Sraffa On Marx's Assumptions Being 'Justified In General'

1.0 Introduction

I have previously noted some work that Sraffa did with the Standard Commodity. I am referring to a letter that he wrote to Stephen Bodington. Bodington had a pen name of John Eaton. This was after Bodington's review of Sraffa's book, The Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities.

2.0 Bodington's February 1961 Letter

Bodington responded to Sraffa's letter:

15 Hillfield Park
London N 10
Tudor 0214

10.ii.61

Dear Sraffa,

It was very good of you to write to me and I am delighted with your reactions to my article. Also may I express personally to you the pleasure your book gave me. One reads so many books 'because one has to', with about as much sense as setting anywhere in a "dodge-em car"; and so it’s a special pleasure to be carried along by a book such as your which is a real 'vehicle of thought'.

What you say about the S. C. I find very interesting and useful. Currently I am very busy but - as soon as I can find a reasonable stretch of time for it - I had intended to read your book again very carefully, now that its general ideas have had some time to mature in the back of my mind. So, I would like, if I may to write to you again later in the year about all this.

I have sent a copy of the article to Lange. He, of course, is always terribly busy, but I hope the discussion spreads out a bit to other countries.

Again, many thanks for your letter,
Yours sincerely
Stephen Bodington
D3.12.111/134r-134v

3.0 Bodington's October 1961 Letter

Bodington writes a later letter to Sraffa on 1 October 1961, if I understand the conventions correctly:

15 Hillfield Park
London N 10
Tudor 0214

1.10.61

Dear Sraffa,

I have now read your book again and I must say I am more than ever struck by it. There are an awful lot of things I want to think over in light of it - and one day I hope I shall. But currently I am spending all the spare time I have on mathematics - partly because I like it but also I think there will be more and more things happening in economics for which mathematics and a sense of mathematical method will matter. So all I really feel ready to say now is that my ideas about your Standard Commodity have moved considerably and very much nearer to your position.

At first reading the Standard Commodity seemed mysterious to me and I could not see its logical necessity. Obviously it is much more than a convenient means of exposition. You say: "Particular proportions, such as the Standard ones, may give transparency to a system and render visible what was hidden, but they cannot alter its mathematical properties." From one side these 'mathematical properties' are quantitative proportions between productive labour, but from the other side they are relations between quantities of products. There is, it seems to me, a vast gap in Marxist theory (and all other economic theory) on what by analogy to 'value theory' one might call 'productivity theory'. (In Marxist theory there is just an hiatus; in other economic theory most arguments just circle back to utility.) The more I think about your S. C. the more it seems to me to provide something more fundamental to build on. The S. C. picks out what stays the same through the cycle of reproduction, in the pre-existing stock and the net product, and so, as it were, helps to define 'no technical change'. Am I right in thinking this? If so, this is a starting point for analyzing technical change.

I hope interest about your book is beginning to gather momentum (which eventually it is bound to) as it would be good to see something beginning to grow again in the 'waste land' of economic theory.

With best wishes, yours sincerely,
Stephen Bodington
D3.12.111/135r-135v

4.0 Sraffa's Further Notes on the Standard Commodity

Sraffa made some notes after receiving this letter. D3.12.111/136r is in Italian. So, given my limitations, I skip it. Sraffa writes:

"((1 - w)/w) w R = r
r = R (1 - w)

The rate of s[urplus] v[alue] will be different in the actual system from what it is in the S[tandard] Syst[em], unless w is expressed in both cases is expressed in S[tandard] Com[modity].

(May it not be different even if w is expressed in S[tandard] Com[modity].)

Given the wage and the rate of profit, is the rate of s[urplus] v[alue] in the S[tandard] Syst[em] and in the actual system? (i.e., in any system?)" D3.12.111/137r

The next page in the archives seems to be a separate note:

"The tiresome objector says, suppose that the (ratio of wages to profits) rate of surplus value is 100% at values, but 150% if calculated at current prices of production. Which is the correct one?

Now, M[arx] would, I think, reject this question. He would say that his system is based on the assumption that the ratio of these aggregates is approximately constant, whether at values or prices. And that such deviations do not occur in fact.

Although still correct in fact, this answer is not found adequate at the present day, after a 100 years onslaught. It must be faced.

And if such a situation occurred, it is clear that the 'prices' rate would be the correct one. In effect, the workers get 40% of the net income: on what commod[itie]s they spend it depends on "utility": whether they choose to spend their 40% on high or low org[anic] comp[osition] commodities does not affect the degree of exploitation. From which I should conclude that the relevant rate of s[urplus] v[alue] is to be taken at "prices"". D3.12.111/138r

Should Sraffa not have the share for wages as 60%, not 40%? D3.12.111/139r is another note in Italian. Sraffa has another note:

"The propositions of M[arx] are based on the assumption that the comp[osition] of any large aggr[egate] of commodities (wages, profits, const[ant] cap[ital]) consists of a random selection, so that the ratio between their aggr[egate] (rate of s[urplus] v[alue], rate of p[rofits]) is approx[imately] the same, whether measured at 'values' or at the p[rice] of prod[uction] corresp[onding] to any rate of s[urplus] v[alue].

This is obviously true, and one would leave it at that, if it were not for the tiresome objector, who relies on the hypothetical deviations: suppose, he says, that the capitalists changed the comp[osition] of their consumption (of the same aggr[egate] price) to commod[itie]s of a higher org[anic] comp[osition], the rate of s[urplus] v[value] would decrease if calc[ulated] at 'values', while it would remain unchanged at p[rices] of prod[uction.] [W]hich is correct? - and many similar puzzles can be invented.

(Better: the cap[italist]s switched part of their consumption from comm[oditie]s of lower to higher org[anic] comp[osition], while the workers switched theirs to the same extent, from higher to lower, the aggr[egate] price of each remaining unchanged...)

It is clear that M[arx]'s pro[position]s are not intended to deal with such deviations. They are based on the assumption (justified in general) that the aggregates are of some average composition. This is in general justified in fact, and since it is not intended to be applied to detailed minute differences it is all right.

This should be good enough till the tiresome objector arises. If then one must define which is the average to which the comp[osition] should conform for the result to be exact and not only approximate, it is the St[andard] Comm[odity].

But what does this average 'approximate' to? i.e. what would it have to be composed of (what weights sh[oul]d the average have) to be exactly the St[andard] Com[modity]? i.e. Marx assumes that wages and profits consist approximately of quantities of st[andard] com[modity]." D3.12.111/140-141

Years later Bodington wrote to Sraffa about selections from Gramsci's Prison Notebooks.

Selected References

• Enrico Bellino. 2006. Banfi, Eaton, Dobb and Johnson review Sraffa's Production of Commodities. Storia Del Pensiero Economico
• Ricardo Bellofiore 2008. Sraffa After Marx: An Open Issue. Sraffa or an Alternative Economics (Ed. by Gugielmo Chiodi and Leonardo Ditta), Palgrave Macmillan.
• John Eatwell. 1975. Mr. Sraffa's standard commodity and the rate of exploitation. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 89(4): 543-555.
• Stefano Perri. 2023. Sraffa's response to Eaton's review: a note on the standard commodity and Marx's general profit rate.