ABSTRACT

Changes are occurring not only in the industrial form of production but in the very nature of human activity. Non-material interests and desires are taking on a dominant significance in the system of preferences and values of individuals. The material desires of individuals, in no way differing from those of the social whole, could not form the basis for a system of social connections and contradictions as a result of which the human community retained the form of a primitive association formed exclusively in order to directly oppose the forces of nature. The production of information and knowledge dominates all spheres of social production. Property relations provide a fine illustration of the functioning of a society founded on the contradictions of the material interests of the individuals and corporations which it comprises.