Circuitous processes, jigsaw puzzles and indisputable results: making best use of the manuscripts of Sraffa's Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities

Abstract

The opening of the Sraffa archive has allowed the production of credible narratives of the development of Sraffa’s thought based on documentary evidence. The archive is complex, especially in the case of the papers relating to Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (PCMC), but the author’s paperwork helps guide us through the development of his ideas, affirming the causal relationship between thought and archive. The complex interrelationships between materials in the archive make a painstaking, scholarly approach necessary, but rewarding, allowing authors to use material of high evidential value to corroborate the cases they are making. The archive has primarily been used by historians of economic thought. However, as the material contextualises PCMC it may also be useful to those working on economic theory from a Sraffian perspective.