Production Relations and Socialization: Marxist and Sociological Concepts
Production Relations: A Marxist Perspective
Production relations (German: Produktionsverhältnisse) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx in his theory of historical materialism and in Das Kapital. They are the relationships that individuals produce, that is, social relations established among producers, the conditions under which they exchange their activities and participate in the production process. This is because in production, people not only act on nature but also act upon each other, associating in a certain way, contracting certain links and relationships, to act together and establish an exchange of activities. Once they relate to nature, production occurs. The relations of production are the main subset of social relations, for being the production of human beings and the means of life for human beings and essential core business without which no society exists. The relationships that people establish with each other for production condition the relationships established elsewhere, in other areas of social life. These relationships are not dependent on the forms of social consciousness, but on the development of material productive forces of the specific social formation. Each society has some definite relations of production, accounting for a special degree of historical development of material productive forces. Production relationships exist in primitive, ancient, feudal, and capitalist societies, each corresponding to the primitive society, ancient society, feudal society, and capitalist society, and each corresponding to different forms of social division of labor and ownership of the means of production.
Socialization: Primary and Secondary (Berger and Luckmann)
Primary Socialization
Socialization is the comprehensive and consistent induction of an individual into the objective world of a society or a sector of it. Primary socialization is the first socialization which the individual goes through in childhood. Internalization occurs only when there is identification. This self is a mirror; it reflects the attitudes that first took to him the other significant ones. The child’s consciousness created in primary socialization is a progressive abstraction of roles and attitudes of other specifics, which goes to the roles and attitudes in society in general. Identity and reality subjectively crystallize in the same process of internalization. This process corresponds to the internalization of the generalized other and language, establishing a symmetrical relationship between objective and subjective reality. The two correspond: the relationship between the individual and the objective social world is like a continuous balancing act. The specific content that is internalized in primary socialization varies from one society to another; some are found everywhere. It is, above all, the language that should be internalized and the rudiments of the legitimizing unit. In primary socialization, the individual’s first world is built. General institutional requirements affect primary socialization. Primary socialization ends when the concept of generalized other is established in the consciousness of the individual: they are actually a member of society, have a self, and a world.
Secondary Socialization
Secondary socialization is the internalization of institutional sub-worlds. Its scope and character are determined by the complexity of the division of labor and the concomitant social distribution of knowledge. It is the acquisition of specific knowledge of roles, being either directly or indirectly rooted in the division of labor. The character of secondary socialization depends on the status of the body of knowledge involved in the symbolic universe. Establishing and maintaining consistency within secondary socialization presupposes certain procedures for integrating different bodies of knowledge. The knowledge internalized in secondary socialization is further accentuated. There are highly differentiated systems of secondary socialization in complex institutions, sometimes very tight spreads to the requirements of the various categories of institutionalized casts. The development of education is an example of secondary socialization that takes place under the auspices of specialized agencies.