Here is how Engels and Marx discuss "needs" in _The German Ideology_. Note there is a
basis for differentiating physiological needs , those that must be fulfilled regularly
to sustain human life, from other needs that have developed over the human history.
CB
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History: Fundamental Conditions
Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises, we must begin by
stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, the
premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to "make
history". But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation,
clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the
means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this
is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as
thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain
human life. Even when the sensuous world is reduced to a minimum, to a stick as with
Saint Bruno [Bauer], it presupposes the action of producing the stick. Therefore in
any interpretation of history one has first of all to observe this fundamental fact in
all its significance and all its implications and to accor!
d it its due importance. It is well known that the Germans have never done this, and
they have never, therefore, had an earthly basis for history and consequently never an
historian. The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of
this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly
as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made
the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the
first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry.
The second point is that the satisfaction of the first need (the action of satisfying,
and the instrument of satisfaction which has been acquired) leads to new needs; and
this production of new needs is the first historical act. Here we recognise
immediately the spiritual ancestry of the great historical wisdom of the Germans who,
when they run out of positive material and when they can serve up neither theological
nor political nor literary rubbish, assert that this is not history at all, but the
"prehistoric era". They do not, however, enlighten us as to how we proceed from this
nonsensical "prehistory" to history proper; although, on the other hand, in their
historical speculation they seize upon this "prehistory" with especial eagerness
because they imagine themselves safe there from interference on the part of "crude
facts", and, at the same time, because there they can give full rein to their
speculative impulse and set up and knock down hypotheses by the thousand.
The third circumstance which, from the very outset, enters into historical
development, is that men, who daily remake their own life, begin to make other men, to
propagate their kind: the relation between man and woman, parents and children, the
family. The family, which to begin with is the only social relationship, becomes
later, when increased needs create new social relations and the increased population
new needs, a subordinate one (except in Germany), and must then be treated and
analysed according to the existing empirical data, not according to "the concept of
the family", as is the custom in Germany. [1] These three aspects of social activity
are not of course to be taken as three different stages, but just as three aspects or,
to make it clear to the Germans, three "moments", which have existed simultaneously
since the dawn of history and the first men, and which still assert themselves in
history today.
The production of life, both of one's own in labour and of fresh life in procreation,
now appears as a double relationship: on the one hand as a natural, on the other as a
social relationship. By social we understand the co-operation of several individuals,
no matter under what conditions, in what manner and to what end. It follows from this
that a certain mode of production, or industrial stage, is always combined with a
certain mode of co-operation, or social stage, and this mode of co-operation is itself
a "productive force". Further, that the multitude of productive forces accessible to
men determines the nature of society, hence, that the "history of humanity" must
always be studied and treated in relation to the history of industry and exchange. But
it is also clear how in Germany it is impossible to write this sort of history,
because the Germans lack not only the necessary power of comprehension and the
material but also the "evidence of their senses", for across the R!
hine you cannot have any experience of these things since history has stopped
happening. Thus it is quite obvious from the start that there exists a materialistic
connection of men with one another, which is determined by their needs and their mode
of production, and which is as old as men themselves. This connection is ever taking
on new forms, and thus presents a "history" independently of the existence of any
political or religious nonsense which in addition may hold men together.
Only now, after having considered four moments, four aspects of the primary historical
relationships, do we find that man also possesses "consciousness", but, even so, not
inherent, not "pure" consciousness. From the start the "spirit" is afflicted with the
curse of being "burdened" with matter, which here makes its appearance in the form of
agitated layers of air, sounds, in short, of language. Language is as old as
consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and
for that reason alone it really exists for me personally as well; language, like
consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity, of intercourse with other
men. Where there exists a relationship, it exists for me: the animal does not enter
into "relations" with anything, it does not enter into any relation at all. For the
animal, its relation to others does not exist as a relation. Consciousness is,
therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as l!
ong as men exist at all. Consciousness is at first, of course, merely consciousness
concerning the immediate sensuous environment and consciousness of the limited
connection with other persons and things outside the individual who is growing
self-conscious. At the same time it is consciousness of nature, which first appears to
men as a completely alien, all-powerful and unassailable force, with which men's
relations are purely animal and by which they are overawed like beasts; it is thus a
purely animal consciousness of nature (natural religion) just because nature is as yet
hardly modified historically. (We see here immediately: this natural religion or this
particular relation of men to nature is determined by the form of society and vice
versa. Here, as everywhere, the identity of nature and man appears in such a way that
the restricted relation of men to nature determines their restricted relation to one
another, and their restricted relation to one another determines men'!
s restricted relation to nature.) On the other hand, man's conscio
associating with the individuals around him is the beginning of the consciousness that
he is living in society at all. This beginning is as animal as social life itself at
this stage. It is mere herd- consciousness, and at this point man is only
distinguished from sheep by the fact that with him consciousness takes the place of
instinct or that his instinct is a conscious one. This sheep-like or tribal
consciousness receives its further development and extension through increased
productivity, the increase of needs, and, what is fundamental to both of these, the
increase of population. With these there develops the division of labour, which was
originally nothing but the division of labour in the sexual act, then that division of
labour which develops spontaneously or "naturally" by virtue of natural predisposition
(e.g. physical strength), needs, accidents, etc. etc. Division of labour only becomes
truly such from the moment when a division of material and mental labour appea!
rs. (The first form of ideologists, priests, is concurrent.) From this moment onwards
consciousness can really flatter itself that it is something other than consciousness
'of existing practice, that it really represents something without representing
something real; from now on consciousness is in a position to emancipate itself from
the world and to proceed to the formation of "pure" theory, theology, philosophy,
ethics, etc. But even if this theory, theology, philosophy, ethics, etc. comes into
contradiction with the existing relations, this can only occur because existing social
relations have come into contradiction with existing forces of production; this,
moreover, can also occur in a particular national sphere of relations through the
appearance of the contradiction, not within the national orbit, but between this
national consciousness and the practice of other nations, i.e. between the national
and the general consciousness of a nation (as we see it now in Germany
