Productive forces, "productive powers" or "forces of production" is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism.
In Karl Marx and Frederick Engels's own critique of political economy, it refers to the combination of the means of labor (tools, machinery, land, infrastructure and so on) with human labour power. Marx and Engels probably derived the concept from Adam Smith's reference to the "productive powers of labour" (see e.g. chapter 8 of The Wealth of Nations), although the German political economist Friedrich List also mentions the concept of "productive powers" in The National System of Political Economy (1841).
All those forces which are applied by people in the production process (body & brain, tools & techniques, materials, resources and equipment) are encompassed by this concept, including those management and engineering functions technically indispensable for production (as contrasted with social control functions). Human knowledge can also be a productive force.
Together with the social and technical relations of production, the productive forces, constitute a historically specific mode of production.
Read more about Productive Forces: Productive Forces and Labour, Productive Forces and Destructive Forces, Marxist-Leninist Definition of Productive Forces in The Soviet Union, Productive Force Determinism, Productive Forces and The Reification of Technology, Productive Forces and Productivity, Critique of Technology
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