New directions in the Sraffian approach

 Call for Papers (ROPE)

65 years after Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities: new directions in the Sraffian approach

Guest Editor: Santiago José Gahn

Internal Editor: Sylvio Kappes

The year 2025 marks the 65th anniversary of the publication of the book Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities by Piero Sraffa (1960). Not all economists are capable of transforming their name into a legacy, into a school. Piero Sraffa belongs to this select group. Exiled from fascism, he built his entire academic career at Cambridge University, where, from a profound analysis of the classical authors, he constructed a powerful critique of the dominant marginalist theory. But Sraffa's legacy has evolved into something much more powerful over the years, where some of his disciples have extended his criticism of marginalist theory, applied his ideas to international trade, and constructed alternative theories of economic growth.

65 years after Sraffa's publication, we believe it is necessary to launch a special issue that calls for reflection on his life, his political thoughts, his friendships, his lessons at Cambridge and his archive; his intellectual legacy, and that of his followers, and the impact on economic theory today; as well as possible guidelines for extending Sraffa's thought to other fields in the future. In recent years, Sraffa's legacy has had a boom that was born mainly in the periphery or the "global south", in particular in Argentina, Brazil and India. Recently, many authors have taken Sraffa's basic outlines and combined them with Latin American structuralist thinking in an attempt to explain the limits to growth and income distribution; they have developed and extended mathematical models of economic growth such as the Sraffian supermultiplier; they have presented the main limitations to Real Exchange Rate-led strategies, among other topics. Sraffa's legacy is alive and growing.

As a way of paying tribute to Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (Sraffa, 1960) Review of Political Economy (ROPE) is preparing a special issue. This special issue intends to collect scientific articles that present or reinforce new lines of research within a Sraffian (or classical-Keynesian) perspective.

This special issue welcomes articles on a number of topics, including:

a. Sraffa's personal history, his relationship with Gramsci and his political thought.

b. Issues related to Sraffa's intellectual development, such as: extensions of PCMC, critique of mainstream theory, analysis of Sraffa’s archive.

c. Sraffa’s intellectual legacy: the direct impact on their followers such as Garegnani and Pasinetti, among others.

d. New directions in the Sraffian approach: extensions of the Sraffian supermultiplier model, endogenous money, international trade, imperialism and unequal exchange, the method in economics, impact of economic policies on gender, race or climate change. Articles that can extend Sraffian school to Anthropology and Sociology are also welcome.

Of course, all these topics can never cover the vast universe of the impact of Sraffa's intellectual legacy, but all articles that relate to Sraffa's thought are welcome, including critical ones as well. Finally, this special issue will attempt to have a gender balance.

If interested in submitting a paper, please send a short abstract by September 15th, 2023 to both Santiago J. Gahn (santiago.gahn@uniba.it) and Sylvio Kappes (sylviokappes@gmail.com). Decisions will be made by September 25th, 2023. If selected, the complete paper must be sent by May 1st, 2024.

Deadline for submitting abstracts: 15th September 2023

Deadline for submitting papers: 1st May 2024

References
Sraffa, P. (1960). Production of Commodities: Prelude to a Critique of Economic Theory. Cambridge University Press.

Amitava Dutt on Pluralism (or lack thereof) in Economics

The recent issue of ROPE is an excellent symposium on nature of pluralism (or lack thereof) in contemporary economics. This following article by Amitava Dutt is quite insightful.

From the abstract:

Recent debates about the nature and desirability of pluralism in economics suffer from a lack of clarity about the meaning of pluralism. This paper attempts to remedy some aspects of this problem by distinguishing between different dimensions of pluralism, that is, epistemological, ontological, methodological, normative and prescriptive dimensions. Although, in principle, these dimensions are distinct, they are difficult to keep apart because of the relations that exist in terms of choices made in the different dimensions. It is argued that the recognition of these distinctions and relations allows for a resolution of some of the debates about pluralism.

Read rest here (subscription required), and for an introduction to the symposium by John Davis, see here (subscription required).

Steve Pressman on the origins of the Review of Political Economy (ROPE)

Of particular is Steve's discussion of the scope of the journal, and why it became dedicated to the old political economy tradition. In his words:

Someone suggested that we broaden the scope of the new journal. A first thought was to add institutional economics. I had long been an admirer of John Kenneth Galbraith, someone who bridged the gap between Post Keynesian and institutionalist thought, and supported the suggestion. Geoff Hodgson, who was there and slated to be the Book Review Editor of the new journal, had a strong institutional bent (Hodgson, 1988) and also supported this idea. Such a journal would overlap with both the JPKE and theJournal of Economic Issues to some extent. This suggestion had the benefit of not stepping on anyone's toes. It would provide authors with an opportunity to explore similarities and differences between these two schools of thought as well as to publish papers taking either perspective or criticizing either perspective. Still, there was considerable opposition to the idea. 

I then suggested something a bit different—adding Sraffian or neo-Ricardian economics to the scope of the journal. The publication of Eatwell & Milgate's (1983) critical book on Post Keynesian economics exacerbated the split between the American Post Keynesians and the European Sraffians. Even before publication of this book, there were tensions between these two schools, which surfaced initially at the annual Post Keynesian summer schools held in Trieste, Italy. My idea was to encourage a dialog between Post Keynesians and Sraffians, and to see if it were possible to repair some of the damage that had been done. This proposal also encountered considerable opposition. 

After rejecting a few other suggestions, someone (memory fails, I am not sure who it was) proposed something even more radical—a return to political economy. The idea was to bridge the gap among all the different heterodox traditions in economics, including some of the more market-friendly schools of thought, such as Austrian Economics. We would welcome papers that explored similarities between Post Keynesian and Austrian views of uncertainty, papers that examined the behavioral assumptions in the General Theory and in macroeconomics, papers that approached policy issues from different theoretical perspectives, as well as papers that addressed the overlap among some of the different non-neoclassical paradigms. Somewhat surprisingly, especially given what transpired earlier, this proposal won the endorsement of everyone there. We decided to make the new journal as open and as inclusive as possible. 

The result was a journal seeking to revive the grand tradition of classical political economy. It would publish in virtually every strand of political economy. The statement that is printed on the inside cover of the journal, and appearing on the journal's homepage, boldly proclaims this objective.

Pressman tells the whole story here.

ROPE at 25

The Review of Political Economy, one of the best and most influential heterodox journals, is 25 years old! They celebrated by linking to 25 of their best papers available here. From their page:

2013 marks the 25th volume of the Review of Political Economy and, to celebrate, the Editors have selected their top 25 articles from the past 25 years and made them free to view for the remainder of 2013. This collection includes a paper by the joint first Nobel Laureate in Economics and a wealth of other leading papers in the field of Political Economy from the last quarter of a century.

Enjoy!