Value and Distribution in the Classical Economists and Marx

After clarifying the premises which distinguish the classical approach from the later demand-and-supply approach, the paper expounds the problem of theory of value which led Ricardo and Marx to rely on the quantities of labour ‘embodied’ in the commodities, in Marx integated by the introduction of the prices of production. The error Marx makes with regard to the latter is then traceable to the superimposition of two equivalent but distinct methods for the correct determination of the rate of profit: the “Price-equations method”, consisting of the system of price equations of Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, and the “Surplus-equation method”, which can be developed by means of the “Integrated wage-goods sector” or by means of Sraffa’s “Standard system”.