2025/07/07 by Kristofer Pitz, Luigi Salvati · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Economic Theory and Institutions #Economic Theory and Policy #Political Economy and Marxism
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/09538259.2025.2520253
openalex publication_date 2025/07/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities brings forth a threefold challenge to the predominant marginalist paradigm in economics. First, it challenges the marginalist theory of capital directly by demonstrating that a strictly negative relationship between interest rate and investment cannot be upheld, if capital is conceived as heterogeneous. Secondly, it offers a solution to the inherent problems of the objective theory of value, namely the simultaneous determination of prices and the profit rate. By that, PCMC provides quantitative foundation to Marx’s theory of value, which Marx himself was unable to provide without logical errors. Third, it can serve as a replacement for Keynes’s tacit marginalist assumptions in his General Theory. This precludes the marginalist re-integration of Keynes’s critique known as the Neoclassical synthesis. Sraffa’s contribution thus serves as the load-bearing element of a comprehensive critique of the economy and of economics. We propose a re-linking of Marxian, Sraffian, and Keynesian critique that draws upon Marx’s form-analysis of value, Sraffa’s quantitative theory of value, and Keynes’s theory of non-harmonious reproduction of the capitalist market. Such a theory is not a sufficient, but a necessary condition for a successful scientific revolution in economics in the Kuhnian sense.