Piero Sraffa – Doing 'History in Reverse'

This article follows a suggestion made by Piero Sraffa in the late 1920s about the writing of his book that was published in 1960—a suggestion that he did not follow. The suggestion consisted in the writing of a history of political economy, starting with the ideas of the French Physiocrats, and its further development by Adam Smith and David Ricardo. This history was intended as an introduction to the 1960 book. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the 'central propositions' of the 1960 book, seen as a rigorous theoretical statement of the political economy of these 'old' economists.