Historical Modes of Production: From Primitive to Socialist Societies
Modes of Production in Feudal Society
The continued development of crafts through the creation of new tools and mechanisms made possible the improvement of old instruments. Especially remarkable progress occurred in textile production, since it gave birth to the spindle, mechanical tape loom, twister machine, and other technical advances. As crafts advanced, trade multiplied, and cities grew. Agriculture also made great progress. The development of productive forces was determined by feudal relations of production, and its foundation was feudal property, especially freehold land and property over the worker, the servant. The feudal lord had power over the slave and forced him to work; he could sell or buy him but could not dispose of his life. Peasants and artisans had a personal fortune; they owned a small plot of land, horses, pets, and farm tools.
This personal property was exploited after they had satisfied all their obligations to the feudal lord. Over time, the productive forces increased their development, with large geographical discoveries made in the late fifteenth century being a very special contributing factor. There was an upturn in demand for some goods, and it was soon found that craft production could no longer meet this demand. The workshop of the craftsman had to be replaced by the factory, which gathered a crowd of workers assigned to a specific job each. Consequently, this led to the birth of a new mode of production: capitalism and the contradictory classes that characterize this economic model.
Mode of Production in Capitalist Society
The most remarkable feature of the productive forces of capitalism is its huge machinery industry: the workshop of the artisan and the factory have been replaced by large factories. The rapid development of the forces of production is caused by the new relations of production, whose foundation is bourgeois private property, which gradually replaced feudal property. Motivated by profit, the bourgeoisie increases production, improves, and enriches machinery, industrial, and agricultural technology. Millions of workers employed in large companies are involved in production, but the benefits of the massive work only belong to a small group of owners of the means of production. This is the fundamental contradiction of capitalism.
To these basic data should be added one that is critical to the analysis of this mode of production: the concept of surplus value. This is the benefit to the capitalist from the sale of goods produced by the worker. The proposal of Marxism is the disappearance of surplus value; the idea is that the value of the object produced returns to the producer, either because the benefits are distributed directly among all workers, as in the cooperative interpretation of socialism, or because the state restores to the producer indirectly in the form of other goods.
Mode of Production in Socialist Society
This mode of production, based on social ownership and being an enemy of exploitation, is opposed to the capitalist system. This means that socialism cannot arise within capitalism in a manner similar to that which gave rise to capitalism within feudalism. However, under capitalism, the premises of socialism appear, as this model grows a force doomed to establish socialism, i.e., the working class.
Socialism ends, through revolution, private property, exploitation, and any kind of oppression. The productive forces in socialist society are industry, agriculture, transportation, and media communication, but all socialized. The main technical foundation of the economy is the large machine industry, in constant progress, and the socialist relations of production arising from the socialist social ownership of the means of production, which takes two forms: state ownership and cooperative ownership.
Marx’s Materialism and Social Relations
From his early writings, Marx is among the materialists of the Hegelian left. But his materialism is completely different and revolutionary, according to the thesis XI against the philosophy of Feuerbach, the main representative of this current of philosophy. Human life is constructed through social relations. The human being is a product of nature and society; it gets as far as exercise is a productive activity. The only human nature, or essence, is actually the set of social relations. The individual is not an abstraction. History is the relationship between man and nature. The medium that relates human beings with nature and with other men is work, i.e., the production or transformation of nature into technical objects that serve to trade and survive. History is simply the creation of man through work: when the human being transforms nature, history appears, and he appears as a social being. Work is the essence of man. When he starts to produce his means of living is when he differs from animals.
This does not mean that history only counts the development of productive forces, i.e., the development of the modes or forms of production that make man evolve. What Marx meant is that the productive forces are the basic historical facts. So history has a real foundation in the infrastructure or economy, and not a mere narrative of historical figures or exaltation. For this reason, historical materialism (dialectical interpretation of history) and dialectical materialism (dialectical interpretation of nature) are the only two aspects of the scientific view of nature and man.
The worker, when performing their work, develops their material productive forces, i.e., work for subsistence and trade. These relations of production constitute the economic structure, the real foundation of society, its infrastructure, which determines the whole process of social, political, and spiritual life, which Marx called superstructure. This statement is one of the most important theses of Marx and Marxism in general: the manner or form of production determines the forms of thought, and the whole process of social life is not lived as you think; conversely, you think just as you live, as it occurs. The legal and political structure and social consciousness are often rational justifications for a situation of social oppression. The characteristic of Marxist materialism is that human consciousness is determined, shaped by the form or mode of production. The way of thinking, their mindset or worldview, is a function of the economy and society.
Marx’s thinking intends to conduct a historical analysis and clarification of ideas or representations that man has of himself, denouncing especially the alienation of capitalist society, human beings who cheat them of the truth of thought forms that are pure ideology, not science. According to Marx, ideology is no more than the rational justification of the bourgeois or capitalist economy, which is essentially unjust. This ideology serves as a superstructure of a mode of production: capitalist society. The superstructure covers both the set of laws of a state, its political organization (the legislative, judicial, and executive branches), as well as its forms and ways of thinking: morality, science, philosophy, art, religion, folklore, and so on. The entire hierarchy of values and spiritual forms of society.
Mode of Production in Primitive Society
The first historical form of human organization, which is at once the simplest, was the primitive community scheme. At the beginning of this phase, their instruments were crude tools of stone, wood, horn, and bone. Subsequently, new tools were created, such as the bow and arrows, boats, sleds, etc. While perfecting the means of work, the productive capacity of men also developed and improved: agriculture and livestock. The relations of production were the communal ownership of the existing means of production. At this time, the first great social division of labor occurred: agriculture and livestock were identified, and a little later, crafts. By increasing the efficiency of work, the primitive community tended to split into families, who became owners of the means of production. Work began to produce more than was necessary to meet their demands, so some members of society had the possibility of getting hold of such excess, exploiting other members of society, and enriching themselves with the fruits of their labor.
Mode of Production in Slave Society
The old wooden and stone tools disappeared, giving way to metal ones. The division of labor continued to grow, and cities were born as the height of trade started. Production relations in this society are based on absolute property in which the slave exercises both on the means of production and on the person of the slave and what it had occurred.