Today, I saw the article "Qu Bingxiang: <资本论>Thoughts on the Social Attributes of Marx's Productive Forces". The author says, "Productivity is not just a purely natural economic category, it is also a social category with certain social attributes. For our society today, the productive forces themselves have a problem of 'surname capital' and 'surname society'. This is so because of the nature of the people engaged in productive activities and the social relations of production on which they depend, especially the ownership of the means of production. ”
Productivity is an abbreviation. The full name of productive forces is social productive forces. Therefore, the productive forces are inherently the productive forces of society.
However, social productivity is also only an abstract category. When we further examine the social productive forces, we need to refer to a certain social productive force, for example, the feudal social productive forces, the capitalist social productive forces, the socialist productive forces, and so on. If we want to develop the productive forces, we must understand that we are developing the socialist productive forces. In order to develop the socialist productive forces, the most important issue is to clearly understand the basic characteristics and development requirements of the socialist productive forces that distinguish them from the capitalist productive forces. If you don't even know the basic characteristics and development requirements of the socialist productive forces, and you shout about developing the productive forces every day, you will be scratching the itch in your boots and will not be able to solve the real problem.
First, a major deviation in the field of economics is that the productive forces are only understood as material productive forces, but not as social productive forces.
Mr. Qu Bingxiang said in the article: "Since the acceptance of Marxist science, there has always been a deep-rooted concept in people's minds, that productive forces have only one natural attribute, or material attribute. Because productivity refers to man's ability to conquer nature, transform nature, and create material products that meet his own needs, it only reflects a material transformation relationship between man and nature. ”
The material products produced in modern society exist in the form of commodities. If there is a duality in commodities, is there also a seriousness in the ability to form commodity production? Similarly, is the process of producing commodities dual? Is the enterprise producing commodities dual? Is it a duality as an enterprise system? Even if we understand it from these common senses, we should know that the productive forces themselves are also dual.
From the perspective of commodity production, the productive forces that form the use value are the natural attributes of the productive forces, while the productive forces that form the value are the social attributes of the productive forces. That is to say, any kind of productive force, it has natural and social attributes, and it is the unity of natural attributes and social attributes.
It is the content of the research object of productivity economics to focus on the form of the combination of various factors of production, and to pay attention to the characteristics and laws of the structure, scale, layout, timing, and planning of the productive forces, so as to provide a theoretical basis and guiding principle for formulating the most rational and effective policy decisions.
The research object of political economy is the social attribute of the productive forces, the nature and characteristics of the movement of the productive forces in satisfying human needs, and its content is expressed in the basic structural characteristics and development requirements of the productive forces. Under the specific conditions of social ownership, the special mode of combining the laborer with the means of production determines the corresponding mode of production, that is, the essence of the production process and the special form of results stipulated by the inevitable subject of production and the demand for interests.
It is a major misunderstanding in the theoretical circles to regard the research object of productivity economics as the research object of political economy.
Second, to understand the social productive forces, it is necessary to form a clear concept of the socialist productive forces.
Productive labor and means of production are the two basic aspects that constitute the productive forces, and their interrelations determine the characteristics of the social mode of production and, consequently, the characteristics and nature of the social productive forces.
In the second part of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels clearly pointed out that "in bourgeois society, living labor is only a means of multiplying the labor that has been accumulated, and in a communist society, the labor that has been accumulated is only a means of expanding, enriching and improving the life of the workers". The "communist society" here can be understood as a scientific socialist society, and it can also be understood as a working class society.
Here, Marx and Engels clearly tell us that the basic characteristic of the capitalist productive forces is that the accumulated labor, that is, the means of production, occupies the dominant position and plays a decisive role, and living labor is only a means of multiplying assets. On the contrary, the basic characteristic of the socialist productive forces is that the laborers play a decisive role in the dominant position, and the means of production are only the means to satisfy the consumption needs of the laborers. It can be seen from this that the essential difference between the socialist productive forces and the capitalist productive forces is not in the level of development of the productive forces, but in the structural characteristics of the productive forces and in the characteristics of the interrelationship between productive labor and the means of production.
"In bourgeois society, living labour is only a means of multiplying the labour that has been accumulated". "Accumulated labor" is the means of production, and "living labor" is productive labor. Living labour becomes the means of the multiplication of assets, and the multiplication of assets, i.e., surplus value, becomes the end of capitalist production. Therefore, the capitalist productive forces, which we can also call the surplus value productive forces, are essentially the surplus value productive forces.
"In a communist society, the labour that has been accumulated is only a means of expanding, enriching and improving the life of the workers". The accumulated labour, i.e., the means of production, is only a means of expanding, enriching and improving the lives of the workers, and it is clear that the purpose of production here has become the quantity of value that meets the consumption needs of all employees. Therefore, the socialist productive forces, which we can also call the productive forces of consumption value, are essentially the productive forces of consumption value.
Yes, when we speak of labor power, when we speak of the means of production, there is no difference between them in terms of natural attributes, they are both productive capacities that form use value. However, the special way in which the laborer is combined with the means of production determines the difference between the subject of production and the purpose of production, and thus also the difference in the nature of social production. In contemporary society, the difference in the specific way of combining laborers with the means of production has made a clear difference between the two aspects of the social productive forces, namely, the mutual relationship between production labor and the means of production: when the means of production are in a dominant position, the social productive forces are essentially expressed as the productive forces of surplus value; when the productive labor is in a dominant position, the socialist productive forces are essentially expressed as the productive forces of consumption value.
Third, to understand the nature and characteristics of the socialist productive forces, it is also necessary to form the concept of the productive forces of consumption value
A netizen believes that the productive forces themselves have no class character, so there is no difference between the socialist productive forces and the capitalist productive forces. He said:
"Productivity, that is, man's ability to transform nature. There are three elements: 1) the laborer, 2) the labor tool, and 3) the labor object. There are also those who merge the tools of labor with the objects of labor, collectively referred to as the "means of production". In this way, the productive forces become two elements, that is, the laborer and the means of production. There is no fundamental difference between the two statements, and the content and meaning are similar. The contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production is the fundamental driving force for the development of human society. The relationship between them is that the productive forces determine the relations of production, and the relations of production react on the productive forces. Specifically, the level of development of the productive forces determines the nature of the relations of production. The productive forces themselves are not class-based. There is no distinction between the socialist productive forces and the capitalist productive forces. ”
"First of all, the laborer, that is, the person who uses the tools of production for productive labor. Those who do not do not perform productive labor. It doesn't belong to the category of productivity. Laborers have no class character in the course of productive labor. For example, the Foxconn company recruits workers to produce mobile phones and computers. No matter what country it is, whether it is in China, in the United States, or in India, etc., the arrangement of workers, production processes, assembly lines, etc. are the same. There is no change of nature. Chinese can go to the United States to work, and Americans can also find work in China, there is no difference. It can be seen that there is no class character among the laborers in the production process. Workers in China, workers in the United States. It's the same in the factory. And often it's the same job. ”
"Then let's talk about the means of production. That is, labor tools and raw materials. Not to mention class. Japanese machine tools, automobiles, American computers, mobile phones. When it comes to China, there is no change in itself. If we say that Japanese machine tools, automobiles are capitalist machine tools, and in China, they become socialist machine tools. Can we say that the mobile phone in the United States is a capitalist mobile phone in the United States, but it has become a socialist mobile phone in China? Obviously, there can be no change in the structural changes of the machine tool itself, whether in Japan or in China. It can be seen that the tools of production themselves do not have any class character. If anything, it is the laborers, who owns the tools of production, and who owns the products that are produced. And these changes are not changes in the productive forces, but changes in the relations of production. ”
"The status of the means of production and labor is itself a relation of production, not the nature of the productive forces, and here we still confuse the boundaries between the productive forces and the relations of production, and confuse two kinds of things of different natures."
First of all, "in bourgeois society, living labor is only a means of multiplying the labor that has been accumulated, and in communist society, the labor that has been accumulated is only a means of expanding, enriching and improving the life of the workers", in these two sentences living labor is the worker or laborer, the labor in progress, and the labor that has been accumulated is the means of production, or "dead labor". Is the state of integration between the means of production and the laborers a specific state of existence of the productive forces? If it is the specific state of the productive forces, how can it not be said that it is the relationship between the productive forces themselves? Is it not the ability to produce products or commodities formed by the combination of productive labor and the means of production? Is the mode of integration of productive labor with the means of production not a characteristic manifestation of the formation of the productive forces themselves?
The production process of commodities is dual: it is both the production process of use value and the process of value formation. The process of commodity production under capitalist conditions, from the point of view of the process of forming use value, is the process of laborers using labor tools to act on the objects of production to form specific use value, and from the point of view of the process of value formation, it is the process of absorbing surplus labor from the means of production to form surplus value. From the point of view of the process of forming the use value under the conditions of socialism, there is no difference between the process of commodity production under socialist conditions and the process of forming the use value under the conditions of capitalism, but from the point of view of the process of value formation, it is the process of the laborers participating in the production process with their own labor to form the consumption value. Therefore, from the perspective of the material productive forces, there is no difference between the socialist productive forces and the capitalist productive forces, and their nature and characteristics are different due to the differences in the formation of use value; from the perspective of the social productive forces, the capitalist productive forces are essentially the productive forces of surplus value, while the socialist productive forces are essentially the productive forces of consumption value.
Secondly, the productive forces, like anything else, can be examined both in terms of their level of development and in terms of the structural characteristics of their constituent elements or aspects.
This friend said that "the position of the means of production and labor is itself a relation of production, not the nature of the productive forces, and here the boundary between the productive forces and the relations of production is confused, and two kinds of things of different nature are confused." This statement is also clearly false. The relationship between the means of production and production labor is itself the mutual relationship between the human aspect and the material aspect of the productive forces, and it is the embodiment of the structural characteristics of the productive forces.
From the above discussion, we already know that since the process of producing commodities is dual, it is both the production of use value and the production of a certain value. From the perspective of material productivity, there is no difference in the nature of the productive forces formed by enterprises, which reflects the natural attributes of social production, but from the perspective of social productive forces, there is an obvious difference in the nature of the productive forces formed by enterprises. For example, if you are also an engineer working at Foxconn and Huawei, what is the difference in the nature of their productivity? From the perspective of the production results of the enterprise, Foxconn, as a property-based enterprise, has the profits of the boss, so the production of the enterprise belongs to the production of surplus value, and the productive forces formed by the enterprise are the surplus value productivity; Huawei implements distribution according to work, and the production results of the enterprise are distributed according to the responsibilities and contributions of the employees, and the surplus of the enterprise as the production results of the enterprise belongs to consumption value in nature. Therefore, the productivity formed by Huawei enterprises is called consumer value productivity.
Fourth, socialism should develop not the productive forces of capital, but the productive forces of labor.
When we take the actual social productive forces as the object of investigation, they are always based on a certain social ownership of the productive forces. For example, when we speak of capitalist productive forces, it presupposes the ownership of the means of production by the bourgeoisie and the possession of only his own labor power. Under such a system of ownership, the laborer can only sell his labor power in exchange for the means of subsistence. Thus, the capitalist productive forces are formed under the conditions of the commodification of labor power. The capitalist or shareholder invests monetary assets, buys the required means of production and labor, and then forms real productive forces through organization. Therefore, the productive forces of capitalism are the productive forces of capital.
Under socialist conditions, the means of production are publicly owned. Thus, the personified bourgeoisie is eliminated, and the laborer becomes the sole subject of production. At the same time, because the public ownership of the means of production eliminates the differences between people in the ownership of assets. Therefore, under the conditions of socialism, not only the laborer is the sole subject of production, but also his interests are expressed in the ownership of labor. Therefore, the formation of the socialist productive forces is based on the public ownership of the means of production, that is, the productive forces formed by combining the laborers with the publicly owned means of production in the way of paid labor. Since the means of production are publicly owned, and laborers can only use public assets on the premise of maintaining their value, the socialist productive forces exist as the productive forces of the laborers, and the socialist productive forces are the productive forces of the laborers.
Now when we compare the joint-stock enterprise model with the production team model, we immediately understand the difference between capital productivity and work-based productivity:
Who are the main producers or bosses of joint-stock enterprises? The business goal of joint-stock enterprises is asset multiplication, and more generally, the continuous growth of earnings per share. What is the basis for shareholders to obtain dividends? Capital, that is, the proportion of assets invested by shareholders in the total assets of the enterprise, that is, the proportion of shares. The larger the proportion of a shareholder's shares in the total number of shares of the enterprise, the greater his benefits, so the proportion of shares is the quantitative embodiment of shareholders' capital.
Who is the main producer or boss of the production team that established the division of work system? What is the business goal of the production team, which is to maximize the income of the members. More popularly, it is the continuous increase in the unit price of work. What is the basis for the income obtained by the members? The labor cost is the proportion of the amount of labor that the members put into the production team to the total labor of the labor collective, that is, the ratio of labor to the labor division. The larger the proportion of a member's work in the total number of work in the production team, the greater his income, so the labor share ratio is the quantitative embodiment of the employee's cost.
The development of capital productivity is measured by the state of multiplication of shareholders' assets. The greater the increase in the assets of shareholders, the higher the level of capital productivity. It is centered on the growth of material wealth, and everything is aimed at obeying the growth of wealth of shareholders. The dynamic mechanism is capital input, asset multiplication, asset expansion, asset further multiplication, and so on; the development of the labor-based productive forces is aimed at expanding, enriching, and improving the living standards of laborers. The dynamic mechanism is the input of labor capital, the improvement of the consumption value level of laborers, the enhancement of labor input capacity and re-investment, and all the expansion, enrichment and satisfaction of laborers' consumption needs as the center, and so on.
The productive forces of capital are dominated by the bourgeoisie, which expresses the ability of the bourgeoisie to absorb the surplus labor of the laborers by using the assets in their possession, and the productive forces of the labor capital are the main body of the laborers, and it expresses the state in which the laborers give full play to their labor potential.
One of the most obvious examples illustrates the difference between the nature of capital productivity and capital productivity:
During the period of the People's Commune, it was almost common for a couple to have three or four children, in addition to the living needs of one or two elderly people. The reason why members are willing to have three, four, or five children is because under normal circumstances, it is basically not a problem to bear the living needs of these children from birth to marriage. This is the scenario at the level of continental agriculture and only agricultural production based on physical and animal power.
Now, 50 years have passed. The husband and wife are two laborers, even if they are both part-time workers, and after having a child, they will no longer or do not want to have a second child. The reason is very realistic, because you can't afford to have children, you can't be sure that you can afford the living needs of your two children from birth to marriage, and you can't be sure that your income can cover the expenses that your children need to study, buy a house, get married, etc.
Everyone knows that the social productive forces have developed by leaps and bounds in the past 50 years, but why is it difficult to maintain the simple reproduction of labor force (the two labor forces of a husband and wife must be able to support the living needs of two children from birth to marriage in order to maintain the reproduction of labor force)?
Because there is in fact a difference between the productive forces of the past and the present between the productive forces of capital and the productive forces of labor. When, after the reform, we put our main direction and energy on the development of the productive forces of capital, the productive forces of industrial capital were in a state of contraction. This is also the fundamental reason why the continent, with a population of 1.4 billion, has entered negative growth.
Poverty is not socialism, so we must develop the productive forces. However, productivity is just an abbreviation, and productivity is originally social productivity. If your understanding is only at the level of material productivity, it means that you are still in elementary school. Rising from the understanding of material productive forces to the understanding of social productive forces is the most basic starting point.
And once we take a closer look at the social productive forces, we will find that the social productive forces are still only an abstract and general name. In reality, there is no separation from the individual general, and the so-called social productive forces are only abstractions of concrete social productive forces, such as feudal social productive forces, capitalist social productive forces, socialist productive forces, and so on. It is only when we are confronted with concrete social productive forces, such as the productive forces of feudal society, the productive forces of capitalist society, and the productive forces of socialism, that we really touch the door of the social mode of production.
When we talk about building socialism with Chinese characteristics, we must actually solve two basic problems: First, we must understand the characteristics and development requirements of the socialist productive forces that are different from those of the capitalist productive forces, so that we can truly understand the connotation of socialist production relations and thus enter the door of socialism; first, we must understand the characteristics and development requirements of the socialist productive forces on the mainland, so that we can really establish production relations suited to the nature and characteristics of China's productive forces, and thus enter the door of China's socialist mode of production！