Yes, according to a NYT report on Obama's economic advisors. On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 11:37 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > PEN-Lers, > > I'm having a discussion on an anthropologhy listserv about the labor theory > of value and one wrote the following (below). (including the note that J. > Galbraith is advisor to Obama) Is it true? best, Brian > > _______________________________________________________________________ > The revival of the labor theory of value in conventional economics is > credited to > > Piero Sraffa, 1898-1983. > > The following is from the History of Economics website at the New School: > http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/ > > "The shy, Italian-born Sraffa was brought by John Maynard Keynes to > Cambridge in the 1920s. A close friend of the Italian revolutionary Antonio > Gramsci, Sraffa has been sometimes considered a "closet Marxian" - and, > apparently, he would sometimes be quite explicit about his loyalties - > although the 1920s England was not exactly welcoming to Marxian radicals. > > Sraffa quickly became a fixture in the Cambridge world. He was part of the > legendary "cafeteria group" with Frank Ramsey and Ludwig Wittgenstein which > explored the 1921 probability treatise of J.M. Keynes. Sraffa ganged up with > Keynes to bury Friedrich Hayek in the business cycle debates. > > Nonetheless, Sraffa's shyness in front of his students made lecturing a > hellish experience. Ever resourceful, Keynes arranged for Sraffa to be > appointed as a librarian of King's College and, to keep him busy, got the > Royal Society to hand over the task of editing a new collected edition of > David Ricardo 's works over to him. Sraffa's painstaking and meticulous > collecting and editing of Ricardo's works, begun in 1931, turned out to be a > 20-year-task! Although already in the printers in 1943, the edition was > delayed after the last-minute discovery of a trunk full of Ricardo's papers > in Ireland. Publication finally began (after Maurice Dobb got on board as > assistant) in 1953. It was a formidable edition. As George Stigler was to > put it later in his review, "Ricardo was a fortunate man.. And now, 130 > years after his death, he is as fortunate as ever : he has been befriended > by Sraffa." (Stigler, 1953). Sraffa's introduction to the works was perhaps > one of the most remarkable interpretations of the tenets of Classical and > Neoclassical theory in the history of economic thought. > > The outgrowth of these efforts was one of the longest-gestating works in > economic theory. Begun in the 1920s, Sraffa's Production of Commodities by > Means of Commodities, a terse, hundred-page text which finally emerged in > 1960. This book solved and restated Ricardo's theory [i.e. the labor theory > of value] for the moderns - inspiring the "Classical Revival" spearheaded by > the Neo-Ricardians at Cambridge and elsewhere in the 1960s and 1970s." > > [Anthropologist Joe's] notion of labor constructing "values in and of the > biophysical word" is of a different epistemological status than the economic > labor theory of value as conceived by Ricardo through Sraffa and on to > today. However, that is another discussion. I've always believed that labor > + energy/materials account for value - surplus or otherwise - with > technology placed within labor. Some within Ecological Economics have worked > on an energy theory of value - Bob Costanza comes to mind. > > On a related note, I believe Jamie Galbraith at the U. of Texas and an > advisor to the Obama campaign is someone who incorporates the Sraffra > influenced labor theory of value into his economics. > > ________________________________ > McCain or Obama? Stay updated on coverage of the Presidential race while you > browse - Download Now! > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > >
-- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
