Material is the activity associated with production. Man's material and production activity

Material and production sphere is the basis of social life. Production is a way of existence of a person and society. The structure of material production: 1) the sphere of direct production; 2) scope of distribution; 3) the sphere of exchange; 4) the sphere of consumption.

Main Components material and production sphere:

labor as a complex social phenomenon;

method of production of material goods;

regularities and mechanisms of functioning of the sphere as a whole.

Labor, production is not only a natural process, the process of interaction between society and nature, but also the basis for the formation of man himself as a social being, his separation from nature.

Work- this is the dialectic of the material and the ideal, their continuous mutual transformation. The materiality of labor is to a certain extent connected with natural being, the ideality of labor stems from the fact that it is the activity of a person, a social subject endowed with consciousness and striving to achieve the set goals. The ideal through human activity is embodied in a change in the material factors of labor, which, in turn, reflected in the consciousness of the subject, become the basis of a new goal-setting of labor. The social result of labor is a person, society, social relations.

Labor activity is objective. At any time in history, it unfolds within the framework of a certain level of man's objective equipment, embodied in the system of tools and means of production, within the framework of the development of man himself as a subject of labor.

The social nature of labor lies in its historical continuity of the growing needs of society in labor and its products, the continuity of the very life of the social subject of labor - the people, its conjugation with all aspects of life. People interact with each other not only because of the social division of labor, but also because in the process of labor they acquire and use the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired by other people.

Work, being the source of separation and the core of production, is: 1) the process of interaction between man and nature, the active impact of people on the natural world; 2) purposeful creative activity of a person to meet his ever-growing, growing needs; 3) optimization of the creation, use and improvement of the means of production, technology, scientific knowledge; 4) improvement of the person himself as a subject of social production and personality.

Labor is always carried out within and through a certain form of society, which receives a practical embodiment in the mode of production. The mode of production is a concept that characterizes a specific type of production of the means necessary for the life of people (food, clothing, housing, tools of production), carried out in historically defined forms of social relations. The mode of production is one of the most important categories of historical materialism, since it characterizes the main sphere of social life - the sphere of material and production activity of people, determines the social, political and spiritual processes of life in general. The structure of each historically defined society, the process of its functioning and development depends on the mode of production. The history of social development is primarily the history of development and change in the mode of production, which determines the definition of all other structural elements of society.

Production is always carried out thanks to the dual process of interaction between the productive forces (content) and production relations (the socio-economic form of the production process). The mode of production is the social form and the way in which people produce the material goods necessary to satisfy their needs.

This is the main factor determining the development, interconnection and interaction of various aspects and spheres of public life: economics and politics, science and technology, ideology and culture, etc.

productive forces- these are the forces with the help of which society influences nature and changes it, this is one of the aspects of the development of a social individual. The productive forces express man's relationship to nature, his ability to creatively use its wealth for personal and social interests. The productive forces exist and function only within social production. The level of development of production forces is manifested in the degree of human knowledge of the laws of nature and their use in production to achieve the goals.

In the productive forces, one can distinguish 3 elements: personal (people); material (tools of labor, in a broad sense - means of production); spiritual (science). The productive forces are the basis of the internal mode of production; all the features of the mode of production depend on the level of development of the productive forces. The source of the development of productive forces is the contradictions between the elements. The subject of labor- what the work is aimed at; means of labor - that which serves as a conductor of influence on the object of labor: they form the means of production. In the means of labor, tools and means for storing objects of labor are distinguished. The product of labor is indirect.

The indicator of the development of productive forces - labor productivity. The most important factor in its growth is the creation of more productive tools and means of labor, technical progress. In the conditions of modern scientific and technological revolution, the role of science in society is changing, it becomes a direct productive force

Relations of production- the relationship between agents of production, ultimately, between people in the process of production of means of subsistence. Production relations are primarily material in nature. Their characteristic feature is the formation as necessary, depending not on the will of people, but on the specific historically achieved level of development of the productive forces. 4 types of industrial relations: organizational - technical; regarding the determination of the share and its receipt; exchange; consumption - the use of the product (industrial and non-industrial); based on property relations.

The interaction of the productive forces and production relations obeys the law of the correspondence of production relations to the nature and level of development of the productive forces. This law determines both the development of a given mode of production and the need to replace one mode of production with another.

The sources and driving forces for the development of production are the needs of people and the subsequent social division of labor, which ensures the progressive development of material production through the creation of new types of labor, its specialization and cooperation. A complex dialectical connection is established between needs and production in society; needs affect the productive forces indirectly, through production relations. The activity of production relations lies in the fact that they generate in people certain incentives for activity.

1.1 The concept of technology

The concept of "technology" is one of the most ancient and widespread today. Until recently, it was used to denote some indefinite activity or some set of material formations.

The content of the concept of technology has historically been transformed, reflecting the development of production methods and means of labor. The original meaning of the word art, skill - denotes the activity itself, its quality level. Then the concept of technique reflects a certain method of manufacture or processing. In handicraft production, individual skill is replaced by a set of techniques and methods passed down from generation to generation. And, finally, the concept of "technology" is transferred to manufactured material objects. This takes place during the development of machine production, and various devices that serve production, as well as some products of such production, are called technology.

Starting the analysis of technology, it is advisable to consider the existing formulations of the definition of technology and highlight their main types. There are many definitions of technology:

Greek "techne" - craft, art, craftsmanship;

A set of techniques and rules for doing something ...;

Activities aimed at meeting human needs, which leads to changes in the material world;

The system of tools and machines;

The means of labor in a broad sense are all the material conditions necessary for the process of production to take place at all;

Technique is a system of actions through which a person seeks to achieve the implementation of an extra-natural program, that is, the implementation of himself;

The totality of material objects produced by society;

The totality of material means of expedient human activity;

The system of artificial organs of human activity;

A collection of mechanical robots to perform the work humanity needs.

In the encyclopedic dictionary, the concept of "technology" is defined in two meanings: "... a set of means created for the implementation of production processes and servicing the non-productive needs of society." Its main purpose is also defined there: "full or partial replacement of human production functions in order to facilitate labor and increase its productivity." The second meaning of the word: "a set of techniques and rules for doing something ...".

The above definitions of technology can be grouped into three main groups. They can be represented as follows: technology as an artificial material system; technology as a means of activity; technique as certain modes of activity.

The first meaning (technique as an artificial material system) highlights one of the aspects of the existence of technology, referring it to artificial material formations. But not all artificial material formations are technology (for example, products of breeding activities that have a natural structure). Therefore, the essence of technology is not limited to such definitions, since technology is not singled out among other artificial material formations.

The second value is also insufficient. Technology is interpreted as a means of labor, means of production, tools of labor, etc. Sometimes technology is defined both as means and as tools. But this is not correct, since both concepts lie in the same plane of consideration and the means of labor are a broader concept in relation to the tools of labor.

The third highlighted meaning is technology as certain ways of activity. But this essence rather corresponds to the concept of "technological process", which, in turn, is an element of technology.

Usually activities are divided into material and spiritual.

material activity aimed at changing the environment. Since the surrounding world consists of nature and society, it can be productive (changing nature) and socially transformative (changing the structure of society).

An example of material production activity is the production of goods;

examples of social transformation - state reforms, revolutionary activities.

spiritual activity aimed at changing individual and social consciousness. It is realized in the spheres of art, religion, scientific creativity, in moral deeds, organizing collective life and orienting a person towards solving the problems of the meaning of life, happiness, well-being.

Spiritual activity includes cognitive activity (obtaining knowledge about the world), value activity (determining the norms and principles of life), prognostic activity (building models of the future), etc.

The division of activity into spiritual and material is conditional.

In reality, the spiritual and the material cannot be separated from each other. Any activity has a material side, since in one way or another it correlates with the outside world, and an ideal side, since it involves goal setting, planning, choice of means, etc.

Labor is understood as the expedient human activity to transform nature and society in order to satisfy personal and social needs.

Labor activity is aimed at a practically useful result - various benefits: material (food, clothing, housing, services), spiritual (scientific ideas and inventions, achievements of art, etc.), as well as the reproduction of the person himself in the totality of social relations.

The process of labor is manifested by the interaction and complex interweaving of three elements: the most living labor (as human activity); means of labor (tools used by man); objects of labor (material transformed in the labor process). Living labor can be mental (such is the labor of a scientist - philosopher or economist, etc.) and physical (any muscular labor). However, even muscular labor is usually intellectually loaded, since everything a person does, he does consciously.

The means of labor in the course of labor activity are improved and changed, resulting in an ever higher efficiency of labor.

As a rule, the evolution of the means of labor is considered in the following sequence: the natural tool stage (for example, a stone as a tool); tool-artifact stage (appearance of artificial tools); engine stage; stage of automation and robotics; information stage.

The subject of labor- a thing on which human labor is directed (material, raw material, semi-finished product). Labor eventually materializes, is fixed in its object. A person adapts an object to his needs, turning it into something useful.

Labor is considered the leading, initial form of human activity. The development of labor contributed to the development of mutual support of members of society, its cohesion, it was in the process of labor that communication and creative abilities developed. In other words, thanks to labor, the person himself was formed.

Read the information .
Activity human - a type of human activity aimed at the knowledge and creative transformation of the world around, including himself and the conditions of his existence.
Human activity is:

• conscious - a person consciously determines the goal and foresees the result.

• productive - a person directs activity to obtain a result (product).

• transforming - a person in the process of activity changes the world around him and himself.

• public - in the process of activity, communication occurs, and various relationships with other people arise.

• material and production - activities to transform nature.

• socio-transformative - activities to transform society.

• sensory - knowledge through sensation, perception, representation.

• rational - knowledge associated with the forms of rational knowledge (concept, judgment, conclusion).

• scientific knowledge - knowledge, which is guided by the principle of objectivity, the validity of knowledge, the consistency of knowledge and the verifiability of knowledge.

• artistic - knowledge through art (associated with the use of artistic images).

• worldly (everyday, practical) - knowledge that is acquired in everyday life and activities.

• personal - knowledge, which depends on the abilities of a person and on the characteristics of his intellectual activity.

• mythological - knowledge, which is a fantastic reflection of reality, is an unconsciously artistic processing of nature and society by folk fantasy.

• religious - knowledge, which is due to the direct emotional form of people's attitude to the earthly forces dominating them (natural and social).

• parascientific - knowledge that does not meet the generally accepted criteria for constructing and substantiating scientific theories, as well as the inability to give a convincing rational interpretation of the phenomena being studied.

• creative - activities that bring positive results.

• destructive - activities that bring negative results

• reproductive - an activity in which an already known result is obtained or reproduced by known methods and means.

• productive (creative) - an activity that is aimed at developing new goals and new means and methods corresponding to them, or at achieving known goals with the help of new, previously unused means.

• economic - activities associated with the processes of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods - production and consumer activities.

• political - 1. The activities of state bodies, political parties, social movements in the sphere of relations between social groups, aimed at integrating their strengthening in order to strengthen political power or capture it.

• spiritual - activities related to the creation of spiritual values, their preservation, dissemination and development - scientific, educational, leisure.

• social - activities associated with the transformation, expedient change of society and its social essence.

• external - activity that manifests itself in the form of movements, muscle efforts, actions with real objects.

• internal - activity associated with mental (mental) operations.

Consider examples material and production activities .

• mining and transportation

• production of ferrous and non-ferrous metals

• mining and enrichment of ferrous metal ores

• production of chemical and petrochemical products

• production of reinforced concrete products

• production of steel and cast iron pipes

• repair of gas production and line equipment

• construction of new facilities: railways, housing stock, schools, hospitals, cultural institutions and consumer services

• production of machinery and equipment

• production of building materials

• production of light and food industry products

• production, transmission and sale of electricity

• harvesting and processing of wood

• production of pulp, paper, cardboard

• production of consumer goods from various types of raw materials

• food production

• animal meat processing

• extraction and processing of fish and other seafood

• processing of vegetable, animal, artificial and synthetic fibers into yarn, threads, fabrics

• production of clothing and other garments

• shoe making

• production of fine ceramics

• cultivation of grain, fodder, technical plants

• rearing of large and small cattle

Used Books:
1. USE 2009. Social science. Reference book / O.V.Kishenkova. - M.: Eksmo, 2008. 2. Social science: Unified State Exam-2008: real tasks / ed. O.A. Kotova, T.E. Liskova. - M.: AST: Astrel, 2008. 3. Social science: a complete reference book / P.A. Baranov, A.V. Vorontsov, S.V. Shevchenko; ed. P.A. Baranova. - M.: AST: Astrel; Vladimir: VKT, 2010. 4. Social science: profile. level: textbook. For 10 cells. general education Institutions / L.N. Bogolyubov, A.Yu. Lazebnikova, N.M. Smirnova and others, ed. LN Bogolyubova and others - M.: Education, 2007. 5. Social science. Grade 10: textbook. for general education institutions: basic level / L.N. Bogolyubov, Yu.I. Averyanov, N.I. Gorodetskaya and others; ed. L.N. Bogolyubova; Ros. acad. Sciences, Ros. acad. education, publishing house "Enlightenment". 6th ed. - M.: Education, 2010.
Used Internet resources:
Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Presentation on the topic: Human material and production activities

1 out of 10

Presentation on the topic: Man's material and production activity

slide number 1

Description of the slide:

Man's material and production activity. Labor activity Labor is a fundamental form of human activity, in the course of which the whole set of objects necessary for satisfying needs is created. Of particular importance is the labor of people in material production.

slide number 2

Description of the slide:

Labor in material production Production is primarily the process of creating material wealth, a necessary condition for the life of society. Material production is the production of things. Intangible production is the production of ideas. Material production is the process of people's labor activity, as a result of which material goods are created, aimed at satisfying human needs.

slide number 3

Description of the slide:

Features of labor activity Labor in the proper sense of the word arises when human activity becomes meaningful, when a consciously set goal is realized in it. In the process of production, an impact is made on the object of labor, that is, materials undergoing transformation. To do this, various methods are used, which are called technologies.

slide number 4

Description of the slide:

Labor productivity is the efficiency of labor activity, which is expressed in the quantity of products produced per unit of time. As a result of the introduction of new equipment and modern technologies, the content of the labor process changes the ratio between physical and mental labor, monotonous and creative. The most important feature of people's labor activity is that it requires, as a rule, joint efforts to achieve the set goals. The division of labor is the distribution and consolidation of occupations between the participants in the labor process. Scientific and technological progress - computerization, complex automation, unification of equipment - leads to the integration of production processes within the enterprise and to the expansion of the division of labor on the scale of society.

slide number 5

Description of the slide:

The modern worker Skill, skill, literacy in performing the labor functions of a certain profession is called professionalism. Professionalism is the result of training and work experience. Scientific and technological progress increases the role of skilled labor requiring special training.

slide number 6

Description of the slide:

Labor laws and internal labor regulations require the productive use of working time, the conscientious performance of one's duties, and the high quality of work. The fulfillment of these requirements is the labor discipline. Strict implementation of technological norms is called technological discipline. Initiative and diligence are interconnected. A thoughtless performer is a bad worker. On the contrary, the initiative is evidence of high professionalism. Along with special training in modern industries, the general culture of the employee, the ability to independently solve creative problems, is of great importance. The culture of work is manifested in its scientific organization.

slide number 7

Description of the slide:

Problems of labor humanization The dehumanization of labor manifested itself in the system of the American engineer F.W. Taylor (1856-1915). Taylor developed a system of organizational measures, including the timing of labor operations, instruction cards, etc., which were accompanied by a system of disciplinary sanctions and labor incentives. The differential wage system meant that the industrious worker was additionally rewarded, and the idler could not receive unearned money. Taylor himself wrote: “Each must learn to abandon his individual methods of work, adapt them to a number of innovative forms and get used to accepting and implementing directives that apply to all small and large methods of work, which were previously left to his personal discretion.

Description of the slide:

Humanization of labor Means the process of its humanization. First of all, it is necessary to eliminate the factors that threaten human health in a technical environment. Functions dangerous to human health, operations associated with great effort, monotonous work, are shifted to robotics at modern enterprises. Work culture is of particular importance. Researchers identify three components in it. Firstly, it is the improvement of the working environment, i.e., the conditions in which the labor process takes place. Secondly, it is the culture of relationships between labor participants, the creation of a favorable moral and psychological climate in the work collective. Thirdly, the comprehension by the participants of labor activity of the content of the labor process, its features, as well as the creative embodiment of the engineering concept embedded in it. Labor activity is the most important field of self-realization in the life of any person.

slide number 10

Description of the slide:

Society is a certain set of interacting people whose goal is to maintain their lives, produce and reproduce the conditions of their existence. A single individual could not constitute a social group, whatever it may be, could not be a “society”, and his consciousness could not be social, i.e. he was not a person either. Society arises historically in the presence of a certain minimum of interacting individuals who, despite their originality, have common needs, interests and goals. One of these goals is joint labor activity, through which food is obtained, housing is built, etc., and at the same time the initial thinking and means of communication - language - are developed. Labor was the source of the emergence and development of society. Labor (as an integral social phenomenon) refers to material activity, to the material sphere of society.

Human labor includes several aspects, including the spiritual component - purposefulness. Activity, in fact, is characteristic of many representatives of the animal world, for example, beavers building dams, birds creating nests. But human labor activity differs from such “work” in that it is based not so much on instinct as on awareness of the goal, on the ideal. Human labor is inseparable from the consciousness that begins historically or develops in the future, from the setting of more and more branching goals. Labor activity associated with the development of not only new phenomena, but also the essence of objects, forms new ideal models and encourages their implementation. The purposefulness of activity (although it is sometimes both chaotic and instinctive) is a characteristic feature of a person. It refers both to interaction with nature and to the spiritual activity of people.

Other features of labor activity are characteristic mainly of practical rather than spiritual comprehension of reality. A person encounters the material resistance of an object, which requires him to use his physical strength, muscle tension, etc.; it functions physiologically, expending energy, similar to the energy and structures of the natural environment interacting with it; it acts as a natural material system included in a somewhat different natural system. One may ask: does a composer, when creating music, or a writer, scientist, philosopher, not have such (or similar) physical tension when creating their works? Of course they do. However, this tension is here of a subordinate nature, and the character is determined mainly by the spiritual, and not by the material-substratum result of such labor.

Another feature of labor activity as a practice is the transformation of material (material-substrate) systems. Not any rearrangement of the elements of such a system or changes in the structure of these systems (this can also be done in mental modeling) and not any object-sensory actions of a person will be “practice”, but only those that change in the very reality of the quality of elements, subsystems and systems in as a whole, lead to the elimination, destruction of existing external systems or, conversely, to their development, improvement or creation of new material (material-substrate) systems.

Only all three features taken together - purposefulness, object-sensory nature and the transformation of material systems constitute practice as an epistemological phenomenon.

Labor differs from practice mainly in that it is a socio-philosophical concept, while “practice” is an epistemological category. If “practice” is correlated with “knowledge” (and even “theory”), only partially including the information obtained by society (practice, as we know, is impossible without a goal and a spiritual component within itself), then labor provides a person not only consumed by the individual food, means of production, computers, etc., but also artistic, aesthetic values, the creation of moral, legal norms, scientific principles, theories; here is not only a component of knowledge included in practical labor activity, but also all labor actions of a person aimed (if we take only science) to search for new information, to create new hypotheses, perhaps never able to turn into a component of practice.

Definition of the concept of labor: “Labor is an expedient human activity aimed at creating material and spiritual benefits necessary for the existence of an individual and society, a general condition for the exchange of substances with nature; the main premise of human existence, common to all forms of social life.

This definition as a whole covers the main essence of labor and differs from those in which labor is reduced only to the activity of producing material goods. The second definition, common in the educational literature until recently, was inspired by the interpretation of the understanding of labor that K. Marx had in political economy. But it is one thing - a private science of political economy, where the category "labor" has its own meaning and is applicable to the scientific analysis of the economic relations of capitalism in the XIX century, and another thing - its broader understanding in social philosophy. By the way, in the above definition of V. A. Vazyulin, which can be taken as the initial, basic one in philosophy, some important, in my opinion, aspects of labor are not taken into account. Thus, it has not been noted that the moral self-improvement of an individual (not to mention the activities of a teacher, doctor, artist, etc.; a teacher, for example, does not so much create spiritual benefits as transfers them to students and works, educating) is also achieved thanks to labor, sometimes not less strenuous activity than that of a worker. Labor also covers a wide range of managerial and organizational activities. In this regard, a worker is not only an individual who works at a machine tool or as a machinist, a janitor, or an individual sorting out potatoes in a vegetable base in winter or spring, but also a leader, organizer of an enterprise (i.e., a “capitalist”) who invests his strength, including mental stress, and takes certain actions related to the expenditure of physical energy.

Attention should be paid to two concepts of workers (according to V. S. Barulin). The first is socio-economic, the second is creative and cultural. According to the first, the working people are the creators, wage earners, the oppressed, the exploited; the rest are "unemployed." The second concept puts forward another, broader criterion of the worker - the creation of the total wealth of society, culture in all its versatility: material, spiritual and any other. A factory worker is, of course, a worker. But A. S. Pushkin and L. N. Tolstoy were also working people, whose works constituted the heights of the spiritual culture of mankind and cost their authors the hardest work. The workers also include the owners of tools and means of production. Any factory owner, head of a joint-stock company, member of the board of a bank, etc., insofar as he actively participates in the affairs of his enterprise, company, bank, etc., is a worker in the most direct and immediate sense of the word. He works precisely as a leader, as an organizer of production, a commercial enterprise, a financial institution. An example is Demidov, Ford. There is no reason not to include in these ranks the working people and a large detachment of the political and managerial stratum of society. Don't the actions of every manager and politician advance society on the path of establishing a complex network of social relations, finding more and more new forms of organizing people's joint activities? Aren't they creative? Of course, these actions require personal persistent efforts, will, determination, talent from a person. In a certain sense, Peter the Great, Napoleon, Roosevelt, Thatcher, etc. are all working people. Having examined these two concepts of workers in detail, V. S. Barulin rightly notes that although the first concept (political economy) is true in its field of knowledge of society, the development of the modern world requires more and more attention to be paid to the creative and cultural concept.

The creative-culturological understanding of labor in no way underestimates the role of its economic interpretation. If we do not complete the characterization of labor by its culturological scale, but, on the contrary, start from it and go in our consideration in depth and into the correlation of types of labor, then we will eventually come to the conclusion that the first concept (or rather, the first approach) is the original, the starting point for understanding labor, and society as a whole. Indeed, in order to write novels, create musical works, manage people, etc., it is necessary that a writer, musician or manager have food, clothes and much more from material things, and all this, as you know, does not fall out of the clouds, as rain, but is produced by people in their material and production sphere. Scientists need many devices (microscope, encephalograph, etc., even paper or pencil, which they use and which they receive from material and production activities. But if you remove other types of labor from this activity, which is permissible, then reduce them it is impossible to approach it; it is also necessary to see the originality of different types of labor activity that characterize the multifaceted nature of society, its material and spiritual culture.

Whatever concept of working people we adhere to (and we must still admit that from a philosophical point of view the second one is more correct, which, by the way, includes, with certain reservations and limitations, the first one), the understanding of labor remains basically the same. Labor is the material basis for the functioning and development of society.

Let us now get acquainted directly with the structure of material production (spiritual production belongs to the spiritual sphere of society). Traditionally, productive forces and production relations are distinguished here.

Labor is the basis of material production, the basis of the productive forces of society. Paying tribute to tradition, we can point out that the productive forces consist of: means of labor and people armed with certain knowledge and skills and putting these means of labor into action. The means of labor include tools, machines, machine complexes, computers, robots, etc. By themselves, of course, they cannot produce anything. The main productive force is people; but they themselves do not constitute productive forces either. Noting that people are the main productive force, we mean their potential to become such a force; and most importantly - their connection, interaction with the means of labor and production (in the process of such interaction) of material goods, means of providing services (including in healthcare, science, education) and means of production. People are living labor (or a personal element of production), and the means of labor are accumulated labor (or a material element of production). All material production is a unity of living and accumulated labor. These are the two sides, or subsystems, of the productive forces, as they were presented in most philosophy textbooks up until the 1990s. However, such an idea, based on the Marxist tradition, turns out to be insufficiently complete. Increasingly, technology (or technological process), production process control, including the inclusion of computers in it, are added to the subsystems of the productive forces. This third subsystem is supplemented by another fourth subsystem - the production and economic infrastructure. It includes parts, or elements, of the economic process that are of a subordinate, auxiliary nature, ensuring the normal functioning of a particular enterprise, a set of enterprises within a particular region or the national economy as a whole. The production and economic infrastructure includes transport, railways and highways, industrial and residential (related to a particular department) buildings, utilities that provide production, etc. Knowledge (or science) should also be included in the productive forces. K. Marx already noted that science was becoming (this was the case in the 19th century) the productive force of society. He believed that scientific knowledge is "the general productive force"; the accumulation of knowledge and skills, according to K. Marx, is the essence of "the accumulation of the general productive forces of the social brain." Subsequently, until the end of the 20th century, orthodox Marxists continued to declare, apparently fearing accusations of revisionism, that the productive forces consist of only two subsystems, while science allegedly continues to “become” a productive force even in the 20th century. Meanwhile, already from the beginning of the newest scientific and technological revolution, i.e., approximately from the middle of the 20th century, a phenomenon of historical significance became apparent, which was the transformation of science into the direct productive force of society. D. Bell, for example, wrote in 1976 that the main features of a post-industrial society include, first of all, "the central role of theoretical knowledge." He explained: “Every society has always relied on knowledge, but only today the systematization of the results of theoretical research and materials science becomes the basis of technological innovation. This is noticeable primarily in the new, science-intensive industries - in the production of computers, electronics, optical technology, polymers - which marked the last third of the century with their development.

It is interesting to note the evolution of views on this issue in the Russian Philosophical Dictionary. The 1991 edition stated: “Science is increasingly becoming a direct productive force” (pp. 282, 284). Another assessment is given in the next edition. It says: “The main technological content of the scientific and technological revolution that took place in the second half of the 20th century is the transformation of science into the direct productive force of society: systematic scientific knowledge is gradually becoming the predominant factor in the growth of the welfare of society in comparison with its traditional sources, as natural resources and raw materials, labor and capital. Material and, to a large extent, spiritual production are gradually turning into the practical application of modern science: at the same time, science as a productive force is directly embodied in continuously improved technology and in the increasing professional knowledge of workers.

As we can see, scientific knowledge has finally turned out to be officially recognized in Russia as a productive force of society, though still muted. By the way, it should be put forward, if not to the first, then to the second place among the subsystems of the productive forces of society.

Thus, the structure of productive forces includes: 1) production workers; 2) scientific knowledge; 3) means of labor; 4) production process technology; and 5) production and economic infrastructure.

The process of material production is impossible without production relations. This is the name given to the connections that people (or groups of people) enter into in the process of production. The constituent elements, or subsystems, of this complex of relations are: 1) relations to property, 2) relations of exchange of results of activity, and 3) relations of distribution of products of production (of the latter, the consumption subsystem is sometimes singled out as an independent one). In addition, a significant role in the complex of production relations is played by the division of labor not only within an enterprise or even a branch of production, but also between regions, depending on many factors (climatic conditions, natural resources, cultural traditions, etc.), which determines the originality of economic relations between large groups of people, nations, states.

The key place in the system of production relations is occupied by property (sometimes it is interpreted as "property relations"). Economic relations of ownership have legal registration, are fixed by legal acts.

Property relations are of different types - possession, non-ownership, co-ownership, use, disposal. A special form of intellectual and spiritual ownership: for works of art, scientific discoveries, etc.

At the very beginning of the development of society, there was no property as such (on things, on people); it was, more correctly, personal property within the tribe, community and having the name (taking into account the fact that people were forced to cooperate with their means and efforts in hunting, fishing, farming) "communal", "tribal", "totally personal". When cooperating, the division of labor was also used - between women and men, between adults and children, between people with different skills, etc., and the distribution of the benefits received was carried out with the installation not to allow either oneself or one's relatives to die. Later (with the improvement of the means of labor, the division of labor activities, etc.), such an amount of food and other benefits began to arise that individuals could feed not only themselves, but also some fellow tribesmen or people of another tribe; it became possible not to kill people captured in clashes with another group, but to use them as labor force and thereby accumulate property (the prisoners themselves - producers of material goods were considered things).

This way of the emergence of private property was not the only one, but perhaps the main one; as we see, it was based on the growth of labor productivity, the development of productive forces.

The emergence of state structures led to the legal consolidation of private property. From the point of view of the owner, it is not enough to own some tools of labor, it is important that if they are stolen, he remains their owner and that (in the event of a lawsuit) the right is on his side. Hegel noted: “For property as a personal existence, my inner representation and my will are not enough, that something should be mine, for this it is required to take possession of it. The determinate being that such a will thereby acquires includes the recognition of others... The inner act of my will, which says that something is mine, must also be recognized by others. We are talking about owners, more precisely, about the legal institutions of the state, which is called upon (among other things) to protect private property.

With the socio-philosophical characterization of production relations, primarily property relations, one should not overestimate the role of violence in its emergence and strengthening. It is clear, after all, that a slave needs a slave owner (as the owner of the tools of labor), just as a slave owner needs slaves. It is "more profitable" for him to stay alive and work than to die. The unemployed worker may starve to death without entering into certain relations, often of a consensual nature, with the owner of the means of labor.

Noting the mutual attraction of the employee and the employer, which does not cancel the conflict of such relations, V. S. Barulin points to a simplified idea of ​​the owner as only a “serene oppressor”. He writes that private property is refracted in the inner world of a person by significant tension, continuous anxiety. After all, private property is not just the possession of things as such. These things must be preserved, not destroyed, they must function socially, only then they have some meaning for the subject of ownership. And this preservation, the functioning of objects of property is not carried out by itself, it requires continuous and varied efforts, control, continuous monitoring, etc. All this is refracted in a certain continuous sense of responsibility, care. The person, as it were, constantly bears this burden. If, however, we consider that private property is dynamic, that it functions in a stormy sea of ​​economic confrontations, where the position of property is constantly changing, often falling into critical phases, then it is clear that this sense of responsibility, concern is a significant degree of tension in the spiritual world. So private property gives rise not only to a certain stability of the spiritual world of a person, but also to a feeling of anxiety, to a certain extent, the fragility of being.

The origins of the primitive accumulation of capital are varied. Among them, of course, we will see such anti-social actions of future capitalists or oligarchs as large-scale deception of the population, embezzlement, corruption, etc. But in many cases, personal (including family) labor can also become the basis for accumulation. So it is wrong to consider any private property as "theft", as Marxists have sometimes claimed. The slogan proclaimed during the years of the “socialist” revolution, “rob the loot”, according to K. Marx, “is striking the death hour of private property: the expropriators are expropriated,” that is, “expropriate the expropriators!” This meant that part of the profit from the sale of goods was kept by the owners of enterprises and built their material well-being on the income allegedly “taken away” from the workers. But if the income were completely "eaten up", then there would be no production. And although the material arrangement of one’s own life by the owner of the means of production formally looks like an injustice and can cause a negative reaction on the part of wage workers, the very organization of production, then its modernization and expansion of output, during which the owner often has to limit his personal needs or even to sacrifice what he actually earned himself, change the situation. The best state of relations between the owners of the means of production and wage workers, as history shows, is the achievement of mutual agreement, and this achievement through an officially concluded contract. It is possible, of course, that the relations between them (as well as between the workers and the state authorities) may become aggravated in the event of the emergence of diverging goals, for example, in the reduction of jobs in unprofitable mines and the threat of unemployment. Often this antagonism was destructive.

The antagonism of class interests was described more than once in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century by supporters of Marxism. This was, it must be said, not an invention of abstractly thinking political economists or politicians of the Marxist direction, but a statement of the real state of affairs under the industrial (according to D. Bell) capitalism of that time. Leaving aside the excessive exaggeration of the degree of this antagonism, due primarily to political reasons, we still have to admit that on the whole there is an adequate picture of the plight of the industrial proletariat of that period, fraught with social upheavals; Yes, they have been happening all this time.

After World War II, and especially since the 1960s in many countries of Western Europe, in the USA and Japan, the position of the industrial proletariat has changed significantly. Under the influence of scientific and technological progress, thanks to the intensive introduction of scientific developments into industry and agriculture in these sectors of the economy, the number of workers has sharply decreased in some countries - from about 60–75% at the end of the 19th century to 18–22% in the final decade of the 20th century. The nature of labor in production has also changed (this will be discussed later).

D. Bell noted that now, at least for the industrialized countries, the most important political conclusions of the Marxist economic analysis of industrial capitalism are no longer valid. In 1976, he wrote: “Since the view of historical development as leading to the inevitable victory of the proletariat is the basis of party doctrine (and justifies the repressive rule of the party in the name of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”), then how can one adhere to this dogma if the proletariat is not the main class of the post-industrial society?

The attitude of private property (and its role and character is also changing) gives rise to a certain motivational intention in the spiritual world of a person. Its essence (according to V. S. Barulin) is that the private owner motivates his actions and deeds in order to organize the most profitable, effective functioning of his private property. In the same way, ownership of one's own labor power presupposes a certain intention on how to realize it most profitably, sell it, and ensure the stability of this realization. It is necessary to see not only the personal nature of private property, but also the fact that public and state property in the form in which they have a rational meaning is also basically a derivative of private-personal property, the property of an individual. They function insofar as they contain this individual human moment. Therefore, the starting point in the analysis of private property, as well as property in general, should be the ascertaining of a person, an individual as a subject of property.

The complexity of the motivational aspect of private property, in which we focused on the interdependence and unity of different moments, does not in the least exclude, we note once again, their opposites and even antagonism, which can sometimes manifest itself both in pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial (or computerized) societies.

By the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries, terrorism and rampant crimes against civilians have become a new form of social group antagonism in many regions of the world, including highly industrialized countries. Suffice it to recall the explosion of famous buildings in the United States on September 11, 2001, which cannot be explained by the actions of abnormal singles. There are a variety of reasons that give rise to such phenomena. Some of them rest on material economic, in particular, distribution relations. If the state allows a gap between the low-paid and highly paid by 100 times or more (and, moreover, condones corruption or does not take decisive measures against it), then this creates an economic basis for protest behavior, including for crimes and terrorist acts. In the eyes of the hungry population of one poor country, the high living standards of some other countries may also be considered unfair; The rulers of economically backward states sometimes explain the poverty of their population by the fact that other countries “robbed” them. One of the reasons is the criminal policy of the leaders of fairly developed countries, declaring the fight not against specific terrorists, but against entire nations (carrying out blind punitive actions), “terrorists” are formed from the relatives of the innocent victims, ready to sacrifice themselves, but take revenge on the soulless and rich. Recall that during the years of the so-called "collectivization" (that is, the same state terrorism) in the USSR there were many "avengers" whose actions were caused by the unjust seizure of housing, land and property (and sometimes the murder of family members).

State terrorism, no matter how it is justified, is many times worse than group or individual terrorism. We need laws against all forms of terrorism, we need capable law enforcement agencies, and most importantly, apparently, we need to establish truly democratic and fair distribution relations in every state. An example of this is one of the countries in Asia where the gap between low and high income does not exceed the ratio of 1:4; there is virtually no crime. The noted fact related to the causes of the growth of crime, as well as the lack of it, is not some kind of departure from the question of the material and production sphere of society. On the contrary, these, like many other negative and positive phenomena in the life of states, testify to their dependence on the nature of production (economic) relations in society.