Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?
But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.
Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style.
Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured.
True, he said
.The "utility" of "uselessness"
A product's "symbolic" AND pre-symbolic value
(producing meaning)
from Google AI:« Plus-de-jouir » (surplus enjoyment) est un concept introduit par Jacques Lacan dans son Séminaire XVII pour désigner un excès de jouissance qui dépasse le principe de plaisir et la satisfaction symbolique. Analogue à la « plus-value » de Marx, ce reste de plaisir est produit par le renoncement à une satisfaction totale.
A products's value does not simply emerge from the 'reality' of the utility of the object to the consumer (use value). It is a "transference/ transcendence" of use AND imaginary/symbolic/ and pre-symbolic surplus values through Das Ding and that constitute its' value's totality (visible + hidden values) and that establish the commodity's price.
from Google AI:In Lacanian psychoanalysis, das Ding (The Thing) represents an absolute, pre-symbolic, and lost object that constitutes a central, structural lack (manque) around which human subjectivity is organized. It is the "Real" that cannot be symbolized, often associated with the primordial, lost mother-object, acting as a "lethal abyss".
Das Ding (The Thing): Introduced via Freud and developed by Lacan, it is the void or the unrepresentable object that lies beyond the symbolic order. It is the goal of desire that can never be reached, only orbited.Manque (Lack/Loss): The subject is constituted by this fundamental lack. The objet petit a (object-cause of desire) is what remains of das Ding after it has undergone symbolization, representing the "lost object" in everyday life.Relationship: Das Ding is the ultimate, unattainable object, while manque is the experience of its absence, driving desire as a "metonymy" or "want-to-be" (manque-à-être).
Das Ding is often described as the "beyond-of-the-signified". It is the primordial outside of the subject, serving as the "structural a priori condition for memory
A miser (or collector) savors the surplus value of the packaging rendering the commodity inaccessible as a form of symbolic/ pre-symbolic surplus enjoyment (Plus de jouir) obtained through enjoyment's very denial.... refusal to open and remove the packaging that makes the commodity inaccessible that would diminish its' exchange value (violating the "sacred" adyton). For ultimately, all desire is derived through the preselected desires of Others. And the very moment in which a desire is obtained (packaging removed), it is transformed into a desire for something new, something different.
