Top

Published in:

2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

8. Sraffa Versus Keynes on the Method of Economics: Measurement, Homogeneity and Independence

Author : Anna Carabelli

Published in: A Reflection on Sraffa’s Revolution in Economic Theory

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

The chapter investigates the methodology Sraffa and Keynes apply in their critique of economic theories and the development of their own theory. The main focus is on their views on the measurement of economic magnitudes and the assumptions required. There are striking points of similarity in the methodology of their critique, but also contrasting approaches and divergences when they set about positively constructing their own new theory.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

previous chapter Sraffa and Wittgenstein

next chapter The Role of Sraffa Prices in Post-Keynesian Pricing Theory

Available only for authorised users

Here I use ‘method’ and ‘methodology’ interchangeably, but the terms have different meanings. The first is used more to refer to technique and how concepts are used, applied, and developed. The second refers to epistemology and the philosophy of science basis on which explanations are made. The ideas of objectivism/physicalism, rationalism, and empiricism are epistemological concepts. Heterogeneity, independence, etc. are method concepts. Here I make use of both meanings, because method and methodology are strictly connected, but the purpose of the paper is ultimately to examine the latter.

I thank both the publisher Olschki and the Einaudi Fondazione for permission to republish the article already published in the Annals of Fondazione Einaudi, 2018/2, a. 52, pp. 137–168. I also thank the Keynes Trustees and the Sraffa Trustees for permission to quote respectively from Keynes’s manuscripts held in King’s College Library, Cambridge, and Sraffa’s manuscripts held in Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge. Books in Sraffa’s library are indicated with brackets containing the number of the book under consideration as catalogued in Trinity College Library, Cambridge. I also thank the two anonymous referees for their useful comments and suggestions.

Remarkably, Sraffa took notes on Heinrich Hertz’s (1899) The Principles of Mechanics, focusing attention on the physicists’ concepts, and in particular on ‘cause’ and ‘interdependence’.

It is worthwhile to remember that Whitehead was one of the two referees of Keynes’s 1907 Dissertation The Principles of Probability; his empiricism was one of the reasons for his rejection of Keynes’s Dissertation, where an attack on the empiricist interpretation of probability (frequency) was launched.

See also the recent debate over the meaning of Sraffa’s objectivism/physicalism. Davis (2018) argues that Sraffa’s 1931 ‘Surplus Product’ paper (D3/12/7161: August 1) shows him questioning his pre-1928 view, primarily because it eliminated the concept of a measurable surplus and was inconsistent with including the role distribution played in determining commodity values.

In 1939, in the Preface to the French Edition of the General Theory, Keynes again stressed the point: ‘Say was implicitly assuming that […]’ (CW VII: xxxv). Keynes’s criticism of Pigou, in the appendix to Chapter 19 of the General Theory, is structured around the search for the existence of tacit assumptions in Pigou’s theory (CW VII: 272–275): ‘Since the tacit assumptions, which govern the application of the analysis, slip in near the outset of his argument, I will summarise his treatment up to the crucial point’ (CW VII: 272; see also 274–275 and 277).

Bellofiore, R. and Carter, S. (eds) (2014) Towards a New Understanding of Sraffa: Insight from Archival Research, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Blankenburg, S., Arena R. and Wilkinson F. (2012) ‘Piero Sraffa and “the True Object of Economics”: the Role of the Unpublished Manuscripts’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Special Issue: New Perspectives on the Work of Piero Sraffa, 36, 6, 1267–1290

Bradford, W. and Harcourt, G.C. (1997) ‘Units and Definitions’, in G.C. Harcourt and D.A. Riach (eds) A Second Edition of the General Theory, Vol. 1, London: Routledge, 107–131.

Bridgman, P. W. (1927) The Logic of Modern Physics, New York: Macmillan. [Sraffa 3617].

Carabelli, A. (1988) On Keynes’s Method, London: Macmillan.

Carabelli, A. (1991) ‘The Methodology of the Critique of the Classical Theory: Keynes on Organic Interdependence’, in B. Bateman and J. Davis (eds) Keynes and Philosophy, Aldershot: Elgar, 104–125.

Carabelli, A. (1992) ‘Organic Interdependence and Keynes’s Choice of Units in the General Theory’, in B. Gerrard and J. Hillard (eds) The Philosophy and Economics of J.M. Keynes, Aldershot: Elgar, 3–31.

Carabelli, A. (1994) ‘Keynes on Mensuration and Comparison’, in K. Vaugh (ed.) Perspectives on the History of Economic Thought, Aldershot: Elgar, 204–238

Carabelli, A. (1995) ‘Uncertainty and Measurement in Keynes: Probability and Organicness’, in S. Dow and J. Hillard (eds) Keynes, Knowledge and Uncertainty, Aldershot: Elgar, 137–160.

Carabelli, A. (2003) ‘Keynes: economics as a branch of probable logic’, in J. Runde and S. Mizuhara (eds) The Philosophy of Keynes’s Economics, London: Routledge, 216–226.

Chiodi, G. and Ditta, L. (2010) Sraffa or an Alternative Economics, London: Macmillan

Chiodi, G. and Ditta, L. (2013) ‘Sraffa and Keynes: Two Ways of Making a “revolution” in Economic Theory’, in Levrero, E.S., Palumbo A. and Stirati, A. (eds) Sraffa and the Reconstruction of Economic Theory: volume one, London: Macmillan, 218–240

Ciccone, R, Gerhrke, C. and Mongiovi, G. (eds) (2011) Sraffa and Modern Economics, New York: Routledge

Davis, J. (2018) “Sraffa on the Open vs. ‘Closed Systems’ Distinction and Causality,” Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology 35B, 153–170.

Eddington, A. S. (1928) The Nature of the Physical World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Sraffa 3080].

Hertz, H. (1899) Principles of Mechanics, London: Macmillan.

Keynes, J. M. (1972–1989) The Collected Writings, D. Moggridge and E. Johnson (eds), Macmillan: London, Vol. VII The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936); Vol. VIII A Treatise on Probability (1921); vol. XIII. The General Theory and After: Part I. Preparation, 1973; vol. XIV. The General Theory and After: Part II, Defence and Development, 1973.

Keynes, J. M. (1908) The Principles of Probability, submitted as Fellowship Dissertation to King’s College, Cambridge in Dec. 1908; Keynes MSS, King’s College Library, Cambridge

Keynes, J. M. (1907) The Principles of Probability, submitted as Fellowship Dissertation to King’s College, Cambridge in Dec. 1907; Keynes MSS, King’s College Library, Cambridge.

Keynes, J. M. MSS, King’s College Library, Cambridge.

Knight, F. H. (1924) ‘The Limitations of Scientific Method in Economics’, in R. G. Tugwell (ed.) (1924).

Kurz, H. D. (1998) ‘Against the current: Sraffa’s unpublished manuscripts and the history of economic thought’, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 5, 437–451.

Kurz, H. D. and Salvadori, N. (1998) ‘Given quantities’, in H. D. Kurz and N. Salvadori (eds) The Elgar Companion to Classical Economics, Vol. I., Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Kurz, H. D. and Salvadori, N. (2004). ‘Man from the moon’. On Sraffa’s objectivism, Economies et Societes, 35, 1545–1557.

Kurz, H. D. and Salvadori, N. (2005a) ‘Removing an “insuperable obstacle” in the way of an objectivist analysis: Sraffa’s attempts at fixed capital’, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 12, 493–523.

Kurz, H. D. and Salvadori N. (2005b) ‘Representing the Production and Circulation of Commodities in Material Terms: On Sraffa’s Objectivism’, Review of Political Economy, 17, 413–441. Reprinted in H. Kurz, L. Pasinetti, & Salvadori (eds.), Piero Sraffa: The man and the scholar). London: Routledge, 249–277.

Lutz, F. and Hague, D. C. (eds) (1961) The Theory of Capital, London: Macmillan.

Marshall, A. (1920) Principles of Economics, 8th edn, London: Macmillan.

Petty, W. (1899) [1691] Political Arithmetick, London in Petty, W. The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, Vols I–II (C. H. Hull, Ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Sraffa 1587].

Ricardo, D. (1951–1973) The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vols I–XI (ed. by P. Sraffa with the collaboration of M.H. Dobb), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Signorino, R. (2000a) ‘Method and analysis in Piero Sraffa’s 1925 critique of Marshallian economics’, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 7, 569–594.

Signorino, R. (2000b) ‘The Italian debate on Marshallian (and Paretian) economics and the intellectual roots of Piero Sraffa’s “Sulle relazioni fra costo e quantità prodotta”. A note’, History of Economic Ideas, 8, 143–157.

Signorino, R. (2001a) ‘An appraisal of Piero Sraffa’s “The laws of returns under competitive conditions”’, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 8, 230–250.

Signorino, R. (2001b) ‘Piero Sraffa on Utility and the Subjective Method in the 1920s: a Tentative Appraisal of Sraffa’s Unpublished Manuscripts’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 25, 749–763.

Sraffa, P. (1925) ‘Sulle relazioni fra costo e quantità prodotta’, Annali di Economia, 2: 277–328; English translation in: L.L. Pasinetti (ed.) (1998) Italian Economic Papers, Vol. III, Bologna: Il Mulino and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sraffa, P. (1926) ‘The laws of returns under competitive conditions’, Economic Journal, 36, 535–550.

Sraffa, P. (1930) ‘A criticism’ and ‘Rejoinder’ (contributions to the Symposium on ‘Increasing Returns and the Representative Firm’), Economic Journal, 40, 89–93.

Sraffa, P. (1931) Surplus Product, D3/12/7 161: August 1–5. Sraffa MSS, Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge.

Sraffa, P. (1932) ‘Dr. Hayek on Money and Capital’, Economic Journal, 42, 42–53.

Sraffa P. (1951) Introduction to Ricardo’s Works, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sraffa, P. (1960) Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. Prelude to a Critique of Economic Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Italian edn: Produzione di Merci a Mezzo di Merci. Premesse a una Critica della Teoria Economica. Torino: Einaudi.

Sraffa, P. (1962) ‘Production of Commodities: A comment’, Economic Journal, LXXII, 477–479.

Sraffa, P. MSS, Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge.

Tugwell, R. G. (ed.) (1924) The Trend of Economics, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Whitehead, A. N. (1926) Science and the Modern World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Sraffa 662].

Whyte, L. L. (1928) Archimedes or The Future of Physics, London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.

XIII The General Theory and After: Part I. Preparation.

XIV The General Theory and After: Part II, Defence and Development.

Carabelli, Anna (2018) “Sraffa versus Keynes on the Method of Economics: Measurement, Homogeneity and Independence,” Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino (Italy), 52(2): 137–168.

Keynes, J.M. (1936; 1973) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, vol. 7, The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, ed. by E. Johnson and D. Moggridge, London: Macmillan.

Title: Sraffa Versus Keynes on the Method of Economics: Measurement, Homogeneity and Independence
Author: Anna Carabelli
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: A Reflection on Sraffa’s Revolution in Economic Theory
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-47205-4

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-47206-1

Copyright Year: 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47206-1_8