The year was 1965. Professor Lange was terminally ill. He will pass away soon. He realized that his life was coming to an end and that there was a serious crisis of the economy based on planning through central ministries bureaucracy about to begin. He wrote his last articles in the striking anticipation of the 21th century digital world and its unlimited possibilities for creating and destroying the wealth of the nations. He asked his students to continue this work. He desperateły wanted to win the future for Poland!
Oskar Richard Lange came from a Polish-German family. His parents belonged to this part of the Polish Germans who joined the polonisation movement. As a result, he spoke fluently Polish already as a child and of course learned German too. He was born as the son of the Protestant textile manufacturer Arthur Julius Lange and his wife Sophie Albertine (her maden name was Rosner) on July 27, 1904 in Thomasov (Tomaszów Mazowiecki, the German name of the town: Tomaschow). The hometown of the future great thinker was founded by the Polish nobleman Count Ostrowski and brought to a moderate level of prosperity by people like his father.
Oskar fell on ill with tuberculosis at very early age and had to be treated intensively
The parents had to force him to a home lock-down in his room and later find a way to save the unfortunate child. That's why he started reading books since he was a little boy. Tuberculosis was incurable at the time, but there were a handful of medicine doctors who could delay the inevitable early death for a quite long time. He was sent to a sanatorium in Switzerland and so he was able to avoid the horrors of the First World War in Congress Poland.
The more he was shocked when he was able to return home in 1918, and was confronted with the factories looted by the Imperial German Army and the misery of the common people in central Poland. This experience has influenced him for his entire life. He became Polish patriot and socialist. As the son of a manufacturer, he was interested in industry and economics and made the decision to devote himself to developing a wonderful economic theory for Poland.
He wanted that in the future small people would never have to go hungry or suffer extreme poverty and that is why he became a political economist
After graduating from high school, this incredibly gifted and hardworking young man began to make a meteoric career in science. He studied in Posnan and Krakow, and then completed post-graduate studies in London. Since 1931 he was a lecturer at the Jagiellonian University. In 1937 he went to the United States of America thanks to the Rockefeller Scholarship. After completing his additional studies, from 1938 to 1945, Lange worked as a professor at the University of Chicago.
The bulk of Lange's personal development and his first main contributions to economics came during his British and American years of 1934–45
During his American years he contributed to the neoclassical theory of price, to the first Chicago school of economics, and the theory of general economic equilibrium. He initiated and won the world-wide famous socialist calculation debate with the Austrian School economists.
Due to the fact that he was in America, he avoided the horrors of the World War again, but he was hardly able to avoid the ruthless political struggle over the Polish cause, which took place during the years 1943-45
As an eminently intelligent man, Lange quickly realized that Roosevelt and Churchill had decided to hand over Poland to Stalin. In 1944, he decided to establish closer contacts with the communists who, thanks to the influence of Wanda Wasilewska on Stalin, formed the Polish Army on the Eastern Front. Another famous Polish citizen active in the United States, Bolesław (Bill) Gebert, played the role of an intermediary between Lange and the Union of Polish Patriots, which was under the decisive influence of communists. As an activist of the US Communist Party and a journalist for its press, Gebert was obviously associated with the Soviet secret services but it was, however, also of advantage for people who wanted do somethimg for Poland.
Thanks to his close acquaintance with Gebert and the favor of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Lange met with FDR and then with Stalin in order to convince them to secure Poland a favorable position under the new international system
As we write or speak about this chapter in the Polish history we must make it quite plain to our listeners or readers that any solution proposed in regard the firmly discussed — then and now — policies of the after-war Warsaw regime which would be unacceptable for Marshall Stalin, was carefully avoided by all his four Western counterparts: Roosevelt, Churchill, Attlee and Truman. All of them were damned tired with all those hardly understandable trouble makers from Eastern Europe but, on the other hand, satisfied with a talk with someone of them who spoke clear and polished English putting quite reasonable arguments as well as modest demands on the table.
The wise man understood very well his own situation and the situation of working and fighting in the West countrymen. They had a hard choice to make: to vehemently oppose the things which became unavoidable or to help to heal the nations wounds. It’s no need to be sarcastic about the choice which many Polish patriots made in the face of such an alternative, especially if you want be called a patriot too.
Well! My country, right or wrong, bad or good my country!
Oskar Richard Lange was never a traitor. He was a follower of political realism and never ceased be the member of the old patriotic Polish Socialist Party. As his Party was united with the Polish Workers Party to create the leadership of New Poland, he wasn’t against that. The twelve years of the Stalinist regime wasn’t most joyful in the Polish history. The ancient Polish towns, the great and greatly respected for heroic attitude of many generations of their almost entirely Polish inhabitants big cities of Vilna and Leopolis were doomed to became the part of the only Slavic great power. Many thousands of patriots were incarcerated, beaten and murdered by the regime composed in a huge extent by an alien people who seldom wanted to be the grateful guests of Polish nation. Among their victims were also men of peace who don’t deserved that kind of persecution at all.
On the other hand the same regime was a force which converted the retreat into advance
… in the economic and social field as well, also in the everyday life of ordinary people. It created an harsh but efficient framework under which the great nation was about to revive and prosper once again. Huge unemployment rates and extreme hardships in the living conditions were quickly eliminated thanks to, among other things, the consulting provided by experienced economic advisors, including for Oskar Lange.
Sometimes he had to think; not, I can’t take it, it is too much, the everyday pledge of loyalty to these stubborn fanatics but… His total and consuming loyalty was indeed only for this one country, his home country. It was quite possible to him to stay in United States, to be a part of total opposition to this often extremely unpleasant New Poland, where he was unable to take any governmental post. Being, however, aware that he has much more important role to play, namely to be a high-ranking teacher and economic advisor in Warsaw – and it had a great success once again during the reign of the second Polish Communist leader who agreed to build up the mixed economic model in the tired by too radical experiments country, he had to endure all this calmly.
We must like this choice more every day as we see how Poland and many other countries was ruined by various editions of the so-called shock therapy during the early 1990s, as well as the grave economic mistakes (if there’s not something worse behind) made during the present-time WHO pandemic
Since 1957 Lange’s noble citizen’s attitude and his efforts were at least properly appreciated
He was decorated and received a really high, but only titular position. His new function did not require much work but provided high income, company cars, etc. The genius economist could use his money and free time to treat the effects of tuberculosis, for scientific work and journalism as well.
Most unfortunately, however, the Polish communist leader Gomulka ceased to hear on him. His initial attempts to introduce the provided by Lange’s long scientifical work market socialism in the People’s Republic of Poland were stopped and reverted. The professor didn’t protested. He was in an increasingly bad shape and still had some hope for a good change. Let’s see what good it does… October 2, 1965. On that day, the great heart stopped beating for Poland, and the world lost one of the greatest minds of the 20th century.
Today, as we witness the revival of Neo-Marxian economics...
… being surprisingly combined with some most valuable principles of the Austrian School, it’s high time to familiarize the wider public and hopefully also the media with Lange’s ideas for the better future of Poland and perhaps also the world. To be continued… Also in our at least two or three next essays.
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