SEMINAR: Sraffa and the Two Paradigms in Economic Theory
Skype: school.socialsciences
Sraffa and the Two Paradigms in Economic Theory
8.30 AM - Aula Informatica, first floor, Department of Economics and Management
Speaker
Prof. Ajit Kumar Sinha
School of Liberal Studies, Azim Premji University
Abstract
All the three pioneers, Jevons, Menger and Walras, of the modern revolution in economic theory of 1870s were quite conscious that they were making a significant break from the classical theory, particularly the Ricardian orthodoxy of their time. Marshall in 1890 however made the case that there was a continuity rather than a break between the classical tradition and the modern economic theory. This viewpoint slowly became the orthodoxy, and the classicists were read as simply those who were trying to be born as ‘moderns’. Sraffa saw that the story told by Marshall had serious problems and that there was truly a rupture from classical way of looking at the theoretical problems that took place during the 1870s. In this seminar, I would try to establish that Sraffa’s reading of the classical economics is not simply an ‘interpretation’ of what classical economists wrote. But it is an active reconstruction of their work in light of his own theoretical problem he was trying to solve.