Production

Production however is a method of behavior which is peculiarly human.

While it is true that every living organism consumes, not every living organism produces.

Most living organisms, from the tiny amoeba to giant whales, lions, bears, and elephants, consume through the process of living in an environment to which they are naturally fitted, and live what can be called a hunting and/or foraging existence.

It can be argued that hunting and foraging is a kind of production – however we are going to consider this type of natural “productive” procedure as essentially different from “true” production.

True production requires a conversion.  Things that are available in nature and which can be gathered and consumed directly through a hunting or foraging process, are now put together in different ways to create things unavailable in nature.

To be entirely accurate, there are of course some other living organisms other than man that “produce” in very limited ways.

Birds for example build nests.  Nests as such are not provided in nature, although the materials for them are.  Beavers build dams.  Trap-door spiders build little trap doors to conceal their tiny underground hideaways.

Each of these are certainly productive phenomena, instinctively performed by certain living species.

Man however, being a fundamentally rational rather than an instinctive creature, does not produce instinctively.  In fact, there is almost nothing in the human process of living that is the result of instinctive programming, with the possible exception of the reproductive urge.

 All other survival processes, from hunting, to foraging and gathering, or to the building of shelter, must be shown and taught by one human being to another, through the course of their lives.