Social surplus approach and heterodox economics

Given the emphasis on social provisioning in heterodox economics, two of its central theoretical organizing principles are the concepts of the total social product and the social surplus. This appears to link heterodox economics to the social surplus approach associated with the classical economists and currently with Sraffian economists. However, heterodox economics connects agency with the social surplus and the social product, which the Sraffians reject as they take the level and composition of the social product as given. Therefore the different theoretical approach regarding the social surplus taken in heterodox economics may generate a different but similar way of theorizing about a capitalist economy. To explore this difference is the aim of the paper. Thus the paper is divided into four parts and a conclusion. In the first section social provisioning and the social surplus is introduced. In the second section, the Sraffian social surplus approach is delineated while in the third section the heterodox social surplus approach is delineated. In the fourth section of the paper, some of the implications emerging from the differences between the two approaches are discussed. The paper is concluded in the final section

Problem in the theory of distribution from Ricardo to Wicksell

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Deux voies pour la demande effective

The paper distinguishes between two routes along which orthodox theory can be criticized in order to establish the principle that aggregate demand may be insufficient to absorb the output obtainable from normal utilization of existing productive capacity. Keynes based himself on the obstacles which liquidity preference raises for the adaptation of the interest rate to changes in the incentive to invest. Another route has however been opened up by the critique of the orthodox notion of a «quantity» of.capitai which showed that there is no reason to assume a regular inverse relation between investment and the interest rate allowing the latter, even if flexible, to adjust investment to full employment savings. This second route deprives of its basis the neo-classical synthesis's attempt to confine «effective demand» to short period fluctuations and sets the ground for an analysis of its influence on accumulation.L'article distingue entre deux voies selon lesquelles on peut critiquer la théorie orthodoxe afin d'établir le principe suivant : la demande globale peut être insuffisante pour absorber le produit susceptible d'être obtenu par l'utilisation normale de la capacité productive existante. Keynes fondait son argumentation sur les obstacles que la préférence pour la liquidité dresse à l'adaptation du taux de l'intérêt à des changements dans l'incitation à investir. Une autre voie a cependant été ouverte par la critique de la notion orthodoxe de «quantité» de capital ; cette critique établissait qu'il n'y a aucune raison de supposer une relation inverse régulière entre l'investissement et le taux de l'intérêt qui permettrait à ce dernier, même flexible, d'adapter l'investissement à l'épargne de plein emploi. Cette seconde voie prive de toute base la tentative effectuée par la synthèse néo-classique de limiter la «demande effective» aux fluctuations de courte période, et fournit la fondation d'une analyse de son influence sur l'accumulation.Garegnani Pierangelo. Deux voies pour la demande effective . In: Cahiers d'économie politique, n°10-11, 1985. L'hétérodoxie dans la pensée économique. Marx - Keynes - Schumpeter, sous la direction de Ghislain Deleplace et Patrick Maurisson. pp. 21-31

Professor Samuelson on Sraffa and the classical economists

In this article, part of an ongoing discussion, Samuelson (2000) is taken as the occasion for a critical examination of Samuelson's work on the classical economists and Sraffa, a subject of continuing interest for that author, especially after Sraffa (1960). The article argues for the existence in Smith and Ricardo of an alternative approach to distribution and prices, and it aims at a critique of Samuelson's contention that 'Smith, Ricardo and J.S. Mill used essentially the same logical paradigm as did Walras and Arrow Debreu' (2000: 140). In the first two sections, the attempt by Arrow (1991) to detect in Ricardo a theory of prices independent of demand—and founded instead on a real wage determined separately from, though not necessarily independently of, prices and the non-wage distributive variables—is considered with its implication of the wage entering the determination of the latter as an 'intermediate datum' of the theory. This then makes it possible to outline the characteristic analysis we find in Smith and Ricardo, where the wage as 'intermediate datum' entails a similar treatment of the output levels. The resulting theoretical structure is then used in order to answer, in sections III and IV, the two basic criticism, that Samuelson has advanced against Sraffa (1960). While the claimed dependence of the (1960) prices on an assumption of constant returns is voided by the mentioned treatment of outputs as intermediate data, the relevance of the Standard commodity, as well as that of Ricardo's 'invariable measure of value' is explained by the needs of determining non-wage incomes as a difference or 'residual', the essence of the theoretical structure under consideration. Section V then deals more directly with Samuelson's denial of the existence of a classical paradigm of economic theory. His arguments and interpretations are found to be in contrast with central features of Smith and Ricardo's work and, in particular, with their theory of wages. Thus, the admission of labour unemployment in 'normal' competitive positions compels Samuelson to a highly questionable interpretation of the chapter 'On Machinery' in Ricardo's Principles. In section VI, finally, the attribution to 'Sraffian literature' of a central concern for what Samuelson sees as 'steady states', but are in fact the traditional 'normal positions' of the economy leads the article to the deficiencies of neoclassical theory—an issue inevitably underlying the debate on the Classical paradigm. The dependence of the traditional versions of the theory, based on normal positions, on the notion of capital as a single magnitude—which forced the generalized abandonment of those versions in pure theory after the early stages of the capital controversies—is argued to emerge as equally present in the contemporary reformulations of the theory, thus affecting them, it is argued, no less than it did the abandoned earlier versions.Samuelson, Sraffa, classical economists, neoclassical theory, capital, wages, demand and supply, distribution, surplus theories,

On a turning point in Sraffa's theoretical and interpretative position in the late 1920s

Sraffa's notes titled 'Summer 1927' (D3/12/3, Trinity Catalogue) presumably written while preparing for the lectures on the theory of value he intended to hold in Cambridge that autumn, when examined jointly with the lectures in fact delivered in 1928-31 and other manuscripts from the period make it possible to identify an important change occurring in those months in his theoretical position and in his interpretation of Ricardo and the Classical economists. From his previous acceptance of Marshall's apparatus of demand and supply once purged of the subjective elements of utility and 'efforts and sacrifices', Sraffa moved on to a theory of relative prices and distribution based on what he then called 'physical real costs' (in opposition to Marshall's subjective 'real costs') and to the consequent conception of a 'surplus product' providing for profits and rent. It is the theory which Sraffa recognized then to be that of Smith and Ricardo and the 'old classical economists', beyond the Marshallian interpretation of those authors he had previously shared, in terms of constant returns and, therefore, of the demand and supply apparatus. That is the interpretation that will emerge twenty years later in the Introduction to Ricardo's Principles (1951), just as that is essentially the theory we shall find in Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities thirty years later.Sraffa, classical economists, interpretation of classical economists, Sraffa's turning point, Sraffa's analysis, surplus analysis, Sraffa's 'equations',

Sraffa: the theoretical world of the 'old classical economists'

Sraffa's mature work is seen here as a re-discovery and resumption of the 'submerged and forgotten' approach of the 'old classical economists from Adam Smith to Ricardo'. Wages determined by broad economic and social forces entail there product prices determined independently of demand and supply functions. Some main questions raised for the modern economists by this radical reorientation of economic theory are then considered in order to conclude that it is aginst that background that Sraffa's mature work should be set with its three main contributions, of a rediscovery of the approach, of a complete and transparent solution of the problems of price determination it raises, and of its application to the critique of neoclassical theory. Among several developments originating from Sraffa's seminal work, two are singled out for mention: (i) the possibility of deficiencies of aggregate demand in the long period no less than in the short one; this follows naturally from the abandonment of the neoclassical theory of distribution, of which the role of the interset rate in equilibrating savings and investment is a corollary; (ii) the question of the distribution of the surplus between wages and profits in a modern economy where wages are no longer confined to subsistence.Sraffa, classical economists, demand (and supply), retruns (to scale), wages, (free) competition, aggregate demand,