Re-naming "means of production"?

[Die Neue Zeit]

This just came up today inside my head as I was re-thinking my entire "class relations" schema. I recall Luis Henrique's remarks in my "Class Relations" thread concerning the initial differences between landlords and capitalists (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1041348&postcount=18). The classical definition of "means of production" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production) excludes land, which isn't "a product of human labour" (per Luis). I also found it odd today to apply the word "means of production" to something like apartment buildings owned by real estate companies, because the buildings and land aren't used for production purposes.



Given that we're living in the present, and not in the 19th century, do you think we should rename MOP to something like "means of capital reproduction" (since now that technical term can include "means" that aren't products of human labour, especially land)? After all, capitalist production and reproduction are represented by "M -> C -> M," no?

[Zurdito]

The word you are looking for is capital, comrade. ;)

[Hit The North]

I don't necessarily agree that land isn't part of the means of production. It is a raw material which is worthless unless mixed with human labour.

Definition from Marxist Internet Archive:

Means of Production
The tools (instruments) and the raw material (subject) you use to create something are the means of production.
If we examine the whole process from the point of view of its result, the product, it is plain that both the instruments (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/i/n.htm#instruments-labour) and the subject of labour (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/u.htm#subject-labour), are means of production, and that the labour (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/a.htm#labour) itself is productive labour.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/e.htm#means-production

We also have the category of productive forces:
Productive Forces
The productive forces are the unity of means of production (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/e.htm#means-production) and labour:
1. All labour (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/a.htm#labour) (individual, union)
2. Instruments of production (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/i/n.htm#instruments-labour) (buildings, machines)
3. Subjects of production (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/u.htm#subject-labour) (raw materials, labor)
The [productive forces] of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.
At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or ÷ what is but a legal expression for the same thing ÷ with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution....No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself.
Karl Marx
Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface-abs.htm)
According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure – political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dogmas – also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of accidents (that is, of things and events whose inner interconnection is so remote or so impossible of proof that we can regard it as non-existent, as negligible), the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary. Otherwise the application of the theory to any period of history would be easier than the solution of a simple equation of the first degree.
Engels to J. Bloch in Königsberg (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm) http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm#productive-forces

[Luís Henrique]

I recall Luis Henrique's remarks in my "Class Relations" thread concerning the initial differences between landlords and capitalists (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1041348&postcount=18). The classical definition of "means of production" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production) excludes land, which isn't "a product of human labour" (per Luis).

I don't think the classical definition of means of production excludes land; but, in any way, my own definition of means of production includes it. What land is not, is capital: it's extension is fixed or quasi-fixed, and it cannot be reproduced in an expanded way as capital, by definition, is.

Luís Henrique

[Zurdito]

I don't think the classical definition of means of production excludes land; but, in any way, my own definition of means of production includes it. What land is not, is capital: it's extension is fixed or quasi-fixed, and it cannot be reproduced in an expanded way as capital, by definition, is.

Luís Henrique

In the Poverty of Philosophy, Marx says that, to the extent that it provides revenue through industrial interest and profit (surplus produce), land is captal, and to the extent which it provides revenue through rent, it is not. Why wouldn't it be? Through improving technology and increasing exploitation, the profit produced by the workers who farm the land can be reinvested at an increasing rate, and also, through these profits, the owner can purchase more land.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02d.htm

Land, so long as it is not exploited as a means of production, is not capital. Land as capital can be increased just as much as all the other instruments of production. Nothing is added to its matter, to use M. Proudhon's language, but the lands which serve as instruments of production are multiplied. The very fact of applying further outlays of capital to land already transformed into means of production increases land as capital without adding anything to land as matter — that is, to the extent of the land. M. Proudhon's land as matter is the Earth in its limitation. As for the eternity he attributes to land, we grant readily it has this virtue as matter. Land as capital is no more eternal than any other capital.

[Raúl Duke]

My economics book calls it "factors of production" instead of "means of production."

[Bright Banana Beard]

It capital in my economic book

[Luís Henrique]

Mistrust your Economics books as a principle...

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

In the Poverty of Philosophy, Marx says that, to the extent that it provides revenue through industrial interest and profit (surplus produce), land is capital, and to the extent which it provides revenue through rent, it is not. Why wouldn't it be? Through improving technology and increasing exploitation, the profit produced by the workers who farm the land can be reinvested at an increasing rate, and also, through these profits, the owner can purchase more land.

However, land ownership is a zero-sum game: to one owner to have more land, other owners have to own less land. This does not apply to capital.


Land, so long as it is not exploited as a means of production, is not capital. Land as capital can be increased just as much as all the other instruments of production. Nothing is added to its matter, to use M. Proudhon's language, but the lands which serve as instruments of production are multiplied. The very fact of applying further outlays of capital to land already transformed into means of production increases land as capital without adding anything to land as matter — that is, to the extent of the land. M. Proudhon's land as matter is the Earth in its limitation. As for the eternity he attributes to land, we grant readily it has this virtue as matter. Land as capital is no more eternal than any other capital.

Marx seems to be talking here about improving land quality, through the use
of fertilisers, etc. Even then I find it doubtful that land can be "multiplied" as other means of production. Two hammers are twice one hammer, but to what extent applying twice the amount of fertilisers to a spot of land makes it twice more land than applying it only once?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

My economics book calls it "factors of production" instead of "means of production."

"Factors of production" are means of production, but considered from a different angle. There are three "factors of production": 1. land, 2. labour, and 3. all the other means of production (which in bourgeois economics are called "capital" - and in fact constitute capital, but only in a capitalist economy).

Luís Henrique

[Zurdito]

Marx seems to be talking here about improving land quality, through the use
of fertilisers, etc. Even then I find it doubtful that land can be "multiplied" as other means of production. Two hammers are twice one hammer, but to what extent applying twice the amount of fertilisers to a spot of land makes it twice more land than applying it only once?

Luís Henrique

Why not? Regarding the rate of profit, if you can double the amount of profit produced from a peice of land, it is equivalent to doubling the amount of land. This is because the profit does not come from the land itself, but the produce you extract from it.

[Luís Henrique]

Why not? Regarding the rate of profit, if you can double the amount of profit produced from a peice of land, it is equivalent to doubling the amount of land. This is because the profit does not come from the land itself, but the produce you extract from it.

The problem is you can't calculate that in the same way than with other means of production.

Luís Henrique

[Raúl Duke]

"Factors of production" are means of production, but considered from a different angle. There are three "factors of production": 1. land, 2. labour, and 3. all the other means of production (which in bourgeois economics are called "capital" - and in fact constitute capital, but only in a capitalist economy).

Luís Henrique

Exactly; that's the text books definition

Although they make a big divide between physical and financial capital in the beginning and continue to call physical capital just capital to make it sound like if money/finances weren't relevant or something.

[blackstone]

I don't know why you need a word anyway? It just makes things more complicated because your trying to simplify things that's not so simple.