Social production

“ Capital therefore, announces from its first appearance a new epoch in the process of social production. ”

“ The main factor in the production of wealth among civilized men is the social organism, the machinery of associated labor and exchange by which hundreds of millions of individuals provide the demand for one another's product and mutually complement one another's labors, thereby making the productive and distributive systems of a nation and of the world one great machine. ”

“ III. The socially owned means of production, being the common, inalienable basis of socially organized work, serve to satisfy the personal and common needs and interests of the working people and to develop the material foundations of the social community and socialist social relations. ”

“ Individuals have done what they would, seeking to promote their own interests under conditions of great freedom, and the effect has been a system of social industry which is highly productive, progressive, and generally honest. Production has constantly increased, and the product has been shared under the influence of a law which, if freedom were quite complete and competition perfect, would give to each producer what he contributes to the aggregate output of the great social workshop. ”

“ The interests of the workers in the basic organizations of associated labour increasingly impel them to realize that successful social reproduction - and thereby also the success of their organization of associated labour - depends on the harmonious functioning of the overall process of social reproduction and the transcendence of autarky and anarchy in commodity production. ”

“ On the other hand, in the case of the industrial workers integrally tied to the contemporary productive forces, the greater the social fund of accumulated Capital, the embodied labor stored in means of production, the greater the power of the social class that controls the accumulated Capital, the productive forces that confront the producer as the property of another class. ”

“ Capitalist production, therefore, developes technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth—the soil and the labourer. ”

“ The transformation of all means of production into common property forms the new basis of society. The conditions of life and work for both sexes in industry, agriculture, traffic, education, marriage, science, art and social intercourse become radically different. Human life is given a new purpose. ”

“ Considering then that a society demands as the socially necessary labor within a definite time for the production of trousers 10,000 labor days and for suspenders 1,000, that is to say, this amount of labor is necessary in order to satisfy the social need for trousers and suspenders at the present stage of the productivity of labor. ”

“ But in so far as the causes are moral or psychological, dependent on institutions and social relations, or on the principles of human nature, their investigation belongs not to physical, but to moral and social science, and is the object of what is called Political Economy.
The production of wealth; the extraction of the instruments of human subsistence and enjoyment from the materials of the globe, is evidently not an arbitrary thing. ”

“ Hence forms of social production that preceded the bourgeois form, are treated by the bourgeoisie in much the same way as the Fathers of the Church treated pre-Christian religions. ”

“ Privately owned industry and production for individual profit are no longer compatible with social progress and have ceased to work out to humane and civilized ends. ”

“ The growth of population, the increase and extension of exchanges, the discoveries of science, the march of invention, the spread of education, the improvement of government, and the amelioration of manners, considered as material forces, have all a direct tendency to increase the productive power of labor—not281 of some labor, but of all labor; not in some departments of industry, but in all departments of industry; for the law of the production of wealth in society is the law of “each for all, and all for each.” ”

“ Again, many non-economic forces continually obtrude themselves upon the student of industrial conditions, such as custom, invention, imitation, standards, ideals, and the like. These are general social forces which play throughout all phases of human social life and so show the dependence of industry upon society in general, and, therefore, of economics upon sociology. ”

“ Manufacture on a large scale and the increasing productivity [366] of social labor, until now a source of misery and oppression for the exploited classes, will then become a source of well-being and harmonious development for all. ”

“ Constant revolution in production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation, distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. ”

“ Human labour one talks of, as the thing that, together with capital and the nature-basis of industry, goes to the creation of economic values, and through which the worker becomes conscious of his social position. ”

“ Now, if we follow these principles, obvious enough in a simpler state of society, through the complexities of the state we call civilized, we shall see clearly that in every case in which labor is exchanged for commodities, production really precedes enjoyment ”

“ Moreover, it concentrated the laboring population in great centres of industry, thus creating a class consciousness which demanded that attention should be given to the rights of labor, created a new ideal of the dignity of toil and gave to the world that vision of the inclusive cause of labor which was destined to advance in a marvelous way to the social progress of mankind. ”

“ The element in the total industrial product which is due to the social organism is represented by the difference between the value of what one man produces as a worker in connection with the social organization and what he could produce in a condition of isolation. Working in concert with his fellows by aid of the social organism, he and they produce enough to support all in the highest luxury and refinement. ”

“ The multiplication of activities, the choice of occupation, and the division of labor have multiplied the economic groups by the thousand. Following this, natural voluntary social groups spring up on every hand. ”

“ It enlarges human interests. It stimulates socialization of habits and broader ideas. It encourages industry and thrift and promotes division of labor. It strengthens social organization and tends to make it more efficient. Altogether, exchange of goods must be regarded as among the most important functions of society. ”

“ During this time they passed from a primitive agricultural society to a higher social organization embracing cities, manufacture, metalworking, commercial exchange, government, writing, mathematics, art, science, and printing. ”

“ In moral just as in individual life forms generate one another. Capitalistic naturally enough produced collectivist society. At the commencement of the twentieth century of the closed era, a memorable industrial evolution took place. The slender production of small artisans whose all were their tools was followed by a great production financially supported by a new agent of marvellous power—capital. ”

“ Since every attitude tends to influence social institutions, we may expect that an organization and a division of labor based on occupational interests may gradually replace the present organization based on demands of economic productivity. In other words, with the appropriate change of attitudes and values all work may become artistic work. And with the appropriate change of attitudes and values the recognition of economic success may be subordinated to the recognition of human values. ”

“ In recent years many students, while not agreeing that the solution of the problem is quite so simple, yet believe that underlying all social development will be found economic forces of one kind or another, that in commerce and industry and agriculture lies the key to every event of moment in the history of mankind. ”

“ By learning the social relations and understanding their source, they can profit and prepare to change the industrial structure of society, which as a matter of course, will determine also the changes in the social and political character of the system which is bound to be inaugurated. ”

“ A society so constructed survives, where the same number of living beings, unorganized, would perish. The specialization of labor and exchange of product in a social body is identical in its nature with the specialization and exchange of function in an individual body. This process, on orderly lines of evolution, involves the gradual subordination of individual effort for individual good to the collective effort for the collective good,—not from any so-called “altruism,” but from the economic necessities of the case. ”

“ Every one can see that if a benevolent government possessed all the food, and all the implements and materials, of the community, it could exact productive labour from all capable of it, to whom it allowed a share in the food, and could be in no danger of wanting a field for the employment of this productive labour, since as long as there was a single want unsaturated (which material objects could supply) , of any one individual, the labour of the community could be turned to the production of something capable of satisfying that want. ”

“ We shall see that they do not have it at all in static social industry, and that they have it only in a limited way in dynamic social industry, or that which is carried on by a society undergoing organic change. ”

“ Hence, it is not beside the mark to remind you that the prosperity of industry depends not merely upon the improvement of manufacturing processes, not merely upon the ennobling of the individual character, but upon a third condition, namely, a clear understanding of the conditions of social life on the part of both the capitalist and the operative, and their agreement upon common principles of social action. They must learn that social phenomena are as much the expression of natural laws as any others ”

“ We have introduced several branches of profitable industry, and established a market for their products; and finally, in the constitution which follows, we have applied the principles of social justice to the distribution of profits in such a manner that the best results are to be expected. ”

“ These experiences, however, remain the private experiences of individual producers and are not integrated into a comprehensive and social form. Moreover, they do not always refer positively and directly to the needs of society. ”

“ The means of production, that principal basis of human existence, is thereby taken out of the hands of a small number of exploiters and transferred into the hands of the working class and the Workers' and Peasants' Government. ”

“ Societies which produce according to capitalist methods present a different picture. We observe that in certain periods all the ingredients of reproduction may be available, both labour and means of production, and yet some vital needs of society for consumer goods may be left unfulfilled. ”