Radical Political Economy: Sraffa Versus Marx

Building on the work of the iconoclastic economist Piero Sraffa, Hahnel develops a novel analytical basis for addressing some of the most important economic challenges of the modern era, notably the mounting ecological crisis and the moral injustice of capitalism.’ Thomas Weisskopf, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Co-author with Samuel Bowles and David Gordon of Beyond the Wasteland (1983), and After the Wasteland (1991). ‘In Radical Political Economy: Sraffa Versus Marx, Robin Hahnel argues persuasively that there is an equally radical but far more useful

However it is time to use intellectual tools unavailable to Marx in the nineteenth century to improve upon his formal analysis. People have had to choose between (1) continuing to use a formal model based on the labor theory of value as Marx developed in Capital to justify and retain one’s opposition to capitalism, or (2) abandoning the formal Marxian framework as outdated, and risk losing a critical evaluation of capitalism. Radical Political Economy: Sraffa Versus Marx provides readers with a third choice.A point-by-point comparison of Sraffian and Marxian treatments of prices, profits, technological change, economic crises, environmental sustainability, and the moral case against capitalism, are presented in six cor

Robin Hahnel is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Economics, American University Washington DC, USA. He is also the Co-Director of Economics for Equity and the Environment and has published widely in the fields of radical political economy and environmental economics.