ABSTRACT
Piero Sraffa's claim is that if the functions are real, then such changes should be able to produce the expected results in reality; and that can occur only if the proportion of the factors of production change and a comparison of total produced outputs is made at two points in time. He argues that once the notion of wages is liberated from some kind of subsistence notion and when analysis needs to vary wages and the rate of profits, then the rationale for taking wages as 'given' loses most of its force. The change in the total labour input of the system as a whole should give the labour-value or the labour content of the commodity. Both Sraffians and their detractors have taken this to be Sraffa's main critique of the neoclassical or marginal theory of value and distribution and have interpreted this result as the grand finale towards which the book was driving.
