The social relations within which [humans] produce, the social relations of production [gesellschaftliche Produktionsverhältnisse]... in their totality form what are called social relations, society, and specifically a society at a determinate historical stage of development, a society with a peculiar, distinctive character. Ancient society, feudal society, bourgeois society are such totalities of relations of production, each of which at the same time denotes a special stage of development in the history of mankind.2