3.Production is not only simultaneously consumption,and consumption simultaneously production;nor is production only a means of consumption and consumption the purpose of production --i.e.each provides the other with its objects,production supplying the external object of consumption,and consumption the conceptual object of production --in other words,each of them is not only simultaneously the other,and not merely the cause of the other,but each of them by being carried through creates the other,it creates itself as the other.it is only consumption that consummates the process of production,since consumption completes the product as a product by destroying it,by consuming its independent concrete form.Moreover,by its needs for repetition,consumption leads to the perfection of abilities evolved during the first process of production and converts them into skills.
Consumption is therefore the concluding act which turns not only the product into a product,but also the producer into a producer.
Production,on the other hand,produces consumption by creating a definite mode of consumption,and by providing an incentive to consumption it thereby creates the capability to consume as a requirement.The last kind of identity,which is defined in point 3,has been variously interpreted by economists when discussing the relation of demand and supply,of objects and needs,of needs created by society and natural needs.
After this,nothing is simpler for a Hegelian than to assume that production and consumption are identical.And this has been done not only by socialist belletristsbut also by prosaic economists,such as Say,in declaring that if one considers a nation --or mankind in abstracto--then its production is its consumption.Storch has shown that this proposition of Say's is wrong,since a nation,for instance,does not consume its entire product,but must also provide means of production,fixed capital,etc.It is,moreover,wrong to consider society as a single individual,as in speculative reasoning.With an individual,production and consumption appear as different aspects of one act.The important point to be emphasized here is that if production and consumption be considered as activities of one individual,or of separate individuals,they appear at any rate as aspects of one process in which production forms the actual starting-point and is,therefore,the predominating factor.
Consumption,as a natural necessity,as a want,constitutes an internal factor of productive activity,but the latter is the starting-point of realization and,therefore,its predominating factor,the act into which the entire process resolves itself in the end.The individual produces a certain article and turns again into himself by consuming it;but he returns as a productive and self-reproducing individual.Consumption thus appears as a factor of production.
In society,however,the relation of the producer to his product,as soon as it is completed,is an outward one,and the return of the product to the individual depends on his relations to other individuals.
He does not take immediate possession of it.Nor does the direct appropriation of the product constitute his purpose,when he produces in society.Between the producer and the product,distribution steps in,which determines (by social laws)his share in the world of products;that is to say,distribution steps in between production and consumption.
Does distribution form an independent sector alongside and outside production?
(b)Production and distribution When looking through the ordinary run of economic works,one's attention is attracted forthwith by the fact that everything is mentioned twice --e.g.rent,wages,interest and profit figure under the heading distribution,while under the heading of production,land,labor and capital.As to capital,it is evident from the outset that this is counted twice:first as a factor of production,and secondly as a source of income (i.e.as a determining and determinate form of distribution).
Interest and profit appear therefore in production as well,since they are forms in which capital increases and grows,and are thus phases of its production.As forms of distribution,interest and capital presuppose capital as a factor of production.They are forms of distribution whose precondition is the existence of capital as a factor of production.They are likewise modes of production of capital.
