The "three aspects of social activity."[157] in "The German Ideology."

Marx identifies the "first historical act" as "the production of the means to satisfy...needs." [156]  The second "moment" is that "The satisfaction of the first need...leads to new needs," [156] and the third is that human beings are inherently social, in particular that "men...begin to make other men, to propagate their kind." [156]  The suggestion appears to be that, as the inherently social beings that we are, we co-operate to produce what we need, and that, in doing so, we produce new needs, which require more complex forms of co-operation to support more complex and powerful modes of production for their satisfaction, which in turn produces new needs, which require still more complex forms of co-operation to support more complex and powerful modes of production for their satisfaction, which produces new needs, which require even more complex... [see p. 157].  The original social unit is the family or extended family.  It co-operates to produce what it needs, in the process creating new needs. Families join together (into clans or tribes) to facilitate more complex forms of co-operation, with more complex division of labor, to satisfy these new needs, which in turn produces still new needs, which drives them to yet more complex forms of social co-operation to  support yet more complex modes of production to meet these continually increasing needs.  These three "moments," Marx seems to suggest, are the fundamental forces that drive real human history "independently of any political or religious nonsense which would especially hold men together." [157]