Representing the Production and Circulation of Commodities in Material Terms: On Sraffa’s Objectivism HEINZ D. KURZ  & NERI SALVADORI   University of Graz, Austria,  University of Pisa ABSTRACT The paper discusses Sraffa’s interpretation of the classical economists and, following their lead, his elaboration of an objectivist, surplus-based theory of value and distribution. The emphasis is on the twin concepts of physical real costs and social surplus on the one hand and that of a circular flow of production on the other. In order to determine relative prices within such an analytical scheme, the tool of simultaneous equations is indispensable. It is then argued that fixed capital turned out to be a formidable obstacle: whereas the circulating part of capital allows one to entertain the idea of a material-cum-value transmigration into the product, this idea loses much of its appeal with regard to the durable part. Sraffa eventually overcame the difficulty in terms of the joint-products approach. For it is ... the object of the present treatment ... to represent the production and circulation of commodities in material terms (i.e. quantities of labour, of commodities and periods of time) independent of the distribution of the product, i.e. of the rate of profit. (D3/12/27: 11) 1. Introduction It is a commonplace in the literature devoted to Sraffa’s work to stress that what- ever he put in print was generally the upshot of a long process of thinking and then of careful composing and writing. Since the opening of Sraffa’s papers his book (Sraffa, 1960) can be read against the background of the huge amount of prepara- tory material he had composed over a time span of more than three decades. The reader will discern in Sraffa’s treatise numerous pointers to the literature where occasionally with a single word Sraffa relates a concept he adopts or a view he advocates to a particular historical debate, or a particular doctrinal point of view, or a particular author. Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities abounds with frequently subtle hints that will only gradually Review of Political Economy, Volume 17, Number 3, 69–97, July 2005 CRPE114701 Techset Composition Ltd, Salisbury, U.K. 5/30/2005 Correspondence Address: Heinz D. Kurz, Department of Economics, University of Graz, RESOWI- Zentrum, F4, A – 8010, Graz, Austria. Email: heinz.kurz@uni-graz.at ISSN 0953-8259 print=ISSN 1465-3982 online=05=030069–29 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd DOI: 10.1080=09538250500147189