Gerald Levy (glevy@pratt.edu)
Tue, 19 Oct 1999 12:18:23 -0400 (EDT)
re Paul Z's [OPE-L:1500]:
> Yes, and what you don't quote here is the portion of that 1865 letter from
> Marx to Engels which precedes "the whole thing": "Now, regarding my work,
> I will tell you the plain truth about it. There are 3 more chapters to be
> written to complete the theoretical part (the first 3 books). Then there
> is still the 4th book, the historical-literary one, to be written..." In
> other words, by 1865 Marx makes no mention of any planned book on wages.
Isn't _Capital_ the "work" that Marx is referring to? As such, you
wouldn't necessarily anticipate his mentioning a possible book on
wage-labour any more than books on landed property, the state, foreign
trade, or world market and crisis since the remaining books in the
6-book-plan are not parts of _Capital_.
> I don't follow you, Mike. Why is he required to answer these particular
> questions of yours?
Paul -- may I ask you a hypothetical question?
Suppose you wrote an article for _Capital & Class_ on the "Political
Economy of Lollypops". Let's say, then, that Suzanne writes a reply to
your article in the same journal and challenges your findings on the
"lollypop question." At the time, you decide -- for whatever reason --
not to reply to Suzanne's article. No one would question that you have
that right.
Now suppose years go by and you write a book on "The political economy of
lollypops". In that book you briefly mention Suzanne's position but not
her critique of *your position* that appeared in print in _C&C_. Nor do
you even list Suzanne's article in your "Bibliography".
Now, this is obviously a hypothetical scenario -- and its not only because
your research interests are not focused on lollypops (nor are Suzanne's).
It is hypothetical because I *CAN NOT* believe that you would *NOT* at
least refer to Suzanne's article in your book and include the reference
in your "Bibliography". Moreover, I don't think that anyone on this list
could imagine that *YOU* would do such a thing.
If you can't imagine yourself doing this, why would you imagine that
someone else could or should do this?
In solidarity, Jerry
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