Foreword to the Symposium

This paper investigates a number of aspects of Piero Sraffa's early philosophical thinking by placing him within the historical materialist tradition of reasoning about the relation of ideas to the historical process. It first distinguishes Alfred Marshall's views about the historical development of ideas by addressing Marshall's responses to the criticisms of William Cunningham of the English Historical School. Marshall's concept of economics as a universal engine of discovery was rejected by Sraffa in his early writings. Sraffa's critique of Marshall is then argued to lead to two early philosophical commitments on Sraffa's part: that deductivist modes of explanation are inappropriate in economics and that economics aims to explain the underlying structures of causal interaction that had been the concern of the classical political economists. The paper closes with brief remarks on how Sraffa's later philosophical thinking might be approached.     

Sraffa and the Marshallian tradition*

Abstract

The paper retraces some of the stages in Sraffa's thinking about the work of Marshall, by drawing on unpublished material in the Sraffa archive from 1923 to 1930. It argues that Sraffa transformed his dissent – which was based on ideological grounds – into a ‘quest for the fatal error’ to demolish the logical construction of Marshallian theory. Some of his attacks were successful (for example, the critique of the relation between costs and output); other attempts failed (the critique of the ‘normal rate of profit’ and the critique of the concept of marginal productivity) since Sraffa could not find enough textual evidence to support his position.     

Marx on Ricardo: an explanation of some important misunderstandings

Ricardo's theory of value and distribution is reconstructed by proceeding along the lines of Marx's critique of Ricardo. It is thus an anti-critique of Marx's reading of Ricardo. The chapter ‘On Value’ in Ricardo's Principles is shown to be a consistent and rigorous treatment of the determinants of prices of production. According to Ricardo labor-values merely serve to approximate more elaborate standards of value. Marx's criticism is shown to rest crucially on his own misinterpretation of Ricardo's definitions and presupposes his own – faulty – theory of surplus value. Therefore Ricardo's theory can – contrary to Marx's theory of surplus value – still be regarded as a fruitful complement to Sraffa's model.     

Sraffa on Fixed Capital,Money and the Phases of Capitalism

In this paper I address some elements in Piero Sraffa's thinking that are connected to his conceptualization of the phases of capitalism. Sraffa describes various stages of capitalism using similar categories to the ones employed in the model of the economy provided in Production of Commodities. This is done by distinguishing the role of population, land and (circulating, intermediate and fixed) capital in each stage. Sraffa changed his conceptualization of fixed capital over the years, until he reached its final formulation. The conceptualizations of fixed capital that Sraffa discusses, together with his remarks on money which are made through an analogy with circulating and fixed capital, provide some elements that shed light on Sraffa's view of the dynamics of capitalism.     

Against the current: Sraffa's unpublished manuscripts and the history of economic thought *

The paper throws some new light on Sraffa's contribution, using material from his yet unpublished papers. Attention focuses on Sraffa's rediscovery of the distinct character of the classical theory of value and distribution and his refutation of the Marshallian interpretation that it is only a special case of demand and supply theory, his reformulation of the classical theory, and his criticism of the alternative neoclassical theory.     

Joan Robinson and the three cambridge revolutions

Joan Robinson's association with three Cambridge ‘revolutions’—imperfect competition, effective demand and capital theory—is examined in the context of her personal and intellectual partnership with Richard Kahn, John Maynard Keynes and Piero Sraffa. Initially, imperfect competition appeared to have successfully extended marginal analysis to all market forms. It also allowed Richard Kahn and Joan Robinson to persuade Keynes to present the main argument of The General Theory in terms of aggregate demand and aggregate supply. By the early 1950s, however, Joan Robinson had rejected the Marshallian methodology and had become a strenuous censor of neoclassical theory. In this paper the origin of her critique is traced to her reading of Sraffa's Introduction to Ricardo's Principles.     

Sraffa,Keynes and 'The Years of High Theory'

This paper argues that Shackle's interpretation of 'the years of high theory' is flawed. Shackle (1967) sees Sraffa's critique of the Marshallian theory of value only as a step in the development of the theory of imperfect competition. In the same vein, Shackle reduces the message of Keynes's General Theory to the claim that unemployment results from the existence of uncertainty and irrational expectations. Thus, Shackle leaves open the possibility that both Sraffa's critique of Marshall and Keynes's theory of effective demand do not question the internal coherence of neoclassical theory, but instead merely assert that market imperfections render it irrelevant for the analysis of the real world. This paper argues, in contrast, that the theories of Sraffa and Keynes should be interpreted as radical departures from marginalism, and represent a return to the surplus approach of classical political economy.     

Long-period Positions and Economic Change. A rejoinder

Roncaglia and Nell have criticised the interpretation of Sraffa's normal prices as centres of gravitation for actual prices. Roncaglia mainly focuses on the interpretation of the notion of gravitation in Smith and on the meaning of the ‘given outputs’ in Sraffa. Nell attempts to confine the relevance of Sraffa's theory to specific historical circumstances and to find a role for Sraffa's prices in his version of post-Keynesian price theory. This rejoinder criticises the case made by both Roncaglia and Nell, and defends Sraffa's centre of gravitation view.     

The Sraffian schools

After briefly recalling Sraffa's own contribution, the article surveys the ensuing debate, concerning both the critique of the marignalist theory, the revival of the classical approach, and the analytical contributions on specific aspects of Sraffa's 1960 book. Three lines of research for a modern reconstruction of th classical approach are then illustrated: Pasinetti's lsquo;Ricardianrsquo; reconstruction, Garegnani's lsquo;Marxianrsquo; reconstruction, and Sylos Labini's lsquo;Smithianrsquo; reconstruction. Finally, an assessment of these three research lines is provided, together with some suggestion for their integration.     

Thoreau's economic philosophy

Abstract

This paper provides an encompassing portrayal of Thoreau's economic thought. It is analyzed against the background of the history of economic thought and the economic thinking of his time. Thoreau's economic thought is an extensive examination of the ideas of classical political economy, and particularly of Jean-Baptiste Say, and it is a fundamental critique thereof. Thoreau recognizes that some aspects and foundations of the modern conception of the economy lead to an alienation of the human being from itself as well as to an alienation from nature. I demonstrate that this critique is a result of Thoreau's specific approach to the economy, which, based on his particular understanding of the human being and his philosophy of nature, seeks the meaning of the economy for human life and for nature. In this philosophical approach, which I characterize as an economic philosophy, Thoreau's deeper defiance of classical political economy and his original place within the history of economic thought are grounded. It leads Thoreau to an alternative conception of an economy of moderation, which is identified and described in detail. I conclude with considerations on the potential meaning of Thoreau's thought for current economic research.     

A Note of Thanks

This paper examines the early years of Piero Sraffa's career. Its purpose is to present

new information that may improve our undersranding of his life and work and to integrate or rectify what is already contained in the biographical essays published during the fast two decades with new data emerging from his personal papers at the Wren Library of Trinity College and from other—often related—sources.     

Sraffa and von Neumann

This paper discusses the relationship between Piero Sraffa's 1960 book and John von Neumann's 1937 paper on economic growth in the light of some of the material contained in Sraffa's unpublished papers and correspondence. It is argued that the two contributions share a similar outlook and exhibit conceptual parallels; in fact, they can both be said to belong to the 'classical' approach to the theory of value and distribution. The latter is characterized, among other things, by an asymmetric treatment of the distributive variables, the rate of return on capital and the real wage rate. Sraffa's papers show that when he came across the von Neumann model in the mid-1940s his own analysis was already quite advanced, including his analysis of joint production. The paper also contains an exchange of letters between John Richard Hicks and Sraffa on some of the issues dealt with in the latter's book.     

The Isolated State in Relation to Agriculture and Political Economy,Part III: Principles for the Determination of Rent,the Most Advantageous Rotation Period and the Value of Stands of Varying Age in Pinewoods

Abstract

Sraffa's book artfully combines an exposition of key problems of capital theory, using economic logic, with mathematical arguments, and he created a school of disciples extending his ideas by means of both methods. His analysis of single product systems has turned out essentially to be flawless, but the problems of joint production cannot simply be solved on the basis of analogies with single production. A truncation approach and a dynamic approach are discussed in order to summarise his main results, to illustrate his method and to take stock of the recent developments of the theory.     

Can We Meaningfully Speak of Changes in Price under the Regime of Changes in Techniques?

Abstract

This paper presents a simulation exercise on Sraffa's system under various types of technical changes to show that the direction of changes in prices of commodities is contingent on the choice of the numeraire. Thus, such a comparison of prices in two systems turns out to be meaningless. This result points to the arbitrary nature of the neoclassical supply functions, as they inevitably compare prices across several Sraffa systems on the basis of an arbitrarily chosen numeraire. We anticipated such a result from our reading of Sraffa as part of his ‘prelude to a critique of economic theory’.     

Sraffa: the theoretical world of the ‘old classical economists’ *

Sraffa's mature work is seen here as a re-discovery and resumption of the ‘submerged and forgotten’ approach of the ‘old classical economists from Adam Smith to Ricardo’. Wages determined by broad economic and social forces entail there product prices determined independently of demand and supply functions. Some main questions raised for the modern economists by this radical reorientation of economic theory are then considered in order to conclude that it is aginst that background that Sraffa's mature work should be set with its three main contributions, of a rediscovery of the approach, of a complete and transparent solution of the problems of price determination it raises, and of its application to the critique of neoclassical theory. Among several developments originating from Sraffa's seminal work, two are singled out for mention: (i) the possibility of deficiencies of aggregate demand in the long period no less than in the short one; this follows naturally from the abandonment of the neoclassical theory of distribution, of which the role of the interset rate in equilibrating savings and investment is a corollary; (ii) the question of the distribution of the surplus between wages and profits in a modern economy where wages are no longer confined to subsistence.     

Civilisations and Their Discontents: Political Geography and Geopolitics in the Huntington Thesis

This article considers the place of political geography and geopolitics in Samuel Huntington's celebrated work Clash of Civilizations. It is argued that Huntington's engagement with geography is fundamentally ambivalent. On the one hand, he frames his entire analysis as a form of what he calls political geography, and he invokes geographical factors in various ways throughout the entire text. At the same time, however, he explicitly discounts the significance of space or territory in the civilisational framework that he depicts. An analysis of Huntington's inconsistency in this regard contributes to a broader critique of his overall premises, logic, and conclusions. Beyond this, it provides insight into the uncertain position of geography more broadly in contemporary discourses of international relations and international security. Ultimately, I suggest that the ambivalences in the Clash of Civilizations are indicative of certain ‘fault lines’ — to borrow from Huntington's own lexicon — that have been characteristic for the American security imagination across much of the twentieth century.     

Pigou,Del Vecchio,and Sraffa: the 1955 International “Antonio Feltrinelli” Prize for the Economic and Social Sciences

In 1955, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei awarded the inaugural International “Feltrinelli” Prize for the Economic and Social Sciences to Arthur Cecil Pigou. This paper considers Gustavo Del Vecchio's active role on the selection committee in recommending Pigou for the Feltrinelli Prize and the related correspondence between Pigou, Piero Sraffa, and Del Vecchio. One of the most significant discovery reported in this paper is Sraffa's contention, expressed in an unpublished letter to Del Vecchio, that Pigou had “never been honoured in proportion to his merits.”     

The 'Sussex School' and the history of economic thought: British Intellectual History, 1750-1950

After a brief survey of the Japanese literature on Sraffa, the author explains how his own theory of the microfoundations of Keynesian macro-economics was influenced by Sraff's view of competitive markets. This view can be interpreted that firms perceive kinked demand curves. It is emphasized that Azariadis's theory of implicit contracts can explain unemployment only if we take Sraffa's not Walras's, view of competitive market.     

Culture and Economics: On Values,Economics and International Business

In his Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen compares the two basic approaches to evaluating institutions, transcendental institutionalism and realization-focused comparisons. Referring to Adam Smith's Impartial Spectator, he argues in favor of the latter and proposes the principle of open impartiality. However, this cannot solve the tension between universalism and contextualization of values that Sen has inherited from Smith. Based on recent Hegel scholarship, we argue that some of the difficulties can be resolved, considering the role Smith played in the development of Hegel's thinking. Hegel's concept of recognition plays an essential role in establishing the possibility of impartiality both on the level of consciousness and on the level of institutional intersubjectivity. Hegel's critique of Kant's formalist ethics (also considered as transcendental institutionalism by Sen) and his analysis of the civil society in the Philosophy of Right, especially his focus on associations and Estates, can serve as a model for making Sen's focus on public discourse theoretically more concise and pragmatically feasible. Hegel shows that universalistic attitudes can only emerge in specific institutional contexts.     

Volume XXXIV – 2000

In the attempt to deepen the understanding of Keynes' thought as an international macroeconomist, we explore the hypothesis of consistency between his general methodological approach to the economic material and his way of reasoning about international economic relations. As a first step toward this direction, we investigate the methodology of The Economic Consequences of the Peace and find that it reflects Keynes' attempt to cope with the attributes of the complexity characterizing the European settlement for the post-war period, e.g., 1) organic interdependence among variables at play, 2) irreducible dilemmas and situations of conflict, as well as 3) the need for external, public assistance to overcome the impasse and promote a "shared responsibilities" approach to the imbalances. Striking similarities appearing with the method of Keynes' economic diplomacy in the 1940s are shown to substantiate the current rediscovery of his plans for Bretton Woods.