Book Reviews : Marx After Sraffa by Ian Steedman London: New Left Books (U.S. Distributor: Schocken), 1978, pp. 217, $14.95
Abstract
Book ReviewsMarx After Sraffa by Ian Steedman London: New Left Books (U.S. Distributor: Schocken), 1978, pp. 217, $14.95 SAGE Publications, Inc.1979DOI: 10.1177/048661347901100310 Gene E. Mumy Dept of Economics Ohio State University Columbus, OH In his book, Marx after Sraffa, Ian Steedman attempts to hammer home two main points. The first point is that an analysis of a capitalist economy's quantity system, the techni- cally and socially determined relation between inputs and outputs, using the methods pioneered by Piero Sraffa,' provides a correct determination of the profit rate and prices of production, whereas Marx's system of labor time value accounting does not. The second point is that a rejection of Marx's labor theory of value in favor of Sraffa's quantity system analysis is not fundamentally un-Marxist. The basis of the first point is the well-known problem of passing from the value analysis in Volume I of Capital to the price of production analysis in Volume III. Marx, of course, argued that capitalist competition generated a tendency for the profit rate to be equalized across all branches of production. It follows, then, that an analysis of equilibrium reproduction requires that the proportion of profit to the value of capital advanced