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146 Piero Sraffaconcentrating on ‘the “primary and natural” features’ of the economicsystem, by which he means ‘the conditions under which it may growand take advantage of exploiting all its potential possibilities’ (1981: 25).A model of non-proportional growth based on the full employmentassumption is used to identify such conditions, interpreted as ‘necessaryrequirements for equilibrium growth’ (1981: 25). Specifically, inany vertically integrated sector the ‘natural’ rate of profit – which differsfrom sector to sector – must be such as to ensure an amount of profitsequal to the ‘equilibrium’ value of investments, that is, to the amountof investments required to expand productive capacity at a rate equalto ‘the rate of population growth’ plus ‘the rate of increase of per capitademand for each consumption good’ (1981: 130).To explain changes over time in the structure of demand, Pasinettidraws on ‘Engel’s law’, thus avoiding any reference to subjective elementssuch as utility maps and consumers’ preferences. In equilibrium,the increase in per capita income and demand corresponds to theincrease in per capita product due to technical progress (which canproceed at a different pace in different sectors).In this context the notion of equilibrium assumes a normative significance,linked as it is to the assumption of a full employment ofthe available labour force and productive capacity (cf. also 1981: 96–7,where the ‘dynamic’ equilibrium corresponds to the conditions allowingfor continuous full employment over time). In other words, Pasinetti’sanalysis focuses on what should happen to ensure full employment,not on the actual behaviour of an economic system necessarily tied tospecific institutions.From this point of view the issue of the relationship between theshort and the long period is discussed: ‘the very nature of the process oflong run growth requires a structural dynamics which leads to difficultiesin the short run’. Hence the methodological suggestion ‘of singlingout first the fundamental structural dynamics which must take placeand then of trying to facilitate them’ (Pasinetti 1981: 243–4): a suggestionwhich tends to affirm the priority of normative analysis.All this is not to deny the possibility and usefulness of a directanalysis of ‘short period’ issues, or more generally of the – certainlynot optimal – way of functioning of concrete economies. In fact,various hints in Pasinetti’s writings point in this direction. 21 Butthere is no doubt that, compared to the long-run normative analysisdiscussed above, such hints are far less developed: they appear to21Cf. Pasinetti (1981, particularly the final four chapters; 1993; 2007, Chapter 11).The Sraffa Legacy 147constitute a second stage of analysis, subsequent to that decisive firststage which is the object of systematic formal analysis in Pasinetti’swork.Another aspect of Pasinetti’s research concerns international economicrelations. Among other things, in the treatment of this theme wecan clearly see emerging a central element in which Pasinetti’s views onthe way of functioning of modern economies differ from those characterisingclassical political economy, namely the nature of the wealth ofnations. Using his model, Pasinetti shows that ‘trade’ (i.e., the Ricardianprinciple of the exploitation of comparative advantages among differentcountries involved in international trade) is ‘a secondary source ofinternational gain’, while ‘the primary source’ is given by ‘internationallearning’ of technical knowledge. 22 Hence the distinction mentionedabove:In a pre-industrial society, wealth is mainly a stock of materialgoods – something that people have inherited from the past orhave appropriated from ‘nature’ […] But the wealth of an industrialnation is something quite different, or rather it is somethingdeeper. It is not so much the material goods that people have; it isthe technical knowledge on how to make them […] If, in the preindustrialworld, the main way for a country to increase its wealthwas to dominate and exploit its neighbours, today it has become toemulate them and do better.(Pasinetti 1981: 275–6)8.5 The ‘Marxian’ reconstruction: GaregnaniSome economists are convinced that the potentially most fruitful way topursue the reconstruction of classical political economy along the linestarted by Sraffa consists in restoring Marx’s vision to a primary positionwithin the classical approach re-proposed by Sraffa. As Garegnani(1981: 113) puts it, ‘a revival of the Classical economists’ theoreticalapproach cannot […] take place but starting from the highest point ofdevelopment which such an approach received in the past: the pointwhich was reached with Marx’.22Pasinetti (1981: 283 ff). On the role of learning as a human right, and thefree communication of achieved knowledge as a social duty, cf. also Pasinetti(2007: 356–8).