Selected Works of Karl Marx

place between the two. Production mediates consumption; it creates the latter’s material;without it, consumption would lack an object. But consumption also mediates production, inthat it alone creates for the products the subject for whom they are products. The product onlyobtains its ‘last finish’ intro-f.htm - 12 in consumption. A railway on which no trains run, hencewhich is not used up, not consumed, is a railway only intro-f.htm - 13 and not inreality. Without production, no consumption; but also, without consumption, no production;since production would then be purposeless. Consumption produces production in a double way,(1) because a product becomes a real product only by being consumed. For example, a garmentbecomes a real garment only in the act of being worn; a house where no one lives is in fact not areal house; thus the product, unlike a mere natural object, proves itself to be, becomes, a productonly through consumption. Only by decomposing the product does consumption give theproduct the finishing touch; for the product is production not as intro-f.htm - 14 objectifiedactivity, but rather only as object for the active subject; (2) because consumption creates theneed for new production, that is it creates the ideal, internally impelling cause for production,which is its presupposition. Consumption creates the motive for production; it also creates theobject which is active in production as its determinant aim. If it is clear that production offersconsumption its external object, it is therefore equally clear that consumption ideally posits theobject of production as an internal image, as a need, as drive and as purpose. It creates theobjects of production in a still subjective form. No production without a need. But consumptionreproduces the need.Production, for its part, correspondingly (1) furnishes the material and the object forconsumption. intro-f.htm - 15 Consumption without an object is not consumption; therefore, inthis respect, production creates, produces consumption. (2) But the object is not the only thingwhich production creates for consumption. Production also gives consumption its specificity, itscharacter, its finish. Just as consumption gave the product its finish as product, so doesproduction give finish to consumption. Firstly, the object is not an object in general, but aspecific object which must be consumed in a specific manner, to be mediated in its turn byproduction itself. Hunger is hunger, but the hunger gratified by cooked meat eaten with a knifeand fork is a different hunger from that which bolts down raw meat with the aid of hand, nailand tooth. Production thus produces not only the object but also the manner of consumption, notonly objectively but also subjectively. Production thus creates the consumer. (3) Production notonly supplies a material for the need, but it also supplies a need for the material. As soon asconsumption emerges from its initial state of natural crudity and immediacy - and, if it remainedat that stage, this would be because production itself had been arrested there - it becomes itselfmediated as a drive by the object. The need which consumption feels for the object is created bythe perception of it. The object of art - like every other product - creates a public which issensitive to art and enjoys beauty. Production thus not only creates an object for the subject, butalso a subject for the object. Thus production produces consumption (1) by creating the materialfor it; (2) by determining the manner of consumption; and (3) by creating the products, initiallyposited by it as objects, in the form of a need felt by the consumer. It thus produces the object ofconsumption, the manner of consumption and the motive of consumption. Consumptionlikewise produces the producer’s inclination by beckoning to him as an aim-determining need.The identities between consumption and production thus appear threefold:(1) Immediate identity: Production is consumption, consumption is production. Consumptiveproduction. Productive consumption. The political economists call both productiveconsumption. But then make a further distinction. The first figures as reproduction, the secondas productive consumption. All investigations into the first concern productive or unproductivelabour; investigations into the second concern productive or non-productive consumption.(2) [In the sense] that one appears as a means for the other, is mediated by the other: this isexpressed as their mutual dependence; a movement which relates them to one another, makesthem appear indispensable to one another, but still leaves them external to each other.Production creates the material, as external object, for consumption; consumption creates theneed, as internal object, as aim, for production. Without production no consumption; withoutconsumption no production. [This identity] figures in economics in many different forms.(3) Not only is production immediately consumption and consumption immediately production,not only is production a means for consumption and consumption the aim of production, i.e.