Adam Smith and David Ricardo exemplify classical economics. Economists lost and forgot many good ideas in classical economics with the advent of marginalism.
The first phase of the classical revival clarified the classical theory of value and distribution. Scholars achieved this clarification by building on Piero Sraffa's work. Amartya Sen, a student of Maurice Dobb, Piero Sraffa, and Joan Robinson, has commented (e.g., Sen 1974, Sen 2003) a couple of times on Sraffa. He's even had something appreciative to say of the labor theory of value.
Ricardo and Smith have different writing styles, with Ricardo more formal and Smith treating a wider range of material. Furthermore, the theory of value and distribution is only a component, albeit an essential one, of classical economics. In Smith, individuals are not exclusively self-interested utility-maximizers. They exhibit a variety of types of motivations, including sympathy and a regard to social conventions. Furthermore, Smith's statements cannot be partitioned into statements of facts and statements of values. Smith's judgements on what is desirable are multidimensional, not based solely on increasing, for example, income per head.
I have been reading Sen's Development as Freedom and related literature. Like Smith, Sen treats a wider ranges of ideas than are dealt with in the classical theory of value. Sen argues that economic development must be considered along many dimensions, not just income per head. Some of the goals he considers, such as the empowerment of women, are good in themselves. But his consideration of the interconnected instrumental roles of many of these goods provides a rich empirical research program. As examples, I cite the role of decreased income inequality in raising life expectancy, the role of democracy of preventing famine even when crops fail, and the role of increased female literacy in decreasing infant mortality for girls.
Vivian Walsh, while drawing on Hilary Putnam, points out that facts, values, and conventions are, as in Smith, impossible to separate in Sen's work. He looks to Sen as exemplifying the "second phase" of a revival of classical economics. This second phase is less formal than the first, and it treats a wider range of issues.
Perhaps a historian of ideas would find it of interest to research Wittgenstein's role in all of this. Putnam drew on the later Wittgenstein in developing his pragmatic anti-dualism. And, of course, Wittgenstein acknowledges Sraffa's influence. Perhaps a study along these lines would strengthen claims of the complementary nature of Sraffa's and Sen's economics.
- Nuno Martins (2011). "The Revival of Political Economy and the Cambridge Tradition: From Scarcity Theory to Surplus Theory" Review of Political Economy, V. 23, N. 1 (January): pp. 111-131
- Hilary Putnam (2004). The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays, Harvard University Press. [To read.]
- Hilary Putnam and Vivian Walsh (2009). "Entanglement through Economic Science: The End of a Separate Welfare Economics", Review of Political Economy, V. 21, N. 2 (April): pp. 291-297.
- Hilary Putnam and Vivian Walsh (editors) (2011). The End of Value-Free Economics, Routledge. [To read; a collection that includes some of my other references.]
- Amartya Sen (1974). "On Some Debates in Capital Theory", Economica, V. 41, Iss. 163 (August): pp. 328-335.
- Amartya Sen (1997a). "Maximization and the Act of Choice", Econometrica, V. 65, N. 4 (July): pp. 745-779.
- Amartya Sen (1997.) "Dobb, Maurice Herbert", in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics (ed. by J. Eatwell, M. Milgate, and P. Newman), Macmillan Press.
- Amartya Sen (1999). Development as Freedom, Alfred A. Knopf.
- Amartya Sen (2003). "Sraffa, Wittgenstein, and Gramsci", Journal of Economic Literature, V. 41 (December): pp. 1240-1255.
- Amartya Sen (2005). "Walsh on Sen after Putnam", Review of Political Economy, V. 17, N. 1 (January): pp. 107-113
- Amartya Sen (2010). "Adam Smith and the Contemporary World", Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, V. 3, Iss. 1 (Spring): pp. 50-67.
- Vivian Walsh (2000). "Smith After Sen", Review of Political Economy, V. 12, No. 1.
- Vivian Walsh (2003). "Sen After Putnam", Review of Political Economy, V. 15, No. 3 (July).
- Vivian Walsh (2008). "Freedom, Values and Sen: Towards a Morally Enriched Classical Economic Theory", Review of Political Economy, V. 20, N. 2 (April): pp. 199-232.