Within the boundaries in which sale and purchase of commodities and labor-power goes on is the birthplace of the "innate rights of man" (343). For the fulfillment of their needs, humans rely on the help of others. As Marx says in The German Ideology, "there exists a materialistic connection of men with one another, which is determined by their needs and their mode of production" (157). In modern capitalism people are connected through a complex global system of trade. This system of production and consumption affects the way people view each other in general. When one participates in the giant domain of production and consumption which generates generic products for generic individuals, she recognizes herself as just one of many like animals. The system is indifferent to her individuality in a sense that reveals the universality of her character. The economic system adds a new political dynamic to her being.
One's political life is one's species life; it is one's role within the mass of all humans which is mediated by the state. Under this system of organization, people are given equal ?rights.' The state claims that the support or irritation that they may provide is spread evenly to all. The rights that political citizens receive are supposed to show no preference for birth, social rank, education, or occupation. This suggests that people have some universal human characteristics. However, it presupposes that those distinctions do exist; if people were actually equal there would be no need to set their differences aside. "Far from abolishing these differences, [the state] only exists so far as [the differences] are presupposed; it is conscious of being a political ...