MAURICE POTRON'S LINEAR ECONOMIC MODEL: A DE FACTO PROOF OF ‘FUNDAMENTAL MARXIAN THEOREM’

Maurice Potron was a French mathematician whose largely unknown contributions to economic analysis should be acknowledged as pioneering achievements. The purpose of this paper is to (1) reconstruct Potron's core model in terms of modern input–output analysis, (2) show that Potron proved de facto Fundamental Marxian Theorem (FMT) 48 years earlier than Morishima, Seton and Okishio by adapting the Perron–Frobenius theorems to economic problems, and (3) claim that Potron proved de facto FMT by considering heterogeneous labours 65 years earlier and even more generally than Bowles and Gintis.