Classical and Neoclassical harmonies and dissonances

Paul A. Samuelson

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2007, vol. 14, issue 2, 243-271

Abstract: Proofs are given that only singularly can real 1750 - 2007 competitive price ratios be 'natural', in the sense of being invariant under changes in demand tastes. Proofs are given that both 1750 - 1870 discrete technologies or 1890 - 2007 continuum technologies, with convexity properties sufficient for arbitrage-proof supply-demand equilibria, will be 'intertemporally Pareto optimal', immune to leaving any deadweight (inefficient) losses on the table. Sraffa (1960), ignoring the vast post-1945 linear and non-linear programming mathematical literature of Danzig, Kuhn-Tucker-Bellman, von Neumann, Ramsey literature does not quite arrive at attainable distribution solutions. Where it tolerates increasing or decreasing returns to scale, there can be no competitive equilibria. When its matrix equations do obey first-degree-homogeneous functions, the book's stress on Basics or non-Basics is an irrelevancy leading to bizarre novel interpretations of Ricardo. Old age overtakes us all. Alas, Sraffs's proposed critique of twentieth century political economy we will never be able to know.

Keywords: Non-spurious marginalisms for limited-substitutability or smooth differentiable technologies; 'Master Functions' (cornered or smooth); scales-return constancy for competition; generic inequality of own rate of interest ! (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09672560701327950 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:14:y:2007:i:2:p:243-271

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/REJH20

DOI: 10.1080/09672560701327950

Access Statistics for this article

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought is currently edited by José Luís Cardoso

More articles in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().