ABSTRACT
‘In the circumstances, I think it is Marshall's theory that should be discarded’ (Sraffa 1930: 93). With these words Piero Sraffa concluded his contribution to the Symposium on Increasing Returns and the Representative Firm published in March 1930 by the Economic Journal — a contribution defined by Keynes in the introduction as ‘negative and destructive’. And indeed the effects of Sraffa's attack on Marshallian orthodoxy left deep marks on the economists of a Cambridge where, until shortly before, the doctrine had been that: ‘It is all in Marshall’, and where Keynes liked to repeat that all one needed to be a good economist was a thorough knowledge of the Principles and careful daily reading of The Times ( Harrod 1951: 324).
