I. The Transforming of Instinctive into Conscious Impulses

You see, it is a very pessimistic conception of the economic evolution of mankind which here appears upon the scene of history, nor can we say that much attention has been devoted in more recent times to this question: How is man connected with the Nature-basis of his economic life? In more recent times there is not even a clear consciousness that one ought to make investigations in this direction. For in the subsequent period attention was directed again and again to the social structure itself; to the way in which men should distribute what is available in order to attain the greatest possible prosperity. The question was not “How shall we derive as much as possible from the Earth?” It was more a question of distribution.