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Relations of production (german: Produktionsverhältnisse, links=no) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their theory of
historical materialism Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
and in '' Das Kapital''. It is first explicitly used in Marx's published book '' The Poverty of Philosophy'', although Marx and Engels had already defined the term in '' The German Ideology''. Some social relations are voluntary or freely chosen (a person chooses to associate with another person or a group). But other social relations are involuntary, i.e. people can be socially related, whether they like that or not, because they are part of a family, a group, an organization, a community, a nation etc. By "relations of production", Marx and Engels meant the sum total of social relationships that people ''must'' enter into in order to survive, to produce, and to reproduce their means of life. As people ''must'' enter into these social relationships, i.e. because participation in them is not voluntary, the totality of these relationships constitute a relatively stable and permanent ''structure'', the "economic structure" or
mode of production In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the: * Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tool ...
. The term "relations of production" is somewhat vague, for two main reasons: *The German word ''Verhältnis'' can mean "relation", "proportion", or "ratio". Thus, the relationships could be qualitative, quantitative, or both. Which meaning applies can only be established from the context. *The relations to which Marx refers can be social relationships, economic relationships, or technological relationships. Marx and Engels typically use the term to refer to the socioeconomic relationships characteristic of a specific epoch; for example: a
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private p ...
's exclusive relationship to a capital good, and a wage worker's consequent relation to the
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private p ...
; a
feudal lord An overlord in the English feudal system was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular manor, estate or fee, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a variety of services, usually military service or ser ...
's relationship to a fief, and the serf's consequent relation to the lord; a
slavemaster Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
's relationship to their slave; etc. It is contrasted with and also affected by what Marx called the forces of production.


How Marx uses the concept

Here are four famous quotations showing Marx's use of the concept of relations of production: (In other words, the English relations of production did not exist in Australia; there was no system of property rights and legal obligations and no economic necessity compelling workers to work for their boss. The servants therefore could leave Mr. Peel in order to find work or occupy free land to make a better living.)


Definitions

A
social relation A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...
can be defined, in the first instance, as *a relation between individuals insofar as they belong to a group, or *a relation between groups, or *a relation between an individual and a group The
group A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic ide ...
could be an ethnic or kinship group, a social institution or
organisation An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...
, a social class, a nation or gender etc. A social relation is therefore not simply identical with an interpersonal relation or an individual relation, although all these types of relations presuppose each other. A social relation refers to a common social characteristic of a group of people. '' Society'' for Marx is ''the sum total of social relations connecting its members''. Social ''relations of production'' in Marx's sense refer to *(often legally encoded) ownership and control relations pertaining to society's productive assets, *the way people are formally and informally associated within the economic sphere of production, including as social classes, *co-operative work relations (including household labor), *socio-economic dependencies between people arising from the way they produce and reproduce their existence, *relationships between different worksites or production sites *the quantitative proportions of different aspects of the sphere of production, considered from the point of view of society as a whole. The totality of social relations of production constitute the social structure of the economy, which according to Marx determine how incomes, products and assets will be distributed.


Social/technical distinction and reification

Combined with the
productive forces Productive forces, productive powers, or forces of production ( German: ''Produktivkräfte'') is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism. In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' own critique of political economy, it refers to the combina ...
, the relations of production constitute a historically specific
mode of production In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the: * Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tool ...
. Karl Marx contrasts the social relations of production with the
technical Technical may refer to: * Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle * Technical analysis, a discipline for forecasting the future direction of prices through the study of past market data * Technical drawing, showing how something is co ...
relations of production; in the former case, it is people (subjects) who are related, in the latter case, the relation is between people and objects in the physical world they inhabit (those objects are, in the context of production, what Marx calls the "means of labor" or
means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...
). However, Marx argues that with the rise of market economy, this distinction is increasingly obscured and distorted. In particular, a cash economy makes it possible to define, symbolise and manipulate relationships between things that people make in abstraction from the social and technical relations involved. Marx says this leads to the reification (thingification or ''Verdinglichung'') of economic relations, of which
commodity fetishism In Marxist philosophy, the term commodity fetishism describes the economic relationships of production and exchange as being social relationships that exist among things (money and merchandise) and not as relationships that exist among people ...
is a prime example. The marketplace seems to be a place where all people have free and equal access and freely negotiate and bargain over deals and prices on the basis of civil equality. People will buy and sell goods without really knowing where they originated or who made them. They know that objectively they depend on producers and consumers somewhere else, that this social dependency exists, but they do not know who specifically those people are or what their activities are. Market forces seem to regulate everything, but what is really behind those market forces has become obscured, because the social relationship between people or their relation with nature is expressed as a commercial relationship between things (money, commodities, capital) (see also
value-form The value-form or form of value (german: Wertform) is a concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy. Marx's account of the value-form is differently adopted in later forms of Marxism, in the Frankfurt School and in post-Marxism. When so ...
). Some social relations of production therefore exist in an objective, mind-independent way, not simply because they are a natural necessity for human groups, but because of the mediation of social and technical relations by commerce. In addition to creating new social and technical relations, commerce introduces a proliferation of relationships between tradeable 'things'. Not only do relationships between 'things' (commodities, prices etc.) begin to indicate and express social and technical relations, the commercial relations also begin to govern and regulate the pattern of human contact and technique. The fact therefore that particular social relations of production acquire an objective, mind-independent existence may not be due to any natural necessity asserting itself but only to a purely social necessity:
commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a co ...
exchange objectifies social relations to the point where they escape from conscious human control, and exist such that they can be recognised only by abstract thought.


Relations of distribution

One of the theoretical problems in
Marxian economics Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian ...
is to distinguish exactly between ''relations of production'' and ''relations of distribution'', determining the significance of each in the allocation of resources. According to the crudest and most vulgar interpretations of ''Das Kapital'',
exploitation Exploitation may refer to: *Exploitation of natural resources *Exploitation of labour **Forced labour *Exploitation colonialism *Slavery **Sexual slavery and other forms *Oppression *Psychological manipulation In arts and entertainment * Exploit ...
occurs only at the point of production. Marx himself obviously did not assert this at all, he only postulated the command over the
surplus labour Surplus labour (German: ''Mehrarbeit'') is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It means labour performed in excess of the labour necessary to produce the means of livelihood of the worker ("necessary labour"). The "su ...
of others as the basis of the existence of capital and its economic power. Marx discusses the theoretical problem in two main places: the introduction to the '' Grundrisse'' manuscript and in chapter 51 of ''Das Kapital''. In the ''Grundrisse'', where he defines the total economy to include production, circulation, distribution and consumption (similar to
James Mill James Mill (born James Milne; 6 April 1773 – 23 June 1836) was a Scottish historian, economist, political theorist, and philosopher. He is counted among the founders of the Ricardian school of economics. He also wrote ''The History of Briti ...
), he raises the following question: He answers his own question negatively: Disagreeing with
David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. Ricardo was also a politician, and a m ...
, who regarded ''distribution'' as the proper object of study for economics, Marx argues that the mode of production largely ''determines'' the mode of distribution: the ''source'' of income and products in production, and their ''distribution'' among the population must be analysed within one framework: In the last chapters of ''Das Kapital'' Vol 3, he develops the argument, defining relations of distribution as the "forms" which "express the relationships in which the total value newly produced is distributed among the owners of the various agents of production" (as income and products). His critique of political economy in this regard was (1) that relations of production or distribution are posited as "natural and eternal" rather than as historically specific relations, (2) that forms of distribution of income and products are crucially determined by property relations pertaining to productive assets; (3) that by constantly reproducing the relations of production, the mode of production of capital also reproduces the relations of distribution corresponding to it. Late in his life, Marx touches on the issue again:


Criticism of Marx's concept

It is frequently objected by Weberian sociologists (those in the tradition of
Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas prof ...
) that Marx paid insufficient attention to the ''intersubjective'' dimension of social relations, i.e. the meanings consciously attached by people to their social interactions. However, Marx's argument is that these subjective or intersubjective meanings permit of infinite variations, and therefore cannot be the foundation for a genuine science of society. Individual meanings depend on shared meanings, and these shared meanings arise out of objective circumstances which exist independently of individuals. So one must begin with understanding those objective interdependencies which by necessity shape and socialise human beings, i.e. those social relations which people as social beings must enter into, regardless of what they may think or wish. In this context, the young Vladimir Lenin commented: In fact, Marx devotes a great amount of attention in ''Das Kapital'' to explaining why economic relations appear in human consciousness in the way that they do, and why they might appear in a different way than they really are. Another sort of criticism, from economists, consists of the observation that processes of distribution (of products and income) can to a considerable extent develop ''independently'' or autonomously from what happens in production, with the aid of a developed credit system. In fact, gross distortions between value added in production, and the distribution of products and incomes, might occur—for example, as a result of
underdevelopment Underdevelopment, in the context of international development, reflects a broad condition or phenomena defined and critiqued by theorists in fields such as economics, development studies, and postcolonial studies. Used primarily to distinguish st ...
, imperialism, state intervention, unequal exchange,
fictitious capital Fictitious capital (German: ''fiktives Kapital'') is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It is introduced in chapter 25 of the third volume of Capital. Fictitious capital contrasts with what Marx calls "real capita ...
,
credit bubble An economic bubble (also called a speculative bubble or a financial bubble) is a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify. Bubbles can be ...
s, or
capital gains Capital gain is an economic concept defined as the profit earned on the sale of an asset which has increased in value over the holding period. An asset may include tangible property, a car, a business, or intangible property such as shares. ...
from rising property values. That is, a society or region might get much more or much less income than the value of what it produces. In that case, there are
intermediary An intermediary (or go-between) is a third party that offers intermediation services between two parties, which involves conveying messages between principals in a dispute, preventing direct contact and potential escalation of the issue. In law ...
agencies between production and consumption influencing the allocation of resources. Probably Marx would have acknowledged that, but he would presumably have argued that ultimately, the dyssynchrony or distortion between production and distribution would cause a
crisis A crisis ( : crises; : critical) is either any event or period that will (or might) lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or all of society. Crises are negative changes in the human or environmental affair ...
and then a readjustment of distribution to the real structure of production relations.


See also

* Capitalist mode of production *
Character mask In Marxist philosophy, a character mask (german: Charaktermaske) is a prescribed social role which conceals the contradictions of a social relation or order. The term was used by Karl Marx in published writings from the 1840s to the 1860s, and ...
*
Critique of political economy Critique of political economy or critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the various social categories and structures that constitute the mainstream discourse concerning the forms and modalities of resource allocation and ...
*
Law of value The law of the value of commodities (German: ''Wertgesetz der Waren''), known simply as the law of value, is a central concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy first expounded in his polemic ''The Poverty of Philosophy'' (1847) against ...
*
Reserve army of labour Reserve army of labour is a concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy. It refers to the unemployed and underemployed in capitalist society. It is synonymous with "industrial reserve army" or "relative surplus population", except that t ...
*
Sociology of space The sociology of space is a sub-discipline of sociology that mostly borrows from theories developed within the discipline of geography, including the sub fields of human geography, economic geography, and feminist geography. The "sociology" of ...


Notes


References

* Vladimir Lenin, ''What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats''. *
Göran Therborn Göran Therborn FAcSS (23 September 1941, Kalmar, Sweden) is a professor of sociology at Cambridge University and is amongst the most highly cited contemporary Marxian-influenced sociologists. He has published widely in journals such as the ''New ...
, ''Science, Class and Society''. *
Perry Anderson Francis Rory Peregrine "Perry" Anderson (born 11 September 1938) is a British intellectual, historian and essayist. His work ranges across historical sociology, intellectual history, and cultural analysis. What unites Anderson's work is a preoc ...
, ''In the Tracks of Historical Materialism''. * Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert T. Boyd and
Ernst Fehr Ernst Fehr (born 21 June 1956 in Hard, Austria) is an Austrian-Swiss behavioral economist and neuroeconomist and a Professor of Microeconomics and Experimental Economic Research, as well as the vice chairman of the Department of Economics at the ...
, ''Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life''. * John McMurtry, ''The Structure of Marx's World-View'' {{Authority control Marxist theory ru:Марксистская политическая экономия#Производственные отношения