PRODUCTION (Lat. productio, a lengthen ing. from produecre, to lead forth, from pro. be fore, for + dueerc, to lead). One of the divisions of political economy devoted mainly to the consid eration of the factors which affect the amount of wealth produced. From the standpoint of pro duction the measure of economic efficiency is the extent of the product. Human progress is measured, in the words of Carey. "by man's con trol over nature." The greater this control, the larger the volume of products available for man's use, the higher is the scale of develop ment. Political economy starts with the thesis that natural forces (land), human energy (la bor), and accumulated wealth (capital) are united in production. The economics of produc tion looks to the maximum result from this con junction of forces. As land is not reproducible, progress is measured by the degree of utilization of natural forces for human entl.s. Labor in like manner in relation to production fulfills its function most effectively when it is most fully employed and when it is most efficient. From this standpoint such developments as extend the field of employment and all measures which promote the productive efficiency of the individual laborer and improve the organization of labor are steps in progress. Since capital becomes more efficient
as it grows in volume, economics, from the stand point of production, looks to the development of capital. and in particular is concerned with all that promotes saving the accumulation of capital for future use.
For a long time the ideas here set forth domi nated the treatment of political economy. Con sciously or unconsciously, its devotees felt that human welfare was bound up with the multipli cation of products. Of late years a reaction has set in, the interest in economics as repre sented in later writers having shifted from the question of how to produce the largest quantity of goods to that of how under our present social organization these goods are to be distributed in the form of rent, interest, profits, and wages to those who share in the production of the goods. See CONSUMPTION; DISTRIBUTION; EXCHANGE; POLITICAL ECONOMY.