Productive forces - structure and characteristics

The productive forces of society are the totality of all means of production and people who have the knowledge, skills and skills to activate these means to produce the desired material wealth.

Such a structure, consisting of people and means of production, is common to all socio-economic formations. The development of the productive forces depends directly on man, because it is he who determines the structure of production. This is explained by the following factors:

• Man creates all the elements of the productive forces, including the instruments of labor;
• Only labor is able to turn tools and production materials into factors of production. Even the most modern and complex technique without the participation of man becomes absolutely ineffective and useless;
• Human needs are the main force that drives the social and economic progress of society.

Comparing all these factors, one can make a confident conclusion that a person has an active role in the process of labor, while the means and objects of labor are passive. Thus, you can not put capital, identified with the means of labor, one step in importance with a person.

Properties of productive forces

1) Complex structure

The productive forces include all the means of labor, since they are used for productive consumption and create sources of energy. In all formations, the forces of nature also comprise the productive forces, which the man has learned to use-the sun, the wind. Most often, natural forces act as sources of energy.

In the present conditions, science, methods of organizing production and information become also independent elements of the structure of the productive forces.

Thus, the conclusion is obvious that the productive forces are quite a complex system, which includes many different elements. In composition, they are material and spiritual, in the nature of reproduction - objective and subjective, in specificity - social and natural.

2) Continuous development

Being in an endless process of development, the productive forces are constantly enriched, changing qualitatively and quantitatively.

In the era of early development of capitalism, it was enough for workers to have a low level of education and qualifications. But modern production needs can be met only by workers with at least a secondary special education and a high level of qualification. And in some countries, for example, in Japan, the society faces the practical task of moving to universal higher education.

Complication and automation of production require from people not only high mental and physical abilities, but also creative, organizational and spiritual development.

3) Interaction of all elements of the structure

Since all the elements of the productive forces are constantly interacting, they are in dialectical unity and dependence on each other. This creates such forms of social interaction as cooperation, the division of labor, etc. There are contradictions between the individual elements of the productive forces, which are resolved basically independently of the production relations.

4) The internal laws of development

Another property of the productive forces is the existence of their internal laws of development. This includes, for example, the law of transferring functions from private to material factors of production, the law of anticipating growth in the volume of subject labor in the aggregate structure of labor, the correspondence of living and subject labor, the law of changes in growth and labor productivity, and so on. All these laws are driven by internal contradictions, which cause various changes in the development of the productive forces, as well as qualitative changes in their content.

The productive forces in their totality express the relations of man and nature, and also transfer the process of labor, which is common to all modes of production. Thus, the transformation of natural materials and substances according to human needs is ensured, spiritual and material benefits are created that directly determine the development of social labor productivity.