Books, E-Books Great Discounts

FORCES OF PRODUCTION

Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2011

Forces of production in Marxian terms, is the essential component of the economic system of society.

Forces of production refers to the materials used in the production of goods as well as the tools, knowledge and techniques used to transform these materials.

Forces of production does not include the class structure or relations of society, known as the ‘relations of production’.

The productive forces and the relations of production must be seen as two contradictory aspects of a single totality: the productive activity of people in society. In particular, the relations of production must not be entirely reduced to the legal relation of ownership, nor must they be entirely abstracted from the forces of production. Furthermore, the forces of production must not be conceived simply as machinery and techniques, in abstraction from the relations of production. I will take each of these points in turn.

Forces of Production and Relations of Production in Socialist Society
Sean Sayers
Extract: I Introduction - kent.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/ss/forces.pdf
It seems evident that class differences and class struggle continue to exist in socialist societies; that is to say, in societies like the Soviet Union and China, which have undergone socialist revolutions and in which private property in the means of production has been largely abolished. I shall not attempt to prove this proposition here; rather it will form my starting point.
For my purpose in this paper is to show how the phenomenon of class in socialist society can be understood and interpreted in Marxist terms; and, in particular, to explain and expound Mao Zedong's attempt to do so. For one of Mao's most striking and important contributions to Marxism was his recognition that `contradictions among the people' continue to exist in socialist society, and his attempt to explain them within the theoretical framework of historical materialism.
Marx outlines his account of historical development in the following well-known words: It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary it is their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or - what is merely a legal expression for the same thing - with the property relations within the framework of which they have hitherto operated.

From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. At that point an era of social revolution begins. With the change in the economic foundation the whole immense superstructure is more slowly or more rapidly transformed.
(Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy)
It has been common to interpret these words as expressing a simple form of economic or even technological determinism which would rule out the very possibility of class divisions continuing to be a fundamental feature of socialist society. For, according to this account, a socialist society, by abolishing the private ownership of the means of production, thereby abolishes the material and economic basis of class differences; and so classes are destined to die out in socialist society as the forces of production are developed.

The Forces of Production
As well as distorting the Marxist concept of the relations of production, the traditional interpretation also has an impoverished picture of the productive forces. It sees the major task of socialist society as being to develop the productive forces; but this task is itself conceived in a one-sided and mechanical fashion. The productive forces are regarded as comprising only machinery and techniques, and thus the development of production is seen solely in technical and economic terms.
However, machinery and techniques must not be seen in abstraction. A machine requires people to build, operate and maintain it - only in this contest is it a productive force. In considering the productive forces of a society, it is therefore vital to recognise that these comprise not only machinery and techniques, but also people with the necessary skills and organisation to operate them. Indeed, as Marx says, `Of all the instruments of production, the greatest productive power is the revolutionary class itself'.
(Poverty of Philosophy, p.151)

Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation by David F. Noble - Review author: Leon Grunberg
The American Political Science Review, Vol. 79, No. 2 (Jun., 1985), pp. 537-538 doi:10.2307/1956691

Books, E-Books Great Discounts