ABSTRACT
In this Note I consider some circumstantial evidence offered in three contributions to the Cambridge Journal of Economics (Langer 1982; de Vivo 1985; Prendergast 1986) in support of Sraffa's interpretation of Ricardo's early theory of profit as a material or corn ratio model, resting on a ratio of corn input to corn output and relying on variation in the corn price of manufactured goods to bring other sectors into line (Sraffa 1951, xxxi). These contributions were all directed against my own denial of the validity of Sraffa's rational reconstruction in favour of an interpretation involving the impact on the profit rate of money-wage variations, such that the general (including the agricultural) profit rate entails a value calculation (e.g. Hollander 1979, 162–3, 183–4, 685–6). Groenewegen (1986, 456) observes regarding the evidence by Langer and de Vivo that none of it ‘has been effectively rebutted’ by critics of the Sraffa interpretation. It is high time to provide an effective rebuttal.1
