What kind of theory is Marx's Labour Theory of Value? A critical realist inquiry

Capital & Class, Spring 2001 by Fleetwood, Steve

ii) The whole analysis takes place at the level of events. If one event is observed or hypothesised, one can only seek its cause in terms of another observed or hypothesised event. If causality is implied (and if it is not then the whole point of the model is in doubt) then so too are constantly conjoined events-causality is elaborated upon in the following section.

iii) Epistemology presupposes ontology. Ideas about how knowledge of reality is gained from a 'toy' model, are intelligible only via the presumption that the socio-economic world is a certain kind of place-i.e. a place where, under certain conditions, whenever V^sup n/e^

iv) The centrality of the built-in event constancy can be seen by considering how useless a model would be if statements couched in terms of events were allowed, but event constancy was not present. Consider how useless the following statement would be: 'if and only if V^sup n/e^, is less than or equal to v^sup s/e^, the worker will, on some occasions choose to shirk, and other occasions choose not to shirk'. If constant conjunctions of events are not implicitly built into 'toy' models as an a priori premise, then nothing can be deduced from the antecedents: the model is useless on its own terms.

Once one understands that constant conjunctions of events are implicitly built into 'toy' models, one can see constancy appearing in the following two general guises.

i) Constant conjunctions can form part of a 'toy' model (e.g.) y = f(x) ceteris paribus. Here the constant conjunctions of events that constitute this functional relation have been spun out of the basic axioms, assumptions and theorems, and will not be tested against observed events. The implication, however, (on pain of irrelevance) is that the constant conjunctions of events that are built into the 'toy' model have a counterpart in reality.

ii) The constant conjunctions can form part of an econometric model (e.g.) y = a b^sub 1^x^sub 1^ b^sub 2^x^sub 2^ ... b^sub n^x^sub n^ v. Here the constant conjunctions of events may have been spun out of the basic axioms, assumptions and theorems; may have been derived from the observation and recording of events; or may have been simply hypothesised. The difference between (a) and (b) is that in the latter, the alleged constancy will be tested against observed events.

What is significant for our purposes, however, is that in both of these cases the mode of theorisation turns, fundamentally, upon the alleged existence and ubiquity of constant conjunctions of events. Without event constancy, the deductivist mode of theorisation does not get off the ground.7

1.2 Critical realist critique of the deductivist mode

From the perspective of critical realism, the deductive mode of theorisation is inappropriate for two reasons. First, because the need to engineer closed systems generates a set of problematic and counterintuitive implications; and second, the deductive mode of theorisation lacks explanatory power. Significantly, the root cause of these difficulties lies in the impoverished ontology presupposed by this mode. These will now be considered in turn.