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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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