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The article discusses a semiological analysis of the Cambridge capital controversy. Of all the major debates in the history of economic theory, probably the one most perplexing to a contemporary observer is the Cambridge capital controversy. Deirdre McCloskey makes the point that the controversy was essentially an argument about metaphors, and therefore amenable to literary analysis. The authors develop McCloskey's theme to argue that the debate was not simply about metaphors but also fundamentally about myths, and that this distinction is critical in analyzing the debate as a contestation over meanings, namely over alternative significations. They reinterpret the debate in terms of alternative semiotic strategies. Their primary interest lies in analyzing the ways in which a critique perceived as radically subversive by its champions is absorbed and integrated into a dominant meaning system. The article focuses on strategies of containment of semiotic dissonance. The authors attempt to do this by a selected textual analysis of some of the final comments and evaluations of the debate of four protagonists on the neoclassical side of the controversy: P.A. Samuelson, R. Solow, J.E. Stiglitz, and M. Blaug.