2.But production provides not only the object of consumption,it also gives consumption a distinct form,a character,a finish.Just as consumption puts the finishing touch on the product as a product,so production puts the finishing touch to consumption.For one thing ,the object is not simply an object in general,but a particular object which must be consumed in a particular way,a way determined by production.Hunger is hunger;but the hunger that is satisfied by cooked meat eaten with knife and fork differs from hunger that devours raw meat with the help of bands,nails and teeth.Production thus produces not only the object of consumption but also the mode of consumption,not only objectively but also subjectively.
Production therefore creates the consumer.
3.Production not only provides the material to satisfy a need,but it also provides the need for the material.When consumption emerges from its original primitive crudeness and immediacy --and its remaining in that state would be due to the fact that production was still primitively crude --then it is itself as a desire brought about by the object.The need felt for the object is induced by the perception of the object.An objet d'art creates a public that has artistic taste and is able to enjoy beauty --and the same can be said of any other product.Production accordingly produces not only an object for the subject,but also a subject for the object.
Hence production produces consumption:1)by providing the material of consumption;2)by determining the mode of consumption;3)by creating in the consumer a need for the objects which it first presents as products.
It therefore produces the object of consumption,the mode of consumption and the urge to consume.Similarly,consumption produces the predisposition of the producer by positing him as a purposive requirement.
The identity of consumption and production has three aspects 1.Direct identity :Production is consumption and consumption is production.Consumptive production and productive consumption.Economists call both productive consumption,but they still make a distinction.The former figures in their work as reproduction,the latter as productive consumption.All investigations of the former are concerned with productive and unproductive labour,those of the latter with productive and non-productive consumption.
2.Each appears as a means of the other,as being induced by it;this is called their mutual dependence;they are thus brought into mutual relation and appear to be indispensable to each other,but nevertheless remain extrinsic to each other.Production provides the material which is the external object of consumption,consumption provides the need,i.e.,the internal object,the purpose of production.There is no consumption without production,and no production without consumption.This proposition appears in various forms in political economy.
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 object,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 need 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 ******r for a Hegelian than to assume that production and consumption are identical.And this has been done not only by socialist belletrists but 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.
