C of C 12-7-19 Life & Ideas of Hungarian Economist Janos Kornai
Channel: Tim Bolger
Date: 10/12/2019

Life & Ideas of Hungarian Economist Janos Kornai
under Communism, on the thirtieth anniversary of the 1989 fall of the Eastern Bloc

Meeting # 3,558 – Adam Balling presents a glimpse at twentieth century European history, economic ideas and dynamics, & recent politics, as well as a surprisingly dramatic life.



“Hungarian economist Janos Kornai, who is not a household name but a distinguished academic who wrote an autobiography, “By Force of Thought: Irregular Memoirs of An Intellectual Journey.” He was born in 1928, lived through WWII and lost relatives in the Holocaust, joining the communists party after the war. Initially a true believer, Kornai later became a critic of communism through both his study of economics and learning about Stalinist repression. 



Despite suffering persecution in the aftermath of the 1956 uprising, his ideas about central planning and chronic economic shortages under state socialism won him an audience on both sides of the Iron Curtain: perhaps unique in being able to reach Soviet bloc experts, as well as scholars in the West, both followers of Keynesianism & their more market-oriented opponents. Still alive at 91, in recent years, Kornai has spoken out against the Orban regime in Hungary.”