Means of production are the resources or tools that workers need to use in order to produce. They may include land, plants, machinery, equipment, tools, raw materials, and so on. The means of production is the sum of the subject of labor (raw materials) and instruments of production. In the capitalist mode of production, the bourgeoisie owns the means of production even though the proletariat does most of the work.
If we examine the whole process from the point of view of its result, the product, it is plain that both the instruments and the subject of labour, are means of production, and that the labour itself is productive labour.
— Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chap. 7: "The Labour-Process And The Process Of Producing Surplus-Value'[1]
The means of production include:
- natural resources (land, forests, water, subsoil, raw materials);
- tools;
- facilities necessary for productive activity: industrial factories, mining facilities, etc.;
- means of transport and communication;
- means of exchange between members of society: facilities necessary for distribution (warehouses, sales stores) and credit organizations (banks).