Material goods and human qualities that underlie the structure of the economic development of society. Production of material goods and the foundations of the life of human society
The constant reproduction of material goods is an indispensable condition for the existence of society. Before studying, engaging in science, politics, art, people must eat, have dwellings, dress, and for this they must constantly produce the necessary material goods. concept "mode of production" reflects the existence of material production in historically specific forms (primitive communal, slaveholding).
The mode of production of material wealth is the unity of its two sides; productive forces and production relations.
The elements of the productive forces are, first of all, People(active subject of labor) For production, people with the necessary knowledge and labor skills are always needed.
-Hence the first creative force is labor.
Work in material production, it is an expedient activity in which people, with the help of the means they have created, adapt natural objects to satisfy their needs.
-The second factor (material) is the means of labor. ( material things with the help of which people create goods). -Third factor (real) - objects of labor. (a thing or set of things that a person modifies with the help of means of labor.)
In order to set all factors in motion, it is necessary to find the right correlations between all the material elements of production and the number of workers. This problem is solved by technology that determines the methods of processing natural and other substances and obtaining finished products. In the 20th century, the limitations of production factors in comparison with the existing and growing level of needs are especially acutely recognized all over the world. The task arises: to use the production potential of society as efficiently as possible, i.e. achieve the greatest satisfaction of needs with the least and rational use of resources
Production relations are relations between people that develop in the process of production, distribution and exchange. Economic relations between people are diverse.
two types of these connections are distinguished: property relations (corresponding to them socio-economic relations between people) and organizational-economic relations. Property Relations- these are connections between large social groups, individual collectives and members of society for the appropriation of factors and results of production. The decisive position in the economy belonged in the past, and belongs now to those who get the enterprises and everything. what is made on them. A person, being the owner, receives a profit after the sale of production, while a hired worker receives only wages. Organizational and economic relations arise because social production, distribution, exchange and consumption are impossible without a certain organization. This organization is required for any joint activity of people. At the same time, organizational tasks are solved: 1) how to separate people to perform certain types of work and unite all those employed in the enterprise under a single command to achieve a common goal; 2) how to conduct economic activity; 3) who and how will manage the production activities of people. In this regard, organizational and economic relations are divided into three major types: 1) division of labor and production
2) organization of economic activity in certain forms. 3) economic management
The main types of economic relations are very different from each other. So, socio-economic relations are specific; they are characteristic of only one historical era or one social system (for example, primitive communal, slave-owning). Therefore, they have a historically passing character. Socio-economic relations change as a result of the transition from one specific form of ownership to another. In contrast, organizational and economic ties exist, as a rule, regardless of the socio-economic system. (in different social systems, the same forms of economic organization (factories, combines, service enterprises), as well as the general achievements of the scientific organization of labor and management, can be successfully applied.) It is only conditionally possible to consider the productive forces and production relations separately from each other. In reality, they exist as a whole. Man is the main figure and productive forces. and industrial relations. The connection between the parties to production is expressed by the law of correspondence of production relations. Considering this law, it is necessary to take into account the following: - productive forces and production relations act as a kind of content and form of the mode of production and can function in unity; - productive forces are the most mobile, revolutionary element and play a decisive role in changing production relations; - production relations have relative independence and activity, providing a certain scope for productive forces, creating incentives for the development of production, taking into account the interests of people; - the interaction of productive forces and production relations is contradictory. As a result of the continuous development of the productive forces, a discrepancy periodically arises between them and the elements of production relations, requiring their replacement. This process can be carried out either through reforms or through revolutionary changes.
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Introduction
1. Production of material goods Fundamentals of the life of human society
2. Production and resources. The problem of limited resources
3. Main economic problems facing the society
4. Ways and factors to improve the efficiency of social production in the Republic of Belarus
Conclusion
List of sources used
Introduction
Classical bourgeois political economy reached its highest development in the works of the British scientists A. Smith and D. Ricardo, when Great Britain was the most economically advanced country. Britain had a relatively highly developed agriculture, a rapidly growing industry, and an active foreign trade. Capitalist relations were greatly developed in it. Here the main classes of bourgeois society stood out: the bourgeoisie, workers, landowners.
At the same time, the expansion of capitalist relations was fettered by numerous feudal orders. The bourgeoisie saw the main enemy in the nobility and was interested in a scientific analysis of the capitalist mode of production in order to identify the prospects for social development.
Thus, in Great Britain in the second half of the 18th century, favorable conditions developed for the rise of economic thought, which was the work of A. Smith.
1. Production of material goods. Fundamentals of the life of human society
The concept of "method of production of material goods" was first introduced into the social function by Marx and Engels. Each method of production is based on a certain material and technical basis. The method of production of mater goods is a certain type of human activity, a certain way of obtaining the means of subsistence necessary to satisfy the mater. and spiritual needs. The mode of production of material goods is the dialectical unity of productive forces and production relations.
Productive forces are those forces (human resources, means and objects of labor) with the help of which society influences nature and changes it. Means of labor (machines, machine tools) are a thing or a complex of things that a person places between themselves and the object of labor (raw materials, auxiliary materials). The division and cooperation of public PS contributes to the development of mater. production and society, the improvement of tools, the distribution of mater. benefits, wages.
The relations of production are relations concerning the ownership of the means of production, the exchange of activities, distribution and consumption. The materiality of P. O. is expressed in the fact that they are formed in the process of material production, exist independently of the consciousness of people, and are objective.
Society is a certain set of interacting people whose goal is to maintain their lives, produce and reproduce the conditions of their existence. A single individual could not constitute a social group, whatever it may be, could not be a "society", and his consciousness could not be social, i.e. he was not a person either. Society arises historically in the presence of a certain minimum of interacting individuals who, despite their originality, have common needs, interests and goals. One of these goals is joint labor activity, through which food is obtained, housing is built, etc., and at the same time the initial thinking and means of communication - language - develop. Labor was the source of the emergence and development of society. Labor (as an integral social phenomenon) refers to material activity, to the material sphere of society.
Human labor includes several aspects, including the spiritual component - purposefulness. Activity, in fact, is characteristic of many representatives of the animal world, for example, beavers building dams, birds creating nests. But human labor activity differs from such "work" in that it is based not so much on instinct as on awareness of the goal, on the ideal. Human labor is inseparable from the consciousness that begins historically or develops in the future, from the setting of more and more branching goals. Labor activity associated with the development of not only new phenomena, but also the essence of objects, forms new ideal models and encourages their implementation. The purposefulness of activity (although it is sometimes both chaotic and instinctive) is a characteristic feature of a person.
The creative-culturological understanding of labor in no way underestimates the role of its economic interpretation. If we do not complete the characterization of labor by its culturological scale, but, on the contrary, start from it and go in our consideration in depth and into the correlation of types of labor, then we will eventually come to the conclusion that the first concept (or rather, the first approach) is the original , the starting point for understanding labor, and society as a whole. Indeed, in order to write novels, create musical works, manage people, etc., it is necessary that a writer, musician or manager have food, clothing and much more from material things, and all this, as you know, does not fall out of the clouds, as rain, but is produced by people in their material and production sphere. Scientists need many devices (microscope, encephalograph, etc., even paper or pencil, which they use and which they receive from material and production activities. But if other types of labor are taken out of this activity, which is permissible, then reduce them it is impossible to approach it; it is also necessary to see the originality of different types of labor activity that characterize the multifaceted nature of society, its material and spiritual culture.
Whatever concept of working people we adhere to (and we must still admit that from a philosophical point of view the second one is more correct, which, by the way, includes, with certain reservations and limitations, the first one), the understanding of labor remains basically the same. Labor is the material basis for the functioning and development of society.
Let us now get acquainted directly with the structure of material production (spiritual production belongs to the spiritual sphere of society). Traditionally, productive forces and production relations are distinguished here.
Labor is the basis of material production, the basis of the productive forces of society. Paying tribute to tradition, we can point out that the productive forces consist of: means of labor and people armed with certain knowledge and skills and putting these means of labor into action. The means of labor include tools, machines, machine complexes, computers, robots, etc. By themselves, of course, they cannot produce anything. The main productive force is people; but they themselves do not constitute productive forces either. Noting that people are the main productive force, we mean their potential to become such a force; and most importantly - their connection, interaction with the means of labor and production (in the process of such interaction) of material goods, means of providing services (including in healthcare, science, education) and means of production. People represent living labor (or a personal element of production), and the means of labor are accumulated labor (or a material element of production). All material production is a unity of living and accumulated labor. These are the two sides, or subsystems, of the productive forces, as they were presented in most philosophy textbooks up until the 1990s. However, such an idea, based on the Marxist tradition, turns out to be insufficiently complete. Increasingly, technology (or technological process), production process control, including the inclusion of computers in it, are added to the subsystems of the productive forces. This third subsystem is supplemented by another fourth subsystem - the production and economic infrastructure. It includes parts, or elements, of the economic process that are of a subordinate, auxiliary nature, ensuring the normal functioning of a particular enterprise, a set of enterprises within a particular region or the national economy as a whole. The production and economic infrastructure includes transport, railways and highways, industrial and residential (related to a particular department) buildings, utilities that provide production, etc. Knowledge (or science) should also be referred to the productive forces. K. Marx already noted that science was becoming (this was the case in the 19th century) the productive force of society. He believed that scientific knowledge is the "universal productive force"; the accumulation of knowledge and skills, according to K. Marx, is the essence of "the accumulation of the general productive forces of the social brain." Subsequently, orthodox Marxists, until the end of the 20th century, continued to declare, apparently fearing accusations of revisionism, that the productive forces consist of only two subsystems, while science allegedly continues to “become” a productive force even in the 20th century. Meanwhile, already from the beginning of the newest scientific and technological revolution, i.e., approximately from the middle of the 20th century, a phenomenon of historical significance became apparent, which was the transformation of science into the direct productive force of society. D. Bell, for example, wrote in 1976 that the main features of a post-industrial society include, first of all, "the central role of theoretical knowledge." He explained: “Each society has always relied on knowledge, but only today the systematization of the results of theoretical research and materials science becomes the basis of technological innovation. development over the last third of a century.
The key place in the system of production relations is occupied by property (sometimes it is interpreted as "property relations"). Economic relations of ownership have legal registration, are fixed by legal acts.
Property relations are of different types - possession, non-ownership, co-ownership, use, disposal. A special form of ownership is intellectual and spiritual: for works of art, scientific discoveries, etc.
At the very beginning of the development of society, there was no property as such (on things, on people); it was, more correctly, personal property within the tribe, community and having the name (taking into account the fact that people were forced to cooperate with their means and efforts in hunting, fishing, farming) "communal", "tribal", "totally personal". When cooperating, the division of labor was also used - between women and men, between adults and children, between people with different skills, etc., and the distribution of the benefits received was carried out with the installation not to allow either oneself or one's relatives to die. Later (with the improvement of the means of labor, the division of labor activities, etc.), such an amount of food and other benefits began to arise that individuals could feed not only themselves, but also some fellow tribesmen or people of another tribe; it became possible not to kill people captured in clashes with another group, but to use them as labor force and thereby accumulate property (the prisoners themselves - producers of material goods - were considered things).
2. Production and resources.Resource constraints
Modern problems of irrational use of resources
It is clear that resources are indeed limited and should be treated sparingly. With the irrational use of resources, it is necessary to talk about the problem of their limitations, because if you do not stop the waste of a resource, in the future, when it is needed, it simply will not exist. But, although the problem of scarcity of resources has been clear for a long time, in different countries one can see vivid examples of wasting resources. An important area is the certification of energy-consuming, energy-saving and diagnostic equipment, materials, structures, vehicles and, of course, energy resources. All this is based on a combination of interests of consumers, suppliers and producers of energy resources, as well as the interest of legal entities in the efficient use of energy resources. At the same time, even on the example of the Middle Urals, 25-30 million tons of standard fuel (tce) is consumed annually in the region, and approximately 9 million tce is used irrationally. . It turns out that imported fuel and energy resources (FER) are mainly spent irrationally. At the same time, about 3 million tce can be reduced through organizational measures. Most energy saving plans have exactly this goal, but so far have not been able to achieve it.
Also an example of the irrational use of minerals can be an open pit for coal mining near Angren. In addition, at the previously developed deposits of non-ferrous metals Ingichka, Kuytash, Kalkamar, Kurgashin, losses during the extraction and enrichment of ore reached 20-30%. At the Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine, several years ago, such accompanying components as molybdenum, mercury, and lead were not completely smelted from the processed ore. In recent years, due to the transition to the integrated development of mineral deposits, the degree of non-production losses has significantly decreased, but it is still far from full rationalization.
The government approved a program aimed at halting soil degradation, as a result of which the annual damage to the economy is more than 200 million USD.
But so far, the program is only being introduced into agriculture, and at present, 56.4% of all agricultural land is affected by degradation processes of varying degrees. According to scientists, the processes of soil degradation have intensified in recent decades as a result of the irrational use of land resources, a decrease in the areas of protective forest plantations, the destruction of anti-erosion hydraulic structures, and natural disasters. Financing of the program for hydro-reclamation anti-erosion work is envisaged to be carried out at the expense of extra-budgetary funds of interested ministries and departments, funds from the sale and purchase of public property lands, from the collection of land tax, at the expense of economic entities and the state budget. According to experts involved in agricultural support programs, the problem of soil degradation is aggravating every day, but the implementation of the state program is more than problematic in the face of financial deficit. The state will not be able to raise the necessary funds, and the economic entities of the agricultural sector do not have the funds to invest in soil protection measures. In 2003-2004 the government has developed 15 concepts, 16 strategies and 39 state or sectoral programs. How long will it take before the program brings results? And how much land resources will I have time to become useless during this time?
A fundamentally important property of biological resources is their ability to self-reproduce. However, as a result of the ever-increasing anthropogenic impact on the environment and overexploitation, the raw material potential of biological resources is declining, and the populations of many plant and animal species are degrading and endangered. Therefore, in order to organize the rational use of biological resources, it is necessary, first of all, to provide environmentally sound limits for their exploitation (withdrawal), which exclude depletion and loss of the ability of biological resources to reproduce themselves.
3. Main economic problems facing the society
The main economic task is to choose the most efficient way of distributing factors of production in order to solve the problem of limited opportunities, which is caused by the unlimited needs of society and limited resources. An individual can provide himself with the necessary goods in various ways: produce them on his own, exchange them for other goods, receive them as a gift. Society as a whole cannot have everything immediately. Because of this, it must decide what it would like to have immediately, what it can wait to receive, and what it should refuse altogether. Developed countries, for example, make great efforts to improve the production of a limited range of goods in order to achieve some success in the competition with other countries. It can be cars, computers or other goods. Sometimes the choice can be very difficult. The so-called "underdeveloped countries" are so poor that the efforts of most of the labor force are spent only to feed and clothe the population of the country. In such countries, living standards can be raised by increasing production. But since the labor force is fully employed, it is not easy to increase the level of social production. It is possible, of course, to modernize the equipment in order to increase the volume of production. But this requires a restructuring of the national economy. Part of the resources will be switched from the production of consumer goods to the production of capital goods, the construction of industrial buildings, the production of machinery and equipment. Such a restructuring of production will reduce the standard of living in the name of its future increase. However, in countries with low living standards, even a slight decrease in the output of consumer goods can push large numbers of people to the brink of poverty. There are various options for the production of the entire set of goods, as well as each good separately. By whom, from what resources, with the help of what technology should they be produced? Through what organization of production? According to different projects, you can build an industrial and residential building, according to different projects, you can produce cars, use a piece of land. The building can be multi-story or single-story, a car can be assembled on a conveyor belt or manually, a plot of land can be sown with corn or wheat. Some buildings are built by private individuals, others by the state (for example, schools). The decision to build cars in one country is made by a state body, in another - by private firms. Land use can be carried out either at the request of farmers, or with the participation or decision of state bodies. Since the number of created goods and services is limited, the problem of their distribution arises. Who should use these products and services, benefit from them? Should all members of society receive the same share, or should there be poor and rich, what should be the share of both? What should be given priority - intellect or physical strength? The solution of this problem determines the goals of society, the incentives for its development.
4. Ways and factors to improve the efficiency of social production in the Republic of Belarus
The transition to market relations requires profound shifts in the economy - a decisive sphere of human activity. It is necessary to make a sharp turn towards the intensification of production, to reorient each enterprise, organization, and firm towards the full and priority use of qualitative factors of economic growth. There must be a transition to an economy of higher organization and efficiency, with comprehensively developed productive forces and production relations, and a well-functioning economic mechanism. To a large extent, the necessary conditions for this are created by a market economy.
When substantiating and analyzing all indicators of economic efficiency, factors of increasing production efficiency in the main areas of development and improvement of production are taken into account. These areas cover a set of technical, organizational and socio-economic measures, on the basis of which the economy of living labor, costs and resources is achieved, as well as improving the quality and competitiveness of products.
The most important factors for increasing production efficiency here are:
Acceleration of scientific and technological progress, raising the technical level of production, manufactured and mastered products (improving its quality), innovation policy;
Structural restructuring of the economy, its orientation towards the production of consumer goods, the conversion of defense enterprises and industries, the improvement of the reproductive structure of capital investments (the priority is the reconstruction and technical re-equipment of existing enterprises), the accelerated development of science-intensive, high-tech industries;
Improving the development of diversification, specialization and
Cooperation, combination and territorial organization of production, improvement of the organization of production and labor at enterprises and associations;
Denationalization and privatization of the economy, improvement of state regulation, economic accounting and the system of motivation for work;
Strengthening socio-psychological factors, activating the human factor based on the democratization and decentralization of management, increasing the responsibility and creative initiative of employees, comprehensive development of the individual, strengthening the social orientation in the development of production (improving the general educational and professional level of employees, improving working conditions and safety, improving culture production, environmental improvement).
Among all the factors for increasing efficiency and strengthening the intensification of production, a decisive place belongs to the denationalization and privatization of the economy, scientific and technological progress and the revitalization of human activity, strengthening the personal factor (communications, cooperation, coordination, commitment), increasing the role of people in the production process. All other factors are interdependent on these decisive factors.
Depending on the place and scope of implementation, ways to increase efficiency are divided into national (state), sectoral, territorial and intra-production. In the economic science of countries with developed market relations, these paths are divided into two groups: intra-production and external or factors affecting the change in profits and controlled by the company and uncontrollable factors to which the company can only adapt. The second group of factors is specific market conditions, prices for products, raw materials, energy, exchange rates, bank interest, the system of state orders, taxation, tax incentives, etc.
The most diverse group of intra-production factors on the scale of an enterprise, association, firm. Their number and content are specific to each enterprise, depending on its specialization, structure, operating time, current and future tasks. They cannot be unified and uniform for all enterprises.
The transition to a market economy introduces a number of significant adjustments to the theory and practice of assessing economic efficiency, selecting and implementing optimal options for production and economic decisions.
Firstly, the economic responsibility for the taken production and economic decisions is significantly increased in comparison with the substantiation of the effectiveness of the decisions made in the conditions of the total nationalization of the economy, when gratuitous financing of capital investments prevailed and enterprises essentially did not bear material responsibility for the reliability of the assessment and the actual effectiveness of technical and organizational activities, compliance with the design and actual efficiency.
The situation is completely different in a market economy, when the owner of the funds bears full financial responsibility for the final financial results of production activities, i.e. there is a personalization of material and financial responsibility. Under these conditions, the calculations and justification of economic efficiency are no longer of a formal nature, as was the case in a centrally controlled economy, when, as a rule, the design and actual efficiency of decisions made did not match.
Secondly, the increased responsibility for decisions being made is closely related to the increased risk in investment activities and the development of production, when market relations are mainly the regulator of production, here a whole system of insurance, independent examination of projects, and the use of consulting firms are needed.
Thirdly, given the dynamism of production and investment, the importance of assessing the time factor in substantiating and achieving financial results based on discounting (compound interest formulas) is increasing.
Fourth, in contrast to the command-administrative management system in the conditions of market relations and a variety of forms of ownership, instead of uniform, centrally approved economic norms and efficiency standards, individual standards are applied that are formed under the influence of the market. At the same time, individual norms are very dynamic, they change over time under the influence of the market. They are taken into account in the economic justification of the effectiveness of the decisions made (rates of profit for enterprises, depreciation rates, consumption rates of raw materials and materials).
Thus, summing up all of the above, we present all the main ways to increase efficiency in the form of a diagram:
Scientific and technological progress has been and remains the most important factor in increasing the efficiency of social production and ensuring its high efficiency. Until recently, scientific and technical progress proceeded evolutionarily. The advantage was given to the improvement of existing technologies, partial modernization of machinery and equipment. Such measures gave a certain, but insignificant return. There were insufficient incentives for the development and implementation of measures for new technology. Under the current conditions of the formation of market relations, revolutionary, qualitative changes are needed, a transition to fundamentally new technologies, to the technology of subsequent generations - a radical re-equipment of all sectors of the national economy based on the latest achievements of science and technology. The most important directions of scientific and technical progress: wide development of progressive technologies; automation of production; creation; use of new types of materials.
One of the important factors of intensification and increase of production efficiency is the mode of economy. Resource conservation must become a decisive source of meeting the growing demand for fuel, energy, raw materials and materials. Industry plays an important role in addressing all these issues. It is necessary to create and equip the national economy with machinery and equipment that ensures high efficiency in the use of structural and other materials, raw materials and fuel and energy resources, the creation and application of highly efficient low-waste and waste-free technological processes. That is why the modernization of domestic mechanical engineering is so necessary - a decisive condition for accelerating the scientific and technical progress, the reconstruction of the entire national economy. We must not forget about the use of secondary resources.
In the Republic of Belarus, according to the plans of the initiators of market reforms, the solution of the problem of raising the national economy should have occurred automatically, during the transition from the socialist, state form of ownership to the capitalist, private form. The “collapse of the communist system” was supposed to lead to a rapid improvement in economic performance and rising living standards.
However, the expected miracle did not happen. In the course of the reforms, the groundlessness of hopes for an automatic solution to the issues of reviving production became clear. Moreover, the campaign for the denationalization and privatization of state property in many cases turned into a direct destruction of the productive forces, a reduction in output, and theft of state (nationwide) property. Thus, the problem of reforming property relations is not as simple as it seemed, and its results are not so obvious. The explanation for this must be sought in the fact that the problem under consideration includes two separate, albeit closely interrelated aspects:
First, it is the transfer of property relations, inherited from a centrally planned economy, to a liberal-market track;
Secondly, it is a solution to the issue of increasing the overall efficiency of the national economy, ensuring its competitiveness, achieving world indicators in productivity and product quality.
As for the first aspect (market-capitalist reform of property relations), everything is quite clear here. There are many recommendations in this regard, coming from both international organizations and government experts and business circles. Everyone agrees that there are unshakable general laws and principles of the reform policy, the neglect of which means only the repetition of others' and one's own mistakes, and that there is a so-called world market order that forces all countries to bring their economies up to world standards.
There is also a consensus on the reform mechanism. It is based on a radical transformation of property relations - the denationalization and privatization of state (republican and municipal) property, support for private entrepreneurship, and the creation of a “real” (“responsible”) owner-owner. If we talk about the rise of national production, bringing it to the world frontiers, then, despite the measures taken, the frequent adjustment of the course of reforms, there are no noticeable shifts in this direction.
Countless recommendations of international financial and banking organizations in terms of reforming property, as well as legislative acts of Belarus on the issues of denationalization and privatization, with inevitable differences, have one thing in common: as a rule, their ultimate targets are to fix the priority of privatization, determine the conditions and mechanisms for its implementation, develop measures to support private entrepreneurship. As the analysis of such documents shows, the formal-administrative-legal side of the matter prevails.
However, the main thing is not even this, but that the reform of property relations, the restructuring of the economy are conceived and carried out exclusively at the level of individual enterprises. Paradoxically, the adopted approach completely loses sight of the aspect of increasing the efficiency of national production as a whole - on its state, national scale. The solution of this key task is, as it were, postponed “for later”, associated with an endless chain of bankruptcies, reorganizations, disaggregation of industrial “giants”, demonopolization and direct liquidation of enterprises.
Increasing the efficiency of production is considered only in relation to individual enterprises. Moreover, efficiency means the achievement of sufficient profitability of production, regardless of the field of activity and products.
One of the main goals of privatization in Russia (as in Belarus) was to increase the efficiency of enterprises. However, the studies conducted, as a rule, do not allow us to conclude that a turning point in efficiency has already occurred and non-state sector enterprises work better than state-owned ones.
However, it should be noted that the results were obtained by direct comparison of the indicators of the economic activity of an enterprise in the two sectors and in this respect are rather rough. Although it can be said from them that non-state enterprises are slightly ahead of state ones. And if we take into account the fact that the conditions of demand for the products of the latter in this period were much more favorable, then we can see that if they were the same for non-state enterprises, then their efficiency would be noticeably higher than for state enterprises.
In order to receive more consumer goods in the future, people are forced to direct part of their current labor to the creation of productive goods - physical capital. Investments are resources spent on the creation of capital goods.
Capital goods in the course of their use wear out and become unusable. Investments can be directed both to the reproduction of depreciated capital goods, which is necessary for the production of consumer goods on the same scale (simple reproduction), and to the production of additional capital goods, which is necessary for the expanded reproduction of consumer goods.
The entire volume of investments made in the economy for some reporting period is called gross investment. Part of the investment going to the reproduction of depreciated capital goods is carried out at the expense of depreciation. The increase in the volume of capital goods occurs due to the expenditure of additional resources, called net investment.
Each time a net investment (capital investment) is made, the existing production physical capital increases by the same value at current prices of net investment.
However, the cost of all production capital will change during this period also under the influence of inflationary processes.
Conclusion
Social production is, first of all, the production of man. But this does not mean at all that social production is the sum of productions, which include the production of man. The entire system of social production in the unity of its constituent parts (material, spiritual and social) is subordinated to the production of man.
Material production forms the basis of social production, because without the production of material conditions and means of life, the very life activity of people is impossible. But in addition to material production, social production also includes spiritual production, production of consumption, production of people and the production of the entire system of social relations, which in their totality constitute the social "fabric" of society. They serve the production and reproduction of man as the top in this peculiar hierarchy.
List of sources used
1. V.Ya. Iokhin "Economic theory", Moscow, JURIST, 2000
2. E.F. Borisov "Economic theory in questions and answers", Moscow, JURIST, 2000
3. Edited by D.D. Moskvin, Fundamentals of Economic Theory. Political Economy”, Editorial URSS, Moscow, 2001
4. Smith A. "An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations." M. 2005
5. S.V. Mocherny, V.N. Nekrasov, V.N. Ovchinnikov, V.V. Secretary V.V.
6. E. Raikhlin “Fundamentals of economic theory. Microeconomic theory of product markets”, Moscow 2000
7. "Economic theory: a course of lectures", Irkutsk, publishing house IGEA, 1996
8. "Economic theory: Reader", comp. E.F. Borisov, Moscow, Higher School, 2000
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The essence and theoretical foundations of efficiency in the distribution of goods and production. The current state, the prospect of production efficiency and the national product. Forecast of the effectiveness of the distribution of benefits in the national economic cycle.
term paper, added 09/29/2015
Subject, structure, methodology and functions of economic theory. Production is the process of creating wealth. Production possibilities of society. Economic systems, their main types. The essence of the market, its elements. Markets for factors of production.
The standard of living is an indicator of the satisfaction of human needs in such socio-economic categories as: material goods and services, as well as household, cultural service, maintenance.
Material goods include: food, shoes, clothing, housing, household items, culture.
For material services - services for the creation, implementation of the listed things, their repair, repair, improvement.
Household services include in a broad sense: utility services, transport, communications, medical, household services. Cultural institutions provide education, art, culture.
The standard of living characterizes the population of a particular state, region, municipality and is an element of such a concept as "lifestyle".
Its dynamics and differentiation are determined to a large extent by the degree of development of productive forces, the structure, volume of resources, state and population incomes, the use of GNP, production, and the nature of income distribution.
Thus, material goods and services included in socio-economic categories and are an integral part of the life of any modern person. As for material services, they are sufficiently represented only in developed countries.
And now to the question of influence. material goods and services for business. Since we found that this category comes from human natural and social needs, then, therefore, they determine the bulk of consumer demand.
After all, mainly people need to satisfy them. Everything else is secondary. This means that the prevailing share of demand and, as a result, business proposals concerns precisely the goods and services provided.
In addition, that part of material wealth, which comes into being only thanks to a person, is called production.
This means that the production of any product (things of the material world) is mediated by the need of society, people for material goods.
There are also consumer and investment material goods. The first are designed to meet personal, family needs, and the second - for production.
They also distinguish between public and private material goods, differentiated depending on the subjects of consumption.
Another issue is that the market material goods and services can be oversaturated and more difficult to survive due to high competition.
Therefore, undertakings in this field are always associated with an additional risk: being left out of work due to the large number of similar proposals.
That is why in business in the field material goods and services the most important is the original, creative approach, unique offers - a feature that will attract the attention of buyers, interest them.
This is about the stage of infusion into the market segment. In the future, it is necessary to win over consumers, form their loyalty, retain them, and create your own base of permanent clients.
This requires a competent marketing policy (special: promotions, discounts, bonuses, discount cards, a funded system, and much more).
Consumers generate demand for certain material goods, services, and business satisfies this demand.
To summarize: material goods and services are the main element of society, both the private life of individuals and the public life, of which business is an integral part today.
Human history goes back thousands of years, but at all times man has needed air, water, clothing, housing. Everything that a person needs, by which he satisfies his needs, is called goods.
Goods can be both things and actions that a person needs. In order to intelligently organize their life, a person needs to understand these benefits. Currently, there are benefits:
data given by nature and production;
· consumer and investment;
· private and public;
reproducible and non-reproducible;
free and limited.
Nature gives man air, water, land, and these benefits are a necessary condition for the existence of human society. These are natural blessings. Man is the only creature on the planet capable of transforming, that is, transforming the substance of nature into the benefits he needs. A person can make a table, a chair and everything that he needs out of wood. Such goods are called production goods. Depending on how we use them, we distinguish between consumer and investment goods. What is intended for household consumption becomes a consumer good. This is the whole set of household appliances, furniture, clothing, food. Investment goods include raw materials, machinery, equipment, which are necessary for the production of other goods. A car used to transport raw materials at an enterprise is an investment good, and a car used in everyday life is a consumer good.
Depending on whose needs a particular good satisfies, a distinction is made between private and public goods. A home car is a private good. A public park that many citizens enjoy visiting is a public good.
The most important characteristic of goods for us, which is in no way connected with their physical properties, is the distinction between free and limited goods. Free goods are available in quantities that exceed the needs of people at a given moment. Air is an example. Scarce goods are goods that are needed more than they are available, that is, the demand for which exceeds the supply. It is the scarcity of goods that becomes a condition that prompts a person to look for an opportunity to receive these benefits and do business. Limited goods arise because not all goods can be produced. Depending on the ability to replenish the stocks of consumed goods, they are divided into reproducible and non-reproducible. There are limited reserves of oil, gas and other natural resources in nature. In the course of his life, a person consumes them, but is not able to replenish the reserves that our planet has. This is an example of non-reproducible benefits. A model of reproducible goods can be paper, which is consumed to transfer knowledge and is constantly reproduced to meet certain needs of people. It is very important to understand that the ability to reproduce goods is limited by the amount of goods available in nature. So, for example, paper can be made from papyrus, parchment, rice, wood. Stocks of raw materials for the production of papyrus are rare, parchment is very labor-intensive in production, and there are not many climatically suitable places for growing rice. Therefore, paper produced using technologies that use wood as a resource is the most common. These circumstances characterize limited material goods in relation to each other in terms of scarcity. The second essential characteristic of limited material goods is insufficiency. This feature is associated with the needs of society for goods. And if the satisfaction of needs comes at the expense of one resource (reserve), then the problem arises of choosing which of them to satisfy and to what extent. Therefore, choice becomes an important action in the economy, due to limited material goods. Human existence is connected not only with the satisfaction of existing needs, but also with the fact that needs are constantly growing and developing. Limited material goods hinder the satisfaction of needs. In order to overcome this limitation, which is natural in our nature, a person is interested either in producing the goods he needs, or in finding an opportunity to obtain them in some other way.
In an effort to satisfy their needs, each person realizes personal abilities. At the same time, there are qualities that, to one degree or another, are inherent in all members of society.
Man is an active, driving force. It has inherent qualities by nature in such a way that they are specifically realized in the conditions of limited material goods, which creates a business. The deepest quality of a person, to which Adam Smith, the founder of political economy, drew attention, is natural egoism. In market conditions, this human property manifests itself in a special way.
The market is a mechanism of exchange that brings sellers and buyers of a product together.
We get our bread not from the baker's mercy, but from his selfish interest. The baker wants to earn. We want bread. We interact with each other about bread. Not for the sake of another, not in a fit of concern for the prosperity of another, but out of their own selfish motives, based on their economic interests. Our own interests encourage us to find the needs, the needs of other members of society, because by satisfying them, we achieve our selfish goals.
Such a human quality as the desire for the growth of well-being, on the one hand, is manifested in the ever-increasing growth of the needs of the individual, on the other hand, makes him look for unsatisfied needs in society and fulfill what others need. Guided by his need, striving to increase his well-being, a person does what society as a whole needs.
Adam Smith wrote: “Man constantly needs the help of his fellow men, and in vain will he expect it only from their favor. He will achieve his goal more quickly if he appeals to their selfishness and manages to show them that it is in their own interests to do for him what he requires of them ... Give me what I need and you will get what you need, -- such is the meaning of saying any such sentence. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect to get our dinner, but from their self-interest. We appeal not to their humanity, but to their selfishness, and we never talk about our needs, but about their benefits.
Benefit drives a person when he enters into an exchange relationship. Exchange is a key link in business. There is no business without exchange. Through exchange, a person gets the opportunity to acquire what he needs to satisfy his need. It is as a result of the exchange that the individual receives the product he needs. The choice that a person makes in an exchange is always determined by profit. The benefit is always associated with saving working time, and therefore the exchange is both beneficial and necessary for all participants. In this case, the benefit appears in the form of material goods.
The propensity to exchange is the most important human property underlying the structure of the economic life of society. No living being in nature has this quality. Only man is able to exchange with other goods that belong to him.
Exchange relations make possible the division and specialization of labor, which makes it possible to save labor time in the manufacture of products. These relationships essentially create an economic system. Adam Smith wrote that the economic system is essentially a huge network of connections between specialized producers, which are connected by "a propensity to exchange, to trade, to exchange one thing for another." In the division of labor, the egoistic and collectivist nature of man is synthesized. Working for himself, to satisfy his needs, the individual specializes in a particular type of activity, intending to satisfy individual members of society with the results of his work, those material goods that he produces, and, in turn, receive satisfaction of his needs in return.
A special human quality underlying the structure of the economic life of society is the desire for excellence. Everything that a person does, he constantly improves.
Therefore, the supply of ever more perfect material goods is growing, there are needs for them, the total set of society's needs is growing.
The competitive spirit inherent in man manifests itself in the market in the form of competition. All manufacturers strive to satisfy the effective demand for material goods with the products of their production and to benefit from this. Therefore, they strive to make the quality of their products higher than other manufacturers, to sell them at prices that provide benefits, but lower than the prices of other manufacturers. Each of the producers of material goods on the market chooses for its activities what it considers most profitable for itself. Since no one restricts this choice, it happens freely, then most often there is a situation where several manufacturers are engaged in the manufacture of similar products. At the same time, the relationship between manufacturers takes such sharp forms, for which they are called "competitive struggle".
The propensity to copy, imitation makes it possible for individual manufacturers to quickly adopt successful experience in the market, which enables society to develop faster, creates conditions for technical progress.
All this does not prevent market participants from possessing the quality called “thirst for justice”. By exchanging produced products, each seeks to achieve equivalence, that is, justice in its proportions. Each of the participants strive to protect their property.
The sense of ownership inherent in a person is one of the main qualities on which the economy is based. It was this quality that prompted mankind to create the most complex mechanism for securing property for an individual. Ownership is manifested through the rights of possession, use, disposal of material goods. The desire to have property is the strongest motive for the labor activity of people.
One of the most amazing human qualities is natural humanism. The nature of man is so complex that, along with the pursuit of their own benefit, people are not indifferent to the position of other members of society, their fate. Many help the victims of natural disasters, help the weak and the sick. As the market is saturated with various kinds of material goods, buyers begin to be interested not only in the products themselves, which they buy to meet their needs, but also in producers, their civic position in society.
All these qualities together form the economic life of society, the principles of interaction between its individual members. Their knowledge allows you to correctly analyze the processes taking place in economic life and correctly organize the behavior of your company in the market.
1. The concept of production and its factors. productive forces.
2. Social production. Social product and its forms.
3. The production potential of society and the limit of production possibilities.
The concept of production and its factors. productive forces
The process of metabolism between man and nature, as already noted in the first chapter, is carried out by adapting the elements of nature to human consumption. In the process of labor, and in the general definition - in the process of production, the material goods necessary for a person are created. Consequently, production is the process of creating material goods necessary to ensure the exchange of substances between man and nature for the very existence of man.
Production, regardless of its level of development, always includes certain factors or components. These factors include: labor force, objects of labor and means of labor.
Labor force is the ability of a person to work. It is, in other words, the totality of physical, mental and intellectual abilities that a person possesses and which she uses every time she creates the benefits necessary for her existence. With the development of society comes the development of the labor force. Man forms and develops more and more of his abilities. Each new stage in the development of production forms and complicates the requirements for a person. In modern conditions, a person has the ability to control complex technological processes, aircraft, spacecraft, etc.
But it should be emphasized that the development of abilities, and hence the development of the labor force, is determined not only by the development of material factors of production. The social form of organization of the latter also contributes to such changes in the labor force. For example, a market economy puts on the agenda and makes very relevant the formation of a person's set of skills that are realized in entrepreneurial abilities. The great importance of the presence of this ability, its level and mass manifestation in the functioning of the entire social production even pushes some researchers to single out entrepreneurial ability as a special factor of production. However, this is undoubtedly an exaggeration, because such sluggishness is only one of the forms of manifestation of human abilities, although it plays a huge role in a market economy.
Each person is the bearer of the labor force, but if an adult has, as a rule, fully developed abilities for work, then a child or an elderly person has limited abilities. In the first case, they are still insufficiently developed, potential, in the second - they are already largely exhausted. In order to have certain guidelines in the process of using the labor force, society legally sets the age limits of a person when he is fully prepared, capable of work. In our country, this period is set from 18 years to 55 years for women and up to 60 years for men.
Labor force is also called a personal factor of production, emphasizing that it is a person, a specific person, who is the bearer of the ability to work, that is, the bearer of labor force. Quite often, especially in the writings of Western researchers, the labor force is also called the human resource.
This resource, like any other resource, is also always limited. At the same time, with the development of mankind, certain both positive and negative changes in this resource occur. They are due to many reasons, both planetary and local. Thus, the population is gradually growing and, on the whole, its ability to work is increasing through the growth of qualifications, education, skills, and the like. However, there are also such negative facts as the deterioration of the general conditions of human existence (environmental pollution, overpopulation of certain territories, etc.). These changes can be even more noticeable at the local level, where the general planetary processes are intensified by the action of those factors that are inherent in a particular society.
The labor force is the main driving element of production. It is in the process of its implementation that it ensures the development of all social production.
The objects of labor are all that human activity is aimed at in the process of creating material wealth. The objects of labor include both those elements of nature that a person first includes in the production process, and those that have already been indirect by human labor. An example of the latter can be coal, which consumes heat, electricity, etc. for mining. Such an example can be a metal that is used in many sectors of the economy to create certain material benefits. Such objects of labor are called raw materials.
In general, the objects of labor or, as it is often said, natural resources are gradually exhausted. Already in the last century, humanity has faced a shortage of many of them. So, today the population of many countries suffers from a lack of water, more and more scientists talk about the limited and not very distant for humanity the prospect of depletion of oil, gas, coal and other energy sources. All this puts on the agenda of mankind the question of the rational use of all natural resources.
The means of labor is everything that a person places between himself and the object of labor, or everything with which a person acts on the objects of labor in the process of creating material wealth. The means of labor include, for example, tools, machines, equipment, etc. Common means of labor also include production facilities, roads, railways, etc.
In the aggregate of those objects that belong to the means of labor, as a rule, they distinguish a special group of them, namely, tools of labor. They represent that part of the means of labor with which a person directly affects the objects of labor. It is they who play a decisive role in the creation of material wealth, and it is on them that the effectiveness of human labor depends. The level of relationship between man and nature depends on the level of development of tools. It was their special role that allowed K. Marx to express the opinion that economic epochs differ from each other not in what is produced, but in how, with what instruments of labor, material goods are produced.
Land is a special means of labor. In agricultural production, it also acts as the main object, about which production relations arise.
The earth, as a universal means of production, is not of artificial, but of natural origin. With very rare exceptions (for example, the creation of polders in Holland), it is not a product of human labor and, moreover, is always quantitatively limited. Part of the land is used by mankind in agricultural production, which, in fact, is impossible without land. Land suitable for agricultural production is not so much on the globe. Moreover, with an increase in the population of the globe, anthropogenic pressure on the land is growing and a certain part of it is forever out of agricultural circulation.
From this point of view, our Motherland is generously endowed with God's grace, because we have a large territory (in Europe, Ukraine is the largest state in terms of territory), a significant part of which is represented by a plain with fertile conditions for agricultural production. At the same time, agricultural land in Ukraine is mainly black soil, fertile land in the world. This gift should be kept and used very sparingly and carefully.
The objects of labor, when combined with the means of labor, form the means of production. This is one of the basic and very common terms of political economy and economics in general. But along with this, the means of production are often also called the material, or material, factor of production. In Western literature, this factor is often defined as material resources. Note that the concept or term resources still more acceptable than the factors, because it indicates their limitations.
The means of production in combination with a person, with his knowledge, skills, skills, etc. form the productive forces. In this totality, the worker, as the bearer of labor power, is the main element. It is he who creates the means of labor, discovers more and more new objects of labor, improves the production process and, in general, behaves as a determining creative and driving element of the productive forces.
All components of the productive forces are in constant interconnection and interaction, and the result of the functioning of the productive forces is the whole variety of material goods necessary for an individual and society as a whole to ensure their normal existence. Schematically, the constituent elements of the productive forces are shown in Fig.1.
The elements that make up the structure of the productive forces have a certain compensating character in relation to each other, and this is a very important aspect of their interaction. For example, a country that does not have large natural resources and, consequently, will be limited in the objects of labor, can have highly developed productive forces. Their condition is ensured by the fact that the means of labor and the human factor can be very developed, and this compensates for a certain limitation of such a component of the productive forces as the object of labor. A striking example of the situation can be modern Japan. This country has very few natural resources, but, having advanced means of production (modern machine tools, equipment, communications, advanced technologies, etc.) and a highly developed human factor, the "production" characteristics of which (the level of education, qualifications, labor discipline, motivation to work, etc.) are very high, but it has highly developed productive forces, which provide it with one of the leading places among the most powerful states in the world.
Another and, to a certain extent, the opposite example can be our Motherland. Compared with Japan, and with many European countries, Ukraine is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of its natural resources. There is also a highly developed human factor in our state. Its features are a high level of education, a high level of qualification and other indicators. However, the means of labor, primarily tools and technologies, are mostly outdated and also very worn out. In most leading industries, equipment wear reaches 60-70%. This position of this element leads to a rather low level of productive forces. The low level of development of productive forces in Ukraine is a consequence of other factors. These, for example, include the fact that the relationship and interaction of all elements of the productive forces through instability and the initial nature of the development of market relations have not yet been debugged in the optimal variant for social production.
The productive forces are included in the list of the most important categories of political economy. This is due to the fact that the progress of society is always associated with the development of productive forces. Only they create a basis for increasing the production of the amount of material goods necessary for human existence, open up opportunities for solving those problems that arise in the process of human development.
