Final answer:
The main purpose of material production in society is to help people meet their basic, derived, and integrative needs by providing necessary goods, organizing work, and contributing to societal values and purpose.
Step-by-step explanation:
The purpose of material productions in a society is to enable people to cope with their environments. This encompasses not only the satisfaction of basic human needs such as food, clothing, and shelter, as proposed by Bronislaw Malinowski, but also derived needs like organizing work and resource distribution, as well as integrative needs providing values and purpose through religion, law, and ideologies.
On the other hand, conflict theorists view material production as something that can affect the rest of culture, particularly highlighting how economic production and materialism can perpetuate divisions and inequalities in societies.