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348 Economics
43. Cf. below our considerations on the theory of growth.
44. It goes without saying that the attitude of socialist authors was in this respect
contrary.
45. There was hardly any mention of models, but like all theories, business cycle
theories were based on models giving a more or less simplified representation of
reality.
46. Another common example of statistical formalism in economics is that of calculating
the trend in a time-series by some statistical method and then promoting it to
the rank of a quantitative development law (also customary in the theories of
business cycles). Only a few theories of the dynamics of a capitalist economy correctly
assume that phenomena of growth and of business fluctuations should be
explained by the same set of variables.
47. Which explains why generals are usually preparing themselves for the last war, and
economists for the last depression.
48. I.e. an economy with a small but dynamic public sector and a private sector englobing
modern (domestic and foreign-owned) and traditional sub-sectors.
49. In economics, laboratory experiments sensu strictu cannot be made. They are
replaced by specially conceived sample surveys of increasing application although
of limited scope, and by the so-called ‘economic experiments’ carried out in socialist
countries. These consist in experimental management of selected enterprises according
to definite rules. A vast field is also being opened by simulating mathematical
models.
50. Cf. the pioneering work of 0. LANGE, Introduction to Economic Cybernetics, published
posthumously in 1965. See also L. SOLARI, ‘ModBles Cconomiques et r8gulations’,
in : The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, op. cit., pp. 384-396.
51. This, as a matter of fact, is the basic formula of KALECKI’S theory of growth of a
socialist economy. See his Zarys teorii wzrostu gospokarki socjalistywcnej, Warsaw,
second edition, 1968, and a brief account of this theory in English published
by A. Zauberman in Kyklos 3, 1966.
52. See M. KALECKI, Theory of Economic Dynamics, London, 1954.
53. ‘Disembodied technological progress’ is taken care of by the coefficient U. A quite
different problem is that of non-technological aspects of technical progress from
which, however, economists busy in drafting growth models must abstract. Cf. H.
Janne’s paper in : The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, op. cit., pp. 67-92.
54. More investment today means less consumption in the immediate future, but a
higher rate of growth and, therefore, more consumption later.
55. For a more systematic, though very condensed treatment of the subject, cf. D.
MACRAE, ‘Mathematical Models of Economic Growth’, in : The Social Sciences:
Problems and Orientations, op. cit., pp. 371-383.
56. The connexion of individual theories with practise (i.e. with economic policy) is
more or less direct. Keynes’ theory is an example of such direct connexion, but
contrary to the theories of growth, it is rather centred on short-run problems.
57. It is, to be exact, the weighted mean of capital intensity of all the projects included
in the plan. The consistency of micro-choices (i.e. of capital intensity of individual
targets) with macro-economic decision may be ensured in a parametrical way, i.e.
through the introduction into the calculus of comparative advantages of investment
variants of a national recoupment period of capital. The greater the availabilities
of manpower, the shorter should be the recoupment period.
58. By efficient techniques, we mean techniques which are best at the given moment,
i.e. using the minimum quantity of labour for a given outlay of capital, or vice
versa, when there is a sufficiently large number of points, with regard to the economy
as a whole, to form a convex curve.
59. Change of time horizon changes the data of the problem.
60. Also because of our familiarity with Kalecki’s theory, as all three of us had the
privilege of participating in his seminars for a number of years.
61. This concept is given different connotations by different authors. Cf. R. NURKSE