RE: Productive Forces

["Eric Nilsson" <enilsson@xxxxxxxxx>]

Melvin P wrote,

 > Is not human beings the decisive element in the production forces?  

 

Certainly an argument can be made that, broadly understood, human beings are part of the productive forces. Whether it is the "decisive element," I don't know.

 

I don't think Marx--not that his opinion is decisive here (I duck)--saw the development of the people component of the productive forces as being key for determining historical evolution. He tended to focus on windmills, steam mills, and other such non-human productive forces.

 

Neoclassical economics, however, often claims that people (or, more precisely, the human capital embodied in them) are key to economic growth. Of course, that neoclassical economists claim this does not mean it is wrong. They made a good point. I wonder if someone would claim that the skills and abilities people have (a possible component of the productive forces) might come into conflict with the social relations of production.

 

More generally, many economists (both neoclassical and non-neoclassical) see disembodied technological advance as being key--that is, the ideas people have in their heads and/or on paper or other writing service (perhaps on CDs now) are seen as key for economic growth. Or, perhaps the institutionalist would claim that institutions--in the sense of the way people interact in production--are key to productivity advance.

 

If people are included as productive forces then the issue of the advance of the productive forces during a Schumpeterian creative destruction process--which devalues many people's skills--indicates further the complexities of identifying "objectively" the productive forces in an economy.

 

Eric

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