Brief von Bertram Schefold an Josef Steindl

Schefold, Bertram; Bharadwaj, Krishna

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Correspondence

Document type:: Correspondence

Collection:: Josef Steindl Collection

Title:: Brief von Bertram Schefold an Josef Steindl

Author:: Schefold, Bertram Bharadwaj, Krishna

Recipient:: Steindl, Josef

Scope:: Typoskript mit Unterschrift, 2 Blätter, 2 Seiten

Place of publication:: ohne Ort

Year of publication:: 1988-07-26

Source material date:: 26. Juli 1988

Language:: German

Shelfmark:: S/B.319

Correspondence partner:: Steindl, Josef Schefold, Bertram Bharadwaj, Krishna

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.48671/nls.js.1512641504942

Supplement

Document type:: Supplement

Title:: Measurement and aggregation: a comment on J. Steindl

3 Potentials, whereas the Standard commodity plays a subordinate role only. The maximum rate of growth, G, is that rate which solves the quantity System . t/s' q = (1 + G)Aq, J fr ^ xW where A is the augmented matrix including the necessary subsistence for the workers. Since actual wages may include a share of the surplus product, it is not clear how the subsistence component is ascertained. Indeed, as Joan Robinson pointed out in her review of Sraffa’s book, it can hardly be imagined that ’when workers had a surplus to spend on beef, their physical need for wheat was unchanged’ (1961, p. 54). Further on, Professor Steindl’s measure of changes in the system’s ’productivity’ in terms of changes in the maximum possible growth rate crucialy depends on an hypothesis of how technological change affects the subsistence component, both directly and indirectly, via its impact on the general level of wages. It would be interesting to hear more about the kind of hypothesis Professor Steindl has in mind. According to Professor Steindl Sraffa Starts from the assumption of given ’endowments at the beginning of the period’, i.e., 'Stocks which are left at the end’ of the previous period. To avoid possible misunderstandings, it is perhaps worthwhile to stress that the Capital Stocks contemplated in Sraffa's analysis are those necessary to produce the given levels of output of the different Commodities at minimum costs. In contradistinction to the neoclassical approach, which Starts from the familar assumption of an arbitrarily given endowment vector, Sraffa takes plant and equipment to be fully adjusted to effectual demand. Obviously, the Capital Stocks inheritöd form the past will generally not be consistent with a normal or long period Position of the economy characterized by a uniform rate of profit. ü ■ ii' This leads to a final Observation. Professor Steindl maintains that ’Sraffa’s way of measuring the productivity of the System ... is made possible by an imagined shift of resources’. Clearly, the only resource to which the idea of an ’imagine shift’ could perhaps be applied is the quantity of labour employed, whereas the Capital Stocks required for the Standard System need not and general will not coincide with the Stocks of the actual Systems. (This is immediately obvious in the case of non-basics which serve as means of production.) However, even with regard to labour the idea of an hypothetical redistribution of the given labour force employed in the actual System is dubious. Since Sraffa allows for heterogeneous labour (1960, p. 10), there is no ■' presumption that the same quantities of the different kinds of labour employed in the { . .iV tM I .JwA Crjr\ V 1 * ■ , l V" .0' k\ As* Wt*" « 1 4 T Mt i MA #,/,C vV *

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