Lecture
An understanding of the significant role played by the production of the material conditions of human life, and the material conditions of production itself, in the destiny of human society was formed long before the emergence of scientific socialism. The credit due to the founders of Marxism on this question lies, first, in their clear assertion that it is precisely the production of the material conditions of human life that is determinative for the development of all other spheres of human society — the state, law, politics, religion, ideology, and so on. Second, K. Marx and F. Engels were the first to propose a concept revealing the detailed structure of social production, the relationship and interaction of its structural elements, and the sources, laws, and forms of its development. The most general propositions of historical materialism became, at the end of the nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth century, an integral part of world scholarship, and the concept as a whole continues, to one degree or another, to influence the most prominent representatives of the social sciences — including those who do not hold Marxist views, and even active opponents of Marxism. The simple statement that man must produce in order to exist is by no means an achievement of Marxism.
Even before Marxism, the conclusion had been reached that production is precisely the specific mode of existence that distinguishes man from all other living beings. However, only Marxism showed exactly how production realizes its determinative character in the life of human society. Scientific socialism pointed to the fact that, in the process of producing the material conditions of their existence, people enter into specific social relations — relations of production. Relations of production are specific social relations that people enter into in the process of producing the material and spiritual conditions of their existence; material production is here the determining factor. People do not choose these relations of production arbitrarily. The character of the relations of production does not depend on the will and consciousness of people but is objective, since it is determined by the given, existing level of development of the material conditions of production, that is, by the level of development of the productive forces of human society. The relations of production, in turn, are not neutral, or passive, with respect to the productive forces.
Relations of production can either accelerate the development of the productive forces or slow it down.
Labor. Two of the most important elements of the productive forces of society are, first, man, endowed with the capacity for labor and with a body of knowledge, skills, and production techniques. Second, there are the material means of production. It should be especially emphasized that it is precisely man, with his capacities for labor, who is the leading element of the productive forces. It is he who, through his activity, creates, modifies, and improves the means of production and sets them in motion. Man, endowed with the capacity for labor, is (alongside the means of production) a material factor of the productive forces of society. These facts are often forgotten, and the productive forces are frequently reduced to the means of production alone, and the latter, in turn, to mere tools. This simplification was at times not avoided even by the founders of scientific socialism, the authors of the concept under discussion. Man, as an element of the productive forces, cannot be reduced merely to labor power — the body of skills, abilities, and production techniques, and the capacity to set them in motion, possessed by an individual. Man (as an element of the productive forces) is also characterized by the knowledge and capacity for creative activity that he can apply in the process of production, in order to sustain, develop, and improve it. These qualities are determined by the level of culture possessed by man (understood here as a generic being, that is, as human society).
Labor power is the body of skills, abilities, and production techniques, and the capacity to set them in motion, possessed by an individual. The development of man in that aspect characterized by his capacity for labor (that is, of man as an element of the productive forces) proceeds, on the one hand, through the accumulation of techniques and skills of labor activity, the invention of new techniques, and the acquisition and transmission of corresponding experience. On the other hand, a most powerful influence on the character of human labor activity, and on the improvement of man's capacity for labor, is exerted by the development and improvement of the means of production. It should be said that man is also the active side in this process. However, once a given level of development of the means of production has taken shape, an objective dependence of the level of man's labor capacities on this level of development of the means of production is formed. The means of production, in turn, can be divided into two large elements — the instruments of labor and the objects of labor. Instruments of labor are subdivided into tools of labor and conditions of labor. Tools of labor are used by man to actively act upon natural objects in order to change their form so that they can serve the purpose of satisfying human needs. These include, for example, metalworking machine tools, earth-moving machines, electric generators, means of transport, grain-harvesting combines, chemical reactors, pipelines, and the like. Conditions of labor do not themselves actively act upon natural objects, but serve, as their name implies, to create the conditions for the use of tools of labor.
These include various kinds of industrial buildings and structures (factory shop buildings, roads, bridges, and so on). The objects of labor include all those natural objects upon which man acts by means of the instruments of labor, modifying nature for his own purposes and thereby transforming natural objects into products of labor. The division of the means of production into instruments of labor and objects of labor is determined not by their natural (physical, chemical, and so on) properties, but by their place in the process of production. For example, a tractor working in a field or in a quarry is an instrument of labor (and, more precisely, a tool of labor).
The same tractor, sent to a repair shop, there acts as an object of labor. Equally mobile is the boundary between means of production and products of labor, and it too is determined by their place in the process of production. For example, wheat grain acts as a product of the labor of grain growers. Sent to a flour mill, however, it acts as a means of production (namely, as an object of labor) for the manufacture of flour. Most means of production (with the exception of natural resources and the natural conditions of production) are products of human labor. Objects of labor are any natural objects acted upon by man — metal, wood, agricultural plants, minerals, electromagnetic fields, water, and so on. Some objects of labor are products of labor already processed by man, while others are objects of nature in their natural state (for example, fish in the sea). From this point of view, the geographical environment inhabited by man plays a very important role in production — both as a kind of storehouse of objects of labor, and as one of the most important factors determining the conditions of labor. However, the natural environment cannot be regarded merely as a passive object of human action. In modifying nature for his own purposes, man intrudes into the complex interconnections that determine the functioning and very existence of the Earth's biogeochemical envelope. Such intrusion can disturb the natural balance in nature, worsening the conditions of existence for man himself (the accumulation of waste and production refuse, chemical pollution, the extinction of animal and plant species, the destruction of forests and steppes, the depletion of water sources and mineral reserves, damage to the ozone layer, the "greenhouse effect," and so on). The emergence of social production thus also means the formation of a contradiction between man and nature. As long as man exists, this contradiction cannot be eliminated, but the forms of its unfolding can be either destructive to the interaction between man and nature, or harmonizing of their mutual development. Initially, man relates to nature as a source of means of subsistence. At the lowest, primitive level of development, man feels his dependence on nature, and this compels him to adapt to nature, to fear retribution for too abrupt an intrusion into its world. During this period a system of restrictions and prohibitions is formed (partly rational, partly magical), intended to prevent the destruction of those sources of subsistence that man finds in the surrounding natural environment. When economic relations change in such a way that the production of wealth comes to the fore, this initial cautious attitude toward nature gives way to its unrestrained exploitation. Without such a change there would have been no progress of human society. However, this mode of progress takes its revenge — the more efficient and larger in scale the productive forces of human society become, the more powerful their destructive effect on nature, ultimately creating a real threat of the destruction of the entire natural environment inhabited by man. This contradiction was noted as early as the mid-nineteenth century by K. Marx, but this position gained wide recognition only more than a century later, when the threat of ecological catastrophe became evident. Significant natural-scientific groundwork for understanding the character of the interaction between man and nature was laid by the work of the Russian scholar Academician Vernadsky (the concept of man as a geological force, the concept of the noosphere). In order to remove the threat to humanity arising from the productive forces created by man himself, a change in the relations between man and nature is necessary. Man cannot cease to act upon nature in order to achieve his own goals and to secure means of subsistence. However, this action must be harmonized with the laws of nature itself, and for this, nature must no longer be regarded as a source of wealth — it should instead be regarded as having value in its own right, and the necessity of reckoning with its laws must be recognized as an indispensable condition for man's own existence. However, achieving such changes in relations with nature is impossible so long as human society remains dominated by relations of production that inevitably reduce everything around it — both nature and man himself — to a mere source for the accumulation of wealth. Labor is purposeful activity aimed at changing the form of natural objects, adapting them to satisfy human needs. The process of production is the interaction of man and the means of production. Production is a broader concept than labor. Production includes not only man's directly purposeful activity of transforming objects of nature, but also interaction with the means of production, and many kinds of activity that have arisen in connection with man's performance of his labor functions — management, exchange, distribution, and consumption.
It should be emphasized that human consumption is by no means a natural process, but an element of social production. Human consumption differs from animal consumption by the very same characteristics that distinguish human labor activity from animal activity. Both the composition of human needs and the form of their satisfaction are dictated primarily by the social conditions of production. Moreover, the consumption of means of production and objects of labor forms part of the production process, while the consumption of vital goods by man is an element of the process of reproduction of labor power. Production in human society forms complex social systems, developing first to national and then to worldwide scale. Human labor activity differs from the labor-like activity of animals in several critically important respects. First, human labor activity is socially conditioned in character, whereas the labor-like activity of animals is instinctive. The characteristics of human labor are determined — setting aside the constraints imposed by the totality of existing material conditions of production — by the social relations in which man is included. These relations, refracted through the personal qualities of man and his thinking (which likewise does not bear an absolutely individual character, being a reflection of the collective practice of people), determine the choice of, or change in, the basic components of labor activity — the content of the labor process itself, the character of the tools of labor employed, the objects of labor, and the results of labor activity. Human labor differs from the activity of so-called collective animals (bees, ants) in that it is not confined to a strictly delineated set of functions determined by instinct and assigned to particular individuals by virtue of their biological specialization. Man is universal in his functions, capable of changing them and creating new ones, which is not characteristic of the animal world. Moreover, the instinctive labor-like activity of animals is confined to a fairly simple reflex relationship of "habitual stimulus — habitual response." Here the stimulus appears as a typical element of the state of the natural environment (including the state of the living organism itself — for example, hunger), and the response as a necessary element of the functioning of the living organism. Human labor, however, is an activity in which purpose and motive do not coincide. If, for an animal, the motive (stimulus) is the satisfaction of hunger, then its activity too will be directed toward satisfying hunger — the search for and consumption of food. Examples of monkeys and birds using sticks to obtain food are no exception to this rule. For certain species of birds, using sticks to extract insects from cracks in tree bark is an instinctively fixed method of obtaining food, and outside of direct connection with these insects it has no meaning whatsoever. Likewise, for monkeys, the use of sticks appears only as a component part of actions enabling them to obtain food — for example, edible fruit — and cannot occur apart from a connection to that fruit. For man, labor activity almost always takes place outside of any direct connection with the satisfaction of his needs. Even primitive man, feeling hunger, spent a certain part of his time not on obtaining food but, for example, on chipping the edge of one stone with another stone. In this case the motive (stimulus) is the satisfaction of hunger, while the purpose of the activity is the manufacture of a hand-axe, often without any connection to some specifically intended object meant to satisfy the hunger that exists. For modern man, labor activity and the direct satisfaction of needs are separated from one another by an enormous chain of mediations. For a great many people, their main occupation never comes into contact with the direct satisfaction of their needs at all, and the possibility of satisfying those needs exists only thanks to the activity of other people. Another distinguishing feature of human labor is the use of means of production. Some animals, as already mentioned, likewise place artificially created mediating links between themselves and nature — monkeys adapt sticks to obtain fruit, beavers build dams, birds build nests, bees build honeycombs... However, these "tools" perform only a single function and are stereotyped in character, within limits strictly delineated by instincts and conditioned reflexes. In all their other functions, animals manage entirely without any tools. Only man places between himself and nature an enormous artificial world, the technosphere. Man, in practically all of his life functions, cannot do without the means of production. This "second nature" is constantly developing together with man, and its development constitutes an essential part of human history alongside the development of relations among people themselves.
The stages in the development of the productive forces were initially distinguished according to the principal materials from which tools of labor were made. Another important criterion allowing the stages of the productive forces to be distinguished was also the identification of dominant production technologies, that is, of a particular combination of elements of the productive forces (simple elements of the labor process) and the character of their interaction in the process of production. The main branches of the economy are identified correspondingly to the basic technologies. Moreover, as tools of labor become more complex, what acquires serious importance is not so much determining the material from which these tools are made as studying the structure of these tools. As the productive forces develop, these latter criteria come to play the most important role.
Production technology is a particular combination of elements of the productive forces (simple elements of the labor process) and the character of their interaction in the process of production. Strangely enough, within Marxism, which drew attention to the key role of man in the system of the productive forces of society, this thesis was applied rather rarely in resolving concrete questions concerning the assessment of the level of development of the productive forces. This shortcoming was characteristic both of the classic writers of Marxism and of their followers. Perhaps it is precisely this that accounts for many of the unresolved problems in the study of the economic development of society. To the best of our ability, let us try to overcome this shortcoming. But first, a few words about the traditional division of the stages in the development of the productive forces. The Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. The Stone Age. Initially, the principal material from which tools of labor were made was stone. The basic technology for producing such tools was the working of stone with stone tools themselves. However, the basic technology serving to provide man with means of subsistence was gathering, and later, as the technology of tool-making and the skills of joint and individual activity improved, also hunting. Occupations of this kind are conventionally referred to as an "appropriating economy," since human activity (production) was directed chiefly toward the appropriation of ready-made products of nature. Man, of course, at all stages of his development appropriates matter from nature for his own needs. But here we are speaking of the direct appropriation of ready-made natural products. The working of tools, and even the preparation of food and the storing of food supplies (which developed at later stages of the Stone Age, during the Neolithic), occupied a far smaller place in the production process of primitive man. Already within the Stone Age, man, in addition to mechanical technologies (the working of stone, wood, bone, hides...), mastered an important physico-chemical technology — the obtaining of fire and its use for cooking food and processing various materials (for example, pottery-making). In the late Stone Age (the Neolithic), man began to intervene in the natural processes of the reproduction of living nature — taming, and then domesticating, animals, and beginning to cultivate plants. However, these technologies generally acquired a dominant role only with the transition to the use of metals. Even on the basis of stone tools, primitive slash-and-burn and hoe farming developed in some localities. However, with few exceptions, its productivity remained quite low. The Copper (Bronze) Age. The use of copper, and later of bronze (an alloy of copper and tin), meant not only the emergence of metallurgy as a new branch of production, but above all the appearance of tools that made the working of stone, wood, and metals, and the practice of farming and animal husbandry, far more efficient. Farming and animal husbandry came to the fore in the acquisition of means of subsistence, pushing gathering and hunting into the background. However, the instability of harvests under primitive farming, dependent on the vagaries of weather, and the instability of the natural forage base of animal husbandry (for the same reasons), for a long time made hunting and gathering very important supplementary sources of means of subsistence for man. The transition to farming and animal husbandry means a transition to what is called a "producing economy" (the term is not very precise, since there can be no such thing as a non-producing economy — an "appropriating economy" is likewise a variety of production). This term reflects the fact of the transition from production directed at the appropriation of ready-made natural products to production ensuring the mass manufacture of products modified by man, which are not the fruits of spontaneously occurring natural processes. Both the raising of domesticated animals and the cultivation of crop plants, as well as handicraft, are all branches of the economy that make it possible to create and appropriate products having a form different from the natural one. Together with the smelting and working of metal, the first prerequisites appeared for the significant development of the social division of labor — first through the separation of farming and animal husbandry, and then through the separation of handicraft (metallurgy, blacksmithing, pottery-making...) from agriculture.
the emergence of the social division of labor means the permanent assignment of particular individuals to particular kinds of activity, that is, the specialization of people. Such a division of labor is called social because these kinds of activity, and the people engaged in them, cannot exist outside of social ties (extending beyond kinship ties) and economic relations (relations of exchange of activity) among themselves. Initially, in the primitive community, there existed a division of labor by sex and age, establishing the distribution of various functions among members of the community depending on the physiological characteristics of the sex-and-age groups.
The Iron Age. The development of metallurgical technologies (an increase in the temperature at which ore was smelted) made it possible to move on to the smelting and working of iron. This transition ensured a further increase in productivity in agricultural technologies and in handicraft, in the working of the most diverse materials. The increase in productivity ensured the systematic production of a surplus product (that is, a surplus above and beyond immediate current needs). Cases have been noted of the production of a surplus product under favorable conditions even in an appropriating economy (intensive fishing in some areas of the Pacific Ocean waters) and with the use of stone tools in farming (Mesoamerica, Africa). However, the production of a surplus product became noticeably widespread in regions with natural and climatic conditions favorable to farming only in the Bronze Age, and, as a general rule, only with the onset of the Iron Age. Together with the production of a surplus product, such phenomena as exploitation and trade developed. Surplus Product and Exploitation: When man becomes capable of producing more than is needed for his current consumption (for sustaining life), the surplus — the surplus product — can be appropriated by other people. Exploitation means the use of man as a kind of living instrument of labor — compelling him to produce a surplus product with the aim of subsequently appropriating it.
Exchange already existed in the Stone Age. Since natural, climatic, and geological conditions differ from region to region, this gave rise to exchange based on these differences. However, exchange was random and unsystematic in character, and only an insignificant part of the product produced was drawn into it (as a rule, unique natural raw materials).
The systematic production of surpluses, together with the development of the social division of labor, not only makes it possible to expand the scale of exchange and to make it systematic, but also transforms it into a distinct branch — trade — which becomes a necessary element in the functioning of social production under conditions of social division of labor. After all, now, for example, an artisan cannot live and work without exchanging the fruits of his labor for foodstuffs, while a herdsman needs to exchange livestock products for grain, and so on. One might say that we still live in the Iron Age. After all, iron and its alloys remain the principal structural material in modern production to this day. However, as already noted above, other criteria for assessing the level of development of the productive forces now acquire the greatest importance.
The Middle Ages brought such technological processes as the manufacture and use of gunpowder, the printing of books, and a far less conspicuous but no less significant progress in the processing, preservation, and storage of foodstuffs (which made it possible to increase real consumption at the same level of agricultural productivity). It was in the Middle Ages, for example, that such technologies as the salting of fish and the distillation of ethyl alcohol became widespread. However, it was not these technologies that determined the transition to a new stage in the development of the productive forces. This transition was connected with the specialization of labor processes and tools that had developed over the course of the Middle Ages, which prepared the way for the replacement of hand tools by machines, that is, by such tools of labor as transmit man's action upon the object of labor through a special transmission mechanism and are set in motion, as a rule, not by the muscular strength of man or of animals. Thus a machine consists of three principal parts — an engine, a transmission mechanism, and a working tool. Machines are instruments of labor that transmit man's action upon the object of labor through a special transmission mechanism and are set in motion, as a rule, not by the muscular strength of man or of animals. Thus a machine consists of three principal parts — an engine, a transmission mechanism, and a working tool. The first widely used machines were water mills and windmills, and later, mechanical clocks. The mass spread of machines was linked, from a technological point of view, both to the increased strength of the metal alloys employed and to the increased precision of their working, and also to the appearance of engines independent of the geographical environment (which had limited the use of the power of wind or water). The appearance of the steam engine, and later of the internal combustion engine and the electric motor, gave a most important technical impetus to the industrial revolution (industrialization) — the restructuring of all branches of the economy on the basis of machine technology and the corresponding technologies. With the development of machine technology, a certain weakening occurred in the role of man as the leading element of the productive forces (but at the same time, prerequisites arose for a subsequent unprecedented strengthening of that role). In the pre-machine era, the success of both handicraft and agricultural production depended directly on the accumulated habits, individual skill, and mastery of man (and not infrequently human muscular strength served as the main energy source in manual labor).
Machine production makes it possible to render human functions extremely primitive, which found its most vivid embodiment in assembly-line production. In the further course of events, however, the creation and improvement of machines gradually required, on the contrary, a strengthening of the role of man in the machine era. It became necessary to apply scientific knowledge to the development of industrial technological processes and to the creation of machine technology. Invention began to turn into virtually a distinct branch of production. The technical improvement and increasing complexity of machines gradually entailed increased requirements for the qualifications and education of ordinary workers. But these shifts initially affected a fairly narrow circle of people. The situation changed in the second half of the twentieth century. The next major step in the development of the productive forces during this period was the transformation of the technological application of knowledge into the dominant productive force, and, together with this, the rapid flourishing of information technologies. The production, exchange, and application of knowledge now claim to play a more important role than the transformation of material objects of labor. Shifts of this kind in the productive forces are assessed by many researchers as the onset of the post-industrial era. From this point of view, the significance of machine production (industry in the broad sense of the word), and even of material production in general, is declining, while, alongside this, the relative weight and significance of the branches of non-material production (the service sector, especially the sphere of spiritual production) is growing.
There are quite a few grounds for skepticism regarding the conclusion that this era has already arrived. But in any case, our time is characterized by the continuing growth in the significance of man as the leading element of the productive forces.
Glossary for Chapter 2
RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION — specific social relations that people enter into in the process of producing the material conditions of their existence.
LABOR POWER — the body of skills, abilities, and production techniques, and the capacity to set them in motion, possessed by an individual.
LABOR — purposeful activity aimed at changing the form of natural objects, adapting them to satisfy human needs.
PROCESS OF PRODUCTION — the interaction of man and the means of production in the course of labor.
PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY — a particular combination of elements of the productive forces (simple elements of the labor process) and the character of their interaction in the process of production.
SOCIAL DIVISION OF LABOR: the emergence of the social division of labor means the permanent assignment of particular individuals to particular kinds of activity, that is, the specialization of people. Such a division of labor is called social because these kinds of activity, and the people engaged in them, cannot exist outside of social ties (extending beyond kinship ties) and economic relations (relations of exchange of activity) among themselves.
SURPLUS PRODUCT AND EXPLOITATION: when man becomes capable of producing more than is needed for his current consumption (for sustaining life), the surplus — the surplus product — can be appropriated by other people. Exploitation means the use of man as a kind of living instrument of labor — compelling him to produce a surplus product with the aim of subsequently appropriating it.
MACHINES — instruments of labor that transmit man's action upon the object of labor through a special transmission mechanism and are set in motion, as a rule, not by the muscular strength of man or of animals. Thus a machine consists of three principal parts — an engine, a transmission mechanism, and a working tool.
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