Abstract
In this article the evolution of the classical theory of value and distribution is scrutinized, starting from the original contributions of Ricardo and Marx to its most general presentation, from Sraffa (1960SRAFFA, P. Production of commodities by means of commodities. Cambridge University Press, 1960.), with a special focus on less discussed contributions such as Dmitriev, Bortkiewicz, Shibata (1933SHIBATA, K. The meaning of the theory of value in theoretical economics. Kyoto University Economic Review, v. VIII, p. 49-68, 1933.) and Seton (1957SETON, F. The transformation problem. Review of Economic Studies, v. 25, p. 149- 60, 1957.). The contribution of the present work is to carry out a historical reconstruction using the same mathematical formalization in order toclearly compare all of the contributors. We will see that these contributions allow us to notean evolution - usually neglected among historians of economics, who tend to attribute the revival of classical economics solely to Sraffa - of the classical theory of value, which in its first versions is valid only under very restrictive assumptions, until its generalization to much more general cases. The “transformation problem” will be shown to be part (overcome) of it.
Keywords:
Classical theory of value; Transformation problem; Marx, Sraffa; Labour-values