At whatever stage of historical development human society would be, people, in order to live, must have food, clothing, housing and other material benefits. The means of subsistence necessary for man must be produced. Their manufacture is carried out in the production process. That is why production is an objective necessity. So what is manufacturing?
There are different approaches to the definition of production.
The Marxist interpretation is that it is the process of human interaction with nature in order to create material goods necessary for the existence and development of society.
In modern foreign economic theory, production is understood as the creation of goods and the provision of direct and indirect services to the consumer. At the same time, many economists define production as an expedient activity of people aimed at satisfying their needs.
Production is also considered as the process of human influence on the substance of nature in order to create material goods and services necessary for the development of society.
From all these definitions of production, it can be concluded that production is the process of direct creation of material and spiritual values and its goal is to satisfy the diverse needs of the individual and society as a whole.
Historically, production has passed a long way of development from the manufacture of the simplest products to the production of complex technical systems, flexible reconfigurable complexes, computers. In the process of production, not only the way and type of production of goods and services change, but the moral improvement of the person himself takes place.
A distinction is made between material and non-material production (Fig. 4.1.). The first includes branches for the production of material goods and services (industry, agriculture, construction, utilities, consumer services, etc.). Intangible production is associated with the production (provision) of non-material services (healthcare, education, etc.) and the creation of spiritual values (films, sculptures, paintings, scientific developments). These are two interrelated types of production, and one cannot exist without the other. The relationship between them implies the harmonious development of society.
At the same time, there are two levels of production: individual – this is an activity on the scale of the main production unit (enterprise, firm) and social – means the process of joint activity to create goods and services on the scale of society.
Distinctive features of any level of production are that:
production activities are always associated with the transformation of matter and energy into material and spiritual goods and services; production activity is a labor activity, the results of which serve to meet a variety of needs.
There is a certain relationship between production and needs. First, the needs and demands of the consumer stimulate production, and this, in turn, creating new values and goods, affects the volume and structure of consumption. Thus, in order to consume more, it is necessary to produce more. If production falls, then consumption decreases inexorably.
Secondly, production, by creating specific types of material goods and services, generates a specific need for them. For example, the public need for televisions and tape recorders arose only after the creation and organization of their sufficient production.
Third, the interaction of production and needs is specific in different economic systems.
Thus, production forms general objective conditions in which needs arise and develop, which orient the reproductive activity of society, individuals and social groups.
A need is any state of dissatisfaction experienced by a person from which he seeks to get out, or a state of satisfaction that a person wishes to prolong. This is the need or lack of something necessary to maintain human life. Need is also defined as an objective state of a person, expressing the contradiction between the existing and the necessary and prompting him to action.
The system of needs includes their various types, which can be classified in terms of:
scale and structure of production:
• absolute (promising), including all possible needs, including those that cannot be met at present;
• valid, which can be satisfied at the achieved level of production development;
• To be satisfied, which can be satisfied in the actual state of reproduction, are in the form of effective demand;
• Actually satisfied needs, act in the form of satisfied demand.
roles, needs for the reproduction of labor power: material (in food, clothing, housing, etc.) and spiritual (in education, culture, information).
roles in the reproductive process: personal (in consumer goods) and production (in the means of production, in the labor force).
social structure of society: the needs of society as a whole, social groups, individuals.
sequences of satisfaction: primary (needs for food, drink, clothing, etc.) and secondary (needs for education, art, entertainment, etc. They are satisfied after the primary). However, primary needs cannot be replaced by one another, for example, food needs and drinking needs must be met separately. Secondary needs can be replaced by one another: a person can go to the cinema instead of the theater.
It should be noted that economic needs are historical in nature and are always organically linked to the conditions of existence of society, social groups and individuals. At the same time, they are dynamic, growing quantitatively and qualitatively. Needs change with the progress of society, in accordance with the law of the elevation of needs. The specificity of the law of raising needs is that the quantitative and qualitative growth of needs depends on the availability of production resources.