism and Capitalism: Kowalik’s Analysis and the Polish Transition

Tadeusz Kowalik’s writings include meditations on the ‘crucial reform’ of capitalism in the middle of the 20th century, and on the possibilities for the ‘crucial reform’ of Poland’s ‘real socialism’ in the 1980s (for example, ‘In one of his earlier works Lange wrote that socialism is more concerned with objectives than with the means to achieve them. Achievement of social welfare is the central issue.’ Kowalik, 1986: p. 41). Kalecki and Kowalik wrote in 1969–1970 that capitalist society survived the middle of the 20th century via an unintended ‘crucial reform’ that dampened the anti-capitalist momentum of the working class. This chapter builds on Kalecki’s own model of capitalist accumulation and crisis, and on his pessimistic assessment of the prospects for sustained prosperity under capitalist systems with democratically elected governments. While this ‘crucial reform’ had avoided the clash between democratic politics and capitalist accumulation foreseen by Kalecki (1943, 1944b) in the midst of World War II, the Kalecki-Kowalik paper of 1969–1970 exposes a continuing concern with the fragility of capitalist economies.