A (Ir)Relevância da Teoria Sraffiana

Do abstract de um recente artigo de Mark Blaug:

"There is a trade-off in economics (and elsewhere) between rigor and relevance:
the more we achieve deductive certainty in our arguments, the less
likely it is that we will achieve socially and politically relevant conclusions.
This trade-off, as we shall see, is not logically inevitable but, nevertheless,
it is rarely avoided in economic theorizing. Sraffian economics,
or so-called neo-Ricardian economics, is a striking example of this tradeoff.
From the outset in the pages of Piero Sraffa’s Production of Commodities
by Means of Commodities (1960) every departure from the framework
of simultaneous linear equations is carefully avoided with the aim of
producing a determinate theory of relative prices, conceived as a snapshot
of an economy at one moment of time. I shall argue that it condemns itself
to irrelevancy by its obsessive concern with rigor, cutting away every
wrinkle in its arguments, even if those wrinkles raise fundamental questions
about the economy that require resolution."

Mr. Blaug então continua:

"I claim that Sraffian economics, however rigorous...., is irrelevant to our understanding of the real world and, judging by its failure to draw any policy implications, is largely irrelevant
to the major concerns of modern economists."