Sraffa and the Reconstruction of Economic Theory: Volume Three Sraffa’s Legacy: Interpretations and Historical Perspectives Edited by Enrico Sergio Levrero Antonella Palumbo and Antonella Stirati Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Victoria - PalgraveConnect - 2014-05-24 Victoria - PalgraveConnect of - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright 10.1057/9781137314048 - Sraffa and the Reconstruction of Economic Theory: Volume Three, Edited by Enrico Sergio Levrero, Antonella Palumbo and Antonella Stirati Contents List of Tables and Figures vii Preface ix Acknowledgements xi List of Contributors xii Introduction 1 Antonella Stirati Part I Sraffa’s Contribution and Contemporary Streams in Economic Analysis 1 Sraffa’s System in Relation to Some Main Currents in Unorthodox Economics 15 Tony Aspromourgos 2 Sraffians, other Post-Keynesians, and the Controversy over Centres of Gravitation 34 Marc Lavoie 3 Piero Sraffa and Shackle’s Years of High Theory: Sraffa’s Significance in the History of Economic Theories 55 Heinrich Bortis 4 Sraffa’s and Wittgenstein’s Reciprocal Influences: Forms of Life and Snapshots 84 Richard Arena 5 Sraffa, Sen and Non-Causal Representations in Social Analysis 106 Andrea Ginzburg 6 Disequilibrium and Reproduction Prices: Some Extensions of Sraffa’s Model 129 Carlo Benetti, Christian Bidard and Edith Klimovsky - 2014-05-24 Victoria - PalgraveConnect of - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright Part II The Evolution of Sraffa’s Ideas and the Manuscripts 7 Piero Sraffa and the Future of Economics: A Personal Evaluation 153 Luigi L. Pasinetti v 10.1057/9781137314048 - Sraffa and the Reconstruction of Economic Theory: Volume Three, Edited by Enrico Sergio Levrero, Antonella Palumbo and Antonella Stirati vi Contents 8 Sraffa’s Lectures on Continental Banking 174 Marcello de Cecco 9 The Construction of Long-Run Market Supply Curves: Some Notes on Sraffa’s Critique of Partial Equilibrium Analysis 189 Giuseppe Freni and Neri Salvadori 10 A Pictorial Approach to the Standard Commodity with a Digression 217 Giorgio Gilibert 11 On Sraffa’s ‘Corrected’ Organic Composition of Capital 228 Scott Carter Part III Sraffa’s Legacy and the Interpretation of Ricardo 12 Rent, as Share of Produce, Not Governed by Proportions 261 Christian Gehrke 13 Ricardo’s Writings in Russia: Influence and Interpretations 281 Gennady Bogomazov and Denis Melnik Index 301 Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Victoria - PalgraveConnect - 2014-05-24 Victoria - PalgraveConnect of - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright 10.1057/9781137314048 - Sraffa and the Reconstruction of Economic Theory: Volume Three, Edited by Enrico Sergio Levrero, Antonella Palumbo and Antonella Stirati List of Contributors Richard Arena, GREDEG (University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and CNRS), MSHS Sud Est, France Tony Aspromourgos, University of Sydney, Australia Carlo Benetti, EconomiX, University of Paris Ouest, Nanterre La Défense, France Christian Bidard, EconomiX, University of Paris Ouest, Nanterre La Défense, France Gennady Bogomazov, Saint Petersburg State University, Russia Heinrich Bortis, Université de Fribourg, Switzerland Scott Carter, University of Tulsa, USA Marcello de Cecco, Scuola normale superiore di Pisa and LUISS, Italy Giuseppe Freni, University of Naples Pathenope, Italy Christian Gehrke, University of Graz, Austria Giorgio Gilibert, University of Trieste, Italy Andrea Ginzburg, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy Edith Klimovsky, Department of Economics, Metropolitan Autonomous University, Azcapotzalco Campus (U.A.M-A), Mexico City, Mexico Marc Lavoie, Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Canada Denis Melnik, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia Luigi L. Pasinetti, Università Cattolica, Milan, Italy Neri Salvadori, University of Pisa, Italy Antonella Stirati, Roma Tre University, Italy - 2014-05-24 Victoria - PalgraveConnect of - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright xii 10.1057/9781137314048 - Sraffa and the Reconstruction of Economic Theory: Volume Three, Edited by Enrico Sergio Levrero, Antonella Palumbo and Antonella Stirati Introduction Antonella Stirati The papers collected in this volume discuss aspects of Sraffa’s contribu- tion per se and in connection with other currents in economic analysis and method and the history of economic thought. The articles in the first part of the volume present and discuss inter- pretations of Sraffa’s overall contribution in relation to other streams in modern economic thinking and methodological debates. Some major threads recur in these contributions: the relationship with the Keynesian revolution in the theory of output and its Post-Keynesian developments (Aspromourgos, Lavoie, Bortis); the interpretation of Sraffa’s prices and the assumption of a uniform rate of profit (Aspromourgos, Lavoie, Benetti et al., Arena); the interpretation of Sraffa’s method of analysis in connec- tion with his theory of value and distribution (Arena, Ginzburg). The contributions in the second part dwell on Sraffa’s views as they manifested and evolved over time both in general (Pasinetti) and on specific themes, such as money and banking (De Cecco), the 1925 cri- tique to Marshall’s theory of returns (Freni and Salvadori), the role of the standard system and standard commodity (Gilibert); his intellectual efforts to eventually arrive at the construction of the standard system and the role of his re-definition of the organic composition of capital in the process (Carter). Several of these contributions make use of Sraffa’s unpublished manuscripts as either the main or one of their sources. Finally, the third part comprises a contribution to the interpretation - 2014-05-24 Victoria - PalgraveConnect of - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright of Ricardo on rent as a share of produce in the course of growth inspired by Sraffa’s edition of Ricardo (Gehrke), and a historical and analytical discussion of the main interpretations of Ricardo in Russia from the mid-nineteenth century to the present (Bogomazov and Melnik). Concerning Sraffa’s overall contribution, several papers in the volume – by Aspromourgos, Bortis and Pasinetti – explicitly remind us of its 1 10.1057/9781137314048 - Sraffa and the Reconstruction of Economic Theory: Volume Three, Edited by Enrico Sergio Levrero, Antonella Palumbo and Antonella Stirati 2 Introduction twofold general meaning. In Aspromourgos’s words: ‘On the one hand, it reconstructs with a new coherence at least a foundational element of classical economics … On the other hand … entails a critique of the marginal theory … in so far as the latter relies upon well behaved substitutability between factors of production’ (p. 15). They also remind us of its narrow scope, yet of its extreme complexity and foundational importance. While this appears to be common ground for all the con- tributions to the volume, in other respects these contributions witness to a variety of approaches. Sraffa’s foundations for a criticism of marginal theory, that is, of the possibility of deriving decreasing demand schedules for ‘productive factors’ are discussed and developed in Volume 1 of the present collec- tion. What can be observed here in regard to the relationship between the critique of marginalism, subsequently developed in particular by Garegnani and Pasinetti, and other currents in non-orthodox economic thought, is that on the one hand it is sometimes a source of tension, with some Keynesians insisting on uncertainty as the most relevant crit- icism to mainstream theory, as noted in the papers by Aspromourgos, Lavoie and Bortis. Many however acknowledge the role of the criticism for research inspired by Keynesian theory. Lavoie recalls that both the critical and constructive contributions by Sraffa have strong historical and analytical links with the development of Post-Keynesian econom- ics, and the capital controversies of the 1960s were very important as the point where the latter parted with the mainstream and emerged with a distinct identity. Several contributions in this volume agree in emphasising that Sraffa’s contribution provides full theoretical legiti- macy to the role of the Keynesian principle of effective demand in the determination of output not only in the short but also in the long run (this area of research is the main focus of Volume 2 of the present collec- tion). The latter is common ground for Post-Keynesians and Sraffians, and so are its economic policy implications. Concerning this subject of investigation, open questions remain as to the most appropriate way to analyse the role of effective demand in accumulation processes in gen- eral, and in particular the determinants of investment, and the extent to which in the long run aggregate investment should be regarded as an - 2014-05-24 Victoria - PalgraveConnect of - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright autonomous component of demand or if it should instead be regarded as entirely induced (Aspromourgos, p. 25; Lavoie p. 46) Also, according to Lavoie, some of the divisions between post- Keynesian and Sraffian economists depend on a number of serious mis- interpretations. Yet, differences around important analytical problems remain, particularly revolving around the assumption of uniform profit 10.1057/9781137314048 - Sraffa