The “Political Aspects of Full Employment” and the “‘Crucial Reform’ of Capitalism”: A Discussion with Jan Toporowski on Kalecki and Kowalik

This chapter offers a critical engagement with Jan Toporowski’s recent interpretation of Michał Kalecki’s The Political Aspects of Full Employment (1943), with a focus on its relation to the later 1970 article co-authored with Tadeusz Kowalik on the ‘crucial reform’ of capitalism. While Toporowski emphasizes continuity between Kalecki’s vision and progressive Keynesianism, this chapter argues for a fundamental rupture: in 1943 Kalecki contended that full employment was structurally incompatible with capitalism, whereas the 1970 article suggested that capitalism could be radically reformed without abolishing its foundational relations of production. The chapter reinterprets Kalecki’s evolving position through his lesser-known writings on the US economy in the 1950s and 1960s, highlighting a growing concern with the integration of labour through state intervention, militarization, and ideological conformity. Further, it situates Kalecki’s economic theory within a Marxian framework that foregrounds exploitation and labour discipline, challenging Keynesian and neoclassical views. The chapter also tracks Kowalik’s own theoretical trajectory beyond the 1970 article, especially through his later work in the Enciclopedia Einaudi, where he returns to a Marxian critique of capitalist instability and rejects the feasibility of long-term full employment under capitalism. The analysis concludes by reasserting the need for a critical theory that confronts capitalism’s systemic limits and revives the question of transformative change beyond reformism.