ABSTRACT
Here is the problem. Opening section 1, Steedman considers an economy in which all produced commodities are internationally tradeable at fixed relative prices. Then any operated production process would immediately yield a linear frontier relating a uniform real wage rate to a uniform rate of profit. That being so, the economy will exhibit all the features of the ‘surrogate production function’ and capital and distribution theory would be entirely straightforward from a marginalist point of view. Steedman says he is surprised that no defence of marginalist theory along these lines was put forward during the debates of the 1960s and 1970s.
