Means of Production

In economics and sociology, the means of production are physical, non-human inputs used for the production of economic value, such as facilities, machinery, tools,infrastructural capital and natural capital.

The means of production includes two broad categories of objects: instruments of labor (tools, factories, infrastructure, etc.) and subjects of labor (natural resources and raw materials). If creating a good, people operate on the subjects of labor, using the instruments of labor, to create a product; or, stated another way, labour acting on the means of production creates a good.

In an agrarian society the means of production is the soil and the shovel. In an industrial society it is the mines and the factories, and in a knowledge economy computers and networks. In a broad sense, the "means of production" also includes the "means of distribution" such as stores, the internet and railroads.

The ownership of the social means of production is a key factor in categorizing different economic systems. In the terminology of classical economics, the means of production are the "factors of production" minus financial capital and minus human capital.

Factors of production are defined by German economist Karl Marx in his book Das Kapital as labour, subjects of labor, and instruments of labor: the term is equivalent to means of production plus labor. The factors of production are often listed in economic writings derived from the classical school as "land, labour and capital". Marx sometimes used the term "productive forces" equivalently with "factors of production;" in Kapital, he uses "factors of production", in his famous Preface to the Critique of Political Economy, he uses "productive forces" (that may depend on the translation).

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