Factors Of Production.
Section XXX.
Meaning Of Production.
To create new matter is more than it is given to man to do. Hence, by the term production, in its widest sense, we mean simply the bringing forth of new goods—the discovery of new utilities, the change or transformation of already existing goods into new utilities,[184] the creation of means for the satisfaction of human wants, out of the aggregate of matter originally present in the world. (Producere!) We confine ourselves, however, in this to economic goods, as defined in § [2]. In a secondary and more limited sense, production is an increase of resources, in so far as the goods produced satisfy a greater human want, than those employed in the production itself.[185][186][187]
It would, however, be an error to suppose, that the creation of certain utilities for the producer himself, or for others, constitutes the only end of economic production. The more perfect economic production becomes, the greater grows the pleasure the producer feels in his products, which pleasure is at once the effect and the cause of his success. Hence, production is to a great extent its own end. That this is so in the case of artists is well known. “If you want only progeny from her, a mortal can beget them as well. Let him who rejoices in the goddess, not seek in her the woman,” says Schiller. There is not a really clever workman but has something artistic in his mode of production. And even the meanest productive activity, provided it is neither over-driven nor misdirected, must of itself exert a good influence on the physical and moral development or preservation of the producer. An idle brain is the devil's workshop.[188]
Section XXXI.
The Factors Of Production.—External Nature.[189]
The division of natural forces which formerly obtained, into organic, chemical and mechanical, is of no great importance in Political Economy. The tendency is more and more to resolve organic forces partly into chemical and partly into mechanical. Between mechanical and chemical forces, again, the boundary is not fixed, heat being always capable of producing motion, and motion always of producing heat. Hence, it is all the more important for us to find a division of the economic gifts (matter, forces[190] and relations) of external nature, into such [pg 121] as are capable of acquiring exchange value, and such as are not. (See § [5].)