The Indian reception of Sraffa: a study of book reviews

Thomas, Alex M. (2025) The Indian reception of Sraffa: a study of book reviews. CSWP, 70. pp. 1-21.

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Abstract

This paper examines the Indian reception of Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (1960) by focusing on book reviews published in prominent Indian journals. While Krishna Bharadwaj’s review in The Economic Weekly (1963) has received significant scholarly attention, this has not been the fate of Sukhamoy Chakravarty’s review in Arthaniti (1961) and J. K. Mehta’s review in the Indian Journal of Economics (1962). In Bellino’s (2008) book chapter focused solely on book reviews of PCMC, there is only a brief engagement with Bharadwaj’s review and the book reviews of Chakravarty and Mehta are only mentioned. From my study of the Indian book reviews, the following key themes emerge: a restatement of key propositions of classical political economy, a critique of marginalism, the relationship between economic theory and policy, and similarities with input-output analysis—thus placing these reviews, especially that of Bharadwaj, as some of the best ones that were published.

Item Type:	Article
Authors:	Thomas, Alex M.
Document Language:	Language English
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Piero Sraffa; Krishna Bharadwaj; Sukhamoy Chakravarty; J. K. Mehta, India
Subjects:	Social sciences > Economics
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Arts and Sciences
Full Text Status:	Public
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/6048
Publisher URL:	http://www.centrosraffa.org/cswp_details.aspx?id=7...

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