ABSTRACT
Sraffa’s book, considered as a contribution to the revival of classical theory. led to a proliferation of formal analyses of the price and value systems, their relationships and their significance for the history of economic thought. Much less work was done on the theories of distribution, accumulation, competition, etc. that would be compatible with Sraffa’s approach. This is, in a way, to be regretted, but there is also a deeper meaning to the ‘omission’: Sraffa’s theory is inherently more open to institutional data and historical developments, and therefore to a wider range of theoretical approaches in economics, than is the traditional neoclassical doctrine. This is discussed in Essay 5 in Part III. The argument may be introduced as follows.
