Question

What has been the change in production process since fuedalism to MNCs now?

Answer 1

Fuedalism is the dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labour, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.

The feudal mode of production appears in the theorization of successive socioeconomic formations provided by Karl Marx. In the feudal period a higher level of productive forces was achieved compared with the period of slavery. Technique of production in agriculture was improved; the iron plough and other iron implements of labour were used more extensively.

The basic economic law of feudalism consisted in the production of surplus product to satisfy the demands of the feudal lords, by means of the exploitation of dependent peasants on the basis of the ownership of the land by the feudal lords and their incomplete ownership of the workers in production-the serfs.

Birth of Capitalist Production from the Feudal System - The transition

The development of the productive forces of feudal society more and more clashed with the narrow framework of feudal production relations. The peasantry, under the yoke of feudal exploitation, were in no condition to increase further the output of agricultural produce. The productivity of unfree peasant labour was exceedingly low. In the town the growth of the craftsman’s productivity of labour came up against the obstacles created by guild statutes and rules. The feudal system was characterised by the slow rate of development of production, by routine and by the authority of tradition. The productive forces which had grown up in the framework of feudal society demanded new relations of production. The advance from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist was made in two ways: on the one hand; the differentiation among the small commodity producers gave birth to capitalist entrepreneurs; on the other hand, merchant capital, through the merchants, directly subordinated production to itself.

During the transition period, the rent earning landlord class was still the dominant class. A small sector of commodity production also existed in this period. This is called as “petty mode of production period”. In this mode of production with artisans and peasants, who had turned into small capitalists, even with hired labour could not have changed this mode of production to capitalism. Petty mode of production could have intensified landlord coercion and extension of merchant capital at the cost of small producer’s capital. This would only have delayed the onset of capitalism.

An MNC is a company that owns or controls production in more than one country. MNCs set-up offices and factories for production in regions where they can get cheap labour and other resources, to minimise cost and maximise profit.

They sell their finished products globally and also produce the goods and services globally. The production process is divided into small parts and spread out across the globe.