Factors of Production

Factors or conditions that must be available for the production of material means to take place, i.e., the laborers and the means of production. The former is the human factor, and the latter is the material factor, including the instruments of labor and the objects of labor. In the production process, man, through the instruments of labor, effects an alteration in the object worked upon which was intended from the outset, and when the process is over and labor and the object of labor are combined, labor is materialized, and the object is processed to form the material means appropriate to men’s needs. The interaction of various factors in production reflects the relation of man to nature, and shows man’s capacity to control and change nature.

The combination of laborers and the means of production is the general condition for human production. Without their combination, there would be no social productive activity. But because of the different forms of property in the means of production, the manner in which their combination is accomplished vary, thus distinguishes society into different economic structures. Marx once pointed out: “Whatever the social form of production, laborers and means of production always remain factors of it. But in a state of separation from each other either of these factors can be such only potentially. For production to go on at all they must unite. The specific manner in which this union is accomplished distinguishes the different economic epochs of the structure of society from one another.”