This will be a
series of corollaries to add to the demonstration.
Now, that such a relation may exist and be estimated, there must
necessarily be a law, internal or external, which governs wages
and prices; and since, in the present state of things, wages and
prices vary and oscillate continually, we must ask what are the
general facts, the causes, which make value vary and oscillate,
and within what limits this oscillation takes place.
But this very question is contrary to the accepted principles;
for whoever says OSCILLATION necessarily supposes a mean
direction toward which value's centre of gravity continually
tends; and when the Academy asks that we DETERMINE THE
OSCILLATIONS OF PROFIT AND WAGES, it asks thereby that we
DETERMINE VALUE. Now that is precisely what the gentlemen of
the Academy deny: they are unwilling to admit that, if value is
variable, it is for that very reason determinable; that
variability is the sign and condition of determinability. They
pretend that value, ever varying, can never be determined.
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