What Can Still Be Learnt from Sraffa’s Study of Prices in a Surplus Economy?

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to assess what can still be learnt from Sraffa’s study of a surplus economy. Since the 1960s, drastic changes have occurred in our real economic system and in the meaning of what can be still called the global reproduction of this system. Today it is therefore crucial to reconsider the ability of Sraffa’s intellectual legacy to grasp the working of our present economic system, taking into account the opening of his unpublished papers in 1993. Using both Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (based on a scheme of general interdependence) and Sraffa’s criticism of Marshall’s partial equilibrium, the chapter shows that the perspective of price theory does no longer offer a sufficient scope. A broader view has to be considered trying to understand of the right approach to analyse the way the surplus of a production economy is distributed amongst social groups, within various given historical systems of institutions whether including markets or not.