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Ajit Sinha: Theories of Value fromAdam Smith to Piero SraffaJelle VersierenPublished online: 02 Mar 2012.

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The great strength of Gillian Howie’s concluding chapter is that she recognizes the

importance and contradictory character of the linguistic turn. Although she praises

its renewal of conceptions of agency and subjectivity, she points out that it tended

to undermine the emancipatory intentions of radical thought. What is, however,

missing from her argument is a recognition that the linguistic turn is best conceived

as a turn, not against Marxism per se, but against the dominant Althusserian account

of Marxism, which was unable to conceptualize individual agency. This lacuna

undermines what is otherwise a welcome suggestion of a return to the humanism

of the early Marx because she posits a false opposition between this and Marx’s

economics, which she dismisses. This distinction, if not the direction of the dismissal,

is pure Althusser. The problem with this argument is that any humanism that fails to

integrate Marx’s concept of social relations of production will merely tend, as did

the Althusser’s humanist opponents of the 1960s, to invert rather than transcend the

limitations of his Marxism. What we need is a conception of Marxism that overcomes

this division. Howie’s essay, which apart from anything else provides a useful survey

of feminist encounters with Marx, points in this direction.

If the essays in the first three sections of this collection suggest a similar conclusion,

others do not. It is perhaps an unfortunate characteristic of academic specialization

that the authors brought together in this book do not directly engage with each

other’s work. This is a shame. Howie’s comments on essentialism would benefit

from an engagement with Meikle’s discussion of the issue, and her comments on

subjectivity would equally benefit from a dialogue with the arguments presented by

McIvor, Collier and Chitty amongst others. Perhaps that might be the subject of their

next conference and/or their next volume.

This is in any case a minor criticism of a significant collection that will act as an

important starting point for future debate. It deserves to be read more widely than

the £50.00 price tag will allow*order it for your library.

Ajit Sinha: Theories of Value from Adam Smith to Piero Sraffa

New Delhi, Routledge, 2010.

ISBN: 978-0-415-56320-8 (hardback)

Jelle Versieren

The title of Sinha’s book, Theories of Value from Adam Smith to Piero Sraffa, can be

partly deceiving. It does not contain the same broad scope as Ronald L. Meek’s

Studies in the Theory of Labor Value or Maurice Dobb’s Theories of Value and

Distribution since Adam Smith. Rather, it addresses canonical neoclassical views in the

discussion of key concepts of Smith, Ricardo, Marx and Sraffa. The book consists

of four major chapters, all contributing to the rebuttal of equilibrium economics as

being superior to the classical paradigm.

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Sinha does not adhere to a certain methodology, but aims to re-evaluate the

contributions of the above-mentioned economists in their own terms. The author is a

heterodox thinker and clearly defends a ‘physical surplus’ approach, which makes

him, to some extent, a Sraffian economist. The analysis is logical and sound, but

separates itself from any goals of the radical economics research agenda. Sinha

criticizes the fetish of factor prices and allocative efficiency and defends the Standard

Commodity approach as a system that is ‘not made up of independent industries

but is an interconnected whole, and that the properties of the whole determine the

properties of it parts’ (p. 294).

The first chapter contributes to the recent re-evaluation of Adam Smith’s labour-

commanded theory within the reassessment of his overall methodology.1 Sinha

revises the prevailing current of thought, asserting that the labour-commanded

approach adopts flawed logic and circular reasoning. His new interpretation rests

with Adam Smith, who stated that the objective existence of labour value cannot

be disputed, and the social division of labour causes multiple subject positions:

the relation between the direct producer and the owner of a commodity. The measure

of value changes into a wage basket and money prices because it is determined

by this relation: ‘for Smith ‘‘real value’’ is represented by the ‘‘command of labour’’ of

a commodity and the ‘‘command of labour’’ of a commodity is at the same time

represented by its ‘‘real value.’’ The two notions cannot be separated’ (p. 10). In

addition Sinha gives us a synthesis of Smith’s theory on wages, profits and rents, as

well as a thoughtful reassessment of the mutual connections between the Scottish

thinker, the Physiocrats, Ricardo, Marx and Hollander.

The second chapter on Ricardo discusses his investigation into distribution and

value. Sinha carefully reconstructs the importance of a constant cost model, the corn

model and a cost of production theory concerning the movement of prices and the

distribution of surplus. Sinha agrees with Sraffa that these tools of analysis made

Ricardo pursue an invariable measure of value. The corn model consists of physical

values whereby there is a clear inverse and proportional relationship between the

rate of profit and real wages. The problem was to homogenize the aggregate of

heterogeneous commodities in an industrial context; therefore, a labour theory of

value was needed to find an invariable measure. This reconstruction of thought by

detour of Sraffa makes Sinha well equipped to criticize the interpretations of Malthus,

Marx and Hollander.

Sinha’s research on the Marxian labour theory of value in chapter three does not

contain any new insights. The author repeats the old debates on the transformation

problem and Marx’s concept of value is reduced to a failed attempt to explain the

connection between profit, surplus value, exploitation and prices of production.

Sinha emphasizes the old neo-Ricardian or Sraffian position that Marx made an

unnecessary detour to explain how profits and wages are being distributed, because

1 For example, recent studies show a possible theological kernel in Smith’s thought. Cf. L. Hill, ‘The Hidden

Theology of Adam Smith’, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 8:1 (2001), pp. 1�29.

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the concept of capital cannot be explained by labour power. This chapter has the

advantage of summarizing the complete Sraffian and neo-Ricardian critique.

The author attempts in the fourth chapter to reinforce the Sraffian view on

the capital controversy*he does not use this term*by eliminating some of the

misinterpretations of Samuelson or Hahn. He also improves the counter-critique

of Garegnani, Steedman or Harcourt. Sinha succeeds in presenting the very

nature of Sraffa’s equations as an independent paradigm that differs from classical,

(post-)keynesian or neoclassical propositions with regard to price theory or the rate

of profit. First, Sinha does not refer much to Ricardo’s endeavour to find an

invariable measure of value. Rather, he tries to differentiate the classical and Sraffian

approach because the latter does not depend on the relation between input and

output prices of particular commodities: ‘The question ‘‘where does a commodity get

its price from’’ is not posed. Instead of any particular commodity, a whole system of

production is taken into account and it is shown that prices play a certain role in the

scheme of the reproduction of the system as a whole. It is a functional explanation

within a system of production and distribution but no ‘‘essence’’’ (p. 309).

Furthermore, he refutes the neoclassical assumption that Sraffa’s Standard system

relied on constant returns to scale. To some degree Sinha sides with Amartya Sen,

who already placed emphasis on Sraffa’s methodology being completely different

from the neoclassical axiomatic imposition of equilibrium.2 Sinha extends this line of

argument and shows that prices of the Standard system should not necessarily be

conceived as equilibrium prices, therefore denying the classical and neoclassical

relation between effectual demands or composition of demand and the determina-

tion of prices. The conditions of production with a uniform rate of profit determine

their own functioning whereby changes can be measured by the Standard commodity.

In conclusion, this book is a very important contribution to the history of

economic thought. Sinha provides novel insights on the methodology and the mode

of analysis of Smith, Ricardo and Sraffa. The chapter on Marx has its limitations

because Sinha does not fully comprehend the very different way of thinking between

Marxian and Sraffian economists as to the conception of social reality.

Friedrich Adler (ed.), Victor Adler*Friedrich Engels Briefwechsel

Vienna, Verein fur die Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, 2009.

Gerd-Rainer Horn

One of the many attractive points about this particular correspondance is the link it

provides between, quite literally, the founding fathers of Marxism and the first

generation of those socialist leaders under whose baton European social democratic

2 A. Sen, ‘Sraffa, Wittgenstein and Gramsci’, Journal of Economic Literature, 41:4 (2003), pp. 1240�1255.

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