ABSTRACT
Otto Neurath and Piero Sraffa, both of whom could be identified as having strong associations with Marxism, if in unorthodox fashion, offered up two of the most important critiques of the conventional understanding and treatment of the role of prices in economic thought over the course of the twentieth century. This Institutionalist frame of reference has its own affinity with a Marxian perspective, in which market prices are set within the framework of the capitalist system. It is with this backdrop that it is now possible to turn to the thought and writing of Otto Neurath and Piero Sraffa and their treatment of the role of prices in constituting economic structures and analyzing the economy. One can observe certain striking similarities between the two in the tensions between their political activism and perspective, on the one hand, and the trajectory of their academic careers and work, on the other.
