Factors of production
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ФАКТОРЫ ПРОИЗВОДСТВА
FACTORS OF PRODUCTION
Выполнил
Проверил
магистрант
Грузинов О.С. старший преподаватель
подпись____________
Филимончик О.Н.
Гомель 2014
АННОТАЦИЯ
Грузинов Олег Сергеевич
Факторы производства
Ключевые слова: капитал, труд, земля, природные ресурсы,
предпринимательство, рабочая сила, продукция, себестоимость продукции, расходы
продукции, новые факторы производства, экономисты, прибыльность,
капиталовложение, производственный цикл.
Реферат содержит: материал письменного перевода 113000 знаков (11
страниц), перечень приведенной литературы - 12 источников, словарь научных
терминов - 314 слов.
Цель работы - провести тематический обзор характеристик каждого фактора
производства, проанализировать теории главных экономистов и описать возможные
варианты новых факторов производства.
В экономике производство означает создание или добавление полезности.
Факторами производства (или производительные входы или ресурсы) являются любые
предметы потребления, применяемые для производства товаров и услуг.
Особый интерес вызвали исследования в области подходов по выделению
нового четвертого фактора производства. Каждый рынок должен быть готов к
новшествам и инновациям в сфере торговли, в сфере услуг, в сфере производства,
распределения и сбыта. Т.к. идет развитие в каждой отрасли экономики в
настоящее время, то это не могло, не отразится и на формировании цены
продукции, и на определении факторов производства, от которых она зависит.
АНАТАЦЫЯ
Грузiнаў Алег Сяргеевiч
Фактары вытворчасцi
Ключавыя словы: капітал, праца, зямля, прыродныярэсурсы,
прадпрымальніцтва, рабочая сіла, прадукцыя, сабекошт прадукцыі, выдаткі
прадукцыі, новыя фактары вытворчасці, эканамісты, прыбытковасць,
капіталаўкладанне, вытворчы цыкл.
Реферат змяшчаэ: матэрыял пiсьмовага
перакладу 113000друкаваныхзнакаў (на 11 старонках), пералiк перакладзенай лiтаратуры - 12крынiц, слоўнiк навуковых тэрмiнаў - 314слоў.
Мэтапрацы-правесці тэматычны агляд характарыстык кожнага фактару
вытворчасці ,прааналізаваць тэорыі галоўных эканамістаў і апісаць магчымыя
варыянты новых фактараў вытворчасці.
У эканоміцы вытворчасць азначае стварэнне або даданне карыснасці.
Фактарамі вытворчасці (або прадукцыйныя ўваходыа бо рэсурсы )з'яўляюцца любыя
прадметы спажывання, якія прымяняюцца для вытворчасці тавараў і паслуг.
Прыведзены звесткі аб ключавых паняццях фактараў вытворчасці і аб цэнавай
структуры прадукцыі. Разгледжан светапогляд кожнай гісторыка-эканамічнай школы
па вызначэнні самых важных фактараў вытворчасці. Дана падрабязная
характарыстыка кожнага фактару ў дадзеным аглядным рэфераце.
Асаблівую цікавасць выклікалі даследаванні ў галіне падыходаў па
вылучэнню новага чацвёртага фактару вытворчасці. Кожны рынак павінен быць
гатовы да навінам і інавацыях у сферы гандлю, у сферы паслуг, у сферы вытворчасці,
размеркавання і збыту. Так як ідзе развіццё ў кожнай галіны эканомікі ў
цяперашні час, то гэта не магло не адаб'ецца і на фарміраванні кошту прадукцыі,
і на вызначэнні фактараў вытворчасці, ад якіхя назалежыць.
ANNOTATION
S. Olegof production: capital, labour, land, natural
resources, entrepreneurship, labour force, production, production cost,
production expenses, new factors of production, economists, profitability,
investment, production cycle.includes: the material of translation 113000characters
(pages 11), the references - 12 sources, the list of scientific terms - 314
words.purpose of work is to conduct a thematic review of the characteristics of
each factor of production, to analyze the theories of main economists and to
describe the possible variants of new factors of production.economics,
production means creation or an addition of utility. Factors of production (or
productive inputs or resources) are any commodities or services used to produce
goods and services.abstract provides information about the key concepts of main
factors of production and about the price structure of production.The world
outlook of each historically created economical school about the most important
factors of production. The detailed characteristic is given in that survey
paper.interest was the study of approaches to the allocation of the forth new
principal factor of production. Each market has to be ready to novelties and
innovations in the trade sphere, in a services sector, in the sphere of
production, distribution and sale.there is a development in each branch of
economy nowadays, so it was reflected on the creation of production pricing,
and on definition of factors of production on which it depends.
1 HISTORICAL SCHOOLS AND FACTORS
2 THE MAIN THREE FACTORS OF PRODUCTION
THE FOURTH FACTOR OF PRODUCTION
In economics
<#"880502.files/image001.gif"> <#"880502.files/image002.gif">Picture
1 - An advertisement for labour from Sabah and Sarawak, seen in JalanPetaling,
Kuala Lumpur
The classical economics
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/144592> of Adam Smith
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/764>, David Ricardo
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/4912>, and their followers focuses
on physical resources in defining its factors of production, and discusses the
distribution of cost and value among these factors. Adam Smith and David
Ricardo referred to the "component parts of price" as the costs of
using:
· Land <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/99304> or natural
resource <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/13187> -
naturally-occurring goods such as water, air, soil, minerals, flora and fauna
that are used in the creation of products. The pyment for use and the received
income of a land owner is rent
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1588362>.
· Labor - human effort used in production
which also includes technical and marketing expertise. The payment for someone
else's labor and all income received from ones own labor is wages
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1588362>. Labor can also be
classified as the physical and mental contribution of an employee to the
production of the good(s).
· The capital stock <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/121765> -
human-made goods (or means of production
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/30177>), which are used in the
production of other goods. These include
machinery, tools, and buildings.
The classical economists also employed the word
"capital" in reference to money. Money, however, was not considered
to be a factor of production in the sense of capital stock since it is not used
to directly produce any good. The return to loaned money or to loaned stock was
styled as interest while the return to the actual proprietor of capital stock
(tools, etc.) was styled as profit. See also returns
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1588362>.
· Labor ("work itself")
· The subject of labor
(objects transformed by labor)
· The instruments of labor (or means of labor
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/4758622>).
The "subject of labor"
refers to natural resources and raw materials, including land. The
"instruments of labor" are tools, in the broadest sense. They include
factory buildings, infrastructure, and other human-made objects that facilitate
labor's production of goods and services.
This view seems similar to the classical perspective
described above. But unlike the classical school and many economists today,
Marx made a clear distinction between labor actually done and an individual's
"labor power" or ability to work. Labor done is often referred to
nowadays as "effort" or "labor services." Labor-power might
be seen as a stock <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/445007> which
can produce a flow <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/445007> of
labor., not labor power, is the key factor of production for Marx and the basis
for Marx's labor theory of value
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/10614>. The hiring of labor power
only results in the production of goods or services ("use-values <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/422171>")
when organized and regulated (often by the "management"). How much
labor is actually done depends on the importance of conflict or tensions within
the labor process.
Neoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/13160>,
one of the branches of mainstream economics
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/2388420>, started with the
classical factors of production of land, labor, and capital. However, it
developed an alternative theory of value and distribution. Many of its
practitioners have added various further factors of production (see below).
Further distinctions
Further distinctions from classical and neoclassical
microeconomics <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/11372> include the
following:
· Capital - This has many meanings, including
the financial capital <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/29345> raised
to operate and expand a business. In much of economics, however,
"capital" (without any qualification) means goods that can help produce
other goods in the future, the result of investment
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/39949>. It refers to machines,
roads, factories, schools, infrastructure, and office buildings which humans
have produced in order to produce goods and services.
· Fixed capital - This includes machinery,
factories, equipment, new technology, factories, buildings, computers, and
other goods that are designed to increase the productive potential of the
economy for future years. Nowadays, many consider computer software to be a
form of fixed capital and it is counted as such in the National Income and
Product Accounts <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/498031> of the
United States and other countries. This type of capital does not change due to
the production of the good.
· Working capital - This includes the stocks
of finished and semi-finished goods that will be economically consumed in the
near future or will be made into a finished consumer good in the near future.
These are often called inventories. The phrase "working capital" has
also been used to refer to liquid assets (money) needed for immediate expenses
linked to the production process (to pay salaries, invoices, taxes,
interests...) Either way, the amount or nature of this type of capital usually
changed during the production process.
· Financial capital - This is simply the
amount of money the initiator of the business has invested in it.
"Financial capital" often refers to his or her net worth tied up in
the business (assets minus liabilities) but the phrase often includes money
borrowed from others.
· Technological progress - For over a
century, economists have known that capital and labor do not account for all of
economic growth. This is reflected in total factor productivity
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/917425> and the Solow residual
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/883294> used in economic models
called production functions <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/239409>
that account for the contributions of capital and labor, yet have some
unexplained contributor which is commonly called technological progress. Ayres
and Warr (2009) present time series of the efficiency of primary energy
(exergy) conversion into useful work for the US, UK, Austria and Japan
revealing dramatic improvements in model accuracy. With useful work as a factor
of production they are able to reproduce historical rates of economic growth
with considerable precision and without recourse to exogenous and unexplained
technological progress, thereby overcoming the major flaw of the Solow Theory
of economic growth.
A fourth factor?
As mentioned, recent authors have added to the
classical list. For example, J.B. Clark saw the coordinating function in
production and distribution as being served by entrepreneurs <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/25034>;
Frank Knight <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/162611> introduced
managers who co-ordinate using their own money (financial capital) and the
financial capital of others. In contrast, many economists today consider
"human capital <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/29342>"
(skills and education) as the fourth factor of production, with
entrepreneurship as a form of human capital. Yet others refer to intellectual
capital <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/29379>. More recently, many
have begun to see "social capital" as a factor, as contributing to
production of goods and services.
Entrepreneurship
Consider entrepreneurship as a factor of production,
leaving debate aside. In markets, entrepreneurs combine the other factors of
production, land, labor, and capital in order to make a profit. Often these
entrepreneurs are seen as innovators, developing new ways to produce and new
products. In a planned economy
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/4529>, central planners decide how
land, labor, and capital should be used to provide for maximum benefit for all
citizens. Of course, just as with market entrepreneurs, the benefits may mostly
accrue to the entrepreneurs themselves.word has been used in other ways. The
sociologist C. Wright Mills <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/259329>
refers to "new entrepreneurs" who work within and between corporate
and government bureaucracies in new and different ways. Others (such as those
practicing public choice theory <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/32749>)
refer to "political entrepreneurs
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1174254>," i.e., politicians
and other actors.controversy rages about the benefits produced by
entrepreneurship. But the real issue is about how well institutions they
operate in (markets, planning, bureaucracies, government) serve the public.
This concerns such issues as the relative importance of market failure
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/42914>and government failure
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/747804>.
Non tangible forms of capital
Human capital
Contemporary analysis distinguishes tangible,
physical, or nonhuman capital goods
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/121765> from other forms of capital
such as human capital <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/29342>. Human
capital is embodied in a human being and is acquired through education and
training, whether formal or on the job.capital is important in modern economic
theory. Education is a key element in explaining economic growth
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/43341> over time (see growth
accounting <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/43812>). It is also
often seen as the solution to the "Leontief paradox
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1128492>" in international
trade.
Intellectual capital
A more recent coinage is intellectual capital
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/29379>, used especially as to
information technology <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/9218>,
recorded music, written material. Thisintellectual property
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/8812> is protected by copyrights, patents,
and trademarks.view posits a new Information Age
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/51040>, which changes the roles and
nature of land, labour, and capital. During the Information Age
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/51040> (circa 1971-1991), the
Knowledge Age <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/147081> (circa 1991
to 2002), and the Intangible Economy
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/243891> (2002-present) many see the
primary factors of production as having become less concrete. These factors of
production are now seen as knowledge, collaboration, process-engagement, and
time quality.to economic theory, a "factor of production" is used to
create value and allow economic performance. As the four "modern-day"
factors are all essentially abstract, the current economic age has been called
the Intangible Economy. Intangible factors of production are subject to network
effects and the contrary economic laws such as the law of increasing returns.
Social capital
Social capital <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/29340>
is often hard to define, but to one textbook it is:stock of trust, mutual
understanding, shared values, and socially held knowledge that facilitates the
social coordination of economic activity., ideas, and values, and human relationships
are transmitted as part of the culture. This type of capital cannot be owned by
individuals and is instead part of the common stock owned by humanity. But they
are often crucial to maintaining a peaceful society in which normal economic
transactions and production can occur.kind of social capital can be owned
individually. This kind of individual asset involves reputation, what
accountants call "goodwill
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/3771256>", and/or what others
call "street cred," along with fame, honor, and prestige. It fits
with Pierre Bourdieu <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/68031>’s
definition of "social capital" as:attribute of an individual in a
social context. One can acquire social capital through purposeful actions and
can transform social capital into conventional economic gains. The ability to
do so, however, depends on the nature of the social obligations, connections,
and networks, available to you.means that the value of individual social assets
that Bourdieu points to depend on the current "social capital" as
defined above.
Natural resources
Ayres and Warr (2009) are among the economists who
criticize orthodox economics for overlooking the role of natural resources and
the effects of declining resource capital. See also: Natural resource economics
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/11066412>
Energy
Energy can be seen as individual factor of production,
with an elasticity larger than labor. A cointegration
<http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/881075> analysis support results
derived from linear exponentional (LINEX) production functions.
Chapter 7: The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing
Surplus Value1: The Labour-Process or the Production of Use-Values
The capitalist buys labour-power in
order to use it; and labour-power in use is labour itself. The purchaser of
labour-power consumes it by setting the seller of it to work. By working, the
latter becomes actually, what before he only was potentially, labour-power in
action, a labourer. In order that his labour may re-appear in a commodity, he
must, before all things, expend it on something useful, on something capable of
satisfying a want of some sort. Hence, what the capitalist sets the labourer to
produce, is a particular use-value, a specified article. The fact that the
production of use-values, or goods, is carried on under the control of a
capitalist and on his behalf, does not alter the general character of that
production. We shall, therefore, in the first place, have to consider the
labour-process independently of the particular form it assumes under given
social conditions.is, in the first place, a process in which both man and
Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and
controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself
to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and
hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s
productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external
world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops
his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are
not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us
of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of
things in which a man brings his labour-power to market for sale as a
commodity, from that state in which human labour was still in its first
instinctive stage. We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as
exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a
weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her
cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is
this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects
it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already
existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only
effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also
realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to
which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary
act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that,
during the whole operation, the workman’s will be steadily in consonance with
his purpose. This means close attention. The less he is attracted by the nature
of the work, and the mode in which it is carried on, and the less, therefore,
he enjoys it as something which gives play to his bodily and mental powers, the
more close his attention is forced to be.elementary factors of the
labour-process are 1, the personal activity of man, i.e., work itself, 2, the
subject of that work, and 3, its instruments.soil (and this, economically
speaking, includes water) in the virgin state in which it supplies man with
necessaries or the means of subsistence ready to hand, exists independently of
him, and is the universal subject of human labour. All those things which
labour merely separates from immediate connexion with their environment, are
subjects of labour spontaneously provided by Nature. Such are fish which we
catch and take from their element, water, timber which we fell in the virgin
forest, and ores which we extract from their veins. If, on the other hand, the
subject of labour has, so to say, been filtered through previous labour, we
call it raw material; such is ore already extracted and ready for washing. All
raw material is the subject of labour, but not every subject of labour is raw
material: it can only become so, after it has undergone some alteration by
means of labour.instrument of labour is a thing, or a complex of things, which
the labourer interposes between himself and the subject of his labour, and
which serves as the conductor of his activity. He makes use of the mechanical,
physical, and chemical properties of some substances in order to make other
substances subservient to his aims. Leaving out of consideration such
ready-made means of subsistence as fruits, in gathering which a man’s own limbs
serve as the instruments of his labour, the first thing of which the labourer
possesses himself is not the subject of labour but its instrument. Thus Nature
becomes one of the organs of his activity, one that he annexes to his own
bodily organs, adding stature to himself in spite of the Bible. As the earth is
his original larder, so too it is his original tool house. It supplies him, for
instance, with stones for throwing, grinding, pressing, cutting, &c. The
earth itself is an instrument of labour, but when used as such in agriculture
implies a whole series of other instruments and a comparatively high
development of labour. No sooner does labour undergo the least development,
than it requires specially prepared instruments. Thus in the oldest caves we
find stone implements and weapons. In the earliest period of human history
domesticated animals, i.e., animals which have been bred for the purpose, and
have undergone modifications by means of labour, play the chief part as
instruments of labour along with specially prepared stones, wood, bones, and
shells. The use and fabrication of instruments of labour, although existing in
the germ among certain species of animals, is specifically characteristic of
the human labour-process, and Franklin therefore defines man as a tool-making
animal. Relics of bygone instruments of labour possess the same importance for
the investigation of extinct economic forms of society, as do fossil bones for
the determination of extinct species of animals. It is not the articles made,
but how they are made, and by what instruments, that enables us to distinguish
different economic epochs. Instruments of labour not only supply a standard of
the degree of development to which human labour has attained, but they are also
indicators of the social conditions under which that labour is carried on.
Among the instruments of labour, those of a mechanical nature, which, taken as
a whole, we may call the bone and muscles of production, offer much more
decided characteristics of a given epoch of production, than those which, like
pipes, tubs, baskets, jars, &c., serve only to hold the materials for
labour, which latter class, we may in a general way, call the vascular system
of production. The latter first begins to play an important part in the
chemical industries.a wider sense we may include among the instruments of
labour, in addition to those things that are used for directly transferring
labour to its subject, and which therefore, in one way or another, serve as
conductors of activity, all such objects as are necessary for carrying on the
labour-process. These do not enter directly into the process, but without them
it is either impossible for it to take place at all, or possible only to a
partial extent. Once more we find the earth to be a universal instrument of
this sort, for it furnishes a locus standi to the labourer and a field of
employment for his activity. Among instruments that are the result of previous
labour and also belong to this class, we find workshops, canals, roads, and so
forth.the labour-process, therefore, man’s activity, with the help of the
instruments of labour, effects an alteration, designed from the commencement,
in the material worked upon. The process disappears in the product, the latter
is a use-value, Nature’s material adapted by a change of form to the wants of
man. Labour has incorporated itself with its subject: the former is
materialised, the latter transformed. That which in the labourer appeared as movement,
now appears in the product as a fixed quality without motion. The blacksmith
forges and the product is a forging.we examine the whole process from the point
of view of its result, the product, it is plain that both the instruments and
the subject of labour, are means of production, and that the labour itself is
productive labour.a use-value, in the form of a product, issues from the
labour-process, yet other use-values, products of previous labour, enter into
it as means of production. The same-use-value is both the product of a previous
process, and a means of production in a later process. Products are therefore
not only results, but also essential conditions of labour.the exception of the
extractive industries, in which the material for labour is provided immediately
by Nature, such as mining, hunting, fishing, and agriculture (so far as the
latter is confined to breaking up virgin soil), all branches of industry
manipulate raw material, objects already filtered through labour, already
products of labour. Such is seed in agriculture. Animals and plants, which we
are accustomed to consider as products of Nature, are in their present form,
not only products of, say last year’s labour, but the result of a gradual
transformation, continued through many generations, under man’s
superintendence, and by means of his labour. But in the great majority of
cases, instruments of labour show even to the most superficial observer, traces
of the labour of past ages.material may either form the principal substance of a
product, or it may enter into its formation only as an accessory. An accessory
may be consumed by the instruments of labour, as coal under a boiler, oil by a
wheel, hay by draft-horses, or it may be mixed with the raw material in order
to produce some modification thereof, as chlorine into unbleached linen, coal
with iron, dye-stuff with wool, or again, it may help to carry on the work
itself, as in the case of the materials used for heating and lighting
workshops. The distinction between principal substance and accessory vanishes
in the true chemical industries, because there none of the raw material
re-appears, in its original composition, in the substance of the product.object
possesses various properties, and is thus capable of being applied to different
uses. One and the same product may therefore serve as raw material in very
different processes. Corn, for example, is a raw material for millers,
starch-manufacturers, distillers, and cattlebreeders. It also enters as raw
material into its own production in the shape of seed; coal, too, is at the
same time the product of, and a means of production in, coal-mining., a
particular product may be used in one and the same process, both as an
instrument of labour and as raw material. Take, for instance, the fattening of
cattle, where the animal is the raw material, and at the same time an
instrument for the production of manure.product, though ready for immediate
consumption, may yet serve as raw material for a further product, as grapes
when they become the raw material for wine. On the other hand, labour may give
us its product in such a form, that we can use it only as raw material, as is
the case with cotton, thread, and yarn. Such a raw material, though itself a
product, may have to go through a whole series of different processes: in each
of these in turn, it serves, with constantly varying form, as raw material,
until the last process of the series leaves it a perfect product, ready for
individual consumption, or for use as an instrument of labour.we see, that
whether a use-value is to be regarded as raw material, as instrument of labour,
or as product, this is determined entirely by its function in the
labour-process, by the position it there occupies: as this varies, so does its
character.therefore a product enters as a means of production into a new
labour-process, it thereby loses its character of product, and becomes a mere
factor in the process. A spinner treats spindles only as implements for
spinning, and flax only as the material that he spins. Of course it is
impossible to spin without material and spindles; and therefore the existence
of these things as products, at the commencement of the spinning operation,
must be presumed: but in the process itself, the fact that they are products of
previous labour, is a matter of utter indifference; just as in the digestive
process, it is of no importance whatever, that bread is the produce of the
previous labour of the farmer, the miller, and the baker. On the contrary, it
is generally by their imperfections as products, that the means of production
in any process assert themselves in their character of products. A blunt knife
or weak thread forcibly remind us of Mr. A., the cutler, or Mr. B., the
spinner. In the finished product the labour by means of which it has acquired
its useful qualities is not palpable, has apparently vanished.machine which
does not serve the purposes of labour, is useless. In addition, it falls a prey
to the destructive influence of natural forces. Iron rusts and wood rots. Yarn
with which we neither weave nor knit, is cotton wasted. Living labour must
seize upon these things and rouse them from their death-sleep, change them from
mere possible use-values into real and effective ones. Bathed in the fire of
labour, appropriated as part and parcel of labour’s organism, and, as it were,
made alive for the performance of their functions in the process, they are in
truth consumed, but consumed with a purpose, as elementary constituents of new
use-values, of new products, ever ready as means of subsistence for individual
consumption, or as means of production for some new labour-process.then, on the
one hand, finished products are not only results, but also necessary
conditions, of the labour-process, on the other hand, their assumption into that
process, their contact with living labour, is the sole means by which they can
be made to retain their character of use-values, and be utilised.uses up its
material factors, its subject and its instruments, consumes them, and is
therefore a process of consumption. Such productive consumption is
distinguished from individual consumption by this, that the latter uses up
products, as means of subsistence for the living individual; the former, as
means whereby alone, labour, the labour-power of the living individual, is
enabled to act. The product, therefore, of individual consumption, is the
consumer himself; the result of productive consumption, is a product distinct
from the consumer.so far then, as its instruments and subjects are themselves
products, labour consumes products in order to create products, or in other
words, consumes one set of products by turning them into means of production
for another set. But, just as in the beginning, the only participators in the
labour-process were man and the earth, which latter exists independently of
man, so even now we still employ in the process many means of production,
provided directly by Nature, that do not represent any combination of natural
substances with human labour.labour-process, resolved as above into its simple
elementary factors, is human action with a view to the production of
use-values, appropriation of natural substances to human requirements; it is
the necessary condition for effecting exchange of matter between man and
Nature; it is the everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence, and
therefore is independent of every social phase of that existence, or rather, is
common to every such phase. It was, therefore, not necessary to represent our
labourer in connexion with other labourers; man and his labour on one side,
Nature and its materials on the other, sufficed. As the taste of the porridge
does not tell you who grew the oats, no more does this simple process tell you
of itself what are the social conditions under which it is taking place,
whether under the slave-owner’s brutal lash, or the anxious eye of the
capitalist, whether Cincinnatus carries it on in tilling his modest farm or a
savage in killing wild animals with stones.us now return to our would-be
capitalist. We left him just after he had purchased, in the open market, all
the necessary factors of the labour process; its objective factors, the means
of production, as well as its subjective factor, labour-power. With the keen
eye of an expert, he has selected the means of production and the kind of
labour-power best adapted to his particular trade, be it spinning, bootmaking,
or any other kind. He then proceeds to consume the commodity, the labour-power
that he has just bought, by causing the labourer, the impersonation of that
labour-power, to consume the means of production by his labour. The general
character of the labour-process is evidently not changed by the fact, that the
labourer works for the capitalist instead of for himself; moreover, the
particular methods and operations employed in bootmaking or spinning are not
immediately changed by the intervention of the capitalist. He must begin by
taking the labour-power as he finds it in the market, and consequently be
satisfied with labour of such a kind as would be found in the period
immediately preceding the rise of capitalists. Changes in the methods of
production by the subordination of labour to capital, can take place only at a
later period, and therefore will have to be treated of in a later
chapter.labour-process, turned into the process by which the capitalist
consumes labour-power, exhibits two characteristic phenomena. First, the
labourer works under the control of the capitalist to whom his labour belongs;
the capitalist taking good care that the work is done in a proper manner, and
that the means of production are used with intelligence, so that there is no
unnecessary waste of raw material, and no wear and tear of the implements
beyond what is necessarily caused by the work., the product is the property of
the capitalist and not that of the labourer, its immediate producer. Suppose
that a capitalist pays for a day’s labour-power at its value; then the right to
use that power for a day belongs to him, just as much as the right to use any
other commodity, such as a horse that he has hired for the day. To the
purchaser of a commodity belongs its use, and the seller of labour-power, by
giving his labour, does no more, in reality, than part with the use-value that
he has sold. From the instant he steps into the workshop, the use-value of his
labour-power, and therefore also its use, which is labour, belongs to the
capitalist. By the purchase of labour-power, the capitalist incorporates
labour, as a living ferment, with the lifeless constituents of the product.
From his point of view, the labour-process is nothing more than the consumption
of the commodity purchased, i. e., of labour-power; but this consumption cannot
be effected except by supplying the labour-power with the means of production.
The labour-process is a process between things that the capitalist has
purchased, things that have become his property. The product of this process
belongs, therefore, to him, just as much as does the wine which is the product
of a process of fermentation completed in his cellar.