Key Arguments

• A society can no more cease to produce than it can cease to consume
• To maintain wealth on an existing scale, society must replace used-up instruments of labor, raw materials, and auxiliary substances with new ones
• The conditions of production are identical to the conditions of reproduction

Source Quotes

A society can no more cease to produce than it can cease to consume. When viewed, therefore, as a connected whole, and in the constant flux of its incessant renewal, every social process of production is at the same time a process of reproduction. The conditions of production are at the same time the conditions of reproduction.

The conditions of production are at the same time the conditions of reproduction. No society can go on producing, in other words no society can reproduce, unless it constantly reconverts a part of its products into means of production, or elements of fresh products. All other circumstances remaining the same, the society can reproduce or maintain its wealth on the existing scale only by replacing the means of production which have been used up – i.e. the instruments of labour, the raw material and the auxiliary substances – with an equal quantity of new articles.

Hence a definite portion of each year’s product belongs to the sphere of production. Destined for productive consumption from the very first, this portion exists, for the most part, in forms which by their very nature exclude the possibility of individual consumption. If production has a capitalist form, so too will reproduction.

Key Concepts

• every social process of production is at the same time a process of reproduction
• No society can go on producing, in other words no society can reproduce, unless it constantly reconverts a part of its products into means of production
• Destined for productive consumption from the very first

Context

Marx defining the general nature of reproduction applicable to all social forms before specifying its capitalist form