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Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 23 May 2022

Taken: 23 May 2022

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The Means of subsistence

The Means of subsistence

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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
With regard to human affairs, the way Marx believed that the dialectic operated was something like this. The irreducible thing that human beings have to do if they are to live at all is to get the means of subsistence: they must have the wherewithal to feed, clothe, and house themselves, and to meet other basic wants. Producing these things is the one task that cannot be avoided. But as soon as the means of production have developed beyond the most primitive stage it becomes in the interest of individuals to specialize, because they find they are all better off if they do. And this makes them dependent on one another. Production of the means of life becomes a social activity and is no longer an individual one. Within this mutual dependence, which is of course society itself, the defining characteristic of each individual is his relationship to the means of production: what he does to get living determines most of the basic things about his way of life, and is also his contribution to society as a whole. It determines who else’s interest in the division of the social product is the same as his own, and whose is in conflict with it. This gives rise to the existence of socio-economic classes, and also to the conflict between classes. . . . . Then above this comes what Marx calls “the superstructure”: social and political institutions, religions, philosophies, the arts, ideals, all such things, he says, grow up on the basis of the economic substructure, and are ultimately determined by it. ~ Page 166

THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
23 months ago. Edited 23 months ago.

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