The modes of production refer to the the way in which human beings collectively produce their livelihoods and associate themselves economically in society.
A mode of production is based on the predominant socioeconomic system and can be divided into:
- Production: the way society is built and developed to survive through material resources;
- Circulation: the way in which society circulates the merchandise, that is, how the exchange and exchange of produced products takes place;
- Consumption: how different social classes consume the produced goods.
The term was coined by the philosopher Karl Marx and is nothing more than the union of forcesproductive and social relations of production.
The productive forces include all the elements that are brought together in production, such as land, raw material and fuel, in addition to human skill in labor, machinery, tools and factories.
In turn, the social relations of production include the relationships between people and the interaction of people with the productive forces through which decisions are made about what to do with their results.
The modes of production according to Karl Marx
Marx believed that human history could be characterized by dominant modes of production and was interested in providing an analytic framework for defining them.
The author also wanted to support these modes in a theory, through historical development.
Philosopher, sociologist and journalist Karl Marx.
The types of production modes
According to Marx, the history of humanity is constituted by a succession of modes of production of goods to satisfy human needs. Thus, the forms of production, circulation and consumption have been modified throughout history.
Below are listed the main modes of production and their characteristics.
Primitive Production Mode
It was the oldest, lasting and geographically distributed mode of production. It took place throughout prehistory and was structured with the aim of organizing the way in which the first human beings fed and related in community.
In this mode of production, everyone worked together and received the same reward for the goods produced.
There were no social classes or state, or even merchandise and money. The exchange of goods was carried out in a simple way and almost always in a celebratory and solidary character.
Asian Production Mode (or tributary)
This mode of production took place mainly in Asia, Africa and the Americas. The best known examples are the Egyptian, Chinese, Inca, Mayan and Aztec civilizations.
In this mode of production, goods were manufactured by the population and a part of them was confiscated by the state through tribute.
This was charged as part of the production or labor for the construction of public works, such as roads, walls, monuments, among others.
It is in this way that different social classes and the supremacy of a small group that held political and economic power began to emerge. At this time money and writing also appeared.
Old Slave Production Mode
The ancient slave mode of production took place mainly in Ancient Europe, Greece and Rome. During this period there were different social classes, being divided into:
- Slaves: they worked and produced most of everything that was consumed;
- Slave Masters: a minority that ordered and organized the daily workforce, in addition to enjoying unequally everything that was produced by slaves;
- Free workers (commoners): they produced for self-consumption and exchange of surplus.
Feudal mode of production (or feudalism)
It took place mainly in Europe, after the decay of slavery. It was a way of life sustained by peasant production.
Trade was carried out at fairs with surplus production. Peasants were not the owners of the land they lived and cultivated and were prevented from buying it from their masters.
The landowners, feudal lords and aristocrats, demanded part of the production and labor days in exchange for protecting the peasants' lives.
Feudalism died out when merchants got rich and, on accumulating economic power, began to want control and political power.
capitalist mode of production
Capitalism came about with the end of feudalism. It is characterized by transforming work into merchandise through the process of wage earning the workforce.
The important transition that led to the expansion of capitalism across the world through colonialism was the concentration of capitalist power through the fusion of state authority and capital.
Capitalism is based on private ownership of companies such as factories, plantations, mines, offices or shops and on operating these assets for profit.
Other elements of the means of production, such as labor, land, technology and capital, are also transformed into private property and can be bought and sold. Work is much more important to production.
The capitalist mode of production uses money to buy labor and combines this commodity with other inputs, such as land, raw materials, etc., to produce new goods and services.
Entrepreneurs also profit from the work of the proletariat, because they control the means of production.
Socialist Production Mode
Based on the 19th century theories of Karl Marx and Friederich Engels, the socialist mode of production was created with the intention of rivaling the capitalist mode of production.
The central plan of this mode of production is to create a planned economy, ending the law of supply and demand created under capitalism. This type of economy would extinguish inequality between social groups.
The main focus of socialist production is to end the bourgeoisie and promote the so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat", where the working classes would come to have control of the State, no longer being under of the bourgeoisie.
Here, private property is eliminated and the standard of "common ground" is established. This mode of production is titled by Marx and Engels as the way to communism.
During the 20th century, the socialist mode of production moved out of theory and came to be practiced in Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea and parts of Eastern Europe.
However, the only ones that remain in practice to this day are Cuba and North Korea.
Communist Production Mode
Marx mentioned in his works that, after a certain period, the capitalist mode of production would decline due to overproduction and the supply would become greater than the demand.
For this reason, the socialist mode of production would assume the new style of world production, gradually shifting to the communist mode of production.
During this period, Marx describes a society without social classes, with public or collective means of production and the extinction of the hierarchy in the productive forces.
See too:
- Production;
- manufacturing;
- Historical Materialism;
- Capitalist;
- Private property;
- Proletariat;
- Marxism;
- Dialectical Materialism;
- Communism;
- Socialism;
- Differences between socialism and communism;
- The 6 Main Characteristics of Communism;
- The 7 main characteristics of socialism.