Professor de Vivo on Sraffa and Marx

Abstract

In a recent paper (this journal, 2015, 34) dedicated to the reconstruction of the intellectual relations of Gramsci and Sraffa, the author basically accepted the reconstruction proposed by Garegnani that underlines the existence of a ‘turning point’, between Summer and Autumn 1927, in Sraffa’s theoretical reflection that led him to his 1960 book. This turning point, consisting in a movement from a Marshallian interpretation of classical political economy (where Marshall’s theory was considered ‘not at all incompatible’ with Marx) to the rediscovery of an alternative theory of value and distribution, was described as an ‘endogenous’ path. According to de Vivo's ‘exogenous’ path, instead, the draft of the Sraffa’s ‘first equations’ (where the absence of a surplus is assumed), would demonstrate the existence of an autonomous development starting out from Marx’s schemes of reproduction. In the present paper, the author provides new evidence, based on Sraffa’s manuscripts, on the intermesh of post-Marshallian problems with themes deriving from the classical economists. In contrast with de Vivo's statement that Sraffa's writings belonging to the ‘Marshallian phase’ would not bear any connection with the work undertaken for the 1960 book, it is shown that this continuity exists, and it is meaningful. The final section of the paper is dedicated to show the ambiguity of the idea—accepted, among others, by de Vivo—that the discrimination between the surplus approach and the marginal approach concerns the opposition between ‘reproducibility’ and ‘scarcity’.