For the sake of continuity with the immediately preceding chapters I shall assume, as did Marx himself at many points in his writing, the existence of a mode of production, such as capitalism, which has been in existence long enough that traditional groupings from previous social formations have been largely broken down, but not long enough that the majority of producers have organized themselves as a group/ "class-for-itself". However, conceiving of individuals as chickens and groups as eggs is only an analytical device. Groups are also chickens. Indeed, as we saw in Chapter 1, for Marx the most primeval chickens — and those most important for historic change — are groups rather than individuals, and on numerous occasions we shall have to acknowledge this fact.