Means of Production

All the material conditions necessary for men to engage in the production of material means. It is the material element in the productive forces of society, i.e., the sum total of the instruments of labor and objects of labor used by men in the production process. The means of production include land, forests, rivers, mineral deposits, machines, equipment, plants, production buildings, means of transportation, raw materials, auxiliary materials, etc. The determining part in the means of production is played by the instruments of production. The quality and quantity of the instruments of production determine the breadth and depth of the reshaping and conquest of nature and the quantity of material resources that people can acquire. While the objects of labor, which are part of nature, are also indispensable to labor, the transformation of this part of nature into objects of labor depends on the degree of development of the instruments of production. With advanced instruments of production, men can effectively extend the range of objects of labor and call forth the productive forces that lie dormant in nature.

In any society, means of production are indispensable material conditions for men to engage in production. Only when laborers are combined with the means of production can they carry out production and create material wealth. However, in different social formations, the mode in which laborers and means of production are combined is different. Such different modes of combination depend on the form of property in the means of production. For example, under the capitalist system, the means of production are owned and monopolized by the capitalists, and the laborers who have lost the means of production cannot but sell their labor-power in order to live, and their combination with the means of production is accomplished under the conditions in which they suffer exploitation by the capitalists. In socialist society, instead, where the public property in the means of production is established, the laborers become the masters of the means of production and are directly combined with them. As can be seen, the different modes in which the laborers and the means of production are combined are the hallmark for distinguishing different socio-economic systems.