Writing, Means of Production, Means of Communication

Attention to the process of Writing, which is the most immediately given fact to Marx-Engels in their observation of concrete phenomena, can lead to modifications of two of their main principles.  First, it is evidence that humans uniquely use implements not only to produce their subsistence, as they propose, but to communicate, as well.  Second, it is evidence that social relations are determined by not only the prevailing Means of Production, as they assert, but by the available means of Communication as well, e. g. their ability to promote revolution would be significantly diminished without a pen and paper, and without Gutenberg's extension of those implements.  Now, perhaps the Means of Communication can be classified as a special case of the Means of Production.  But, even if so, one significant distinction is that while the immediate purpose served by the latter is the subsistence of individuals, that of  the former is that of the species, the basic internal coherence of which inheres in the communication of its members.