Writing, Printing, Society

Since Writing can survive the moment of utterance, it surpasses the capacity of oral speech to record History.  But, the significant enhancement of that capacity is facilitated by the development of Printing, and, hence, of the possibility of the reproduction of a piece of Writing.  Entailed in such a possibility are the concepts of Egalitarianism and Pluralism, which are concretely realized in the influence on History of the introduction of the Gutenberg Bible.  Accordingly, the social transitions out of Medieval Monarchism and Oligarchism are easily attributable to developments in the Means of Communication, thereby posing a challenge to the Marxist thesis that the Means of Production is the primary determinant of social relations.  So, in the absence of an elaboration of the relation between Means of Communication and Means of Production, the more accurate thesis, that combines both, is that the primary determinant of social relations is Technology, in general.