yet more kropotkin

[abbielives!]

If you open the works of any economist you will find that he begins with PRODUCTION, the analysis of means employed nowadays for the creation of wealth; division of labour, manufacture, machinery, accumulation of capital. From Adam Smith to Marx, all have proceeded along these lines. Only in the latter parts of their books do they treat of CONSUMPTION, that is to say, of the means necessary to satisfy the needs of individuals; and, moreover, they confine themselves to explaining how riches are divided among those who vie with one another for their possession.
Perhaps you will say this is logical. Before satisfying needs you must create the wherewithal to satisfy them. But before producing anything, must you not feel the need of it? Is it not necessity that first drove man to hunt, to raise cattle, to cultivate land, to make implements, and later on to invent machinery? Is it not the study of needs that should govern production? It would therefore be quite as logical to begin by considering needs and afterwards to discuss the means of production in order to satisfy these needs.
This is precisely what we mean to do.
But as soon as we look at it from this point of view, Political Economy entirely changes its aspect. It ceases to be a simple description of facts, and becomes a science. We can define it as: The study of the needs of humanity,and the means of satisfying them with the least possible waste of human energy.

-the conquest of bread
http://libcom.org/library/conquestofbread1906peterkropotkin14

[gilhyle]

History is not a proces of reasoning. History did not proceed by first defining needs and then seeking how to full-fill them. Political economy is about production, not about some theoretical game which starts with the assumption 'let us assume that nothing is as it is'...which is effectively what Kropotkin suggests. Most science would be quite different if it started from that assumption !!

[Module]

History is not a process of reasoning. History did not proceed by first defining needs and then seeking how to full-fill them. Political economy is about production, not about some theoretical game which starts with the assumption 'let us assume that nothing is as it is'...which is effectively what Kropotkin suggests. Most science would be quite different if it started from that assumption !!
How do you suggest history proceeded, in that sense, instead?
I don't think that the above passage suggests what you're saying it does at all, I think rather he is saying that economics focuses on production primarily over consumption, when consumption is really the basis and reason for production in the first place, and to effectively understand production you should study it from the 'perspective' of consumption.
Production is worth nothing without a need for this production - consumption.