This is indeed a sequence,but a very superficial one.Production is determined by general laws of nature;distribution by random social factors,it may therefore exert a more or less beneficial influence on production;exchange,a formal social movement,lies between these two;and consumption,as the concluding act,which is regarded not only as the final aim but as the ultimate purpose,falls properly outside the sphere of economy,except in so far as it in turn exerts a reciprocal action on the point of departure thus once again initiating the whole process.
The opponents of the economists who accuse the latter of crudely separating interconnected elements,either argue from the same standpoint or even from a lower one,no matter whether these opponents come from within or without the domain of political economy.Nothing is more common than the reproach that the economists regard production too much as a goal in itself,and that distribution is equally important.This argument is based on the concept of the economists that distribution is a separate and independent sphere alongside production.Another argument is that the different factors are not considered as a single whole;as though this separation had forced its way from the textbook into real life and not,on the contrary,from real life into the textbooks,and as though it were a question of the dialectical reconciliation of concepts and not of the resolution of actually existing conditions.a.[Production and Consumption]Production is simultaneously consumption as well.It is consumption in a dual form --subjective and objective consumption.[Firstly]the individual,who develops his abilities producing expends them as well,using them up in the act of production,just as in natural procreation vital energy is consumed.Secondly,it is consumption of the means of production,which are used and used up and in part (as for instance fuel)are broken down into simpler components.It similarly involves consumption of raw material which is absorbed and does not retain its original shape and quality.The act of production itself is thus in all its phases also an act of consumption.
The economists concede this.They call productive consumption both production that is simultaneously identical with consumption,and consumption which is directly concurrent with production.The identity of production and consumption amounts to Spinoza's proposition:Determinatio est negatio .
But this definition of productive consumption is only advanced in order to separate consumption that is identical with production from consumption in the proper sense,which is regarded by contrast as the destructive antithesis of production.Let us therefore consider consumption proper.
Consumption is simultaneously also production,just as in nature the production of a plant involves the consumption of elemental forces and chemical materials.It is obvious that man produces his own body,e.g.,through feeding,one form of consumption.But the same applies to any other kind of consumption which in one way or another contributes to the production of some aspect of man.Hence this is consumptive production.Nevertheless,says political economy,this type of production that is identical with consumption is a second phase arising from the destruction of the first product.In the first type of production the producer assumes an objective aspect,in the second type the objects created by him assume a personal aspect.Hence this consuming production --although it represents a direct unity of production and consumption --is essentially different from production proper.The direct unity,in which production is concurrent with consumption and consumption with production,does not affect their simultaneous duality.
Production is thus at the same time consumption,and consumption is at the same time production.Each is simultaneously its opposite.But an intermediary movement takes place between the two at the same time.Production leads to consumption,for which it provides the material;consumption without production would have no object.But consumption also leads to production by providing for its products the subject for whom they are products.The product only attains its final consummation in consumption.A railway on which no one travels,which is therefore not used up,not consumed,is potentially but not actually a railway.Without production there is no consumption,but without consumption there is no production either,since in that case production would be useless.Consumption produces production in two ways.
1.Because a product becomes a real product only through consumption.
For example,a dress becomes really a dress only by being worn,a house which is uninhabited is indeed not really a house;in other words a product as distinct from a simple natural object manifests itself as a product,becomes a product,only in consumption.It is only consumption which,by destroying the product,gives it the finishing touch,for the product is a product,not because it is materialised activity,but only in so far as it is an object for the active subject.
2.Because consumption creates the need for new production,and therefore provides the conceptual,intrinsically actuating reason for production,which is the pre-condition for production.Consumption furnishes the impulse to produce,and also provides the object which acts as the determining purpose of production.If it is evident that externally production supplies the object of consumption,it is equally evident that consumption posits the object of production as a concept ,an internal image,a need,a motive,a purpose.Consumption furnishes the object of production in a form that is still subjective.There is no production without a need,but consumption re-creates the need.
This is matched on the side of production,1.By the fact that production supplies the material,the object of consumption.Consumption without an object is no consumption,in this respect,therefore,production creates,produces consumption.
