ABSTRACT
Introduction Nearly forty years have passed since Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities was first published, but interpretation of the text still rouses lively debate. Of course, any particularly concise dissertation – and Sraffa’s certainly is that – may be open to various interpretations, but the extraordinary precision of Sraffa’s prose should leave little room for misunderstandings to arise. What they arise from, however, is an additional difficulty, namely the radical difference between his type of analysis and the lines of argument customarily followed by the vast majority of the economists of today.
