Talk:Piero Sraffa

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More information about this article... The following comments have been left for this page: Article gives basic biography of Sraffa, but really nothing at all on details of his theoretical work. It does situate the work relatively well in context, but it stops at the level of "who is Sraffa?" rather than letting a sophisticated reader understand "What specific theoretical innovations did Sraffa make?" LotLE×talk 17:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC) (edit)

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Need to link to Capital controversy ---- Charles Stewart 11:30, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This thing is sorely in need of some structure, but I sure can't be bothered to fix it right now. -- Echeneida

[edit] Dates

Different dates appear on Find-A-Grave. Lincher 21:10, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rich from Japanese bonds?

The story about Sraffa buying Japanese bonds the day after the atomic bombing and then getting rich seems really fishy. Defeated governments typically don't honor bonds. I googled this to look for corroboration, and all I found was articles that 1) protrayed it as an urban legend, 2) were copies of this Wikipedia article, 3) cited this article as a source, or 4) provided no reliable source. A discussion I saw also hinted that what actually happened was that he bought the bonds at the beginning of reconstruction, which seems a lot more reasonable. Does anyone have any reliable source for this claim at all? MrVoluntarist 16:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/sraffa.htm is the source of the "dubious assertion".

Okay, that's just a brief profile on him, and that specific claim isn't sourced. Even if I accept it at face value, note the difference: The source you gave claims that he bought the bonds "after Hiroshima", from a "defeated Japan", believing they wouldn't lie in "postwar rubble". The last two imply the war was over, and defeat conceded, which was NOT the day after the bombings. And "after Hiroshima" doesn't necessarily mean the day after. Btw, I know you can find lots of stuff on the internet perpetuating this bit. The reason I brought it up was that all of them seem to point to unreliable sources, and it sounds too much like an urban legend. I could justify chaning the Wikipedia article's wording to just say he bought them "after the bombings", and leave it un ambigous, and then change "dubious" to "citation needed". Reasonable? MrVoluntarist 16:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd be happy with the removal of the description, myself. The above brief profile doesn't exactly give details on the story, but itself reports it as being "an anecdote". The claim is conceivable, but I just don't see it as properly cited/supported yet. LotLE×talk 17:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd want it removed too, but I'm worried people will just want to re-insert it if they don't see it upon reading it the first time, thinking it's "obvious" that it should be added (and so won't consult the talk pages). Is there a way we can acknowledge the existence of this urban legend, while noting the doubts? Is this rumor about him something people would want to know when learning about him? MrVoluntarist 20:56, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of mathematics

An anonymous editor has added a description of Sraffa's relation to the history of mathematics that I frankly cannot really make any sense of. What exactly is being claimed here? Why is it notable? Is it original research? I see some books cited, but I cannot figure out why they are cited or what point they are meant to support. Can anyone else understand this? LotLE×talk 20:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Addition

Added by —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.139.32.176 (talk • contribs)

Earlier version by —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.139.24.187 (talk • contribs)

Recently, Sraffa's mathematical orientation has begun to be studied in the context of the history of twentieth-century mathematics. Above all, Garciadiego's BERTRAND RUSSELL AND THE ORIGINS OF THE SET-THEORETIC 'PARADOXES' (1992) has called into question the mathematics (which has several schools, such as "natural" and "intuitionist" mathematics) provoked by paradoxes in Cantorian set theory which may not be paradoxes. Poincare in particular was set on developing a mathematical approach which would "avoid" these putative paradoxes, and his mathematical agenda informs his most widely circulated work, SCIENCE AND HYPOTHESIS. This book not only affected Sraffa. Einstein was hugely influenced by it and wrote about it in glowing terms.

How much is PRODUCTION OF COMMODITIES affected by Poincare's agenda? Now that Sraffa's papers are open to inspection, Heinz Kurz and Neri Salvadori--two of the leading Sraffa scholars--have begun (although only begun) to reveal the influence of Poincare and the response to set theory, on that work. This has allowed us to begin discussing Sraffa's work in an entirely new set of terms. A revolution in Sraffa studies has begun. Kurz writes:

"Sraffa studied intensively Jules Henri Poincaré's La Science e l'Hypothèse (1902). From his annotations relating especially to chapter VIII, 'Énergie et Thermodynamique' (see Sraffa 3137), we can infer that in his view an objectivist approach in any of the fields of natural philosophy had to take into account the principles of thermodynamics. He read and took excerpts from Heinrich Hertz's Principles of Mechanics (1899), focusing attention on the physicists' concepts of 'cause' and 'interdependence', and their corresponding role in economic theory, and on the problem of which kind of 'quantities' could in principle be taken as given in order to determine some other quantities (see D1/9: 8-10). These considerations find an echo in a document presumably written in the second half of 1929 in which Sraffa specified those 'quantities {that} have an objective, independent existence at every or some instants of the natural (i.e. not interfered with by the experimenter) process of production and distribution; they can therefore be measured physically, with the ordinary instruments of measuring number, weight, time, etc.' He stressed: 'These are the only quantities which must enter as constants in economic theory, i.e. which can be assumed to be "known" or "given".' (D3/12/13: 2)13

"Representing the Production and Circulation of Commodities in Material Terms: On Sraffa's Objectivism" http://www.uni-graz.at/heinz.kurz/pdf/On_the_classical_approach.pdf#search=%22sraffa%20poincare%22, page 18.

Ten years ago we would never have dreamed of discussing Sraffa's work in terms of "objectivity," much less "thermodynamics" or the "natural process of production." These are all, not only terms of art, but also, they are terms of art within an historical context. Putting PRODUCTION OF COMMODITIES into historical context--as a work of the dominant modes of thinking during the early twentieth century--has now begun.

It looks to me VERY like original research, a university essay, probably a very good one. The writers cited are Garcadiego (book, may not be directly relevant), Heinz Kurz (online article, can probably be cited) and Neri Salvadori (no reference cited). The text should stay out until someone can independently read and summarise these documents, as far as they are relevant. I will have a look at Kurz when I have a moment. Itsmejudith 20:53, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Had a quick look at the link, which is Kurz and Salvadori. The article is concerned to point out Sraffa's turn from subjectivism to objectivism. It does not have an immediate relationship to mathematical theory. I have found some other references which should be useful to this article.

Gehrke, C; Kurz, HD Sraffa on von Bortkiewicz: Reconstructing the classical theory of value and distribution HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 38 (1): 91-149 SPR 2006

Pasinetti, LL The Sraffa-enigma: Introduction EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT, 12 (3): 373-378 SEP 2005

Naldi, N Piero Sraffa: Emigration and scientific activity (1921-45) EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT, 12 (3): 379-402 SEP 2005

Rosselli, A Sraffa and the Marshallian tradition EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT, 12 (3): 403-423 SEP 2005

Marcuzzo, MC Piero Sraffa at the University of Cambridge EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT, 12 (3): 425-452 SEP 2005

Garegnani, P On a turning point in Sraffa's theoretical and interpretative position in the late 1920s EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT, 12 (3): 453-492 SEP 2005

Kurz, HD; Salvadori, N Removing an 'insuperable obstacle' in the way of an objectivist analysis: Sraffa's attempts at fixed capital EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT, 12 (3): 493-523 SEP 2005

Kerr, P A history of post-Keynesian economics CAMBRIDGE JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, 29 (3): 475-496 MAY 1 2005

Para, JB Between Wittgenstein and Gramsci - Piero Sraffa, outline of a portrait EUROPE-REVUE LITTERAIRE MENSUELLE, (906): 249-250 OCT 2004

Bellino, E On Sraffa's Standard commodity CAMBRIDGE JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, 28 (1): 121-132 JAN 2004

Sen, A Sraffa, Wittgenstein, and Gramsci JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE, 41 (4): 1240-1255 DEC 2003

Harcourt, GC Piero Sraffa's political economy: A centenary estimate. HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 35 (3): 582-586 FAL 2003

Porta, PL Piero Sraffa: His life, thought, and cultural heritage. HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 35 (3): 598-602 FAL 2003

Cohen, AJ Critical essays on Piero Sraffa's legacy in economics. HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 35 (1): 164-166 SPR 2003

Foley, DK Sraffa's legacy CAMBRIDGE JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, 27 (2): 225-238 MAR 1 2003

Hope this helps. I'm responding to Request for Comment btw. Itsmejudith 21:12, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WPP Economics classification

I've rated this as a B-class article of High importance: it's clearly less important to that project than Karl Marx, which is high importance, and almost as clearly more important than Friedman's k-percent rule which gets top importance... --- Charles Stewart(talk) 12:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)