Author: wbauer

Likewise, the means for particularized needs, and, in general, the ways of their satisfaction, divide and multiply themselves — these means becoming, in turn, relative purposes and abstract needs — a multiplication proceeding into the infinite, which is, in just the same measure, a differentiation of these determinations and a judging of the suitability of…

Needs and means become, as real existence, a being for others, through whose needs and labour satisfaction is mutually conditioned. The abstraction that becomes a quality of needs and means (see the preceding §) also becomes a determination of the mutual relation of individuals to one another; this universality, as being recognized, is the moment…

This moment thus becomes a particular determination of purpose for the means themselves, and for their possession, as well as for the manner and way of satisfying needs. It further contains, immediately, the demand for equality with others in this respect; the need for this equality, on the one hand, and the making of oneself…

In that, within social need, as the connection of the immediate or natural need with the spiritual need of representation, the latter, as the universal, makes itself the predominant [element], there lies, in this social moment, the aspect of liberation: that the strict natural necessity of need is concealed, and the human being relates himself…

This liberation is formal, since the particularity of purposes remains the underlying content. The tendency of the social condition toward the indeterminate multiplication and specification of needs, means, and enjoyments — which, just like the distinction between natural and uncultivated need, has no bounds — luxury — is an equally infinite increase of dependence and…

The mediation of preparing and acquiring means, likewise particularized, appropriate to particularized needs, is labour, which specifies, through the most manifold processes, the material immediately supplied by nature for these many purposes. This formation now gives to the means its value and its purposiveness, so that the human being, in his consumption, relates himself chiefly…

Through the manifold of the determinations and objects that engage his interest, theoretical culture develops — not only a manifold of representations and items of knowledge, but also a mobility and quickness of representing, and of passing over from one representation to another, the grasping of complicated and general relations, and so on — the…

The universal and objective [element] in labour, however, lies in the abstraction that brings about the specification of means and needs, and thereby likewise specifies production and brings forth the division of labour. The labour of the individual becomes, through this division, simpler, and thereby the skill in his abstract labour, as well as the…

In this dependence and reciprocity of labour and of the satisfaction of needs, subjective self-seeking turns into a contribution to the satisfaction of the needs of all others — into the mediation of the particular through the universal, as a dialectical movement — so that, in that each acquires, produces, and enjoys for himself, he…

The possibility of participating in the universal resource — that is, particular resources — is, however, conditioned, in part by an immediate basis of one’s own (capital), and, in part, by skill, which is, for its part, again conditioned, in turn, by that basis, but also by contingent circumstances, whose manifold variety brings forth a…

The infinitely manifold means, and their movement, likewise infinitely interlacing, in the mutual production and exchange [of goods], gather themselves together, through the universality inherent in their content, and differentiate themselves into general masses, so that the whole context forms itself into particular systems of needs, of their means and labours, of the kinds and…

a) The substantial estate has its resources in the natural products of a soil that it works — a soil capable of being exclusive private property, and requiring not merely indeterminate use, but an objective formation. Against the tying of labour and acquisition to particular fixed periods of nature, and the dependence of the yield…

b) The estate of trade has, as its business, the formation of the natural product, and, for the means of its subsistence, is dependent on its own labour, on reflection and the understanding, as well as, essentially, on mediation with the needs and the labour of others. What it brings forth and enjoys, it has…

c) The universal estate has, as its business, the universal interests of the social condition; it must therefore be exempted from direct labour for needs, either through private means, or through being indemnified by the state, which claims its activity, so that its private interest finds its satisfaction in its labour for the universal.

The estate, as particularity that has become objective, thus divides itself, on the one hand, according to the concept, into its universal differences. On the other hand, however, natural disposition, birth, and circumstances have their influence on which particular estate the individual belongs to; but the final and essential determination lies in subjective opinion and…