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In response to the discussion of Holmes, et al., David Andrews has
sent me a note that Sraffa was a fan of Sherlock Holmes.
I earlier stated that my interest in the potentially fruitful implications of
Holmes for economic methodology came up in the process of
following a hint of Adolph Lowe's regarding his instrumental analysis
or instrumentalism. Lowe cited the revival of the circular view of
production (Classical/Marxian reproduction models) by himself and his
colleagues at Kiel University in the twenties as in his view the most
important example of the heuristic search procedure at the core of what
he calls instrumental inference. In fact, he later refered to Section 3 of
chapter 11 of his _On Economic Knowledge_ (1965) as "the re-
enactment of the 'discovery' of the circular nature of an industrial
structure of production" (1969, p. 184n25; often recounted elsewhere
by Lowe). Lowe and his student Fritz (Frank) Burchardt and others
employed the Quesnay-Marx reproduction models in their analyses of
accumulation, cycles, employment, and structural and technical change.
The discovery resulted from grappling with what they considered a
puzzle posed by the place (and replacement) of fixed capital in an
industrial system of production. They rejected the Austrian solution of
some original stage in which only labor and natural resources were
used. Their solution to the puzzle appeared as a result of a clue
provided in the analysis of, in their case, bread production. In
specifying the input requirements for bread, one particular input stands
out: "seed-wheat as an input is capable of producing two types of
outputs: bread-wheat as a potential consumer good and seed-wheat as
its own replacement good" (1965, pp. 269-70). Thus the technological
condition for continuous production of wheat is the physical identity of
the input and output, i.e., its capacity for self-reproduction. A similar
condition was proposed to explain the seeming paradox of infinite
regress in the replacement of fixed capital. Lowe searched for a special
equipment good that was capable of producing other equipment goods
as well as reproducing itself: "what we actually find is not one such
mechanical instrument, but a comprehensive group which is defined as
machine tools...They play the same strategic role as seed-wheat plays
in agriculture" (1965, p. 270).
Interestingly, Sraffa writes that the "rational foundation of the principle
of the determining role of the profits of agriculture [in Ricardo's _Essay
of Profits_], which is never explicitly stated by Ricardo, is that in
agriculture the same commodity, namely corn, forms both the capital
(conceived as composed of the subsistence necessary for workers)
and the product" (Sraffa, 1951, p. xxxi). Later, in _Production of
Commodities by Means of Commodities_ (PCMC, 1960, p. 93),
Sraffa refers to this "method devised by Ricardo...of singling out corn
as the one product which is required both for its own production and
for the production of every other commodity" as analogous to the role
of 'basic' products in his system. Sraffa further states that it was only
after he had developed the distinction between "basics" and "non-
basics" in his system that "the above interpretation of Ricardo's theory
suggested itself as a natural consequence" (ibid.). It should be noted
that although published in 1960, "the central propositions" of PCMC
"had taken shape in the late 1920's" (1960, p. vi). Lowe first developed
his approach, in which the machine tools sector plays the role of a
"basic industry" in the 1920s.
So: Lowe and Sraffa both worked out their ideas in the twenties and
Lowe and Sraffa both revived the circular approach of the Classics and
Marx but while Sraffa was addressing issues of value and distribution,
Lowe was addressing issues of growth, cycles, and structural and
technical change. (this should be of interest especially to those
followers of Sraffa familiar with the issues regarding the "separability of
the core." In addition, both Lowe and Sraffa use terms like
"discovery" and "interpretation" in describing the heuristic process by
which they came upon the key to the circular production models, i.e.
self-reproducibility of one commodity or sector.
Anyone with thoughts on this? I'd appreciate feedback. Some of this
is from my unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, "Political Economics and
Instrumental Analysis: Adolph Lowe's Methodological Alternative for
Economic Theory and Public Policy," New School for Social
Research, 1996. There's also a few more pieces to the story, but the
longer I go on the better the chance this won't make it on the list.
Mat Forstater
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