Branko Horvat

Who was Branko Horvat?

Branko Horvat was a Croatian Jewish economist and politician born in Petrinja.

Horvat was born in Petrinja on 24 July 1928. In 1944 during World War II, as a Jews, Horvat and his father Artur Horvat joined the Partisan movement in Croatia. He worked a long time at the Institute of Economic Sciences, the former Planning Institute of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He was the editor of the journal Economic Analysis and Worker’s Self-Management, and collaborator of the journal Praxis, to which he contributed much from the economic viewpoint, though he was not a member of that group. He was also a member of the Economic Institute of Zagreb.

Horvat tried to unite democratic forces on a common platform, but without much success. He was highly critical of the economic policy of the Franjo Tuđman government. He advocated a sort of market socialism, a combination of democratic socialism and a market economy. In 1992 he founded and became president of the Social Democratic Union. Horvat organized a Balkan Conference with the primary aim of restoring cooperation between Yugoslav forces.

His most widely known study is The Political Economy of Socialism.