From: Paul C (clyder@GN.APC.ORG)
Date: Sun Jun 20 2004 - 04:36:31 EDT
Paul Zarembka wrote:
>Paul C.,
>
>The worker clocks out at 4 p.m., having started at 7 p.m. and says,
>"freedom, for a few hours! my 8 hours are up!". That eight hours (one
>hour lunch excluded) is to be theoretical?
>
>The seamster works beyond 24 hours on a wedding dress and falls over dead
>of exhaustion. The mistress says, "how dare she!" That is to be
>theoretical?
>
>I'd say, it's reality. To call it theoretical ("the 'length of the
>working day' is another theoretical object that we use to discuss an
>aspect of reality") reads like idealism to me.
>
>Paul Zą.
>
>
I am not disputing that there exist real people who really work during
the day. The point
I am making is that you could object to any answer that Ian gave that he
was just bringing
up another theoretical object.
By the way, surely your examples above are theoretical? They involve
abstract characters
'the worker', 'the seamster'.
What I am saying is that we know the real world by means of theoretical
models, and within
discourse, all one can do is refer to other theoretical representations.
These representations'
are produced in different ways, some of them more and some of them less
affected by
pre-existing social ideology. I am by no means disputing the materialist
premis that the real
world exists and is knowable. I am just unhappy with the importing of a
meta discourse about
theoretical versus real objects comming in.
As to the original question 'what is the real object corresponding to
the law of value', it is
not clear that laws have real objects in this sense. What is the real
object corresponding
to the 'law of gravitation'?
There is no 'object' in either case, the laws ( provided that we all
agree on what the law
specifies ) describe regulaties that are observed in the real world. One
may or may not
have a theory of gravity or a theory of value which explains why the law
operates.
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