Understanding Historical Modes of Production
Modes of Production
The history of society is the history of development and succession, subject to the laws of production. There are five different modes:
1. Primitive Society
The first mode of production in the history of humanity, according to Marxist theory, means a stage of economic-social relations characterized by low productive force development, simple cooperation, and clan families.
2. Slave Society
This was the first mode of production based on labor that appears in history. It arises from the decomposition of the primitive community regime.
3. Feudal Society
Based on feudal ownership of land and partial ownership of workers.
4. Capitalist Society
A mode of production of goods and materials based on capitalist private ownership of the means of production and labor exploitation of a wage earner. It has a large machinery industry and is characterized by the concept of surplus value (the profit that the capitalist gets from the sales of goods made by the employee).
5. Socialist Society
Based on social ownership and the capitalist enemy, it states that socialism cannot emerge from capitalism, but capitalism appears under the premises of socialism, and that the working class must grow in force to establish it. The productive forces of socialist society are industry, agriculture, transport, etc., but all socialized.
Superstructure
The superstructure depends on the infrastructure and consists of:
Legal and Political Structure
The set of devices, institutions, and rules that govern the operation of society as a whole. In most societies, the political and juridical aspects are secured by the state, whose function is to reproduce the relations of production.
Ideological Structure
Men do not only produce (economic structure) and organize or are allowed to organize (legal-political structure), but they also reflect on their experience and communicate their thoughts to others.
Social Production of Existence
A process by which man produces a product to meet his needs. Through his work, man indirectly produces his own life. When man works, he establishes relationships with other men and the means used. Therefore, the production of existence is not individual but social.
Relations of Production
These are the working relationships established between those involved in the process of work and with the media. These relationships are characterized by:
- They are certain: They are not capricious but the consequence of how they work, the type of media used, and who its owner is.
- They are needed: Man needs to work for a living but cannot work without means and, therefore, must relate to the media. In many cases, man does not have those means; he has to interact with those who hire or, if he owns them, with those he contracts.
- They are independent of the will of man: It is not man who decides how it works, but the means employed and their owners do.
- They correspond to the degree of development of material productive forces: Without which men cannot work.
Property Relations
A set of laws and rules that legally ensure the social relations of production. Therefore, it is part of the legal structure. The social classes that benefit from these social relations are responsible for ensuring that such laws and regulations remain proprietary.
General Development of the Human Spirit
“Spirit” is the certainty that man has power over the sensible and external. All that is sensitive and external has value only because man, as man, is awarded. All that really has value is not conditioned; it is the “I” that values the rest. The general evolution of the human spirit is the spirit’s actions in attempting to implement its ideal. Legal relations, civil society, and various forms of the state are realizations of the spirit to find its ideal.