Means of production (abbreviated MoP; German: Produktionsmittel), are things used by human labourers to create products. They include two broad categories of objects: instruments of labour (tools, factories, infrastructure, etc.) and subjects of labour (natural resources and raw materials). People operate on the subjects of labour, using the instruments of labour, to create a product; or, stated another way, labour acting on the means of producti...
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Means of production (abbreviated MoP; German: Produktionsmittel), are things used by human labourers to create products. They include two broad categories of objects: instruments of labour (tools, factories, infrastructure, etc.) and subjects of labour (natural resources and raw materials). People operate on the subjects of labour, using the instruments of labour, to create a product; or, stated another way, labour acting on the means of production creates a product.
The term can be simply and picturesquely described in an agrarian society as the soil and the shovel; in an industrial society, the mines and the factories.
Factors of production are defined by Karl Marx in Das Kapital as labour, subjects of labour, and instruments of labour. I.e, the term is equivalent to means of production plus labour. The factors of production are often listed in economic writings derived from the classical school as "land, labour and capital". Marx sometimes used the term "productive forces"...
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