Editing Piero Sraffa (section)

== Personal connections ==
Sraffa was instrumental in securing Gramsci's prison notebooks from the Fascist authorities after the latter's death in 1937. In 1924, Gramsci published a letter from Sraffa "Problems of Today and of Tomorrow",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.centrogramsci.it/riviste/nuovo/ordine%20nuovo%20p6.pdf |title=L'Ordine Nuovo |website=www.centrogramsci.it |access-date=2019-06-11}}</ref> Gramsci published 1924 a letter from Sraffa (without signing, signed S.). In the letter, Sraffa emphasizes the function of [[bourgeois]] opposition in the struggle against [[fascism]] and the importance of democratic institutions for the social and political development of the [[proletariat]]. Seeing the Italian Communist Party as weak, Sraffa recommended collaboration with the bourgeois opposition to fascism. In his answer, Gramsci rejected this suggestion, but he followed Sraffa's advice several years later.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.treccani.it//enciclopedia/piero-sraffa_(Il-Contributo-italiano-alla-storia-del-Pensiero:-Economia)|title=Sraffa, Piero in "Il Contributo italiano alla storia del Pensiero: Economia"|website=www.treccani.it}}</ref>

[[Norman Malcolm]] famously credits Sraffa with providing [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]] with the conceptual break that founded the ''[[Philosophical Investigations]]'', by means of a rude gesture on Sraffa's part:<ref name="Malcolm">{{cite book|title=Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir|pages=58–59|url=http://eh.net/lists/archives/hes/sep-1999/0034.php|author=Norman Malcolm}}</ref>

<blockquote>Wittgenstein was insisting that a proposition and what it describes must have the same 'logical form', the same 'logical multiplicity'. Sraffa made a gesture, familiar to Neapolitans as meaning something like disgust or contempt, of brushing the underneath of his chin with an outward sweep of the fingertips of one hand. And he asked: 'What is the logical form of that?' </blockquote>

In the introduction to ''Philosophical Investigations'', Wittgenstein mentions discussions with Sraffa over many years and says: "I am indebted to ''this'' stimulus for the most consequential ideas in this book". However, Sraffa broke off his weekly conversations with Wittgenstein in 1946 despite the latter's protests; and when the philosopher said he would talk about anything Sraffa wanted, "'Yes', Sraffa replied, 'but in ''your'' way'".<ref>R. Monk, ''Ludwig Wittgenstein'' (1991) p. 487</ref>

Sraffa and Wittgenstein influenced each other deeply.<ref>A. Sinha, "Sraffa and the Later Wittgenstein" (2009)</ref> While Wittgenstein made his famous turn from the ''[[Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus]]'' to the ''Philosophical Investigations'' wherein he jettisoned the previous idea that the world comprised an atomistic set of propositional facts for the notion that meaning derives from its use within a holistic self-enclosed system. Analogously, Sraffa was rebutting the neoclassical paradigm which was similarly atomistic and individualistic. While there are disputes about how to interpret Sraffa none dispute Sraffa's influence.<ref>A. Sinha, "Sraffa's Contribution to the Methodology of Economics (2015)</ref><ref>H. D. Kurz, "Critical Essays on Piero Sraffa's Legacy in Economics" (2000)</ref>

After the publication of ''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities'', Sraffa's thought became the subject of a great debate. Sraffa was described as a shy and very reserved man who was devoted to study and books. His library contained more than 8,000 volumes, many of which are now in the Trinity College Library. A popular anecdote claims that Sraffa made successful long-term investments in Japanese government bonds that he bought the day after the nuclear bombing on [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]].<ref name="newschool">{{cite web|url=http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/sraffa.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000902055854/http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/sraffa.htm|archive-date=2000-09-02|title=Piero SRAFFA|date=2 September 2000}}</ref> Another version of this is that Sraffa bought the bonds during the war when they were trading at distressed prices as he was convinced that Japan would honour its obligations ([[Nicholas Kaldor]], pp.&nbsp;66–67).<ref name="Jean-Pie Potier 1991" /> Records of Sraffa's investments in his Trinity College papers show that he had in fact begun his purchasing in 1946,<ref name=":0">S. Lonergan, [https://irwin-union.com/sraffa/ "Off the Run: Piero Sraffa and Imperial Japanese Government Bonds"]</ref> during post-war debates over whether Japan would repay its external pre-war debts in order to return to normality; his modelled returns were large and Lonergan calculates that Sraffa likely realized an estimated annual return of 16% per annum from 1946-1983.<ref name=":0" />

In 1961, before the [[Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel]] had been created, he was awarded the Söderströmska Gold Medal by the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Science]]. In 1972, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]] and in 1976 received another one from [[Madrid]]'s [[Complutense University of Madrid|Complutense]] university.

Sraffa was involved in [[Cambridge capital controversy]], sometimes called "the capital controversy".<ref name=Brems1975>Brems (1975) pp. 369-384</ref> It was a debate between prominent economists such as [[Joan Robinson]] and Piero Sraffa at the [[University of Cambridge]] in England and economists such as [[Paul Samuelson]] and [[Robert Solow]] at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

In 1966, [[Paul Samuelson]] organized a symposium in the QJE, in which it was accepted by all parties, including Samuelson himself, that '''David Levhari''' had made a mistake and that Sraffa’s proposition is, of course, robust. The proposition in question refuted the Clarkian-type neoclassical explanation of the rate of interest on capital on the basis of the “marginal productivity of capital,” which requires measurement of the “intensity” of capital independently of the rate of interest. Sraffa’s “re-switching” proposition showed that, in general, there is no logical way by which the “intensity of capital” can be measured independently of the rate of interest — and hence the widely held neoclassical explanation of the distribution of income was logically untenable. This victory was well-known as the pinnacle of Sraffa’s book.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/sraffas-revolution-in-economic-theory |title= Sraffa's Revolution in Economic Theory }}</ref>