CAPITALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS - MARX
Publié le 09/01/2010
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Marx developed these ideas in many later writings, culminating in his great Capital, written in London in the final period of his life, when he had been forced to leave France in the aftermath of the revolution of 1848. In that work he explained in detail how the course of history was dictated by the forces and relations of production. Productive forces, in Marx's terms, include the raw materials, machinery, and labour, which go to make a finished product: as wheat, a mill, and a mill-worker are all needed to produce flour. The relations of production are economic relations which involve these forces, such as the ownership of the mill and the hiring of the worker. Developments in technology lead to different relations of production: in the age of the hand-mill, the worker is the serf of the feudal lord; in the age of the steam-mill he is the employee of the capitalist. Changes in technology can render existing relations of production obsolete: a steam-mill demands mobile workers, not serfs tied to the land. When the relations of production no longer match the productive forces, Marx believed, these relations ‘turn into fetters' and a social revolution takes place.
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