The basic means of the enterprise and their role in the production process

In the era of hegemonic machine labor and complete automation of production, the main type of assets that the company possesses simply can not fail to be fixed assets. The fixed assets of the enterprise include all equipment that, in one way or another, is involved in the technological process and transfers its value to the value of the product gradually by depreciation.

If we explain this in a more accessible language, the fixed assets do not cease to exist during the production cycle and continue to work until they fail due to a breakdown, or will not be replaced by new equipment. A typical example of fixed assets is a machine or computer. On the other hand, current assets in the production process are destroyed in order to produce the final product. For example, milk, which is used to produce cheese.

Thus, it is simply impossible to mix up the basic and circulating assets of the enterprise , if we understand this difference. The former are more significant, since they are the pillar of the technological process. In fact, it is the possession of rights to fixed assets that makes it possible to call a person the owner of an enterprise and to recognize his right to profit.

Suppose that only circulating assets would be needed to produce the product. Then any person could organize the small business, buying raw materials and returning the spent means with the help of the received income. However, the fixed assets of the enterprise Are very expensive and pay off after a long period of time, therefore, an investor who invests money in fixed assets is necessary for the enterprise in order to obtain profit in the future.

Of course, today there is no division into the ownership of various assets, since the investor receives a certain share of all the assets of the enterprise in the property. However, it is on private ownership of the basic means that the development of capitalism is based. And till now many political parties raise the issue of the legitimacy of the transfer of fixed assets to private hands.

Assume that the fixed assets of the enterprise not Will belong to investors today is almost impossible, but this form of ownership, like the workers' cooperatives, seems quite promising. Anyway, the whole private business is based on fixed assets and it is we who are responsible for our technological progress.

However, recently there has been a rather unpleasant tendency to underestimate fixed assets. The share of fixed assets in the balance sheet of the enterprise becomes catastrophically low due to an unreasonably high assessment of financial liabilities and intangible assets. Do not forget that both the first and second directly depends on fixed assets, and it is the fixed assets of the enterprise that determine its real prosperity, and at the macro level and the state of the economy of the whole country.  

Underestimation of fixed assets threatens to inflate the financial bubble, which has already provoked a most powerful economic crisis. In addition, the analysis of the provision of the enterprise with fixed assets Shows distorted figures, because the focus is today on promoting and creating a brand, rather than technical re-equipment.

Artificial reduction of the role of fixed assets can slow down, if not stop, the development of our civilization. After all, if before the equipment with the basic means of the enterprise, in many ways, determined its market value, today the main value is the value of the brand. Thus, all the efforts of mankind are aimed at conducting a competitive struggle, while the progressive development is receding into the background.