Themeans of labor (also calledinstruments of labor) is a concept inMarxistpolitical economy that refers to "all those things with the aid of which man acts upon the subject of his labor, and transforms it."[full citation needed][page needed] (Institute of Economics of theAcademy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 1957) Means of labor includetools,machinery, buildings and land used forproduction, andinfrastructure such asroads,telecommunications networks, and so forth.[full citation needed][page needed]Labor, itself, defines "work, especially hard physical work."[full citation needed][page needed]
The means of labor are one of three basicfactors of production (Marx, 1967, p. 174), along with human labor and thesubject of labor (the material worked on).[full citation needed][page needed]
The means of labor and thesubject of labor comprise themeans of production of society.[full citation needed][page needed]
In some formulations, the means of labor and human labor (including the activity itself as well as the laborer'sskills andknowledge used in production) comprise theproductive forces of society (e.g., Sheptulin, 1978).[page needed] Other formulations define productive forces more narrowly as the union of instruments of production[clarification needed : 'instruments of production' requires a definition] and the laborers who wield them (e.g., Institute of Economics, 1957),[page needed] thereby excluding investedcapital.
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