Aggregate Social Product

Also known as “social product”. The sum of all material means produced by society in a definite period of time (usually a year).

The aggregate social product has two forms of expression, namely the material form and the value form. The material form manifests itself as all the means of production and consumption produced by each sphere of material production. The value form includes two parts, the value of the means of production worn away and the newly created value, i.e., national income. In his analysis of capitalist economy, Marx pointed out that the value of the aggregate social product consists of three parts: constant capital, variable capital and surplus-value, i.e., c + v + m. Among it, c corresponds to the value that compensates for the transfer of constant capital, and v + m is the value newly created by workers’ labor, that is, national income. Among it, a part is used to compensate for the value of labor-power itself, i.e., wages, and part is surplus-value, which is appropriated by the capitalist without compensation.

In different modes of production, the aggregate social product has different social natures. In capitalist society, the part of the aggregate social product used to compensate for the value of the means of production worn out is the constant capital consumed by the capitalists. The relationship between the newly created variable capital and surplus-value manifests itself as a class antagonism in which capital exploits wage-labor. Socialist aggregate social product and its components belong to the working people and are used to develop socialist production and satisfy the growing needs of society and its members.

The growth of the aggregate social product generally depends on the increase in the amount of materialized labor and living labor thrown into the sphere of material production and the increase in the productivity of labor. Under the condition that the mass of labor-power invested remains unchanged, the higher the productivity of labor of society, the higher the quantity of the aggregate social product produced. The mass of labor-power invested is proportional to the total amount of social product, provided that the productivity of labor is constant.

The question concerning the realization of the aggregate social product is the core question of social reproduction. The realization of the aggregate social product includes value compensation and material compensation. The value compensation and material compensation of the aggregate social product is the basic condition for the smooth reproduction and circulation of the aggregate social capital. It is a theoretical premise of the Marxist study of the reproduction of social capital to divide the aggregate social product into two major departments according to its physical form; and thus the entire social production into two major departments, i.e., the production of means of production and the production of means of consumption; and to divide it into c, v, and m according to its value form.