GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THEORY OF COMMUNISM 669
the modes of production and of exchange in a word, of
the economic conditions of their time; that the economic
structure of society always furnishes the real basis, starting
from which we can alone work out the ultimate explana-
tion of the whole superstructure of juridical and political
institutions as well as of the religious, philosophical, and
other ideas of a given historical period."
Relationship of Men to Things and Men to Men.
From the doctrine just summarized most of the char-
acteristic and distinctive tenets of communist theory are
derived.
(i) First, in order to satisfy their need for warmth, food,
shelter and clothing, men have learnt to perform certain
operations upon things, those things, namely, which are
the raw materials of production. There is, thus, from the
outset a fundamental relationship in a society between
men and things.
This relationship involves a corresponding relationship
between men and men. There will be division and specialization
of labour, there will be rights which hive been
taken by or conceded to certain men to exploit certain
things, and there will be corresponding prohibitions preventing
other men from exploiting them. There will, in a
word, be ownership of some things by some men and
deprivation in respect of these same things for other men.
But these other men, although they do not own things
and have no rights in respect of them, may and will perform
operations upon them under the control and direction
of those who are their owners; the owners may even
compel them to perform these operations. Now the different
ways in which things are operated upon under different
forms of ownership, and the different operations which
men perform upon things lead to different forms of rela-
tionship between men and men. Thus the relationship
between men and men depends in the last resort upon the
way in which, at any given period in the development of a
society, things are owned and worked.