Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory)

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Capitalist mode of production" Marxist theory – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (March 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Part of a series on the
Marxian critique of political economy
Concepts Capitalist mode of production Capital Commodity Concrete and abstract labor Critique of political economy Means of production Mode of production Productive forces Relations of production Socially necessary labour time Socialization Wage labour Wage slavery Wertkritik Wertabspaltungskritik Value-form
Topics Crisis theory Imperialism Historical materialism Technological unemployment Falling profit-rate tendency
Works Grundrisse Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 Das Kapital A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy Time, Labor and Social Domination
People Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Paul Lafargue Roman Rozdolsky Étienne Balibar Robert Kurz Mark Fisher Claus Peter Ortlieb Geoff Pilling Moishe Postone NML: Hans-Georg Backhaus Helmut Reichelt Hans-Jürgen Krahl
Journals Monthly Review New School Economic Review Crisis and Critique Historical Materialism Socialist register Capital & Class
Related topics Critique of political economy economics Marxist sociology
Socialism portal
v t e

In Karl Marx's critique of political economy and subsequent Marxian analyses, the capitalist mode of production (German: Produktionsweise) refers to the systems of organizing production and distribution within capitalist societies. Private money-making in various forms (renting, banking, merchant trade, production for profit and so on) preceded the development of the capitalist mode of production as such. The capitalist mode of production proper, based on wage-labour and private ownership of the means of production and on industrial technology, began to grow rapidly in Western Europe from the Industrial Revolution, later extending to most of the world.^[1]

The capitalist mode of production is characterized by private ownership of the means of production, extraction of surplus value by the owning class for the purpose of capital accumulation, wage-based labour and—at least as far as commodities are concerned—being market-based.^[2]