Some Observations on Ajit Sinha’s Interpretation of the Sraffa System

Abstract

Most of the Indian economists who took interest in Sraffa’s pioneering work were active in the decades stretching from 1960s to 1980s. From 1990s few Indian economists have shown much concern for it. Amongst them the name of Ajit Sinha stands foremost. Starting from 2007, Sinha has published in a series of contributions [Sinha 2007, 2010a, 2010b, 2012, 2013, 2015 and Dupertuis and Sinha, 2009a, b] culminating in his 2016 book, “A Revolution in Economic Theory: The Economics of Piero Sraffa”, his clarifications on the logical and philosophical foundations of Sraffa’s path breaking work. In this endeavour Sinha has advanced a radically new perspective on the guiding motives and final accomplishment of Sraffa’s work which he has distilled from Sraffa’s published and unpublished writings. In advancing his own perspective, he has locked horns not only with neoclassical authors (as is obviously to be expected) but also with eminent Sraffians like Pierangelo Garegnani, Heinz Kurz, and Christian Gehrke.