Piero Sraffa - Free

28 Piero Sraffanot something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, newlanguage-games, as we may say, come into existence, and others becomeobsolete and get forgotten’. In general, ‘the meaning of a word is its usein the language’. However, words do not correspond to simple elementsof reality, and these simple elements cannot be defined; nor is it possibleto produce a general theory of language. Wittgenstein demonstratedthese theses with a series of examples of ‘language games’ – theoreticalmodels focusing attention on particular aspects of the real language,presenting them as the general language of a group of people.We shall see later on (§ 3.4) how the changes in Wittgenstein’sphilosophical position can be compared with the differences betweenthe marginalist approach of general economic equilibrium and Sraffa’stheoretical contribution. Here suffice it to point out that the Austrianphilosopher’s initial position prompted some critical remarks fromthe Italian economist, which were to play an important role inWittgenstein’s subsequent thinking. We may perhaps detect Sraffa’spolitical interests behind his opposition to an a priori theory of language,and his preference for a theory open to recognition of the roleplayed by social factors (the environment within which the ‘languagegame’ takes place). Although it is difficult to specify its precise naturegiven the scant documentation, there can be no doubt that Sraffa hada significant influence on Wittgenstein’s thinking, and in this way onthe course of contemporary philosophy. 92.3 Friendship with Keynes and criticism of HayekAfter Gramsci and Wittgenstein, the third protagonist of the twentiethcentury culture who had fecund exchange with Sraffa was JohnMaynard Keynes, though in a rather different way. In the first place,it came within Sraffa’s own field of professional research, economics;secondly, while the evidence shows fruitful communication in bothdirections, it seems probable that Keynes – who was 15 years older –played the major role.Keynes was of great help to Sraffa on various occasions: he asked Sraffafor a contribution for the Manchester Guardian Supplement (Sraffa 1922b),and decided to publish the 24-year old Italian economist’s 1922 paperin the prestigious Economic Journal (Sraffa 1922a). Again, it was Keyneswho asked him – although acting on a suggestion of Edgeworth’s – for the9The Sraffa-Wittgenstein correspondence recently acquired by Trinity College(Cambridge) might cast further light on this.An Italian in Cambridge 29paper criticising the Marshallian theory of the firm which came out inthe Economic Journal in December 1926; he also called him to Cambridge,had the Royal Economic Society entrust him with the editing of thecritical edition of Ricardo’s Works and Correspondence (Ricardo 1951–5)and found him congenial roles such as director of research and librarian,as well as helping him get released from the detention camp Sraffahad been sent to as ‘enemy alien’ when Italy went to war. Sraffa’s onlyco-authored publication was with Keynes: both were keen bibliophiles, 10and in 1938 they edited the reprint of an extremely rare booklet, AnAbstract of a Treatise of Human Nature, complete with a learned introductioncontaining decisive proof for its attribution to Hume rather thanAdam Smith, as was previously supposed (Hume 1938). 11 Sraffa also tookcare of the Italian edition (1925) of Keynes’ (1923) Tract on MonetaryReform, and played a primary role in stimulating the publication inItalian of other writings of the Cambridge economist.More relevant to our immediate concern, however, was the culturalexchange in the field of economic theory. Four episodes deserveparticular attention.The first, referred to earlier (§ 1.1), was the likely influence on Keynesof an idea developed by Sraffa in his graduate thesis, i.e. the distinctionbetween the stabilisation of money in relation to the level of domesticprices and in relation to the exchange rate.10Sraffa’s magnificent library, bequeathed to Trinity College, included somerare, occasionally unique, gems, such as the first-edition copy of Smith’s Theoryof Moral Sentiments which had been owned by Madame de Pompadour, or thefirst-edition copy of Marx’s Capital, vol. 1, with Marx’s handwritten dedication tothe German Communist Party successor of the League for which he and Engelshad written the Manifesto, or one of the three original typewritten copies ofWittgenstein’s Blue and Brown Books, and so on. Sraffa had the habit of buying(and occasionally selling at a profit) first-edition copies of Ricardo’s Principlesof Political Economy and Taxation, Keynes’s General Theory and Wittgenstein’sTractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in search of copies with special features or as areserve for gifts to friends. Once he bought, for a few pounds, an item advertisedin the bookseller’s catalogue as something like ‘List of commodities sequesteredon board of […] with on the back some notes on […]’ which from the descriptionSraffa had realised was a manuscript of William Petty’s.11As Sen (2004: 41) stresses, there are certain important similarities in approachbetween Hume and the two editors of his pamphlet; the latter two, in theirIntroduction, ‘focus particularly on the influence of custom as opposed to reasonon our thinking’; a few pages earlier, Sen (2004: 26) recalls Sraffa, in privateconversation, telling him: ‘aren’t people creatures of habit, rather than reflectivechoosers?’ This is, of course, an important element underlying Sraffa’s oppositionto the marginalist representation of consumers’ behaviour.