Kornai and Hayek

[Eric Pawlett]

" However, I would like here to emphasize particularly four names, those
of Marx, Schumpeter, Keynes and Hayek since they have exerted the
greatest influence on my ideas and on the method of approach to the
problems employed in this book."
--Janos Kornai "The Socialist System" pg xx. Princeton University Press.
1992.
Kornai has come full circle. I wouldn't call him a Hayekian but ,as he
says, he is deeply influenced by Hayek and it is evident in his latest
work.Kornai's latest book could have been written word for word by any
neo-liberal. Kornai ended up endorsing "shock therapy" for the former
Soviet Bloc as well as Cuba and the other M-L states. As we have seen,
the results of shock therapy have been,on the whole, disastrous.See the
article by Peter Gowan in New Left Review from about a year ago. Also
consult Kotz and Weir's new book if you are not convinced.So I ask,where
to from here Kornai?Back to Marx? One of the more amusing sections of
Kornai's book "The Socialist System" is his analysis of property rights.
He concludes that noone owned anything in the old USSR!  Brus and Laski
also admit the influence of Hayek in their book "From Marx to the
Market". They ,though, still refer to themselves as Marxists and hold
out hope for some form of market socialism based on the E.European
experience which they analyze in their book(s). Kornai's argument as
irrefutable? Well, as Quine argued, no statement is immune from
empirical revision.Mike Lebowitz takes a stab at it in his paper "The
Socialist Fetter:A Cautionary Tale" from the Socialist Register 1992,  I
Believe. There was also a good critical review of Kornai by a Polish
economist in a recent issue of the journal "Economics and
Philosophy"('bout a year ago I think.)
Pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will!
Sam Pawlett.
.