Basics, Non-Basics and Joint Production

Abstract

The distinction between basic and non-basic commodities plays a central role in the analysis presented by Sraffa in his Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (1960). Thus, the conditions of production of basics are said to play an essential part in the determination of prices and the rate of profit, while those of non-basics do not; it follows, in turn, that the effects of taxes and of changes in methods of production are said to depend on whether they relate to basic or to non-basic commodities (see, for example, ibid., sections 6 and 65). It may therefore be of interest to examine rather closely the general formulation of the distinction between basics and non-basics which Sraffa presents in the course of his discussion of joint production.

I should like to thank Professor L. L. Pasinetti for encouragement and helpful discussion concerning this essay. It may be noted here that the ideas contained in this essay were first presented to a Round Table at Trinity College, Cambridge, in September 1976, as part of a much longer paper. One version of the present note was then published in the original Italian edition of the present book, and a second version, in English, was published in the Economic Journal of June 1977. The present essay is slightly different from both these earlier versions. [columns] are independent, the others being linear combinations of these.