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Mode of production

In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: Produktionsweise, "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the:

Marx said that a person's productive ability and participation in social relations are two essential characteristics of social reproduction, and that the particular modality of those social relations in the capitalist mode of production is inherently in conflict with the progressive development of the productive capabilities of human beings.[1] A precursor concept was Adam Smith's mode of subsistence, which delineated a progression of types of society based upon how the citizens of a society provided for their material needs.[2]

Base and superstructure[edit]

Marxists such as Chris Harman,[60] Terry Eagleton[61] and R.J.Robinson[62] have argued that historical models of production generally rely upon forces and relations of production that they cannot produce through their own normal means. For example, pre-modern complex societies such as ancient Rome or the Aztecs were unable to control a wide range of natural phenomena such as the weather, harvests, childbirth, and so on. Where such limited modes of production prevailed, systems of practice and then belief for persuading or bribing supernatural powers to intervene on humanity's behalf developed - i.e., religions. Similarly, industrial societies require a large supply of skilled and disciplined workers, but these cannot be created through the ordinary mechanisms of capitalism (i.e., producing and selling commodities).


This gives rise to the Marxist paradigm of 'Base and superstructure', in which such shortcomings in the underlying mode of production (the 'base') are managed through 'relatively autonomous' systems ('superstructures').

Perry Anderson, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism.

Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State.

G.E.M. De Ste Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests.

Chris Harman, A People's History of the World.

Barry Hindess & Paul Q. Hirst, Pre-capitalist modes of production. London: Routledge, 1975.

Lawrence Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production; Sources, Development and Critique in the Writings of Karl Marx.

Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory.

Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View.

George Novack, Understanding History: Marxist Essays.

Fritjof Tichelman, The Social Evolution of Indonesia: The Asiatic Mode of Production and its Legacy.

W.M.J. van Binsbergen & P.L. Geschiere, ed., Old Modes of Production and Capitalist Encroachment.

Charles Woolfson, The Labour Theory of Culture.

Harold Wolpe, ed. The articulation of modes of production.

Steal This Idea: Intellectual Property Rights and the Corporate Confiscation of Creativity.

Michael Perelman