692 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 28 
In his anxiety to emphasize the dynamic, ever-changing nature 
of a production-type economy, Professor PASINETTI does less than 
justice to many of his predecessors, particularly the members of the 
neoclassical school ranging from WALRAS and JEVONS to SAMUELSON. 
They, too, were interested primarily in production rather than 
exchange, and it is from the nature of production that they deduced 
their theories of distribution and capital. LEONTIEF, by his own 
admission, is a lineal descendant of Warras, and LEONTIEF is par 
excellence a theorist of production. To be sure he is not a theorist 
of the aspect of production that intrigues PASINETTI: the process by 
which production engenders technological progress.  PASINETTI’s 
novelty is not that he is concerned with production, but that he is 
concerned with the evolution of productive techniques. 
In their effort to understand exchange and production, the older 
theorists simplified life by assuming away changes in productive 
techniques. In pursuit of his new interest, PASINETTI claims the 
same privilege for himself: he wishes to simplify his life by ignoring 
factor scarcities. It is no objection to point out that this is a radical 
proposal. But it may be more of an objection to remember that 
PASINETTI wishes to introduce prices into his system and to explain 
them, and it is very hard to say what the social significance of prices 
is in the absence of scarcity. 
PASINETTI 
Professor DorFMAN touches upon a really crucial point when, at 
the very end of his comment, he asks: What is the social significance 
nf prices in the absence of scarcity? 
To answer this question, I think we must consider the conclu- 
sions of the two types of models which have been confronted. In 
‘he simplest marginal scheme for scarce goods, quantities are ac- 
cepted as given by nature and prices emerge as a sort of indexes of 
scarcity with respect to consumers’ preferences. In the theoretical 
scheme I am proposing (a theoretical scheme for the lone run) re- 
10] Pasinetti - pag. 122