What is the Means of Production?

[#FF0000]

I always thought "means of production = farms, factories, and land".

However, an free-market friend of mine brought up a good point in conversation today.



:glare:: just picture me and a basket of tomatos
:glare:: is that a means of production?
:glare:: what if someone wants to take my tomatos to make ketchup for the community?
:glare:: the tomatos transfer into a means of production , they are no longer a final product
:glare:: or here's one
:glare:: I have a pick up truck
:glare:: is it mine?
:glare:: a possession?
:glare:: I don't see how someone can just take my truck if they intend to use it as a means of production
:glare:: to transport things
:glare:: theres a fuzzy line between a means of production in many cases
:glare:: it all depends on how we intend to use goods



Anyone have an argument for him?

[KC]

EDIT: My mistake. The tomatoes are part of 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://marxists.org/glossary/terms/i/n.htm#instruments-labour) and the subject of labour (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/u.htm#subject-labour), are means of production, and that the labour (http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/a.htm#labour) itself is productive labour."
Karl Marx, Capital: The Labour-Process And The Process Of Producing Surplus-Value (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm)

Specifically, the tomatoes are the part of the means of production called the subject of labour, or the object of labour :

"The 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."
Karl Marx, Capital: The Labour-Process And The Process Of Producing Surplus-Value (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm)