Means of production (abbreviated MoP; German: Produktionsmittel), is a marxist concept describing the combination of the means of labor and the subject of labor used by workers to make products. Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party ( often referred to as The Communist Manifesto, was first published on February 21, 1848, and is The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon was written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852 and originally published in 1852 in Die Revolution On the Jewish Question is a work by Karl Marx, written in 1843, and first published in Paris in 1844 under the German title The Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie ( German, Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy) is a lengthy Manuscript by the The German Ideology (1845 was a book written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels around April or early May 1845. Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (also referred to as The Paris Manuscripts) are a series of notes written between April and August 1844 The " Theses on Feuerbach " are eleven short philosophical notes written by Karl Marx in 1845. Marx's theory of alienation ( Entfremdung in German) as expressed in the writings of young Karl Marx, refers to the separation of things that naturally Class consciousness, literally is consciousness of one's Social class. In Marxist theory Commodity Fetishism is a state of social relations said to arise in capitalist market based societies in which social relationships Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based Cultural hegemony is a Concept coined by Marxist Philosopher Antonio Gramsci. The rate of exploitation is a concept in Marxian Political economy. Marx's theory of human nature occupies an important place in his critique of Capitalism, his conception of Communism, and his ' materialist conception of history An ideology is a set of beliefs aims and Ideas especially in politics The proletariat (from Latin la ''proles'' "offspring" is a term used to identify a lower Social class; a member of such a class is proletarian Reification ( German: Verdinglichung, literally "thing-ification" (from Latin "Res" meaning "thing" or Versachlichung, literally Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution Relations of production (German Produktionsverhältnisse) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx in his theory of Historical materialism and in Note Marxian economics is not restricted to Marxist economics as it includes the economic thought of those inspired by Marx's works who do not identify with Labour power (in German Arbeitskraft, or labour force is a crucial concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist Political economy The law of value is a concept in Karl Marx 's critique of Political economy. In the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxist theory of Historical materialism, a mode of production (in German Produktionsweise, meaning 'the Productive forces, "productive powers" or "forces of production" German ''Produktivkräfte'' is a central concept in Marxism and Historical materialism Surplus labour is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of Political economy. Surplus value is a concept created by Karl Marx in his critique of Political economy, where its ultimate source is unpaid Surplus labor In 20th century discussions of Karl Marx 's Economics the transformation problem is the problem of finding a general rule to transform the "values" of commodities Wage labour is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour under a Contract ( Employment Anarchism and Marxism are related political philosophies which emerged in the nineteenth century In Marxian economic discourse the capitalist mode of production refers to the socio-economic base of capitalist society which began to grow rapidly in Western Europe from the Class struggle is the active expression of Class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective The " dictatorship of the proletariat " or workers' state is a term employed by Marxists that refers to what they see as a temporary state between the Primitive Accumulation of capital is a concept introduced by Karl Marx in part 8 of the first volume of Das Kapital (in German ursprüngliche Akkumulation A proletarian revolution is a social and/or political Revolution in which the Working class attempts to overthrow the Bourgeoisie. International Socialism redirects here For the journal of the same name see International Socialism (journal Proletarian internationalism is a This is about the concept of world revolution in Marxist theory See also Marxian economics, Marxism Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are terms which cover work in Philosophy Historical materialism is the methodological approach to the study of society economics and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx ( 1818 - 1883 Dialectical materialism, according to many followers of Karl Marx 's thinking is the philosophical basis of Marxism. Analytical Marxism refers to a style of thinking about Marxism that was prominent amongst English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s Autonomism refers to a set of Left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. Marxist feminism is a sub-type of Feminist theory which focuses on the dismantling of Capitalism as a way to liberate women Marxist humanism is a branch of Marxism that primarily focuses on Marx's earlier writings, especially the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts Marxist geography is a Critical geography which utilises the theories and philosophy of Marxism to examine the spatial relations of Human geography Structural Marxism was an approach to Marxist philosophy based on Structuralism, primarily associated with the work of the French philosopher Louis Althusser Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe (and more recently North Libertarian Marxism is a school of Marxism that describes itself as taking a less Authoritarian view of Marxist theory than conventional currents such as Stalinism Young Marx is one half of the concept in Marxology that Karl Marx ’s intellectual development can be broken into two broad categories the other being ‘ Mature Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895 was a German social scientist and philosopher, who Karl Kautsky ( October 16 1854 - October 17 1938) was a leading theoretician of Social democracy. Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (Георгий Валентинович Плеханов ( December 11, 1856 &ndash May 30, 1918; Rosa Luxemburg (Róża Luksemburg 5 March 1870 or 1871 15 January 1919 was a Polish-born Jewish German Marxist theorist, socialist Leon Trotsky ( Russian:, Lev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lyev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij György Lukács (pronounced in IPA dyɶrdyə ˈlukɑtʃ) ( April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Guy Ernest Debord ( December 28, 1931 - November 30, 1994) was a Marxist theorist French writer Filmmaker, hypergraphist Antonio Gramsci ('ɡramʃi ( January 23, 1891 &ndash April 27, 1937) was an Italian Philosopher, Writer, Karl Korsch ( August 15, 1886 - October 21, 1961) was a German Marxist theorist Ernesto "Che" Guevara (June 14 Following the Cuban revolution,Guevara reviewed The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist Critical theory, Social research, and Philosophy. Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 &ndash 15 April 1980 commonly known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (ʒɑ̃ pol saʁtʁə was a French Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation altuˡseʁ ( October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. Various aspects of Marxist theory have been criticized These criticisms concern both the theory itself and its later interpretations and implementations The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Means of labor is a concept in Marxist Political economy that refers to "all those things with the aid of which man acts upon the subject of his labor and Subject of labor is a concept in Marxist Political economy that refers to "everything to which man's labor is directed
Means of labor include machines, tools, plant and equipment, infrastructure, and so on: "all those things with the aid of which man acts upon the subject of labor, and transforms it. " (Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 1957, p xiii). The Russian Academy of Sciences (Российская Академия Наук Rossi'iskaya Akade'miya Nau'k, shortened to PAH RAN) consists of the National Those means of production participate in the process of exploiting labor for surplus value. [1] Subject of labor is the material worked on.
Means of production is sometimes confused with factors of production. In economic theory factors of production (or productive inputs) are the resources employed to produce goods and services The term factors of production is typically understood as an explanation for income as duly paid to owners of each means of production and also to the workers themselves within capitalism. Capitalism is the Economic system in which the Means of production are owned by private Persons and operated for Profit and where By comparison, the term means of production applies to these means independent of their ownership and their compensation, and regardless of whether the mode of producing is capitalist, feudal, slave, group labor|communal or otherwise. Feudalism, a term first used in the early modern period (17th century in its most classic sense refers to a Medieval Europe Political system composed As a social-economic system slavery is a legal institution under which a Person (called "a slave" is compelled to work for another
This term has been more simply described as the resources and apparatus by which goods and services are created. In an agrarian society it is the soil and the shovel, in an industrial society, it is the mines and the factories.
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Ownership of MoP within capitalism
The analysis of people's relationships with the means of production is one element that stands at the basis of Marxism. Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. To the question of why classes exist in human societies in the first place, Karl Marx offered an historical explanation that it was the cultural practice of Ownership of the Means of Production that gives rise to them. This explanation differs dramatically from other explanations based on "differences in ability" between individuals or on religious or political affiliations giving rise to castes. This explanation is consistent with the bulk of Marxist theory in which Politics and Religion are seen as mere outgrowths (superstructures) of the basic underlying economic reality of a people. To remain consistent with these principles, an explanation as to why classes exist in a society must derive from causes that are essentially economic in nature, and appeal to the alleged underlying reality of material production.
There are two subtle but important points to the Ownership of the Means of Production. The first being that owning the Means of Production is not the same thing as owning physical property, nor is it equal to owning money. Rather OMP refers to a cultural practice in which a few individuals within a larger corporation (or company) control and decide what is done with the entire profit created by that corporation. If one were to define the word "Corporation" as a particular kind of "group of people" then to later say that a few select individuals "own the corporation" then, by substitution, one must be saying that those select individuals own the group of people. In any case, this apparent paradox only arises when one confuses the owning of property with the owning of a corporation. When keeping these two kinds of ownership separate, the paradox of "owning people" evaporates.
The conclusion ultimately reached is that while the "owners" of a corporation only contribute a tiny fraction of the total labor and time in creating profit, they have complete control over that profit and how it is used. The practice of OMP in human societies is then a type of game where some people are labeled owners (Marx used the term, Bourgeoisie) and other people are labeled workers (Marx used the term, Proletariat). The proletariat (from Latin la ''proles'' "offspring" is a term used to identify a lower Social class; a member of such a class is proletarian The bourgeoisie have complete control over both how the proletariat are paid in wages and complete control over how the profit from production is used, thus giving rise to a class division.
Contrarian interpretations of this practice might state that wages paid to workers are subsumed under the regular costs of maintaining business. However, Marx considered it a reification to treat labor as just another "factor" in production; it implied an inversion of means and ends, so that people were effectively used as things. Reification ( German: Verdinglichung, literally "thing-ification" (from Latin "Res" meaning "thing" or Versachlichung, literally
Marx's terms are often employed in economic analysis by socialists who advocate public ownership of some or all of the means of production. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution Public ownership (also called government ownership, state ownership or state property) refers to Government Ownership of any The affinity between labor movement causes and this advocacy is very strong - and often shared by social democrats, socialists, communists and greens. The labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better Social democracy is a Political ideology of the left and centre-left Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based Green politics is a Political ideology which places a high importance on ecological and environmental goals and on achieving these goals through broad-based Marx's analysis in particular helped to make clear the key differences between capital and "labor".
Marxists define economic systems in terms of how the means of production are used, and which social class controls them. An economic system is a System that involves the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services between Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions (or stratification) between individuals or groups in Societies or Cultures. Thus, in capitalism, the means of production are controlled by the bourgeoisie, (the "capitalists" - the owners of capital). In the pure ideal of socialism, such as that "communism" was/is supposed to be, the MoP are controlled by the workers production collectives directly. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution In fact this situation has only been historically realized temporarily such as in the Israeli kibbutz or the early Soviets before the entrenchment of the communist party as a "New Class", or in isolated or preliminary form such as in the final phase of the Second Spanish Republic, or various experimental utopian communities. A kibbutz ( Hebrew: קיבוץ קִבּוּץ lit "gathering clustering" plural kibbutzim) is a collective community in The New Class is a term to describe the privileged Ruling class of Bureaucrats and Communist party functionaries which typically arises in a Stalinist The Second Spanish Republic was the system of government in Spain between April 14 1931, when King Alfonso XIII left the country Utopia is a name for an ideal community taken from the title of a book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional Island in the
Footnotes
- ^ Even under these circumstances, capital is not always in the form of means of production, rather the process or circuit of capital requires capital to change from means of production into finished products into money and back into means of production. This particular circuit is called the circuit of productive capital (see Capital vol2 ch1)
References
Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the U. S. S. R. (1957). Political Economy: A Textbook. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
See also
- Clause IV
- Information revolution
- gross fixed capital formation
- Mode of production
- Marxism
- Productive forces
- property
- Relations of production
- State Capitalism
Dictionary
means of production
-noun
- (economics) (marxist) The combination of the means of labor--such as machines, tools, and equipment--and the subject of labor used by workers to make products.
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