Theoretical Analysis of Marxist Changes in the Relations of Production in the Context of the Information Age

The relations of production are a category first proposed and scientifically demonstrated by Marx, and one of the core categories of the materialist conception of history. As the social relations between people in the process of material production, relations of production necessarily involve both the term of relations and the term of relations, and from the point of view of the term of relations, relations of production point to the relations between people in the process of production. As the “sum of all kinds of relations through which people carry out production”, the relations of production inherently include the relations between people, people and things, and things and things, but in essence, they are still the relations between people in the process of material production, and the relations between things and things and people and things are only a reflection of the relations between people.

The relationship between man and man in production is often expressed with the help of things, through the relationship between man and things, therefore, in social production presents the relationship between man's ownership of things, possession, use, distribution, etc., and the relationship between man and things is actually a kind of object domination relationship. The scope of social production of things is very wide, according to the status and role of things in production, can be divided into tools, objects and products, tools in the object to generate products, the period of performance of the relationship between things and things really reflect the relationship between man and man. Secondly, the production relations, as the social relations through which social production is realized, have both static and dynamic displays.From a static perspective, it consists of the relationships of ownership of production means, the status of human beings in production and their interrelations, and the relationships of distribution of products.From the dynamic point of view, it includes the relations among the four links of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption in the process of social production.Among them, production, as a prerequisite and foundation, determines the object, structure, mode, nature, level, and other aspects of distribution, exchange, and consumption.

The characteristics of production relations are shown in Figure 1. This paper summarizes the characteristics of production relations as practical, personal, objective, and historical through analysis.

Figure 1.

Characteristics of production relations

Practice is the fundamental foundation of the entire existing perceptual world, as well as the basis and foundation for the generation and evolution of social relations of production.The practical nature of the relations of production is reflected in the fact that the relations of production are rooted in practice and are essentially practical. Since social life is essentially practical, the relations of production generated by people in the process of material production, which constitute an important part of social life, are also practical in terms of their content and substance. Secondly, the production relations are the means through which practical activities are realized, and they are identical to actual practical activities. Practical activity not only maintains and constructs the original relations of production, but also changes the content, scope and mode of production, creates new relations of production, and stipulates the content and nature of the relations of production, while the relations of production carry the connotation of practical activity and embody the nature of practice, so that the relations of production and practical activity are intrinsically the same.

In real life, human beings carry a variety of social relationships and become a kind of relational existence.Human beings are not only the subjects of all social activities, but also the basis on which social relations are generated. The personal nature of the relations of production is due to the fact that the relations of production emerge from the needs of human material interests, and Marx pointed out that “where a certain relation exists, this relation exists for me”. This suggests the notion that “relations” are born of me and are based on me. At the same time, relations of production define and confirm the nature of the human being. The way in which a person constructs the relations of production and the position he occupies in the relations of production all confirm his essence, and the process of constructing the relations of production is also the process of unfolding and realizing the power of his essence. At the same time, the relations of production are not between individuals, but rather relations of universal significance based on personal relationships.

The objectivity of the relations of production is first manifested in the fact that they exist as an ontology of relations with a necessity that is not subject to the will of man.The objectivity of the relations of production is also manifested in their irreversibility as a regularity of existence. Production relations are based on the formation of a certain level of social productive forces, the level of productive forces objectively determines the nature and condition of production relations, which means that no matter whether people like, whether they care about the system of production relations in which he is placed in the system of production relations, the social system, in the existing level of productive forces and within the scope of the relations of production are not arbitrarily changeable. The evolution of production relations is inevitable, regular, and irreversible.It is a result of human object-oriented activities and has a regulatory nature that affects human behavior.

The historical nature of the relations of production, that is, the relative stability of the relations of production as the form through which social and material production is realized, does not mean that it is frozen and unchanging, but that it develops and changes historically. Since human needs and the productive activities that satisfy them are an uninterrupted historical process, the relations of production are necessarily characterized by constant progress.

In the context of the information age, this paper explores the mechanism of the role of productivity and the change of production relations based on Marxist theory, so as to conduct a more in-depth research on the change of production relations. From the perspective of neoclassical economic theory and Marxist theory, the idea of productivity under the information age realizes the inheritance and development of Marxist productivity doctrine in three aspects: the quality of productivity, elements and leap. Specifically, the new quality of productivity in the information age drives the optimal combination of “quantity” and “quality” of new workers, new means of labor and new objects of labor through scientific and technological innovation, constantly restructures the mode of production, and at the same time develops a new type of supporting relations of production, generating positive systemic effects, and ultimately creating new productivity. This will produce positive system effects and ultimately create new forms of productive forces. Therefore, as far as system theory is concerned, the productive forces in the Information Age are higher-order, revolutionary, and leaping productive forces after development.

The mechanism of production relations is shown in Fig. 2. From the perspective of the development of production relations, the mechanism of production relations changes in the information age.

Figure 2.

Production relationship mechanism

Changes in the relations of production say that the influence of many aspects, the factors of change can not be separated from people, the role of the market, the social environment, economic development and government influence, according to the theoretical analysis of the previous paper this paper puts forward the following hypotheses:

H1: The high quality of workers can promote the change of production relations.

H2: The development of science and technology innovation can promote the change of production relations.

H3: Social demand can promote the new quality productivity.

The main variables are shown in Table 1, and this paper uses the change of production relations as an explanatory variable. The development of science and technology innovation and social demand are mainly reflected in the digital upgrading of labor tools and the greening of labor objects, so the explanatory variables in this paper are the high quality of laborers, the digital upgrading of labor tools, and the greening of labor objects. The moderating and controlling variables are based on enterprise, government, and market data.

Based on hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2 and hypothesis 3 of this paper, the following research model is designed: (1) Tfpit=α0+α1EXu+∑ Controlu+∑ Year+∑ Ind+εu

The equation, T_fp denotes the change in production relations, which is the explanatory variable. EX denotes the explanatory variables, including the high quality of laborers (HumTfpit=γ0+γ1EXit×DX+∑ Controlit+∑ Year+∑ Ind+εit) $({H_{um{T_{fpit}} = {\gamma _0} + {\gamma _1}E{X_{it}} \times DX + \sum Contro{l_{it}} + \sum Year + \sum Ind + {\varepsilon _{it}}}})$, the digitalization of labor tools (D_ae), and the greening of labor objects (G_re). Control denotes the control variables, Year and Ind are the year and industry fixed effects, respectively, ε denotes the residual term, i denotes the enterprise, t denotes the year, and α₀ is the constant term. In the regression results, if the coefficient α₁ is significantly positive, it indicates that the high quality of workers, the digitalization of labor tools and the greening of labor objects can significantly enhance the change of production relations, and the hypotheses H1, H2 and H3 of this paper are valid. Conversely, hypotheses H1, H2 and H3 are not valid in this paper.

From the calculation, we know that the variance inflation factor (VIF) value of each variable is less than 10, which indicates that there is no serious covariance problem between the variables selected in this paper and meets the requirements of the study, and the results of the benchmark regression are shown in Table 2.

Column (1) shows the regression results without adding control variables, without controlling for year and industry, and the coefficient of H_um is 0.381, which is significantly positive at the 1% level. Column (2) shows the regression results after adding control variables but not controlling for year and industry fixed effects. From the results, the coefficient of H_um is 0.598, which is significantly positive at the 1% level. Column (3) shows the regression results after adding control variables and controlling for year and industry, and the coefficient of H_um is 0.635, which is significantly positive at the 1% level. Therefore, hypothesis H1 of this paper holds.

Column (4) presents the results of the regression without the inclusion of control variables and without controlling for year and industry, with the coefficient of D_ae being 0.281, which is significantly positive at the 1% level. Column (5) shows the regression results after adding the control variables but not controlling for year and industry fixed effects. From the results, the coefficient of D_ae is 0.157, which is significantly positive at the 1% level. Column (6) shows the regression results after adding control variables and controlling for year and industry, and the coefficient of D_ae is 0.175, which is significantly positive at the 1% level. Therefore, hypothesis H2 of this paper holds.

Column (7) of Table 3 shows the regression results without the inclusion of control variables and without controlling for year and industry, with the coefficient of G_re being 2.527, which is significantly positive at the 1% level, and Column (8) shows the regression results with the inclusion of control variables, but without controlling for year and industry fixed effects. From the results, the coefficient of G_re is 1.382, which is significantly positive at the 1% level. Column (9) shows the regression results after adding control variables and controlling for year and industry, and the coefficient of G_re is 1.557, which is significantly positive at the 1% level. Therefore, hypothesis H3 of this paper holds.

Research shows that under the background of the information age, the innovation and development of digital information technology can promote the change of production relations by improving the level of productivity, on this basis, this paper further researches on the change of production relations in the information age. Digital new quality productivity is a form of digital information technology development level, through the analysis of digital new quality productivity can effectively reflect the development of information technology, to provide a scientific basis for this paper on the impact of the development of the information age on the change of production relations.

This study through the China Statistical Yearbook on the evolution of the development level of digital new quality productivity by regional statistics, respectively, the Northeast region, the eastern region, the central region and the western region, the time evolution of the development level of digital new quality productivity is shown in Figure 3. The development level of digital new quality productivity in all regions has an upward trend, the eastern region has the strongest upward trend, while the western and northeastern regions have a relatively slow rate of increase, and there is a certain gap between the northeastern region and the national average level. In terms of development levels, the eastern and central regions are above average, while the western region is below average.The level of digital new quality productivity development in the eastern region has grown from 0.065 in 2012 to 0.23 in 2022, a sudden growth with an average annual growth rate of 13%. The digital new quality productivity development level in the central region grows from 0.060 in 2012 to exceed 0.10 for the first time in 2015, and then reaches 0.22 in 2022.However, the northeastern region still has a large gap compared to the central and eastern regions in that time period, developing from 0.035 in 2012 to 0.12 in 2022.It can be seen that, in terms of the overall development level, the eastern region's development level is higher than the central, western and northeastern regions. The eastern region has a clear advantage in terms of development, while the northeastern region still has a lot of room for improvement.From the perspective of growth rate, the Central Region has a higher growth rate than the Western, Eastern, and Northeastern Regions. The northeastern region starts from a relatively low base, but has great potential for growth and endeavors to narrow the development gap with the eastern region through further development.

Figure 3.

The time evolution of the digital economic development level

This paper adopts the panel data of 30 provincial administrative units in China from 2012 to 2022, and measures the index of change in production relations on the basis of the level of digitalized economic development, and adopts the average value method or growth rate method to supplement the missing data. According to the entropy value method, the constructed indicators are assigned, in which the index system of change in production relations contains not only positive but also negative indicators, which are processed using appropriate standardization methods. And the entropy weight method will be relied on when carrying out other measurement steps in order to comprehensively assess the index of co-production relations change in each region. The system of indicators of change in production relations is shown in Table 3, with the highest weight of the indicator of the level of digital new quality productivity (0.203), followed by social labor productivity (0.192), which is the level of productivity. The third highest weight is infrastructure development (0.121), while carbon emissions have the lowest weight (0.075) and are a negative indicator.

After assigning weights to the indicators according to the entropy value method mentioned above, the more significant the difference between the standardized data, the higher the weight of the corresponding indicator and the more important it is for the change of production relations. The higher the total score, the higher the development level of digital new quality productivity in the province. With the help of entropy weight method to measure the index of change in production relations of 20 provincial administrative units from 2012 to 2022, each province is recorded as S1~30. The index of the level of change in production relations is shown in Table 4, the average value of the degree of realization of the change in production relations in each province grows from 0.280 in 2013 to 0.488 in 2022, and the level of development of the change in production relations improves. The level of change in production relations in each region shows an upward trend over time, but there is also some variability between regions. Among them, S1 province consistently leads in the level of change in production relations from 2012 to 2022, reaching a maximum of 0.79 in 2021.Overall, the gap in the level of change in production relations between provinces is relatively obvious, so it is necessary to further unleash the growth potential of regions with low levels in order to further reduce the gap in production relations between different provinces.

In the context of the information age, the innovation of digital technology in productivity, production relations and labor methods has brought great changes to the production and life of workers, and while liberating workers' hands, increasing creative labor, improving labor productivity, and thus realizing the emancipation of human beings, it also creates a lot of problems and challenges due to the inability of human society to quickly adapt to the new requirements of the changed mode of production. To maintain the change in production relations with the development speed of the information age, this paper proposes the following strategies: