On Alternative Notions of Change and Choice. Krishna Bharadwaj’s Legacy

Krishna Bharadwaj, following upon the work and insights of Sraffa, made substantial contributions to our understanding of what is implied in the neoclassical notion of change and its related notion of choice; in this respect she appears closer to the spirit of Sraffa’s critique of neoclassical theory than many others. She also supplemented important elements in building an alternative approach, based on classical political economy, which is free from the need to employ marginal magnitudes and does not require hypothetical or potential changes to determine the resting positions of economic variables. Moreover, the notion of choice is rescued from the parable of ‘preferences’ and given more meaningful contents, allowing for consideration of habits, customs and power relationships.