On Theory and Practice

Which is the chicken, and which, the egg?

During our survey in Amarsinghi, Malda we found that the daily wage rate was determined primarily as per market forces of demand and supply.Now, freshly emerged from econ 101 textbooks, this led me to think...'how exactly does a peasant go about determining wage of hired labour?' Does he, for every crop operation, keep a fixed total amount and divide equally amongst the agricultural laborers (thus, wage is dependent on worker turnout and amount apportioned per operation)? Or does he pay just a little more/equal to the neighboring farmer? In jest, I even thought, he probably draws a demand and supply curve and decides wage at equilibrium (no, i didn't go as far as marginal productivity)...later, it occurred to me..I was trying to interpret reality in terms of economic theory, instead of drawing theory in order to capture reality (human economic interactions in this case).


It’s amazing how everything I perceive is in terms of theoretical frameworks ingrained in my head. Anything that is not comprehensible or intelligible in those terms must be bashed into form by assumptions/abstractions and the like. Somehow, buried amongst piles of secondary observation, vicarious living and swallowed thought-I have erred.