Abstract

KLIMOVSKY, Edith Alicia. The independent variable of the classical price theory. Inv. Econ [online]. 1999, vol.59, n.230, pp.99-120. ISSN 0185-1667.

The classical economists conceive the wage as a given basket of goods that workers consume. This conception of the wage has been criticized from very different perspectives. The three major criticisms are the identification of laborers with animals or machines, the introduction of arbitrary hypothesis with regard to workers' consumption and the denial of the variable nature of wages. This article proposes a solution for all these difficulties, based on the restatement of wage-goods as the measure of the wage. This interpretation supposes the existence of a double social agreement concerning two distinct aspects of the wage: its level and the composition of the basket in terms of which it is measured. Thus the coherence of the classical system is obtained without renouncing, as Sraffa does, the classical idea of the wage as the independent variable for price determination.

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