Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter One The Reconstruction of an Alternative Economic Thought: Some Premises
- Chapter Two Reflections on Unity and Diversity, the Market and Economic Policy
- Chapter Three Ending Laissez-Faire Finance
- Chapter Four Democracy in Crisis: So What's New?
- Chapter Five The Democracy of Ideas: J. S. Mill, Liberalism and the Economic Debate
- Chapter Six Turgot and the Division of Labor
- Chapter Seven Agricultural Surplus and the Means of Production
- Chapter Eight The Role of Sraffa Prices in Post-Keynesian Pricing Theory
- Chapter Nine Classical Underconsumption Theories Reassessed
- Chapter Ten On the “Photograph” Interpretation of Piero Sraffa's Production Equations: A View from the Sraffa Archive
- Chapter Eleven On the Earliest Formulations of Sraffa's Equations
- Chapter Twelve Normal and Degenerate Solutions of the Walras-Morishima Model
- Chapter Thirteen Trading in the “Devil's Metal”: Keynes's Speculation and Investment in Tin (1921–46)
- Chapter Fourteen The Oil Question, the Prices of Production and a Metaphor
- Chapter Fifteen Europe and Italy: Expansionary Austerity and Expansionary Precariousness
- Chapter Sixteen Adam Smith and the Neophysiocrats: War of Ideas in Spain (1800–4)
- Bibliography
- List of Contributors
- Index
Chapter Ten - On the “Photograph” Interpretation of Piero Sraffa's Production Equations: A View from the Sraffa Archive
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter One The Reconstruction of an Alternative Economic Thought: Some Premises
- Chapter Two Reflections on Unity and Diversity, the Market and Economic Policy
- Chapter Three Ending Laissez-Faire Finance
- Chapter Four Democracy in Crisis: So What's New?
- Chapter Five The Democracy of Ideas: J. S. Mill, Liberalism and the Economic Debate
- Chapter Six Turgot and the Division of Labor
- Chapter Seven Agricultural Surplus and the Means of Production
- Chapter Eight The Role of Sraffa Prices in Post-Keynesian Pricing Theory
- Chapter Nine Classical Underconsumption Theories Reassessed
- Chapter Ten On the “Photograph” Interpretation of Piero Sraffa's Production Equations: A View from the Sraffa Archive
- Chapter Eleven On the Earliest Formulations of Sraffa's Equations
- Chapter Twelve Normal and Degenerate Solutions of the Walras-Morishima Model
- Chapter Thirteen Trading in the “Devil's Metal”: Keynes's Speculation and Investment in Tin (1921–46)
- Chapter Fourteen The Oil Question, the Prices of Production and a Metaphor
- Chapter Fifteen Europe and Italy: Expansionary Austerity and Expansionary Precariousness
- Chapter Sixteen Adam Smith and the Neophysiocrats: War of Ideas in Spain (1800–4)
- Bibliography
- List of Contributors
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Alessandro Roncaglia in his book Sraffa e la teoria dei prezzi (1975), an English version of which was published as Sraffa and the Theory of Prices (1978), put forward the view that Sraffa's systems of price equations are best interpreted in terms of a “photograph” taken of the economic system at a given moment of time or, rather, a snapshot of a cycle of production of the system. He wrote,
The determination of prices was studied at a given moment of time, given the prevailing technology. […] In other words, the classical economists’ analysis of prices examined the situation of a given economic system at a given moment in time, much like a photograph of the system at an instant in time.
He added,
In this way all the economic variables which were not the object of analysis could be considered as given. Theoretical investigation could concentrate attention on the “virtual” movement of specific variables and on the relations between these variables as if they were being considered “isolated in a vacuum.” In the case of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities the choice of variables to be analysed has fallen on the relations that exist between prices of production and the distributive variables, the wage rate and the rate of profits.
(Roncaglia, 1978, 21)This short contribution revolves around the metaphor of “photograph” and its possible meaning(s) in Sraffa's preparatory papers leading up to his 1960 book and the book itself. We proceed in the following way. We ask, first, whether, and if so, when Sraffa came across the metaphor in the literature and used it himself (section 2). Next we draw the attention to another, but closely related, metaphor Sraffa used: “the man from the moon,” and its possible relation to David Ricardo's activities in Parliament (section 3).
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- Classical Economics TodayEssays in Honor of Alessandro Roncaglia, pp. 113 - 128Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2018