Page 161 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

138 Communication and Evolution of Society

action, that is, intersubjectively valid and ritually secured norms of
action, cannot be reduced to rules of instrumental or strategic action.
d. Production and socialization, social labor and care for the young,
are equally important for the reproduction of the species; thus the
familial social structure, which controls both—the integration of ex-
ternal as well as of internal nature—is fundamental.17

U
Marx links the concept of social labor with that of the Azstory of
the species. This phrase is intended in the first place to signal
the materialist message that in the case of a single species natural
evolution was continued by other means, namely, through the
productive activity of the socialized individuals themselves. In
sustaining their lives through social labor, men produce at the
same time the material relations of life; they produce their
society and the historical process in which individuals change
along with their societies. The key to the reconstruction of the
history of the species is provided by the concept of a mode of
production. Marx conceives of history as a discrete series of modes
of production, which, in its developmental-logical order, reveals
the direction of social evolution. Let us recall the most important
definitions.
A mode of production is characterized by a specific state of
development of productive forces and by specific forms of social
intercourse, that is, relations of production. The forces of pro-
duction consist of (1) the labor power of those engaged in
production, the producers; (2) technically useful knowledge in-
sofar as it can be converted into instruments of labor that heighten
productivity, that is, into technologies of production; (3) orga-
nizational knowledge insofar as it is applied to set labor power
efficiently into motion, to qualify labor power, and to effectively
coordinate the cooperation of laborers in accord with the division
of labor (mobilization, qualification, and organization of labor
power). Productive forces determine the degree of possible con-
trol over natural processes. On the other hand, the relations of
production are those institutions and social mechanisms that de-
termine the way in which (at a given stage of productive forces)