Item #248 A gazdasági vezetés túlzott centralizálása. Kritikai elemzés könnyüipari tapasztalatok alapján. / A gazdasági vezetés túlzott centralizálása. Kritikai elemzés könnyűipari tapasztalatok alapján. [Overcentralization in Economical Administration. A Critical Analysis Based on Experience in Hungarian Light Industry.]. János Kornai.
First Critical Study on the Command Economics of Eastern Europe

A gazdasági vezetés túlzott centralizálása. Kritikai elemzés könnyüipari tapasztalatok alapján. / A gazdasági vezetés túlzott centralizálása. Kritikai elemzés könnyűipari tapasztalatok alapján. [Overcentralization in Economical Administration. A Critical Analysis Based on Experience in Hungarian Light Industry.]

Budapest: Közgazdasági és Jogi Kiadó, 1957. First edition of Kornai’s first book. In paper, with original dust jacket, restored. 206, (1), [1] p. Former library copy. Underlines and marginal notes occasionally. Otherwise a fine copy.

János Kornai (1928–) was the first economist behind the Iron Curtain who published critical studies on the Soviet-style command economics of Eastern Europe.

Kornai studied philosophy in Budapest, but – according to his memoirs – he chose to be an economist after reading Marx’s Capital. Started his career as a journalist and soon became the economics editor of the largest Communist newspaper. After a few years, in 1955 he was fired for lack of Communist convictions. In 1956 he participated in the Hungarian Revolution.

This book has been published in February 1957, although the manuscript was at the press already in mid October 1956, the delay was due to the 1956 Revolution and the chaotic political situation. Kornai’s critical thoughts on central planning that he explained in this work (which was also his PhD thesis) started to spread in the West (especially after the English edition in 1959) and his career took off outside Hungary. Kornai received many invitations to visit foreign institutions, but he was denied a passport by the Hungarian authorities and was not allowed to travel until 1963. Later he became visiting professor at the London School of Economics, at Yale, Stanford, Princeton and other Universities all over the world, and in 1986 Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

[Blanchard, Olivier: An Interview with János Kornai. Macroeconomic Dynamics, vol 3/3. 1999; Kornai, János: By Force of Thought. MIT, 2007.]

.

Price: €800.00

See all items in Communism, Economics, Science
See all items by