Relations of production (German: Produktionsverhältnisse) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their theory of historical materialism, and in Das Kapital. It is first explicitly used in Marx's published book The Poverty of Philosophy, although the concept is already defined in The German Ideology.
Basically Marx and Engels meant the sum total of social relationships which people necessarily have to enter into, in order to survive, to produce and reproduce their means of life. Because people necessarily have to enter into these social relationships, i.e. because participation in them is not voluntary, the totality of these relationships constitute a relatively stable and permanent structure, the "economic structure".
The term "relations of production" is somewhat vague, for two main reasons:
- The German word Verhältnis can mean "relation", "proportion", or "ratio". Thus, the relationships could be qualititative, quantitative or both. Which meaning applies, can only be established from the context.
- The relations to which Marx refers can be social relationships, economic relationships, or technological relationships.
Marx and Engels typically use the term to refer to the socioeconomic relationships characteristic of a specific epoch; for example: a capitalist's exclusive relationship to capital, and a wage worker's consequent relation to the capitalist; a feudal lord's relationship to a fief, and the serf's consequent relation to the lord; a slavemaster's relationship to their slave; etc. It is contrasted and also affected by what Marx called the forces of production.
Read more about Relations Of Production: How Marx Uses The Concept, Definitions, Social/technical Distinction and Reification, Relations of Production and Relations of Distribution, Criticism of Marx's Concept
Famous quotes containing the words relations and/or production:
“When one walks, one is brought into touch first of all with the essential relations between one’s physical powers and the character of the country; one is compelled to see it as its natives do. Then every man one meets is an individual. One is no longer regarded by the whole population as an unapproachable and uninteresting animal to be cheated and robbed.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)