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Relations of production () is a concept frequently used by
Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
and
Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
historical materialism Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of Class society, class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. Karl Marx stated that Productive forces, techno ...
and in ''
Das Kapital ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' (), also known as ''Capital'' or (), is the most significant work by Karl Marx and the cornerstone of Marxian economics, published in three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his ...
''. It is first explicitly used in Marx's published book ''
The Poverty of Philosophy ''The Poverty of Philosophy'' (French: ''Misère de la philosophie'') is a book by Karl Marx published in Paris and Brussels in 1847, where he lived in exile from 1843 until 1849. It was originally written in French language, French as a critique ...
'', although Marx and Engels had already defined the term in ''
The German Ideology ''The German Ideology'' (German: ''Die deutsche Ideologie''), also known as ''A Critique of the German Ideology'', is a set of manuscripts written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels around April or early May 1846. Marx and Engels did not find a p ...
'' which was only published posthumously in 1932. Some social relations are voluntary or freely chosen (ie. 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 (ie. biosocial kinship) 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, along with the
forces of production 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 combin ...
, constitute a relatively stable and permanent ''structure'', the "economic superstructure" 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 (tools, ...
. 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 Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
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 use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
's exclusive relationship to a
capital good Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econ ...
, 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 use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
; 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 s ...
's relationship to a
fief A fief (; ) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal alle ...
, and the
serf Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed du ...
's consequent relation to the lord; a
slavemaster Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
's relationship to their
slave Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
; etc. It is contrasted with and also affected by what Marx called the
forces of production 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 combin ...
.


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 is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more conspecifics within and/or between groups. The group can be a language or ...
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 iden ...
could be an
ethnic An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...
or
kinship In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that ...
group, a social
institution An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain social behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions and ...
or
organisation An organization or organisation ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences) is an entity—such as a company, or corporation or an institution ( formal organization), or an association—comprising one or more people and having a pa ...
, a
social class A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...
, a
nation A nation is a type of social organization where a collective Identity (social science), identity, a national identity, has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, t ...
or
gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
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 A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ...
'' 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 combin ...
, 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 (tools, ...
. Karl Marx contrasts the
social relations A social relation is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more conspecifics within and/or between groups. The group can be a language or k ...
of production with the
technical Technical may refer to: * Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle * Technical area, an area which a manager, other coaching personnel, and substitutes are allowed to occupy during a football match * Technical advisor, a person who ...
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 In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the ...
). However, Marx argues that with the rise of
market economy A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production, and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand. The major characteristic of a mark ...
, 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, commodity fetishism is the perception of the economic relationships of production and exchange as relationships among things (money and merchandise) rather than among people. As a form of Reification (Marxism), reificati ...
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 (''"Wertform"'' in German) is an important concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy, discussed in the first chapter of ''Capital, Volume 1''. It refers to the ''social form'' of tradeable things as un ...
). 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 Necessary or necessity may refer to: Concept of necessity * Need ** An action somebody may feel they must do ** An important task or essential thing to do at a particular time or by a particular moment * Necessary and sufficient condition, in l ...
asserting itself but only to a purely social necessity:
commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic goods, good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the Market (economics), market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to w ...
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 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 labor () is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It means labor performed in excess of the labor necessary to produce the means of livelihood of the worker ("necessary labor"). The "surplus" in this context mea ...
of others as the basis of the existence of capital and its
economic power Economic power refers to the ability of countries, businesses or individuals to make decisions on their own that benefit them. Scholars of international relations also refer to the economic power of a country as a factor influencing its power in ...
. Marx discusses the theoretical problem in two main places: the introduction to the ''
Grundrisse The ''Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie'' (, ), often simply the ''Grundrisse'' (, ), is an unfinished manuscript by the German philosopher Karl Marx. The series of seven notebooks was rough-drafted by Marx, chiefly for purposes ...
'' manuscript and in chapter 51 of ''Das Kapital''. In the ''Grundrisse'', where he defines the total
economy An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...
to include production, circulation,
distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...
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 Britis ...
), 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, politician, and member of Parliament. He is recognized as one of the most influential classical economists, alongside figures such as Thomas Malthus, Ada ...
, 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 Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, re ...
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 Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...
) 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 Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
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 s ...
,
imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...
,
state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...
intervention,
unequal exchange Unequal exchange is used primarily in Marxist economics, but also in ecological economics (more specifically also as ecologically unequal exchange), to describe the systemic hidden transfer of labor and ecological value from poor countries in ...
,
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 Credit (from Latin verb ''credit'', meaning "one believes") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt) ...
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. A ca ...
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, also known as a middleman or go-between, is defined differently by context. In law or diplomacy, an intermediary is a third-party beneficiary, third party who offers intermediation services between two parties. In trade or barte ...
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 any event or period that will lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or all of society. Crises are negative changes in the human or environmental affairs, especially when ...
and then a readjustment of distribution to the real structure of production relations.


See also

* Capitalist mode of production *
Character mask Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to Theoph ...
*
Critique of political economy Critique of political economy or simply the first critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the conventional ways of distributing resources. The critique also rejects what its advocates believe are unrealistic axioms, flawe ...
*
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) agains ...
*
Non-simultaneity Non-simultaneity or nonsynchronism (German: ''Ungleichzeitigkeit'', sometimes also translated as non-synchronicity) is a concept in the writings of Ernst Bloch which denotes the time lag, or uneven temporal development, produced in the social sphe ...
*
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 tha ...
*
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 Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
, ''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. Academic work He has published widely in journal ...
, ''Science, Class and Society''. *
Perry Anderson Francis Rory Peregrine "Perry" Anderson (born 11 September 1938) is a British intellectual, political philosopher, historian and essayist. His work ranges across historical sociology, intellectual history, and cultural analysis. What unites An ...
, ''In the Tracks of Historical Materialism''. *
Herbert Gintis Herbert Gintis (February 11, 1940 – January 5, 2023) was an American economist, behavioral scientist, and educator known for his theoretical contributions to sociobiology, especially altruism, cooperation, epistemic game theory, gene-culture co ...
, 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