Material wealth: definition, examples. Method of production of material goods
A method of obtaining the means of subsistence (food, clothing, housing, tools of production, etc.) necessary for the existence of people, so that society can live and develop. The production method is the basis social order and determines the character of this system. Whatever the mode of production, such is society itself. Each new, higher method of production means a new, higher stage in the history of mankind.
Since its inception human society A number of production methods existed and replaced each other: (see), (see), (see) and (see). In the modern historical era, the outdated capitalist mode of production is being replaced by a new, socialist mode of production, which has already won in the USSR (see).
The production method has two sides. One side of the mode of production consists of (see) societies. They express a person’s attitude towards the objects and forces of nature used to create vital material goods. The other side of the method of production consists of (see), relations between people in the process of social material production.
The state of these relations provides an answer to the question of who owns the means of production - at the disposal of the whole society or at the disposal of individuals, groups, classes who use them to exploit other individuals, groups, classes. Marxism sharply criticized the idea that the mode of production is reduced to the productive forces alone, that the latter can supposedly exist without production relations. Such, for example, is the Bogdanov-Bukharip concept, which reduces the method of production to productive forces, to technology, and the laws of social development to the “organization” of productive forces.
In fact, in the method of production, its two sides are inextricably linked, one cannot exist without the other. Each historically determined mode of production is a unity of productive forces and production relations. But this unity is dialectical. Emerging on the basis of productive forces, production relations have a huge impact on the development of the productive forces themselves. They either inhibit their development or promote it. In the course of the development of the method of production, production relations naturally lag behind the productive forces, which are the most mobile element of production.
Because of this, at a certain stage of development of the method of production, a contradiction arises between its two sides. "Outdated production relations are beginning to hamper the further development of productive forces. The contradiction between the new level of productive forces and the old production relations can be overcome only by replacing the old production relations with new ones corresponding to the new productive forces. The new production relations are the main and decisive force that determines the future powerful development of productive forces.
Contradiction, conflict between productive forces and production relations within the framework of a single mode of production constitutes the deepest basis of social revolutions in antagonistic formations. Under socialism, the contradiction between the two sides of the mode of production does not turn into opposition, does not reach the point of conflict. The socialist state and the Communist Party, based on the objective economic laws of development, have the opportunity to promptly overcome the growing contradictions between old production relations and new productive forces by bringing production relations into line with the new nature and level of productive forces. (See also
Production is the expedient activity of people aimed at satisfying their needs. In this process, the main factors of production interact - labor, capital, land, entrepreneurship. In modern economics, we will often encounter the term resources. The fact is that the four factors mentioned above represent a very aggregated picture of the main elements of the economic potential of a particular country. For example, should the accumulated knowledge of a highly skilled programmer be attributed to labor or to capital as factors of production? What about information? That is why economists increasingly began to use the term resources, which mean production goods created by nature or people. Resources are needed to create consumer goods, or final goods and services (clothing, food, housing, cars, entertainment, etc.).
The result of production is the creation of material and intangible goods that satisfy human needs. To understand the laws of the production process, it is necessary to characterize the categories of needs and benefits in more detail.
^-Human needs can be defined as a state of dissatisfaction or need that he seeks to overcome. It is this state of dissatisfaction that forces a person to make certain efforts, that is, to carry out production activities. The classification of needs is extremely diverse. Many economists have made attempts to “sort out” the diversity of people’s needs. Thus, A. Marshall, an outstanding representative of the neoclassical school, citing the German economist Hermann, notes that needs can be divided into absolute and relative, higher and lower.
1 Marshall A. Principles of eco- Feminine, direct and indirect, nastonomic science, M., 1993, vol. 1.
| 4 Course of economic theory |
Current and future, etc.1 In educational ECONOMY- P. 153.
In the scientific literature, the division of needs into primary (lower) and secondary (higher) is often used. The first refers to a person’s needs for food, drink, clothing, etc. Secondary needs are associated mainly with the spiritual, intellectual activity of a person - the needs for education, art, entertainment, etc. This division is to a certain extent arbitrary; The luxurious clothing of the “new Russian” is not necessarily associated with the satisfaction of primary needs, but rather with representative functions or so-called prestigious consumption. In addition, the division of needs into primary and secondary is purely individual for each individual person: for some, reading is a primary need, for the sake of which they can deny themselves the need for clothing or housing (at least partially).
Human needs do not remain unchanged; they develop with the evolution of human civilization and this concerns, first of all, higher needs. We can often come across the expression “a person with undeveloped needs.” Of course, this refers to the underdevelopment of higher needs, since the need for food and drink is inherent in nature itself. Refined cooking and serving most likely indicate the development of needs higher order, associated with aesthetics, and not just with simple satiation of the stomach.
Good is a means to satisfy needs. A. Marshall defined good as “a desirable thing that satisfies a human need.” J.-B. Say viewed goods “as the means we have to satisfy our needs.” A. Storch emphasized that “the verdict pronounced by our judgment about the usefulness of objects... makes them good.”1 The property of an object that allows one to satisfy a certain human need does not yet make it good. One of the most prominent representatives of the Austrian school, K. Menger, draws special attention to this fact. For example, ginseng root can improve a person’s vitality. But so far people have not put into a cause-and-effect relationship the need for healing the body with healing power ginseng, this plant was not beneficial in nature. In other words, the ability of an object to satisfy any need must be recognized by a person.
The classification of goods, as well as needs, is very diverse. Let us note the most important of them from the point of view of various classification criteria.
Economic and non-economic benefits. From the point of view of the limited benefits in relation to our needs
Today we talk about economic benefits. But there are also goods that are available in unlimited quantities compared to our needs (for example, air). Such goods are called free, or non-economic (see Chapter 5 for more details).
Consumer and production benefits, or direct benefits and indirect benefits. Sometimes they are called lower and higher goods, or consumer goods and means of production. Consumer goods, as their name suggests, are intended to directly satisfy human needs. These are the same final goods and services discussed above. Production goods are the resources used in the production process (machines, machinery, equipment, buildings, land, professional skills and qualifications).
Private and public goods. To understand the differences between these types of goods, we still have to learn about the operation of the market mechanism and those situations when the market cannot provide some goods at all or provide them in optimal quantity. Now we can only name as examples of public goods national defense, lawmaking, public order, i.e. those benefits that are enjoyed by all citizens of the country without exception. Private goods are provided only to those who paid for them (every day you purchase various private goods with money - subway trips, going to the cinema, lunch in the student canteen, etc.). The difference between private and public benefits will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 1. 15 and 17.
Until now, we have been talking mainly about material goods of a proprietary nature. But the production process also includes the provision of material services. For example, transporting a finished item from the manufacturer to the consumer. IN in this case production does not mean creating a thing that can be touched, but moving it in space.
When A. Smith wrote his famous work “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” the dominant idea in economic theory and in ordinary consciousness was the idea of material wealth as the embodiment of wealth.
Although already in the XVIII - early XIX Av. assumptions were made about other forms of benefits - intangible ones. So, J.-B. Say considered law firms, the merchant's circle of customers, and the glory of a military leader to be blessings. Special attention A. Marshall also paid attention to intangible benefits. Indeed, people’s needs are not limited to just using Material goods for their own purposes. The service of a lawyer, a lecture at a university, or a circus performance satisfy certain human needs, and therefore we can talk about the production of intangible goods. The importance of this type of activity increased immeasurably in the second half of the 20th century compared even with the 19th century, not to mention more early stages human civilization. Thus, the modern understanding of the production process includes the creation of both tangible and intangible goods.
Factors of production, or resources (labor, capital, land, entrepreneurship) will be described in detail in Chapter. 11-14. In the very general view we can define resources as production goods needed to create final goods and services.
This paragraph has the phrase “social production” in its title. Why was this epithet needed? Is the concept of “production” not enough to understand the need for interaction between the main factors of production? The fact is that the production process is carried out not by isolated subjects, but in society, in the system of social division of labor (see Chapter 5, § 1). Even an individual artisan or farmer, believing that he acts completely independently of anyone else, is in fact connected by thousands of economic threads with other people. Here it can be noted that the Robinsonade method, when an individual person (one of the most widely used research methods in neoclassical economic theory) living on a desert island is considered as an example, does not contradict the statement about the social nature of production. “Robinsonade” helps to better understand the mechanism of rational economic behavior of an individual, but this mechanism does not cease to operate if we move from Robinson’s model to the realities of not individual, but social choice. It may seem that only macroeconomics is associated with the study of social production, and microeconomics deals only with individual economic individuals. Indeed, when studying microeconomics we will most often have to use the individual producer or consumer as an example. But it must be remembered that the mentioned subjects act within a system of restrictions imposed by public institutions (for example, the institution of property, morality and other formal and informal rules).
The wealth of society in its traditional understanding, dating back to the founders of the classical school, was presented as the accumulated past labor of previous and present generations embodied in material wealth. But modern economic thought is critical of the thesis about the exclusively material content of wealth. Different times - a different approach to understanding this category: wealth is everything that people value. This definition of wealth allows us to include professional knowledge, natural resources, natural human abilities, and free time. From a theoretical point of view, such an understanding of wealth allows us to highlight many facets of this economic category. However, when we're talking about about statistical calculations and international comparisons of national wealth, such a broad understanding of wealth makes specific numerical calculations difficult (if not impossible). We must not forget that social wealth can be represented both in kind and in monetary form, therefore, a change in the value of money itself can lead to different estimates of the same amount of material wealth (more on this in Chapter 16) . Changing people's assessments can lead to changes in the actual wealth of a country. Thus, in the former Soviet Union, a quantity of shoes was produced per year that exceeded that of England, France and Germany combined. The absolute volumes of production of cement, metal-cutting machines, etc. also exceeded those of developed industrial countries. But was the creation of all these things really the creation of wealth if, for example, consumers bought domestic shoes only when they could not find imported ones? Is Russia rich or poor? You can hear directly opposite answers to this question. Yes, we are poor because we do not have enough domestic food, domestic clothing, housing affordable prices for the majority of the country's population, etc. Yes, we are rich because we have huge reserves of natural resources, qualified personnel, priority in many fundamental scientific research. Sometimes the question is posed this way: if we are so rich, then why are we so poor? Have we become richer if, for example, we increased oil and gas production at the cost of environmental pollution?
Let us emphasize once again that the understanding of wealth depends on people’s assessments. This is largely a normative category and does not exist outside of human judgments about the value of a particular good. We can give the following characterization of the concept of wealth: wealth is everything that expands a person’s choice, or his alternative possibilities. From this point of view, things, money, knowledge, and Natural resources, And free time expand our choice and can be regarded as wealth.
Wealth must always be viewed in the context of meeting human needs. Thus, if material and intangible benefits are available in quantities capable of satisfying our needs until they are completely satisfied, and these benefits are available to us, we can say that we are rich. But again and again we pay attention to
normative connotation in defining the category of wealth. Is a yogi rich if he lives on minimal food and concentrates on realizing God? Is a millionaire who is bedridden with paralysis and has lost mental and physical capacity rich? What does the widespread expression “the main wealth is health” mean? Or “the main wealth is freedom”? Is it possible to be free without possessing the amount of material wealth that is recognized as the minimum subsistence level?
Method of production of material goods
The concept " way of producing material goods" first introduced into social philosophy by Marx and Engels. Each production method is based on a certain material and technical basis. The method of producing material goods is a certain type of human activity, a certain way of obtaining the means of life necessary to satisfy material and spiritual needs. The method of production of material goods is the dialectical unity of productive forces and production relations.
Productive forces are those forces (man, means and objects of labor) with the help of which society influences nature and changes it. Means of labor (machines, machine tools) - is a thing or a set of things that a person places between himself and the object of labor (raw materials, auxiliary materials). The division and cooperation of social productive forces contributes to the development of material production and society, the improvement of tools of labor, the distribution of material goods, and wages.
Production relations are relations regarding ownership of the means of production, exchange of activities, distribution and consumption. The materiality of production relations is expressed in the fact that they develop in the process of material production, exist independently of people’s consciousness, and are objective in nature.
Wikimedia Foundation.
2010.
See what “Method of production of material goods” is in other dictionaries: In Marxism, there is a historically determined way of obtaining material wealth; unity of productive forces and production relations...
Big Encyclopedic Dictionary MODE OF PRODUCTION - PRODUCTION METHOD, historically determined. way of obtaining material wealth; unity produces. forces and production. relationships. The basis of societies. econ. formations. The replacement of one S. p. by another is a revolution. way. In the course of history, successively... ...
In Marxism, there is a historically determined method of obtaining material wealth; unity of productive forces and production relations. * * * METHOD OF PRODUCTION METHOD OF PRODUCTION, in Marxism, a historically determined method of obtaining material... encyclopedic Dictionary
A historically determined method of obtaining material goods that people need for production and personal consumption; represents the unity of productive forces and production relations. Two sides of S. p.... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Historically specific unity of productive forces and production relations. The concept of "S. P." characterizes the social aspects of the activities of societies. of a person, aimed at creating the material benefits necessary for his life. His… … Philosophical Encyclopedia
In Marxism, a method of producing material goods based on private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of wage labor. In English: Capitalist mode of production See also: Modes of production Capitalism Financial... ... Financial Dictionary
Encyclopedia of Sociology
CAPITALIST METHOD OF PRODUCTION- English capitalist mode of production; German Produktionswiese, capitalistische. The method of production of material goods, based on private ownership of the means of production and exploitation of wage labor, which determines the development of the capitalist... ... Dictionary in Sociology
Or politarism is the name of several methods of production, the common thing between them is that they are all based on a unique form of private property of a common class. General class private property always takes the form... ... Wikipedia
Noun, m., used. often Morphology: (no) what? way, why? way, (see) what? way, what? way, about what? about the method; pl. What? ways, (not) what? ways, why? ways, (see) what? ways, what? ways, about what? about methods 1. In a way... Dmitriev's Explanatory Dictionary
society material productive good
Dialectical-materialist philosophy proceeds from the fact that the method of material production is the basis of the entire diversity of history: it determines social, political and spiritual life, people’s relationship to nature, is woven into a single human-ecological-economic system, and expresses the logic of the development of social existence. Material production appears in the concrete historical form of a mode of production, characterized by the unity of productive forces and production relations.
Productive forces express people's active attitude towards nature. The productive power of society is based on and includes natural power. The concept of “productive forces” was first introduced into science by the classics of English political economy, characterizing production as a combination work force and tools. In the dialectical-materialist understanding, the first productive force is a person who creates science and technology and applies them in the process of social production. Productive forces and social relations, according to K. Marx, are different aspects of the development of the social individual. Productive forces are a system of material factors - means of production (means of labor and objects of labor) - and personal factor of production (possessing physical strength, labor skills, production experience, intelligence and moral-volitional qualities), in the process of functioning of which the exchange of substances between nature and society takes place. Material production is impossible without information processing.
Man, not satisfied with the spontaneous formation of substances, breaks through the narrow horizon of nature for him and organizes technological process, allowing him to add artificial ones to the natural properties of substances, making natural material socially useful. Before being formed as a productive force, a person must become an individual, go through a school of training and education. Therefore, the work of a teacher, doctor, artist, journalist, actor, any activity (not only direct material and production) that shapes personality, should be considered as an indirect productive force. The term “material production” implies, first of all, the processing of matter and the production of material goods (people process matter, not produce it). Relations of production characterize the way of connecting the means of production with the worker and include relations: a) property; b) distribution; c) exchange (in kind or commodity-money); d) consumption.
The development of productive forces is an evolutionary-revolutionary process that fits into civilizational and formational dynamics. The first revolution in the productive forces occurred when they began to produce not only tools, but also means of subsistence. This was during the era of the appearance of polished stone tools (the Neolithic, or agricultural, revolution). When man invented throwing weapons, he hunted down mammoths and large ungulates for food over several millennia. The result was an environmental crisis. Based neolithic revolution humanity has overcome this crisis. The entire history of the biosphere took a new direction: man began to create an artificial circulation of substances. The transition to a producing economy was due to the depletion of natural reserves in human habitats and population growth. (The latter is the cause and at the same time a consequence of the transition to a producing economy.) On the basis of the division of labor and the growth of its productivity, a surplus product arose. Thus, the material prerequisites were created for systematic exchange, the development of trade, and the concentration of surplus product in the hands of a part of society. The previous focus on collective labor and equality in distribution has outlived its usefulness. Incorporated into collective principles individual activity and private property. Society has qualitatively changed - it has become complexly structured, needs have increased and become more complex, the scale of values has changed, and the load on the biosphere has increased. The result of the change economic conditions, social relations was the formation of an exploitative class society.
Based on exploitation, labor became more intense. A material basis has emerged for the liberation of part of society from labor in material production. There was a separation of mental labor from physical labor, creating necessary basis progress of spiritual life. Another type of social division of labor was the separation of crafts from agriculture, city from countryside. Cities became centers of crafts, trade, political and spiritual life.
Revolutions in productive forces are associated with significant changes in technology. Technology is an artificial formation created by man; instrument, i.e. a means, an instrument for satisfying human needs; an independent reality opposed to nature and man; a specific way of using the forces and energy of nature; a phenomenon inseparable from technology. Technology evolved from home-based, or instrument-based (instrumental), to machine-based and automatic.
The third revolution in the productive forces, scientific and technological revolution, which began in the 40-50s of the 20th century, marks the transition from machine production to automated production. A control device is added to the previous three links of the machine. The development of such production is associated with the improvement of computers, with the advent of robotics and flexible automated systems. In addition to material and energy intensity, the importance of knowledge intensity of production is increasing. The qualitative transformation of the productive forces based on the transition to automated production, the transformation of scientific and technical activities into the defining link of material production constitutes the production and technical aspect of the essence of scientific and technological revolution. But this is not enough: it is also important to take into account the socio-economic and ideological aspects of the essence of scientific and technological revolution.
The socio-economic aspect of scientific and technological revolution is expressed in the humanization of production. Technical means in complexity they approach the properties and nature of a person, taking into account his physical, mental and psychological capabilities. If this is not the case, then there is an alienation of man from the machine. This is possible not only due to social reasons, but also when the logic of technology development is not based on the logic of human development. In this case, the anthropomorphic principle does not work and the integrity of the work is not ensured. The revolution in science and technology must be combined with a cultural revolution that changes people. Formed with high quality new type a continuously learning and improving employee.
By creating conditions for human technological freedom and self-expression, scientific and technological revolution acts as the greatest good. At the same time, scientific and technological revolution is a great danger to humans due to inept and illiterate organization of technological processes.
Changes in the productive forces are accompanied by corresponding processes in production relations. This is carried out both through the gradual transformation of one form of ownership into another (for example, the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861), and through the revolutionary breakdown of outdated production relations and replacing them with fundamentally new ones (example: bourgeois French revolution 1789-1794 eliminated domination feudal property and established the bourgeois). There is also a reverse active influence of production relations on the productive forces. Commodity-money relations cut off useless and low-quality (in terms of results) labor.
The market, of course, is not a panacea for all ills. The market is a means, not an end. It can be effective: a) if consistent with scientific and technological transformations; b) when creating equal conditions for the development of various social types of economy and forms of ownership; c) in the presence of mass social forces interested in the introduction of a new economic mechanism; d) if there are qualified personnel capable of skillfully acting in civilized market economic conditions, i.e. with the synchronization of economic and cultural-technical revolutions; e) with the appropriate infrastructure of commodity and stock exchanges, information and commercial centers, etc.; f) in the presence of sufficient economic conditions and legal regulators (demonopolization, denationalization of forms of ownership, introduction of anti-inflation mechanisms, methods of social protection of the population, etc.); g) if market activities are carried out systematically and synchronously.
Based on the development of the market, market economic thinking is formed, which is characterized by such features as initiative, pragmatism, dynamism, adaptability, and individualism. The strengthening of the social orientation of the market in post-industrial society gives rise in economic thinking to guidelines for the social protection of the population, the performance by the state of important management functions in the market, which does not exclude reliance on initiative and flexibility.
In addition to market ones, humanity has other ways to resolve its social problems, for example, the creation of new industries, targeted, selective, priority and systematic development of those socio-economic structures that can provide a significant effect and gain in time. The initial chaotic basis inherent in the launch of market mechanisms does not guarantee access to the structures of self-organization of the social environment. Development of natural economic processes does not deny the role of order, economic discipline and organization. The market system of relations presupposes the openness of the economy, its organic inclusion in the system of world economic relations. During the implementation of scientific and technological progress, the economy is internationalized and, at the same time, production is individualized and decentralized, which makes it possible to respond more flexibly and quickly to the changing needs of the population and introduce innovations.
The worldview aspect of scientific and technological revolution reveals the problem of the general strategy of a person’s relationship to the world. The position of a temporary worker and opportunist, concerned with short-term gain, is replaced by a prudent economic attitude towards material, natural and labor resources, towards the environment and human life. The task is not only to preserve, but also to improve and humanize the environment, taking into account the long-term and large-scale consequences of the use of science and technology. Great in their time geographical discoveries expanded the horizon of man's vision of the world. Modern space exploration, penetration into the secrets of the depths of matter, the possibility fast movements in space, the internationalization of connections, science and technology, “standards” of the market and democracy, the widespread informatization of society make a person’s thinking style even more large-scale, universal and at the same time professionally in-depth. The role of not only special professional knowledge has increased, but also general culture, philosophical training, knowledge foreign languages. The need to take into account the consequences of scientific and technological revolution on a global scale, from the standpoint of environmental criteria and “human” dimensions makes thinking modern man global, environmental and humanistically oriented.
So, in the course of scientific and technological progress, a combination of factors of scientific and technological progress and socio-political patterns occurs, and space opens up for the universal flourishing of the individual. In general, modern progress of society can be achieved on the basis of achieving harmony in scientific and technological restructuring, cultural and technical preparedness of personnel, flexible economic methods management and socially and environmentally oriented science, technology, people and market.
The movement from the Neolithic to the industrial and scientific-technical revolution, from traditional to industrial, post-industrial and information-ecological society to a greater extent characterizes the dynamics of the leading peoples historical process. This is the vector that the entire population of the Earth is equal to.
x
x
material, the process of creating material goods necessary for the existence and development of society; transformation and "... appropriation by an individual of objects of nature within a certain social form and through it" (K. Marx, see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 12, p. 713). P. is a natural condition of human life and the material basis of other types of activity. P. exists at all stages of the development of human society. Its content is determined by the process, which presupposes the following three points: purposeful activity, or the object of labor, that is, everything towards which the purposeful activity of a person’s means of labor is directed; all instruments of labor - machines, equipment, tools with the help of which a person transforms objects of labor, adapting them to meet his needs. The product of material goods is a material good, which is a combination of the substance of nature and labor. Material good satisfies the needs of man and society directly. , as a means of life, as an item of consumption, and indirectly - as a means of production. Consumer goods are used only for personal consumption and satisfy the natural needs of people for food, clothing, housing, as well as spiritual needs. The means of production consist of objects of labor and means of labor and are used only for productive consumption.
Material P. differs from other types human activity, including from intangible P. The main criterion of material P. is the impact on the substance of nature with the help of means of labor.
P. is, first of all, the attitude of people to nature. But people do not produce material goods alone. They create them together, entering into certain . Therefore, the P. of material goods is always social production. P. has two sides: expressing the relations of society to the forces and objects of nature, by mastering which people obtain material wealth, and production relations, which characterize the relations of people with each other in the production process. P., considered as the unity of productive forces and production relations, constitutes material goods that determine the character of a given society.
Social wealth, taken as a whole, covers both the direct process of wealth wealth and their And . In this unity there is a dialectical interrelation and interdependence, but primacy belongs directly to the process of distribution. Bourgeois political economy separates these parts of the whole, in particular distribution, from P. Criticizing bourgeois economists, Marx wrote: “Distribution in the most superficial understanding appears as the distribution of products and, thus In this way, it seems further removed from production and supposedly independent in relation to it. However, before distribution is the distribution of products, it is: 1) the distribution of instruments of production and 2) - which is a further definition of the same relationship - the distribution of members of society into various classes. production..." (ibid., vol. 12, p. 722). Marx emphasizes that this kind of distribution constitutes the starting point of labor and determines the distribution of the products of labor. Social production consists of two large divisions: the production of means of production (division I) and the production of consumer goods (division II) (see). Production develops in accordance with the action of objective economic laws, the determining one among which is the basic economic law inherent in each method of production. Capitalist economics, based on private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of wage labor by capital, develops in accordance with spontaneously operating economic laws; it is interrupted by economic crises and is subordinated to the goal of extracting maximum profits appropriated by the capitalists.
In a socialist society, agriculture is based on public ownership of the means of production and develops systematically and at a rapid pace in order to satisfy the constantly growing material and cultural needs of all members of society and the comprehensive development of the individual.
In the USSR, according to the accepted classification, the following industries belong to the sphere of material production: National economy: industry, Agriculture, forestry, water management, freight transport, communications (servicing industrial enterprises), construction, trade and catering, logistics supply and sales, procurement, and other types of activities in the sphere of material production. Industries such as trade and public catering, as well as logistics supply and sales, are classified as material production because production operations predominate in them.
Modern psychology is developing under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution (See), the main content of which is . With automation, control functions are transferred to machines. On this basis, the technical basis of labor rises to a qualitatively new level and is freed from almost all restrictions that are associated with the natural capabilities of the labor force. As a result, a truly limitless increase in labor productivity is ensured (See) . Automation radically changes the place of man in work and the nature of his work. Labor is transformed from being directly involved in the labor process into a function of control and regulation. “Instead of being the main agent of the production process, the worker becomes next to it” (ibid., vol. 46, part 2, p. 213). The scientific and technological revolution also means a change in the energy base of agriculture and in the nature of the objects of labor. In modern P. science becomes a directly productive force.
Lit.: Marx K., Capital, vol. 1, Marx K. and Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 23: his. From the handwritten inheritance, ibid., vol. 12; Methodological instructions for drawing up a state plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR, M., 1969; Kiperman G. Ya., Classification of branches of the national economy of the USSR, M., 1964; Zapolskaya V.V., Non-production sphere in the USSR and its prospects further development, Voronezh, 1966; Kozak V. E., Productive and unproductive labor, K., 1971; Solodkov M.V., Polyakova T.D., Ovsyannikov L.N., Theoretical problems of services and non-production spheres under socialism, M., 1972.
M. V. Solodkov.
