Editing Means of production (section)

== Industrial production ==
[[File:CNT-FAI Cooperative Barcelona.jpg|thumb|[[CNT-FAI]] worker [[cooperative]] in [[Barcelona]] producing wood and steel products]]
From the perspective of a firm, a [[firm]] uses its capital goods,<ref>{{cite book |last1= Eatwell|last2=Milgate|last3=Newman |first1= John|first2=Murray|first3=Peter|title= Marxian Economics: The New Palgrave |url= https://archive.org/details/marxianeconomics00john|url-access= registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|date= April 19, 1990 |isbn= 978-0393958607|page = [https://archive.org/details/marxianeconomics00john/page/76 76] |quote=The conception of capital within orthodox economics. Within orthodox economics, the term ‘capital’ generally refers to the means of production.}}</ref> which are also known as tangible assets as they are physical in nature. Unfinished goods are transformed into products and services in the production process. Even if capital goods are not traded on the market as consumer goods, they can be valued as long as capital goods are produced commodities, which are required for production. The total values of capital goods constitute the capital value.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Tuovila|first=Alicia|title=Capital Goods Definition|url=https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capitalgoods.asp|access-date=2021-04-24|website=Investopedia|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Hennings|first=K. H.|title=Capital as a Factor of Production|date=1987|url=http://link.springer.com/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_20-1|work=The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics|pages=1–11|editor-last=Palgrave Macmillan|place=London|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|language=en|doi=10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_20-1|isbn=978-1-349-95121-5|access-date=2021-04-24}}</ref>

The social means of production are capital goods and assets that require organized collective labor effort, as opposed to individual effort, to operate on.<ref>{{cite book|author=Karl Kautsky|title=Selected Political Writings|publisher=978-0333283844|year=1983|page=9|quote="Here we encounter a further characteristic of the modern wage proletarian. He works not with the individual but with social means of production, means of production so extensive that they can be operated only by a society of workers, not by the individual worker."}}</ref> The ownership and organization of the social means of production is a key factor in categorizing and defining different types of [[economic system]]s.

The means of production includes two broad categories of objects: [[instruments of labor]] (tools, [[factories]], [[infrastructure]], etc.) and [[subjects of labor]] ([[natural resource]]s and [[raw material]]s). People operate on the subjects of labor using the instruments of labor to create a product; or stated another way, labor acting on the means of production creates a good.<ref>Michael Evans, ''Karl Marx'', London, England, 1975. Part II, Chap. 2, sect. a; p. 63.</ref> In an [[agrarian society]] the principal means of production is the soil and the shovel. In an [[industrial society]] the means of production become social means of production and include factories and mines.