Ricardo's Principles turns 200!

On Saturday, April 19th 1817 , David Ricardo published The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (price was 14s, and 700 copies were printed; later editions had 1000 copies each; my copy above is of the 3rd and definite edition published in 1821, and had at least two previous owners, a college and someone in Philly that signed it in 1901). Most comments on the book tend to emphasize things like rent theory and comparative advantage, but those are not central to the main point of the book (the Wikipedia entry is specially bad). The central question in the book, which follows Ricardo's Corn Essay of 1815 (An Essay On the Influence of a Low Price of Corn on the Profits of the Stock), is that there is an inverse relation between wages and profits, and, distribution is conflictive. That is the essence of the Ricardian theory, and the reason why Marx was a Ricardian, not a minor one as suggested by Samuelson though.

The inverse relation between wages and profits is what led Ricardo to criticize Adam Smith's problematic adding up theory of prices, and abandon the notion of labor commanded for the concept of labor incorporated (to keep the labor theory of value), which then led to the search for absolute value. The solution of the problem was elusive and was only provided by Piero Sraffa, the editor of his Works. For more read this entry on the Labor Theory of Value and this one on Sraffa's Standard Commodity.

In Memoriam of Angelo Reati: "A Note on Some Misunderstandings of Sraffa's System"

From Review of Radical Political Economics:

Author Angelo Reati, an independent scholar and former United Nations economist based in Brussels, was killed in a cycling accident in July 2013. Angelo was a meticulous and open-minded scholar who believed deeply that economists have a responsibility to work towards the achievement of a more humane and more just society. His death is a great loss to the community of progressive economists. The editors wish to express their respect and affection for this true gentleman, true scholar, and true friend of humanity.

Reati's last paper, titled "A Note on Some Misunderstandings of Sraffa's System", can be seen here (subscription required).

New Book: "Towards a New Understanding of Sraffa" Edited by Bellofiore & Carter

Towards a New Understanding of Sraffa examines the legacy of Piero Sraffa by approaching his ideas in a new light, thanks to the insights gained from the opening of the archive collection of his papers at the Wren Library (Trinity College, Cambridge, UK). It provides a refreshing perspective into Sraffa's approach to money, the role of equilibrium and of the surplus in economic theory.  The study is backed by previously unpublished, original, archival material. It provides an appraisal of the discontinuities in the path leading to the publication in 1960 of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities since its conception in the late 1920s. It unlocks significant new perspectives about the connection of Sraffa to Marx regarding Standard commodity, the macro-social and monetary theory of exploitation, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, and the transformation of values into prices of production. It also offers insights on how Sraffa dealt with money in the various phases of his thinking, and explores his ideas about the role of equilibrium and of the surplus in economic theory. It concludes with an account of some recent Sraffa scholarship and points towards future research avenues. 

See rest here.

PS: (Matías here) There was a special issue of the Cambridge Journal of Economics on the topic here, with a response by Heinz Kurz here (subscriptions required). (David here) And here is an earlier piece by Kurz on Sraffa's unpublished manuscripts, in relation to the history of economic thought.

George Stigler and the labor theory of value

George Stigler, author of the famous The Theory of Price, winner of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize (aka the Nobel) and Friedman's best friend at Chicago, suggested  long ago that: "the professional study of economics makes one politically conservative." His reasons for that particular view are extensive, but one factor was associated with the decline of the dominance of the labor theory of value and the rise of the supply and demand (marginalist) approach, that he embraced. In his words:

"It could be argued that there is one powerful factor making for conservatism: the inability of a very radical young economist to get a desirable university post. It is indeed true that a believer in the labor theory of value could not get a professorship at a major American university, although the reason would be that the professors could not bring themselves to believe that he was both honest and intelligent, and I hope they are not improper in their demand that a professor be at least tolerably honest and presumptively intelligent."

Funny thing is that the following year a little monograph was published that demonstrated that the basic propositions of the labor theory of value could be retained. By using the device of the standard commodity, Sraffa reveals that the profit rate can be determined as a physical ratio independently from relative prices, and that the rate of profit is determined by the objective conditions of production and the need of reproducing the system (for more on the standard commodity go here).

Also, the capital debates led to the conclusion (admitted by Samuelson) that the neoclassical (marginalist) theory was unable to show that relative scarcity determined relative prices and income distribution. In other words, while it is possible to hold a version of the labor theory of value, at least the Smithian labor commanded (in terms of the standard commodity, as suggested by Sraffa), it is not possible to say that supply and demand explain value and distribution.

So Stigler got it all backwards. We are left with the alternative that radical young economists have a hard time finding desirable university posts for purely ideological reasons. Actually lack of honesty and/or intelligence might be an asset rather than a handicap in the economic profession.

The standard commodity and the labor theory of value

In a previous post I promised to deal with Sraffa's standard commodity (chapter IV of his Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, PCMC). So here is a brief and simple explanation of this somewhat arcane topic. The standard commodity is basically a more developed version of Ricardo's corn model.

Ricardo, remember, wanted to explain the rate of profit, to show that tariffs on corn (not corn, grain imports really) would reduce the rate of profit, and as a result would be detrimental for capital accumulation (which was based on profits for him). To determine the rate of profit he needed to obtain the prices at which commodities were bought and sold. Yet, to get the prices he needed the uniform rate of profit earned on the production of those commodities.

His solution in the Corn Essay of 1815 was brilliantly simple. Assume that the economy produces corn by means of corn seeds and labor. So the total output consisted of corn, the wages paid to workers were also in corn, and of course the means of production advanced to produce corn were corn seeds. So the profit rate could be measured as the surplus left over after wages were paid over the amount of corn advanced for production. A physical ratio that was independent of prices [Note that tariffs would increase the rents of landowners and reduce the profits left over for accumulation].

Malthus, Ricardo’s nagging friend, suggested that this would not be true in a world in which there are more goods than corn. This is, in fact, correct. Once you have that the means of production and the surplus are not a single commodity you need a numeraire to sort out the problem, which brings about the problem of determining profits (distribution) independently from relative prices (value).

Ricardo’s solution in his Principles was the Labor Theory of Value, meaning to assume that relative prices were proportional to the amounts of labor directly and indirectly used in production. Lets say we have two commodities i and j, produced with a homogenous type of labor that is paid w and a normal rate of profit is obtained.

We have:

p_i = wl_i(1+r)
p_j = wl_j(1+r)

where l is the amount of labor used in production. Hence, the relative prices are proportional to labor ratios, since:

p_i/p_j = [wl_i(1+r)]/[wl_j(1+r)] = l_i/l_j

But Ricardo knew that his solution had a fatal flaw (and so did Marx, by the way). The problem is that once you introduce produced means of production it is not possible anymore to assume that relative prices would be exactly proportional to the amounts of labor directly and indirectly used in production. If for simplicity we assume that it takes time to produce the means of production, then we can re-write the price equations as:

p_i = wl_i(1+r)^ti
p_j = wl_j(1+r)^tj

where the superscript ti and tj stand for the time it takes to produce the means of production in sector i and j. Clearly relative prices would be proportional to labor incorporated if r=0 or ti=tj [that is, in Marx’s terms, no means of production or same organic composition of capital].

In any other situation you would have that prices depend on the proportion of labor to means of production, but also retroactively on the proportions of labor to means of production with which the means of production have been produced, or in the example above the time it took for the means of production to be produced [see paragraph 20 in PCMC, pp. 16-17 in the linked edition].

In general, you would have that some commodities would have a higher proportion of labor to means of production and some would have a lower proportion of the same ratio. Or, in terms of the example, some commodities would be above and some below the average time that would make prices proportional to labor. So in general there are surplus and deficit industries, with higher and lower proportions of labor to means of production in their production [see paragraph 17, pp.14-15].

Sraffa’s standard commodity is based on the possibility of building a composite commodity that would be produced in such a way that it would have the same proportion of labor to means of production than the means of production used in its production, and would be in the exact threshold between surplus and deficit industries [the proof that all prices systems have such a standard commodity is provided in a simple thought experiment in paragraph 37, pp. 30-31].

Note that the proportion of labor to means of production in the production of the surplus product, and in the production of the means of production could be measured in terms of the standard commodity, and, hence, as in Ricardo’s corn model, as a physical ratio independently from relative prices. Like the Ricardian (and Marxist) theory, the standard commodity implies that the rate of profit is determined by the material conditions of production and the need of reproducing the system, including the labor force. The amount of the surplus, or what is kept by workers, is independent of the determination of relative prices.

Not only is distribution determined by conflict, and the remuneration of capital is NOT dependent on the services rendered by ‘capital’ (the means of production) in the productive process, but also exploitation is possible and likely, since it is a common way of extracting surplus from society. Further, the standard commodity is perfectly compatible with a notion of a labor theory of value. Note that the standard commodity may command a certain amount of labor and as a result prices could be determined as ratios of labor commanded in a Smithian way [see paragraph 2, Appendix D, pp. 112].