Janos Kornai, emeritus professor of Harvard University and Corvinus University of Budapest, passed away on October 18, 2021, at the age of 93. He was one of the leading economists of the twentieth century. His first important economic book was his PhD thesis defended in 1956 that has been translated and published in English in 1959 titled Overcentralization in economic administration: Critical analysis based on experience in Hungarian light industry (Kornai, 1957/1994). This book provided a positive analysis of the centralised, bureaucratic mechanism of the Hungarian socialist system. Kornai remained intellectually active until the end of his life, dedicating 65 years of his intensive intellectual activity to the systematic analysis of the socialist system, its reformation and then its transformation in 1989 as well as the post-socialist transition.