Social production as economic category

Abstract

The study of social production and the problems of improving its efficiency traditionally hold one of the central places in the economic science. This article analyzes the essence of social production, as well as offers an original definition of social production as economic category. The object of this research is a set of economic ties and processes that are generally important for business entities in the conditions of functionality of the national economy. The subject of this research is the socioeconomic relations that arise in the process of social production and reproduction. Methodological framework is comprised of the fundamentals of systemic and comparative analysis, as well as methods of synthesis, induction and deduction. The scientific novelty lies in formulation of the conceptual approach towards determining the essence of social production as economic category using interdisciplinary analysis of its content within the framework of general sociological, socio-philosophical, and political-economic approaches. The similarities and differences of interpretation of social production in cognate disciplines are established. The author determines that social production is an independent subject of science only for the political economy. The tendencies towards narrowing down, as well as broadening the scope of interpretation of social production are outlined. The reasonableness of its identification with the concepts of “material production” and “direct production” is analyzed. The author provides the original definition of “social production” as economic category.