Cities 07

Debord # 41
What is the value of a dollar? Before it became "all-mighty" people knew what the things they owned were worth. A pair of socks meant a winter's worth of wool from a sheep, twelve or more hours of carding and spinning and six hours of knitting. Maybe you had a big marsh of rice and your neighbor had a forest of bamboo and you could trade the two. Maybe you worked as a cobbler and a pair of shoes was worth a new roof on your cottage from the local roofer, since it would take you twice as long to do it yourself than it would to make the shoes and vice versa on making the shoes for the roofer.
However what is an hour's worth of work worth today? Well, that depends on who you are. If you're a cog in the machine of production your hour is worth whatever the worker next to you is willing to take.( thanks Marx and Engels) If you're the production manager your hour is worth a bit more and if you're the owner of the company your hour is worth a ridiculous amount of money that's often negatively correlated with the amount of energy expended to get it.
What about the value of a dollar on the consumption side of things? Well, if you work at a Target store as a cashier, you probably make around $8 an hour so you might be able to afford a $5 meal at Arby's on your lunch break. If you work at Target Corporate downtown you probably make about $28 an hour so you can afford to go to Rock Bottom Brewery for a $15 lunch. Is the food really worth more money? Is it more nutritionally sound? Does what you can afford determine the value of your dollar?
Also, if you go to Target to buy a DVD it might cost $12 but at Walmart the very same DVD would cost you $10. Is your dollar worth more at Walmart? A lot of people seem to think so. That’s what Walmart would tell you, or have you believe. They are masters in "the science of domination".
The commodity is an illustration of its owner's income and status. The value of a dollar is flexible and intangible. The value of a commodity is what you're willing to do to "own" it. Yet, the dollar is the medium through which the commodity is purchased.
So, what Debord is saying here in my assessment is simply that to the general populous “the economy” is a meaningless political term that remains invisible to them in spite of its various connections to their world through social interactions and practices. Like in Jacobs how the store and small business owners are invested in the neighborhood because the people in the neighborhood buy the commodities that they sell. The people don’t consciously think about how their purchases create community, they think more about the social aspects of the economic relationship that exists between them and the store owners. Big businesses have learned, through the “science of domination” (which is, of course, the “dominant science” or political science?) how to catch consumers in their unaware state and appeal to their need for the social side of the economic exchange.