Abstract

This article analyzes two texts by Sraffa published in 1925 and 1926 with
criticisms of the dominant marginalist approach, which presupposes free competition and
diminishing returns. Sraffa concluded that such a model only applies in the case of constant
returns. These two articles served as a basis for Sraffa, almost 30 years later, to formulate
a devastating critic of the marginalist or subjective theory of value by proposing a model
of prices and income distribution that does not depend on the hypothesis of changes in the
scale of production or in the proportion of factors.

JEL Classification: D21; D24; D41.