Production relations (English spelling)

Japanese: 生産関係 - せいさんかんけい（英語表記）Produktionsverhältnis

The social relations that humans form with each other when they produce. In Marxism, it is one of the central concepts for elucidating historical social phenomena and one of the basic propositions of the materialist view of history. It refers not only to human relationships in the production process, but also to all human social relations, including the circulation and distribution processes, and moreover to the relations that inevitably arise at a certain stage of historical development of human society. In K. Marx's famous words, "In the social production of their lives, men enter into certain necessary relations that are independent of their will, that is, relations of production that are adapted to a certain stage of development of their material productive forces" (Preface to "Critique of Political Economy"), and the totality of these relations of production is the economic structure of society. What is noteworthy in this case is that Marx understands these specific relations of production as being in a relationship of adaptation and conflict with specific productive forces. In other words, as long as the relations of production are adapted to specific productive forces, they promote the development of those forces, but when the productive forces reach a higher stage of development, these specific production relations become a shackle, and eventually new production relations appropriate to the new productive forces are established. This is understood in a highly dialectical way.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia About Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia Information

Japanese:

生産を行う場合に人間が相互に取結ぶ一定の社会的諸関係。マルクス主義においては歴史的社会現象を解明するための中枢概念の一つであり，唯物史観の基本的命題の一つであって，単に生産過程における人間関係のみではなく，流通過程，分配過程などを含む一切の人間の社会的諸関係，しかも人間社会の一定の歴史的発展段階において必然的に生じる諸関係を意味する。 K.マルクスの有名な言葉をかりれば，「人間は彼らの生活の社会的生産において，一定の必然的な，彼らの意志から独立した諸関係を，すなわち彼らの物質的生産諸力のある一定の発展段階に適応する生産諸関係を結ぶ」 (『経済学批判』序文) のであって，これら生産関係の総体が社会の経済的構造である。しかもこの場合注目すべきは，マルクスにおいてはこれらの特定の生産関係は特定の生産力と適応，対立の関係にあるものとして把握されていることである。すなわち生産関係が特定の生産力に適応している間は生産力の発展を促進するが，生産力がより高次の発展段階を迎えると，これらの特定の生産諸関係は桎梏 (しっこく) となり，やがてそこに新たな生産力に見合った生産関係が樹立されるというように，きわめて弁証法的に把握されている。

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