ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the similarities and differences in the theories of Michal Kalecki, John Maynard Keynes and Joan Robinson on investment, distribution and employment. It draws on a particular short-period situation and tries to draw together the two elements in Kalecki's theory. The intellectual and personal friendship that started from that first meeting continued until Kalecki's death in 1970. In spite of personal differences, and some differences in the questions they addressed and in the type of formulations they used, there are important similarities between the theories of Kalecki and Keynes. Kalecki's interest on the business cycle, the changes in activity over a sequence of time periods, rather than in a detailed examination of employment and output in his unit period of time.
