ABSTRACT
Piero Sraffa regards the subsistence-cum-surplus wage conception not only as preferable to the concept of gross wages, on theoretical grounds, but he also did not believe that one would be prevented from adopting it because of theoretical problems, including the objection raised by Joan Robinson. Joan Robinson's objection to the use of the concept of subsistence-cum-surplus wages, according to which the subsistence requirements cannot be taken as given quantities of commodities any more when the workers participate in the sharing out of the surplus, has widely been regarded as well-taken. The adoption of the subsistence-cum-surplus wage concept therefore would not have undermined his research strategy of analysing the impact of distributional changes on relative prices for given methods of production and given quantities of commodities produced. Sraffas understanding the treatment of wages in terms of subsistence-cum-surplus wages would not undermine his research strategy of analysing the effects of changes in distribution on relative prices on the assumption of the quantities.
