Piero Sraffa: The Forgotten Brilliance

Abstract

Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities: Prelude to a Critique of Economic Theory (1960) is a brilliant exposure of Piero Sraffa, not only for that it exposes perplexities of the marginal fundamentals in deriving the supply curve as a combination of laws of returns as dark spot which disturbs the harmony of the whole, nor him who tries to resolve the inconsistencies of transmission channel in transforming value into prices of production, but precisely above all, it is his genius which paradigms a new dimension in economic science by reappraising the critical balance between production and consumption and able to tackle Ricardo’s worries of invariable measure of value by elucidating significant features of his own, a new look which is far from marginalist mechanisms of solicitation – undoubtedly the founder of alternative paradigm.  Arguments still online on his ostensible obscurity, however, it is his bright contributions which substantiate that the distribution of income cannot be determined by production scheme alone, rather it depends on other socio-economic parameters as relevant rejoinders. In that way, Marxian outline of direct political class conflict is absent in his canonical deliberation, but silent espousal of long tenured battle regarding the sharing of economic harvest in competitive capitalism is present. The present paper tries to scrutinize the whole deliberation of his celebrated research agenda where he really stands as a solitary reaper amongst the contemporary assembly of prodigies.