Steve K quoted the following passage from Marx in [OPE-L:4873]:
> "For the time being, necessary labor supposed as such;
> i.e. that the worker always obtains only the minimum of > wages. This
supposition is necessary, of
> course, so as to establish the laws of profit in so far as > they are not
determined by the rise and fall of wages or > by the influence of landed
property. All these fixed
> suppositions themselves become fluid in the
> further course of development." (Marx 1857, p. 817.)
_One_ interpretation of the above is that he planned on getting to this ("in
the further course of development") in Book III on "Wage-Labour" and Book
II on "Landed Property".
This is an entirely legitimate procedure *provided* one gets around to this
at a later stage of the analysis (whereas neo-neo-classical analysis has the
nasty habit of habitually making the ceteris paribus assumption and then
"forgetting" about all of the variables that they have held constant and how
the conclusions that they have reached are dependent on the c.p.
assumption). Marx's health, alas, wasn't quite up to his plans for future
books.
What excuse do we have?
In solidarity, Jerry
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