Sraffa’s and Wittgenstein’s Reciprocal Influences: Forms of Life and Snapshots

Abstract

The purpose of this contribution is to investigate Sraffa’s and Wittgenstein’s reciprocal methodological and philosophical influences and to point out how they reveal the possibility of an interpretation of Sraffa’s contribution to economics which differs from the most usual ones. The second part of this chapter will discuss how it is possible to read Production of Commodities by means of Commodities (PCMC) as an attempt to build a classical version of the theory of general economic equilibrium. The third part will focus on the interpretation of Sraffa’s (1960) ‘long-period positions’. In the fourth part, the chapter will investigate the notions of ‘form of life’ and ‘language game’ in Wittgenstein’s post-Tractatus contributions, connecting them to some developments included in Sraffa’s Unpublished Manuscripts. The final part of this chapter compares these ideas with Sraffa’s contribution in terms of morphological and comparative analysis of the economic foundations of surplus-based societies.