Sraffa and Modern Economics, Volume I

On some materials from the ‘Petty Papers’ archive, relevant to the beginnings of the surplus approach*

Tony Aspromourgos

The stature of Piero Sraffa as one of the leading figures in the history of twentieth-century economics rests upon a number of foundations, though his various contributions are quite closely connected. One of these achievements is the rehabilitation of classical economics as an intellectual discipline of more than merely antiquarian interest. A part of this project was the reconstruction of the texts and meaning of Ricardo’s political economy (Sraffa 1951–73). That great work is an enduring inspiration to all those who would seek similarly to recreate meticulously accurate texts from the history of ideas, and place them within ...