Sraffa come economista classico: una congettura possibile? (Sraffa as a classical economist: a possible conjecture?)

In this paper the authors advance a conjecture according to which Sraffa’s Production of commodities does it make possible the reinstatement of the analytical program of the classical economists centred on the labour theory of value by overcoming the problems raised for such a paradigm by the existence of produced means of production. Such an interpretation is presented in three successive steps. First of all a reconstruction of the classical framework of the labour theory of value is presented to argument for its soundness in the case of a ‘pure’ labour economy. It is then shown how Sraffa could have generalized it in a coherent way to take into account the case of production with labour and capital goods by adopting the point of view of the net product, according to which its monetary value is the expression of the lived labour employed in production. The third and final step suggests that Sraffa could have followed such a path as can be guessed from his unpublished works that become to be known. Apart from the consideration of what Sraffa really meant, which is a controversial issue. the point that is stressed in the paper is that Production of commodities can open the way to the direct extension of classical labour theory of value to the general case of production with capital goods as newvaluelabour theory