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156 Piero Sraffaof the path actually followed by the economy. Let us briefly recall threesuch aspects: market forms, monetary and financial elements and therelationship between long- and short-run issues.The first aspect, market forms, can differ from sector to sector and canbe modified, within each sector, by the very process of development.As we saw above (§ 8.6), some economists attribute to market formsa decisive influence on the actual development of economic systems.However, analysis of vertically integrated sectors leaves on a secondaryplane the possible differences in market forms in the various industries,which are recombined in varying proportions across hypothetical verticallyintegrated sectors. As a consequence, each vertically integratedsector embodies different market forms within, and we lose sight of thestrategic behavioural differences across different sectors, which mayindeed influence the shape of economic development.The second aspect consists in the limited and largely passive roleplayed by monetary and financial factors in Pasinetti’s analysis (1981,Chapter 8). These factors are, in fact, relegated to that second stage ofresearch, which should follow on analysis of the ‘natural’ properties ofan economic system. This is a logical corollary of the line of enquiryfavoured by Pasinetti: in his analysis the potentialities of developmentare defined by ‘real’ factors such as the growth of population, the paceof productivity growth and the choices of final consumers; monetaryfactors do not play any role in this account. Vice versa, the economistswithin the Keynesian tradition usually stress the relevance of the latterfactors in determining the actual path of economic development.The third aspect consists in the link between short- and long-runproblems. 33 As we saw above (§ 8.4), in Pasinetti’s analysis, short-runproblems are reserved for a secondary stage of analysis, subordinate toanalysis of the long-run problems. However, the opposite procedure –namely considering long-run tendencies as stemming from shortruntrends – appears, at least in some cases, as more appropriate tothe analysis of the evolution of actual economic systems. This holdsespecially for the employment issue, which is the central objective ofPasinetti’s analysis: ‘Keynesian’ short-run unemployment, due to shortruninsufficiency of effectual demand, implies underutilisation of availableproductive capacity, and thus negatively influences investmentsaimed at enlarging productive capacity; as a consequence, the lattermay maintain a pace insufficient to balance the growth of populationand technical progress in the long run (see Roncaglia 1988, § 8.6).33Cf. Shapiro (1984) and Pasinetti’s reply, Pasinetti (1984).The Sraffa Legacy 157Technical change itself, which in Pasinetti’s analysis is considered as anexogenous factor, is in fact influenced by the actual path of investmentsand production.The assumption of continuous full employment, which is the centralpillar of Pasinetti’s analysis, also constitutes the premise for the idea,mentioned above (§ 8.4), that the international learning of technicalknowledge constitutes the primary source of advantages stemmingfrom international economic relations. These relations, however, alsoinfluence the degree of utilisation of available productive capacity andthe pace of accumulation in the countries involved: it is only with theassumption of continuous full employment that Pasinetti can concentrateattention solely on the evolution of technical knowledge. Onceall this is recognised, the contrast perceived by Pasinetti between hisown notion of wealth of nations and the traditional one falls away.Undeniably, the classical notion attributes a central role to technicalknowledge in explaining the wealth of nations (for example, with theSmithian analysis of the division of labour). At the same time, alongsidethe stage reached by technical knowledge we must also keep in sight,precisely as classical economists used to do, the ‘material’ aspect of thewealth of nations as well, namely the actual path of production andaccumulation, once the possibility of a difference between such a pathand the potential full employment one is recognised. In other words,the notion of the wealth of nations proposed by Pasinetti, in so far as itconcentrates attention exclusively on technical knowledge, is connectedto the normative orientation of his analysis, focused on the identificationof the conditions of persistent full employment. By contrast, theclassical (Smithian) notion of wealth of nations recognises the relevanceof technical knowledge, along with other elements, in determining theactual path of development of economic systems.Of course, these remarks do not deny the usefulness of a normativeanalysis like Pasinetti’s. Rather, they point to the desirability that, alongwith such analysis, and not as a second and logically subsequent stage,attention be given also, perhaps mainly, to analyses of actual economicevents.Let us now proceed to examine the second line of enquiry illustratedabove (§ 8.5), the ‘Marxian’ one developed in particular by Garegnani.Here we leave aside, as not relevant to our purposes, the philologicalissue concerning the correctness of Garegnani’s interpretation of Marx’sthought. We focus, rather, on two related aspects, decisive for this lineof enquiry: the notion of ‘the core of the surplus theories’ and thenotion of the ‘gravitation of market prices towards natural prices’.