Review of Ajit Sinha, A Revolution in Economic Theory: The Economics of Piero Sraffa, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, x + 244 pages, ISBN 978-3319306155

Abstract

Review of Ajit Sinha, A Revolution in Economic Theory: The Economics of Piero Sraff a, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, x + 244 pages, ISBN 978-3319306155Piero Sraffa's 1960 subversive classic was the leanest, most muscular missive ever to strike at the heart of economics orthodoxy. Short of a hundred pages, every word of the book was chosen with care. The math was transparent and constructive. More than once throughout his review of this slim volume, Ajit Sinha refers to its aesthetics as a representation of 'minimalist art'. Since Sinha has long and assiduously, over publication in leading journals, crafted an interpretation of Sraffa's evolution in the book under review, the aesthetics of this independent scholar also merit attention. Careful with exegesis, Professor Sinha has collaborated with imaginative mathematicians to push the Sraffa agenda decidedly forward (Cockshott & Sinha, 2008; Sinha & Dupertuis 2009A, 2009B).The walls of the Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics in Pune, India, were once adorned with the prints of Joan Miro to reflect sensibilities of the then Director, Ajit Sinha. These prints display everyday objects like a cork, a feather and a hatpin. They are not multidimensional and must be chosen. Arranged in a particular manner, they become works of art (Combalia, 2008). Miro sought the 'assassination of painting', a revolt against the mainstream of the day (Rowell, 1987, pp. 114-116). However, he never became a member of either of the opposing camps. Thus, his work was surreal but he was unlike the surrealists of his time.The Sinha-Sraffa intellectual reconstruction not only starts with an empirical economy but also, as we will see, ends with the empirical economy as a system of production as a whole. The components of the structure are statistical givens in the sense of a system of National Accounts, but the sectors must be chosen and arranged to represent an economy cast in circular terms. To raise a point about metrics of an economic system below, we observe that the economy will be rich in variety, with many technological coefficients, differing profit rates across sectors, and so on. This ground-breaking first step demonstrates the ambition of the enterprise. No other research programme in either mainstream or radical political economy originates in an empirical economy. General Equilibrium theory (GE), for instance, follows the Bourbaki practice of axiom-theoremproof. On this score, Sinha rues the went on with the exultation of the Cantabrians over their foes from Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 'capital controversy'. The focus was the meaning of capital in the production function and the aggregation problem. But once a complete GE model was specified, the neoclassical / non neoclassical divide could be glossed over, and the marginal (no pun intended!) slip could be conceded. GE theorists went on with the the job of relaxing axioms, solving conundrums, and proving new theorems. The research programme of the Sraffians, on the other hand, has long shown signs of degeneracy. Partly independently and partly as a response to GE theory, agentbased modelling, laboratory testing of axioms, and the like have lately garnered their fair share of Nobel prizes. The idea is to look at how people really think, what they in fact do, how markets actually work, and so on. Heterogeneity is the rallying cry of modern economics.The subtitle of Sraffa's book is as revolutionary as its title: Prelude to a critique of economic theory. Sraffa was famously noncommittal about the best way to move forward. Sinha's painstaking efforts have transformed the music of Sraffa's book from a prelude to a fugue. As a conductor, he has done no more than quote copiously from Sraffa's own notes - notes which are now available to other scholars at the Wren Library in Cambridge - with minimal interventions. Having juxtaposed various movements, he leaves the reader to create the music for herself. The economic theory of the subtitle, it turns out, does not exclude classical economics. …