We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
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).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
