Not everyone wrote, not everybody read. The pragmatic
framework suggested necessitated elements of order, ways of
assigning and keeping track of assignments, a certain
centralism, and, last but not least, organizational forms, which
religion and governing bodies took care of. Under these
circumstances, work was everything that allowed for the
constitution, survival, change, and advancement of the human
species. It was expressed in language to the degree such
expression was necessary. In other words, language is another
asset or means of diversifying choices and resources.
Over time, limited mediation through language and literacy became
necessary in order to optimize the effort of matching needs with
availabilities. This mediation was itself a form of work:
questions asked, questions answered, commitments made,
equivalencies determined. All these defined an activity related
to using available resources, or finding new ones. When
productivity increased, and language could not keep up with the
complexities of higher production, variety, and the need for
planning, a new semiosis, characteristic of this different
pragmatic level, became necessary. Money, for example,
introduced the next level of mediation, more abstract, that
translated immediate, vital needs into a comparative scale of
means to fulfill them. The context of exchange generated money,
which eventually became itself a resource, a high level
commodity.
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