Essays in Honor of Alessandro Roncaglia, London and New York, Anthem ... to interpret economic phenomena, even for those tackling questions of immediate.
MARCELLA CORSI, JAN KREGEL and CARLO D’IPPOLITI (eds.), Classical Economics Today. Essays in Honor of Alessandro Roncaglia, London and New York, Anthem Press, 2018, pp. XII+262.
Reviewing a Festschrift is often a not so easy undertaking. Apart from the impossibility, common to reviewing any collective volume, of giving appropriate consideration to every single contribution to the volume, there arises the problem of appraising the consistency of its multifarious content with (at least some of the traits of) the distinctive intellectual attitude of the celebrated scholar. Luckily enough, in our case a proper clue in this respect is easily offered by Alessandro Roncaglia himself, in the Preface to his The Wealth of Ideas: The idea underlying this work is that the history of economic thought is essential for understanding the economy … Confronted with complex, ever-changing realities, the different lines of research developed in the past are rich in suggestions for anyone trying to interpret economic phenomena, even for those tackling questions of immediate relevance. In this latter case, indeed, the history of economic thought not only provides hypotheses for interpretation of the available information, but also teaches caution towards a mechanical use of the models deduced from the (pro tempore) mainstream economic theory. (Roncaglia 2005, ix)
Differently from the recurrent discussions about the too often underrated virtues of the history of economic thought as a specific discipline 1, he straightforwardly maintains that a proper acquaintance with the history of economics is quite useful, not to say absolutely necessary, in order to understand present economic issues 2, and that is all 3. All this is just to 1
See, for instance, BLAUG 2001.
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In this respect it can be remarked, as repeatedly acknowledged by Roncaglia himself (see, for example, RONCAGLIA 2006) , that it is a standpoint very much akin to the one always vigorously maintained by his renowned mentor, the late Paolo Sylos Labini.
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Coherently, he also strives to steer clear of controversial historiographic issues by denying the usefulness of two commonly held distinctions among historians of economic thought: «[T]he Schumpeterian distinction between history of analysis and history of thought ... proves not so much misleading as largely useless. Equally inappropriate is the sharp dichotomy between ‘rational reconstructions’ and ‘historical reconstructions’ of the history of economic thought. It is hard to see why reconstructing the logical structure of an economist’s ideas should clash with respecting his or her views. Indeed, in the field of the history of thought, as in analogous fields, the criterion of philological exactness is the main element differentiating scientific from non-scientific research» (RONCAGLIA 2005, ix-x)
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say, apropos of the volume here reviewed, that the readers who are sympathetic with these views will surely find in it a number of interesting contributions. Evidence of the usefulness of the history of thought in dealing with contemporary concerns, albeit in a number of different guises, is indeed clearly detectable in several essays in this collection. Four contribution, to begin with, deal with quite huge issues: Salvatore Biasco on the impossibility of relying on a single comprehensive model in reconstructing an alternative economic thought, Jan Kregel on «unity and diversity» as intermingled in the notion of market4, Mario Tonveronachi on the necessity of «ending laissez-faire finance» by implementing a kind of «regulation [that] should be used to pursue national objectives in conjunction with monetary and fiscal policies» (p. 28), and Michele Salvati on «democracy in crisis», a plea for a renovated reformism «at the level of the single national democracies, the EU and the world economic-financial and political system» (p. 42). Other essays – though concerning somewhat ‘minor’ questions – share nonetheless the confidence in the history of economic thought as a possible provider of some insights, in a way or another, still useful today: Marcella Corsi and Carlo D’Ippoliti on «J.S. Mill, liberalism and the economic debate», Peter Gronewegen on «Turgot and the division of labor», Gianni Vaggi on «agricultural surplus and the means of production», Cosimo Perrotta on «classical underconsumption theories», Maria Cristina Marcuzzo and Annalisa Rosselli on Keynes’s trading in the tin market, Davide Antonioli and Paolo Pini on «expansionary austerity and expansionary precariousness», and Adolfo Sanchez Hormigo on «Adam Smith and the neophysiocrats». Over the years, as testified by the ten-page bibliography of his writings at the end of the volume, Alessandro Roncaglia has repeatedly directed his attention to the figure of Piero Sraffa and his theory of prices5. Unsurprisingly, therefore, we find in the volume five contributions dealing, more or less directly, with ‘Sraffian’ themes: Bertram Schefold on «normal and degenerate solutions of the Walras-Morishima model», Nerio Naldi on «the 4
According to the author, we have «the paradox of supply and demand as determinants of price: a uniform commodity is necessary for the creation of a market, but the uniformity that creates a commodity requires a market and a market price» (p. 10), and, conversely, that «the theory of free markets requires markets to furnish the prices that render homogeneous the diversity of aspects of commodities, but a market can only exist if there are homogeneous commodities» (p. 11).
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In addition to a remarkable number of journal articles and book chapters, three books can be mentioned: RONCAGLIA 1975, 1999 and 2009.
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earliest formulations of Sraffa’s equation», Geoffrey Harcourt on «the role of Sraffa’s prices in post-Keynesian pricing theory», Heinz Kurz and Neri Salvadori on «the ‘photograph’ interpretation of Piero Sraffa’s production equations», and Sergio Parrinello on «the oil question and the prices of production». In the last two essays the reader will find two different interpretations of the ‘snapshot’ metaphor6, formerly suggested in Roncaglia (1975/1978) in order to justify the choice of given quantities as parameters in Sraffa’s price equations. In his words: [T]he classical economists’ analysis of prices examined the situation of a given economic system at a given moment in time, much like a photograph of the system at an instant in time. […] In the case of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities the choice of variables to be analysed has fallen on the relations that exist between prices of production and the distributive variables, the wage rate and the rate of profits. (Roncaglia 1978, 21)
Given the crucial role of the assumption of ‘given quantities’ for any appraisal of Sraffa’s 1960 book and the ensuing literature, some further (though brief) comments may be in order here. The use of metaphors introduces almost always some kind of ambiguity. In this case one of the sources of ambiguity regards the degree of ‘objectivity’ we are prepared to attach to the metaphor of ‘a photography of the system’. Indeed, in one of the essays in this volume we find that: The metaphor of the photograph was meant to express the focus on a given system and the absence of changes in outputs and factor input proportions. […] This is fully in accordance with the man from the moon metaphor and expresses well the objectivist nature of the analysis. We touch upon the relationship between Sraffa’s analysis and a ‘purely natural science point of view’ by commenting on a statement in a book by Pantaleoni, Sraffa had annotated. Finally, we show that Roncaglia’s use of the photograph is in the spirit Sraffa had intended. (Kurz and Salvadori, this volume, p. 126, italics added).
In another essay, however, we find a rather different point of view: It has been argued above in favour of Roncaglia’s claim of the independent meaning of the production prices. Instead the metaphor is hardly sustainable …, if it means a snapshot of an actual economy, arbitrarily observed. Any observation in science is theory laden. A camera catches what its lens sees, but the position of the lens is chosen by the cameraperson. […] More importantly, it is only by a fluke, in the case of passive observation and in the absence of a purposeful laboratory 6
Passing references to the same metaphor may be also found in the essays by NALDI and HARCOURT in this volume.
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experiment, that a snapshot can represent an actual economy in a reproduction state, where the number of produced commodities is equal to the number of techniques in use. Only in principle can the quantities of Sraffa’s equations be observed and fixed by a snapshot of an actual economy. (Parrinello, this volume, pp. 196-197).
The first of the above interpretations may well be firmly grounded on a careful examination of the relevant pieces of evidence to be found in the Sraffa archive, but the second judgment (with which, by the way, I fully agree) rightly points out the unavoidable theory laidenness of any theoretical construct, that is a largely shared opinion among the philosophers of science. This raises a question very often unmentioned, but always hanging in the air, when we revisit published (and even more so, unpublished) writings of the great economists of the past: maybe is it worthwhile because we are presuming that they were always right? And if not, why do we it nevertheless? Of course, if only for the space constraint of a review, I leave to the reader the choice of her preferred reaction. So let me finally conclude by saying that on all this, as well as on a number of other remarkable issues, prospective readers (and especially those interested in the history of economics) will find in this volume much food for thought. ANDREA SALANTI Università di Bergamo
REFERENCES BLAUG M. 2001, «No History of Ideas, Please, We’re Economists», Journal of Economic Perspectives, 15, 1, 145–164. RONCAGLIA A. 1975, Sraffa e la teoria dei prezzi, Roma-Bari, Laterza (English trans. 1978, Sraffa and the Theory of Prices, London and New York, Wiley). RONCAGLIA A. 1999, Sraffa: la biografia, l’opera, le scuole, Roma-Bari, Laterza (English trans. 2000, Piero Sraffa: His Life, Thought and Cultural Heritage, London, Routledge). RONCAGLIA A. 2005, The Wealth of Ideas. A History of Economic Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. RONCAGLIA A. 2006, «Paolo Sylos Labini, 1920-2005», BNL Quarterly Review, LIX, 236, 321. RONCAGLIA A. 2009, Piero Sraffa, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan.
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