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Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital
  • Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital
  • Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
  • 2nd edition
  • G. C. Harcourt
  • Published online: 10 June 2022
  • Print publication: 02 June 2022
  • View description
    The Cambridge Capital Controversy was one of the most significant debates in Twentieth Century economics. First published in 1972, this book provides an accessible reconstruction of the controversy with detailed discussion of the major points raised by its primary protagonists: Piero Sraffa and Joan Robinson on the post-Keynesian side (Cambridge, UK) and Robert Solow and Paul Samuelson on the neo-classical side (Cambridge, MA). The book is now considered to be a classic. This fiftieth anniversary edition comes with a new preface by the author and two new afterwords that reflect on the author's contribution to the field and the significance of the book in the history of economics. Topics covered include the measurement of capital, the revival of interest in Irving Fisher's rate of return on investment, the double-switching debate, Sraffa's prelude to a critique of neoclassical theory, and the 'new' theories of the rate of profits in capitalist society.
  • 3 - Solow on the Rate of Return: Tease and Counter-Tease
  • G. C. Harcourt, University of New South Wales, Sydney
  • Book: Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital
  • Published online: 10 June 2022
  • Print publication: 02 June 2022, pp 93-122
  • View extract

    Summary

    Another offshoot of the criticisms of the use of the concept of malleable capital both in theoretical analysis and in the aggregate production function is the work on the social rate of return on investment, which is associated especially with Solow. His views are set out in the 1963 De Vries Lectures, Solow [1963a], in his contribution to the Dobb Festschrift, Solow [1967], and in the subsequent exchanges with Pasinetti in Solow [1970] and Pasinetti [1970]. (In the company of Tobin, von Wiezsäcker and Yaari [1966], he added further thoughts in the analysis of ‘quickening’.)

  • Introduction
  • G. C. Harcourt, University of New South Wales, Sydney
  • Book: Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital
  • Published online: 10 June 2022
  • Print publication: 02 June 2022, pp 1-10
  • View extract

    Summary

    Capital theory is renowned for the controversies with which it is associated. In this book we survey the background to, and the issues of, the latest controversy, the debates between the two Cambridges – Cambridge, England, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. We designate the two sets of protagonists, for convenience but rather loosely, as the neo-neoclassicals and the neo-Keynesians.

  • 5 - The Rate of Profits in Capitalist Society: Whose Finest Hour?
  • G. C. Harcourt, University of New South Wales, Sydney
  • Book: Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital
  • Published online: 10 June 2022
  • Print publication: 02 June 2022, pp 212-260
  • View extract

    Summary

    In order to determine the rate of profits in capitalist society it is necessary, as we saw in Chapter 4, to introduce further factors from outside the production system itself. Certain economists – Kaldor, Joan Robinson, Pasinetti – have argued that the factors are the saving propensities associated with different classes of income-receivers in the community and the rate of growth of the economic system as given either by the rate of growth of the labour force and Harrod neutral technical progress or by the capitalists themselves, depending upon the author concerned.

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