Piero Sraffa - Free

152 Piero SraffaIn comparison to the ‘Smithian’ vision of reconstruction of politicaleconomy, Sraffa’s contribution can be characterised exactly along thelines illustrated in this book: that is, as a critique of the marginalist tradition,reconstruction and revival of the classical conceptual apparatusand a solution to the analytical problem constituting a feeble point inthe classical theoretical apparatus (the relationship connecting productionprices and income distribution). This problem constituted then,and continues to do so, a crucial knot – in fact, the crucial knot – forthe construction of a theoretical system based on the notion of surplus.However, it did not constitute for classical economists, nor should itconstitute today, the main objective of economic enquiry. Such anobjective should rather be located in the ‘wealth of nations’ and in thefactors determining its development over time and in different countries,especially the distribution of income and wealth (and – too oftenforgotten – the distribution of power, which has also to do with the roleof market forms) among different groups of economic agents.Sraffa’s contribution is thus decisive for the vitality of any culturalproject of a reconstruction of classical political economy. However, itshould also be recognised that in order to re-propose an interpretationof the development of the economic systems in which we live it is notsufficient to ‘build on’ the analysis developed by Sraffa in Production ofCommodities by Means of Commodities: neither in the sense of graduallyextending a basic formal model, nor in the sense of gradually extendinga restricted analytical nucleus of cause-and-effect relations. As a consequence,we should recognise that the attempt at reconstructing classicalpolitical economy can be – and should be – developed, at least in certainaspects, independently of Sraffa’s contribution.For instance, Sylos Labini (1956) rescues the classical conception ofmarket forms, based on the difficulty of entry of new firms into a givensector, rather than on the number of firms currently operating in thatsector, and analyses the factors determining the ‘barriers to entry’ facingnew firms. These factors are viewed as determining a deviation ofthe sectoral profit rate from the ‘basic’ profit rate, which would prevailunder free competition, i.e., in the case of unrestrained freedom ofentry. Such an analysis of market forms is clearly compatible with theidea of a tendency to a uniform rate of profits in the case of free competitionin all sectors. It is thus compatible with Sraffa’s analysis: in comparisonto the assumption of a uniform rate of profits, the introductionof non-competitive market forms could be considered as a secondaryapproximation. But the objective of an analysis of the barriers to entryinto the different sectors of the economy can be pursued independentlyThe Sraffa Legacy 153of an analysis of relative prices under competition, such as the one conductedby Sraffa (1960). Among other things, too direct a link betweenthe two lines of analysis, such as the attempt to simultaneously encloseboth of them within the boundaries of a single mathematical model,would have the effect of limiting the horizon of study of the barriersto entry to the determination of sectoral profit rate differentials: theseare in fact the only formal link connecting analysis of market forms toanalysis of the relation between natural prices and income distribution.On the other hand, alongside sectoral profit rate differentials, and evenmore importantly, perhaps, the analysis of market forms improves ourunderstanding of issues such as the influence of barriers to entry on thepace of technological change, on accumulation and on income distribution(especially when the nature of the barriers to entry and their levelare different in the various sectors of the economy). 29The connection between the different lines of research contributing tothe reconstruction of classical political economy (and in particular theconnection between the two lines of enquiry concerning the relationshipbetween relative prices and income distribution, and concerningmarket forms) is to be found in the reference to a common conceptualframework. This is given by the representation of the economy as acircular process, centred on the causes which allow for the productionof a surplus and determine its distribution among the different socialclasses and the different sectors of the economy, and the patterns of itsutilisation. We should also recognise that, within this common conceptualframework, it is possible to distinguish a whole series of analyticalissues, obviously connected, but best dealt with at the level of separateanalysis (although without losing sight – ‘in the back of our minds’, asKeynes used to say – of their interconnections).The analytical separability of different issues 30 opens the way to the useof different analytical areas for dealing with different analytical issues. Theidea is fairly widespread in modern science, with the noticeable exceptionof economics, where the dominant marginalist tradition favoursthe idea that all problems should be dealt with by adopting one and thesame method, namely constrained maximisation (or minimisation). 31For instance, in the study of intelligence, analysis of the interaction29Cf. Sylos Labini (1956, 1972, 1984, 2004).30This ‘separability’ is suggested in Roncaglia (1975,Chapter 7) as a possible interpretationof the method implicit in Sraffa (1960); cf. earlier, § 7.5.31This is, for instance, the main thesis of Samuelson’s Foundations, cf. Samuelson(1947: 3).