Equality, Participation, Transition: Essays in Honour of Branko Horvat

xxii Introduction
Dame (1978), University of Paris (1978), Yale University (1984–5),
Cambridge University (1986), University of Southern California (1987),
University of California at Berkeley (1993). He has also delivered
numerous lectures at a number of universities around the world.
Since Horvat also became one of the widely recognized experts in
self-management, planning and development, he has been consultant,
at different periods of his life, to various governments. In addition to
advising his own government, he has advised the governments of Peru,
Brazil, Bangladesh, Turkey and Ukraine.
During his long career, Horvat has published an astounding number
of books, contributions to edited volumes, journal articles, papers in
conference proceedings, and articles in weekly and daily press. A large
part of his publications has been published in many foreign languages
throughout the world (see Select Bibliography).
2 Horvat the economist
Branko Horvat has been undoubtedly one of the most important and
most well-known economists of former Yugoslavia, and nowadays of
Croatia. He belongs to a category of economists which is usually
described as heterodox, though his heterodoxy has a number of distinct
features. Among these, three merits should be particularly emphasized:
his specific approach to Marxism (which led Benjamin Ward to
coin the term Marxism–Horvatism); his specific critique of neoclassical
economics; and his pronounced inclination towards inter-disciplinary
research, which received full expression in his masterpiece, The Political
Economy of Socialism (1982).
His research interests cover a great number of areas and topics,
not only in economics but also in political science, sociology, and philosophy.
In what follows, however, we will try to single out some of
Horvat’s most important contributions to economic science. Most of
these contributions fall within four broad areas: growth theory and
economic cycles, theory of the labour-managed firm, political economy
of modern societies, and ‘pure’ economic theory.
In the 1950s, at a time when a number of economists were focusing
their interest on economic growth, development, and inequality in
income distribution, Horvat was looking for optimal solutions for a
new economic system. Contrary to the prevailing view at that time,
that the volume of investment is determined by the willingness of
consumers to decrease the level of consumption, he proposed an
optimal rate of investment which would assure the highest rate of