ABSTRACT
There is an interesting relationship between Malinowski and Marx, however, which distinguishes them both from crude forms of behaviourism and materialism and from the more simplistic formulations of the action frame of reference. Malinowski chooses to emphasize both activity and the satisfaction of biological needs, while Marx has the interesting and deliberately chosen concept of sensuous human activity. The ultimate reference point of organized activity for Marx is 'production', while for Malinowski it is the satisfaction of biological needs. What is valuable here as a corrective to Marxism is the recognition that what we have are not just ideas, floating as it were in a vacuum, but forms of human activity which are themselves subject to a structural analysis. One is that Malinowski's schema, the renewal and maintenance of the material apparatus, is a function of one of the secondary institutions, while production for Marx is basic.
