a) an autocratic leader;
b) a democratic leader;
c) a liberal leader;
d) advisory leader.
80. The cost of health care, education, physical education, intellectual development, obtaining general education, the acquisition of a specialty is:
a) investments in the construction of sports complexes;
b) investment in human capital;
c) investment in new technologies;
d) investment in production.
81. Skills needed to properly understand other people and interact effectively with them:
a) semantic;
b) communicative;
c) non-verbal;
d) verbal.
82. Which component does not include the labor potential of a person:
a) human health;
b) education;
c) professionalism;
d) bank accounts.
83. What is staff adaptation?
a) improving theoretical knowledge and practical skills in order to improve professional excellence workers, their assimilation of advanced equipment, technology, means of production;
b) activities that are carried out consciously to improve the abilities of personnel, which are necessary for the performance of work or for the development of the potential of employees;
c) participation in the recruitment and selection of personnel, taking into account the requirements of specific professions and jobs in order to provide the best career guidance for employees;
d) the relationship between the employee and the organization, which is based on the gradual adaptation of employees to new professional, social, organizational and economic conditions of work.
84. The division of labor provides:
a) performance by one employee of all functions and actions for the manufacture of a particular product;
b) division of labor according to systematized labor functions;
c) careful calculation of the costs of work for the production of products and services.
d) performance by one employee of all functions and actions for the manufacture of a complex of products.
85. Normalized work time includes:
a) all expenditure of time that is objectively necessary to complete a specific task;
b) total duration work shift during which the employee performs labor functions;
c) the time of preparatory and procurement work to complete the task;
d) the time of service of the workplace.
d) at the time of maintenance of the workplace.
86. The method of personnel assessment, which provides for a conversation with the employee in the "question-answer" mode according to a pre-compiled scheme or without it to obtain additional information about a person is a method:
a) interviews
b) questioning;
c) a sociological survey;
d) testing.
87. A conscious motivation of a person to a certain action is:
b) needs;
c) claims;
d) expectations.
88. Benefits, material values, to which a person's labor activity is directed, are:
b) needs;
c) claims;
d) incentives.
89. Among quality indicators management system efficiency highlight quantitative indicator:
a) the level of qualification of employees of the management apparatus;
b) the validity and timeliness of decision-making by management personnel;
c) usage level scientific methods, organizational and computer technology;
d) the amount of expenses for the maintenance of the administrative apparatus in the general fund of personnel wages.
90. The ratio of the number of dismissed employees to the total number of personnel is calculated:
a) the level of labor discipline;
b) the reliability of the work of personnel;
c) staff turnover;
d) socio-psychological climate in the team.
Karl Menger (1840–1921), professor of political economy at the University of Vienna, was the first to develop this position among the representatives of the Austrian school. In 1871, Menger published the book "Fundamentals of Political Economy", the purpose of the study is human needs, which are considered as unsatisfied desires or unpleasant sensations caused by a violation of the physiological balance of a person. He defended the following point of view: price analysis should be reduced to the analysis of individual valuations.
Menger introduced the concept economic and non-economic good. Economic goods are goods for which there is a shortage of supply, and non-economic goods are goods for which there is equality between supply and demand. Trying to resolve the paradox of A. Smith about water and diamond (to explain why diamond is so expensive and water is cheap, without resorting to labor theory cost), Menger formulated principle of diminishing utility:the cost (value) of any good is determined by the smallest utility possessed by the last unit of the stock. At the same time, when determining the value of material goods, not the scale of the types of needs, but the scale of the specific needs of this particular person should be taken as a basis. As supply increases, the value of an additional unit decreases.
To illustrate this provision, it is appropriate to cite a table, which is called the “Menger table” (Table 4), where the vertical rows marked with Roman numerals denote different kinds needs and their importance in descending order: I - the most important view needs, such as food; V - the type of needs of medium importance, for example, the need for alcoholic beverages; X is the least important type of needs. Arabic numerals within each vertical row illustrate the decrease in the need for a given need as it is saturated in descending order from 10 to 1. It can be seen that a specific need of a more important type may be below individual specific needs of a less important type. For example, the eighth unit of the first type of needs will be of less value (or lesser significance) for the well-being of the subject than the first unit of the seventh type of needs. The decrease in the value of goods as their number increased, the representatives of the Austrian school associated with deeply rooted human nature when the same kind of sensations, repeating incessantly, begin to give us less and less pleasure, and finally this pleasure even turns into its opposite - into unpleasantness and disgust. Thus, in the theory of value of the Austrian school, utility can also represent a negative value.
Table 4
| I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X |
Menger's table reflects both of Gossen's laws: decreasing numbers in columns means a decrease in marginal utility (the first law), and a unit of good in satisfying each of the actually satisfied needs (I and II) has the same marginal utility.
This formulation of the law of diminishing marginal utility. But how does this provision relate to the concept of pricing? In the most direct way. The value (price) of a thing is measured by the value of the marginal utility of this thing, the utility of the last unit of the stock of the good that satisfies the least important need. It is appropriate to give an example about Robinson, who has five sacks of grain in reserve, of which the first is needed in order not to die of hunger, the second is for maintaining health, the third is for fattening poultry, the fourth is for making alcoholic beverages, the fifth is for parrot content. What determines the value of one (any) bag of grain? According to the views of the representatives of the Austrian school, the usefulness of the last bag that satisfies the least urgent need. This marginal unit (utility) determines the actual value of the previous units. Marginal utility, in turn, depends on the amount of goods and the intensity of consumption of the individual. Thus, the value depends on the degree of utility and degree of rarity. The first defines the highest point to which marginal utility can rise in a pinch; the second is to what point marginal utility actually rises in a particular case. In other words, the height of marginal utility is determined by two factors: subjective (needs) and objective (number of goods), which, in the framework of the reasoning of the Austrian school, remains once and for all the same data.
The doctrine of exchange. Differences in the relative subjective value of the same goods for different people is, according to Menger, the cause of the exchange. The exchange of good X for good Y will occur only when individual A values X more than Y, and individual B does the opposite. The exchange will continue until the relative values of goods for both individuals are equalized. Subjective values determine the exchange ratio of goods.
However, all reasoning about subjective value cannot explain the mechanism market pricing where, despite all the variety of subjective assessments, there is a single price for the goods.
Consider Menger's pricing theory, he is presented in Table. 5, where the rows determine the value of the (newly received) additional unit of the good, and the columns determine the value of the unit of goods (the first, second, etc.) for each consumer (B1, B2, ... B8).
Table 5
| I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | |
| IN 1 | ||||||||
| AT 2 | ||||||||
| AT 3 | ||||||||
| AT 4 | ||||||||
| AT 5 | ||||||||
| AT 6 | ||||||||
| AT 7 | ||||||||
| AT 8 |
Landowner B1 does not have a horse, but there is plenty of bread, so for him the value of the first horse is 80 measures of bread, landowner B2 estimates the value of the first horse at 70 measures of bread.
An attempt to resolve this contradiction was also made by E. Böhm-Bawerk (1851 - 1919), introducing the concept objective value by which he understands exchange proportions (prices), which are formed in the course of competition in the market.
The pricing process is carried out under the following conditions: the volume of supply on the market is fixed; market price is established precisely in this act of competition, and does not depend on previously existing prices; the price is set in accordance with the ratio of the maximum prices of buyers and the minimum prices of sellers; the minimum prices of buyers and the maximum prices of sellers are derived from the ratio of subjective utility; transactions should be beneficial for both buyers and sellers. Therefore, none of them will buy (or sell) a horse at a price equal to his own assessment; equilibrium in the market is achieved when demand equals supply (the number of buyers is equal to the number of sellers).
How, under these conditions, will the price of a horse be determined? The Böhm-Bawerk pricing process is best explained using his already textbook example of the horse market. So, buyers and sellers collide in the market, having subjective assessments of how useful a horse is to him (Table 6).
Table 6
| Buyers | Sellers | Subjective assessment, florins | |
| 1=th | 1=th | ||
| 2=th | 2=th | ||
| 3=th | 3=th | ||
| 4=th | 4=th | ||
| 5=th | 5=th | ||
| 6=th | 6=th | ||
| 7=th | 7=th | ||
| 8=th | 8=th | ||
| 9=th | |||
| 10=th |
Let's assume that the auction will begin with the announcement of its price by buyers - 130 florins. This price is beneficial to all buyers. But she obviously does not suit the sellers - only the first two are ready to sell horses at this price. There is an imbalance between supply and demand, so buyers flare up competition to increase prices, which will inevitably lead to the elimination of individual buyers from the market and the return of sellers.
As a result of this process (suppose) the price settles at just over 200 florins, leaving the market with six buyers and five sellers. The circle has narrowed, but demand is still greater than supply. The price rises further and at the price of 210 florins the sixth buyer will leave the market.
Demand equals supply. But sellers, in their natural desire to get more profit, increase the price by holding the horses. The price rises, but as soon as it exceeds 215 florins, a sixth seller enters the market and the equilibrium is again disturbed.
So the price is known. She settled ranging from 210 to 215 florins inclusive. At this price, the demand for horses and their supply are balanced. Consequently, according to Böhm-Bawerk, the market price will fluctuate between the maximum and minimum prices as a result of a collision in the markets of subjective assessments of sellers and buyers. At the same time, the level of the market price cannot be higher than the estimate of the first excluded seller (upper price limit) and lower than the estimate of the first excluded buyer (lower price limit), since otherwise the achieved equilibrium is violated.
This pricing scheme ignores: the role of labor; production costs, the consumer becomes the only figure in the economic system. The theory of marginal utility, proposed by representatives of the Austrian school, has the following disadvantages: absolute inelasticity of supply. Since the supply is a fixed value, the value of a particular good (good) depends solely on demand, which varies depending on the marginal utility of this good. Consequently, the principle of marginal utility, developed by representatives of the Austrian school, is applicable only to the analysis of individual consumption in kind, since the seller, the owner of the goods and its producer, is guided in determining the price by the principle of marginal utility, selling on the market only surplus benefits: the mechanism for equalizing the marginal utility in the process of exchange occurs under the assumption of the available price and the given incomes of the consumer. This means that the subjective valuations themselves are conditioned by the price level and the amount of income, and there is no quantitative definition of utility outside the price system.
According to the ideas of the Austrian school, the only factor that determines the proportions of the exchange of goods and, accordingly, the price, is their marginal utility. Consequently, productive (capital) goods have no value, since they do not directly satisfy human needs, i.e., they do not have direct utility. In a real economy, productive goods have a value, and their prices form the cost of production. How is the problem of production costs solved within the framework of the ideas of the Austrian school?
In economics, the theory of production costs, like the theory of value, exists in two versions: the theory of objective costs; theory of subjective costs.
Recognition of the objective nature of costs is characteristic of the classical school, where the prices of factors of production were derived from natural norms rewards, and their levels were determined by separate theories. Ground rent was defined as a differential surplus over the marginal cost of cultivating the land, wage- the long-term cost of the worker's livelihood, and the profit was a residual value. Within the framework of the classical school, the reality of production costs was not questioned. Representatives of the Austrian school announced that real costs are nothing more than an ancient delusion, and one of the representatives of the Austrian school, F. Wieser (1851–1926), developed a subjective theory of costs. The initial assumptions of this theory are two provisions.
First position says that productive goods are future, potential goods, their value is derivative and depends on the value of the final product that brings immediate satisfaction. Consequently, it is not the costs of production that give value to the products, but, on the contrary, the costs of production acquire value from their products. Consumption goods themselves give value to those productive resources or factors involved in their production.
Second position comes down to the assertion that supply is the reverse side of demand - the demand of those who possess the goods. When enough low prices manufacturers themselves will show demand for their products.
In our example about the horse market, if the market price is lower than the utility value of a horse by a particular seller, he will take it away from the market, since he estimates its utility in his household higher. Costs are nothing more than the necessary payment for the diversion of resources from other uses, as prices offered for the services of factors used for its production by other competing producers.
In this theory, costs are nothing more than a form in which an individual is informed of the "desirability" of the possession of a thing by some other person. But what is the mechanism of formation of the value of productive goods? Having singled out the smallest marginal utility from the sum of consumer goods that are created by a certain production good, Wieser called it the marginal product. Using this concept, Wieser formulated the law: the marginal utility of the marginal product determines the price of the productive good that went into its production, and the corresponding part of the production costs, which determine the marginal utilities of other, non-marginal consumer products produced from the specified good (the so-called Wieser's law).
4.3. Anglo–American School of Economics
In the theory of production costs of the Austrian school, within the framework of the concept of opportunity costs, the value of productive goods was equated with the value of the goods sacrificed to them, bringing direct satisfaction. However, the question remained open as to how much of their value should be attributed to this or that factor of production.
Recall that representatives of the classical school believed that all factors of production (labor, capital, land) participate equally in the process of value creation and receive their share of the created product.
The problem was solved by the American economist J.B. Clark (1847-1938) in The Distribution of Wealth (1899). He formulated the law of diminishing marginal productivity. The law says that in conditions where at least one factor of production remains unchanged, the additional increment of other factors gives a smaller and smaller increase in production. In other words, the marginal product of the variable factor is constantly decreasing.
Based on the law of diminishing marginal productivity, Clark concludes that with a constant amount of capital, each additional worker produces less output than previously adopted. The productivity of the last worker is called the marginal productivity of labor. According to Clarke, only the product created by the marginal worker can be considered a product of labor, while the rest of the product, that is, the difference between the "product of industry" and the "product of labor", is a product of capital.
Fundamental to Clarke's theory is the assertion that marginal product in monetary form determines the fair, natural level of income paid to each factor of production. The natural, fair wage rate of the workers in our example will be the price of the marginal product produced by the last worker, that is, the price of eight units of output. If we accept Clarke's assumption that wages are determined by the marginal productivity of labor (the marginal productivity of the last worker), then it is easy to explain the extremely low wages in developing countries, because in conditions of an excess supply of labor in relation to the total capital of society, the marginal product of the last unit social labor will tend to the minimum. However, Clark extends the statement about the reward of a factor in accordance with the value of its marginal product to other factors of production. In particular, in his theory, the value of interest as a product of capital is determined by the unit of capital that gives the smallest increase in production. Other things being equal, diminishing marginal productivity, the greater the value of the total capital of the company, the lower the interest rate. According to Clarke, if there are no barriers to competition, wages, interest, and rent will be the prices of factors of production, coinciding in magnitude with their marginal product or with their marginal productivity.
Note that in Clark's model of pricing for production factors, for the first time after the classics of political economy, the production and distribution processes have a single basis - the marginal product of factors.
1.3 Fundamentals of social production
production and needs. The Law of Elevation of Needs
Production
- this is the process of human impact on the substance of nature in order to create material goods and services necessary for the development of society.
Historically, it has come a long way of development from the manufacture of the simplest products to the production of the most complex technical systems, flexible reconfigurable complexes, computers. In the process of production, not only the method and type of production of goods and services changes, but also the moral perfection of the person himself takes place.
Under production in modern economic theory, it is customary to understand any activity of members of society in the use of natural resources. Human resources are also included in natural resources. The purpose of production activity is to create material and non-material benefits necessary for an individual member of society and society as a whole. Not-rarely in use under production activities only the creation of material goods is understood. It seems that such an interpretation of this category is inherited from the Marxist-Leninist political economy, where activities in the so-called material production, and all other activities were considered second-rate. At the same time, one should also take into account significant differences between the activities of workers in various fields production.
Distinguish between material and non-material production.
material production includes sectors for the production of material goods / services (industry, Agriculture, construction, public utilities, consumer services, catering, transport).
Non-material production associated with the production (provision) of non-material services and the creation of spiritual values (health, education).
In any society, production serves to satisfy its needs.
Needs- this is the need for something necessary to maintain the life of an individual, a social group or society as a whole.
TO specific feature needs include their "irreversibility": with varying degrees of intensity in any situation, they change, as a rule, in one direction - towards growth.
Types of needs: material, spiritual, security needs.
The number of types of goods, goods, services that people need is in the millions, however, their range is constantly expanding. This is evidenced by the fact that every ten years the number of types of consumer goods and services more than doubles, while the volume of consumption of many types increases at the same time. So the needs are growing quantitatively and even more so qualitatively. This pattern, confirmed by the long history of mankind, deserves to be singled out and can be called the law of the rise of needs.
Labor is the expedient activity of people to create material and spiritual goods aimed at satisfying needs.
The most important element of labor is goal-setting, that is, before starting an activity, a person mentally represents the finished result of his work.
The second part of labor is the relations between people about production, that is, the relations of property, the relations of social groups and classes.
Resources and factors of production, their classification
Production and economic activity, regardless of its type, has a universal feature, a universal property: it is always the transformation of certain types of resources into an economic product (Fig. 4).
Rice. 4. Scheme of actions of the production and economic system
Resources- a set of various elements of production that can be used in the process of creating material and spiritual goods and services.
Resource types:
1) Natural resources are part of the totality natural conditions human existence, the most important components environment used in the production process;
2) Material resources are represented by all means of production, which are themselves the result of production (means and objects of labor);
3) Human Resources represented labor force, that is, the population of working age;
4) Financial resources represented in cash, which society allocates for the production process;
5) Informational resources- this is the data necessary for the functioning of automated production and its management using computer technology.
production factor- a particularly important element or object that has a decisive impact on the importance and effectiveness of production, these include:
1) land;
2) labor is represented in the process of production by the labor of the workers employed in it;
3) capital represents the means of production involved in production and directly participating in it.
The factors include only those of the above, which in this moment directly involved in the production process.
Figure 5 shows an example of different output volumes with a change in the degree of use of production factors.
L
Rice. 5. Output volumes for different values of factors
production
An important factor in relation to resources is resource saving- a set of measures for the thrifty and efficient use of production factors. It is provided through the use of resource-saving technologies, contributes to the growth of the efficiency of the economy, increasing its competitiveness.
Reproduction, its types and phases
Every process of production, regardless of its social form, must be continuous. Just as society cannot stop consuming, so it cannot stop producing. The continuous production of material goods is the objective basis of the existence of human society.
If production is considered as a continuously renewable process that includes distribution (as a category of economic science, it is not only the distribution of the results of social production (final goods and services in a market economy), but also the distribution of resources and factors of production), exchange (the act of obtaining what - or desired with the offer of something in return) and the consumption of goods and services produced (a process that involves the use of indirect goods, or means of production to create new utilities), then this is reproduction.
In the analysis of the process of reproduction, one cannot proceed from the assumption that a commodity is exchanged for a commodity, and that the supply of one commodity is at the same time the demand for another commodity. Therefore, as the bourgeois classical economic theory (D. S. Mill, J. B. Say, D. Riccardo) believed, supposedly there is always a balance between supply and demand, and the overproduction of goods on a social scale is impossible. In reality, all commodities are exchanged for money, and the circulation of commodities cannot be reduced to an exchange of commodities, and even more so to a simple exchange of products.
Reproduction- continuous renewal of socio-economic processes, in particular the production of material goods and services. Distinguish between simple and extended reproduction.
Simple reproduction- this is a process in which reproduction is renewed from year to year in unchanged sizes. Simple reproduction means that the volumes of factors of production used, including capital and labor, in this case remain unchanged. With the same productivity of these factors, the size of production and the value of output also do not change.
Extended reproduction is the resumption of production on an ever-increasing scale. Expanded reproduction involves the growth of one or more factors of production, carried out, as a rule, at the expense of new capital investments, which, ceteris paribus, leads to an increase in the scale and efficiency of production. The result of expanded reproduction is an ever-increasing mass of the social product.
The following phases of reproduction are distinguished: rise, decline, depression and revival.
Contradictions of the "resources - needs" system and the mechanism
their permissions
The contradictions of the "resources - needs" system are that resources are limited, and needs are unlimited.
In economic theory, there are absolute and relative scarcity of resources.
Thus, the principle of limited economic resources is comprehensive, and in connection with this, in the economic literature it is called fundamental, and the problem of limited resources is considered to be one of the determining ones.
With all the importance and significance of the principle of limited resources, it should not be absolutized. In relation to a number of resources, in many situations the constraint condition is not rigid, the interchangeability of resources is possible. In such situations, the task is how best and more efficiently to use the available, in principle sufficient, resources. For example, in the Russian economy, many natural resources become scarce not because of their natural scarcity, but due to depressingly inefficient use.
In economic theory, such a concept as "alternative possibilities for the use of resources" is used. An example of an alternative is given in Table 1.
Table 1
Alternative opportunities for butter and gun production
Possibilities |
guns |
Oil |
Absolute scarcity is understood as the insufficiency of production resources to simultaneously meet the needs of all members of society. But if the circle of needs is narrowed, then in this case the absolute scarcity of resources becomes relative, because for a limited circle of needs, resources are relatively unlimited.
The mechanism for resolving this problem is to increase the efficiency of production and the efficiency of distribution of economic resources.
Product or benefit as a result of production. Goods classification
Product- the result of the functioning of production, the result of the labor expended.
Regardless of the conditions of production, all factors are used to make the product.
Consider the simplest option, when one factor is used to manufacture product (1):
where A - factors of production, Q-product, f-function.
Good- this is everything that contains a certain positive meaning, namely an object, phenomenon, product of labor that satisfies a certain human need and meets the interests, goals, aspirations of people.
Goods classification:
1) material goods include: natural gifts of nature (earth, air, climate); production products (buildings, products, machines, structures, tools);
2) intangible benefits - these are benefits that affect the development of human abilities, are created in the non-productive sphere: health care, education, art, cinema, etc. There are two groups of intangible benefits:
a) internal - given to a person by nature, which he develops in himself of his own free will (voice, singing, ear for music);
b) external - this is what the outside world gives to meet needs (reputation, business connections, protection);
3) economic benefits are those benefits that are the object or result of economic activity, that is, which can be obtained in limited quantities compared to the needs that they can satisfy;
4) non-economic benefits are provided by nature without human efforts.
Market organization of the economy
If the product of labor is intended for sale, then it is put on the market with the aim of bringing it to the consumer.
Market is a system of economic relationships between business entities, which is based on exchange relations and payment for all goods and services.
The market as an economic category is a set of specific economic relations and connections between buyers and sellers, as well as resellers about the movement of goods and money, reflecting the economic interests of the subjects of market relations and ensuring the exchange of products of labor.
Market elements:
1) demand - a need provided by money for certain time;
2) supply - the quantity of goods that a manufacturer can offer to the market in a certain time;
3) competition - rivalry between producers of goods and services for the sales market, the conquest of a certain market segment.
Market subject: producer and buyer of material goods and services.
Market object: the result of material production.
Signs of the market: the presence of demand, supply, exchange, consumption, capital, subject and object of the market.
The market can be associated with both production and spiritual spheres. Accordingly, it has a diverse structure.
According to the functional purpose of the presented goods, they are divided into:
1) Markets for consumer goods and services. This group includes markets for: consumer goods - food and non-food products; service markets - household, transport, communal; markets for housing and buildings for non-industrial purposes.
2) Markets for factors of production. They include: real estate markets; tools of labor; raw materials and materials; energy resources; mineral.
3) Financial markets. These are: capital markets, that is, investment markets; credit markets; markets valuable papers; currency and money markets.
According to the objects of exchange, there are markets for goods, services, capital, securities, labor, currency market, market of information and scientific and technical developments. With increasing involvement in manufacturing process scientific and technological achievements immeasurably increases the importance of the information market and scientific and technical developments. Its components are the market of innovations, inventions; information product market (information services sector); the market for the product of creative labor (books, films, etc.).
In the spatial context, a local (local) market is distinguished, which is limited to one or several regions of the country; a national market covering the entire national territory; worldwide, global, including all countries of the world.
According to the mechanism of functioning, there are:
- free market, regulated on the basis of free competition of independent producers;
2) a monopolized market, where the conditions of production and circulation are determined by a group of monopolies, between which monopolistic competition is maintained;
- state-regulated market, where an important role belongs to the state, which uses economic instruments of influence.
According to the mechanism of functioning, there are markets of perfect and not perfect competition. The market of perfect competition is a self-regulating system of market relations. To the market imperfect competition include monopolized and regulated markets.
In accordance with the current legislation, a distinction is made between the legal, or official, market and the illegal, shadow market.
According to the degree of saturation, an equilibrium market is distinguished, in which supply and demand approximately coincide; a scarce market when supply exceeds demand.
The information market is highlighted. A commodity in such a market is a specific product - information, the importance of which in production and public life has increased tremendously over the past decades.
Market functions:
1) Regulating function. With the help of it, the main micro- and macro-proportions are established in the economy, in production and exchange. Ensures the proportionality and balance of the economy, involves the impact of the market on all areas of the economy, ensures the coordination of production and consumption in the assortment structure, the balance of supply and demand in terms of price, volume and structure;
2) Reproductive function. The market affects all phases of reproduction - production, distribution, exchange and consumption. Connecting the producer and consumer, coordinating their activities, the market spontaneously ensures the continuity of the reproduction process. Through the market, huge flows of material resources, goods and services are sent from owners to consumers, and in exchange for them, in cash, the funds necessary to continue the production process move towards them;
3) The stimulating function is to encourage a person to create new products;
4) The pricing function is to create prices for goods;
5) The controlling function consists in exercising control over everything that happens in the market.
6) Information function. Through the market, the consumer receives information about the goods.
7) The function of realizing the interests of market entities.
Market infrastructure is a system of specialized organizations designed to facilitate the functioning of individual markets (wholesale and retail trade system).
A commodity is a product of labor produced for sale.
The property of a product to satisfy the production, social, personal or other needs of people is called consumer value.
As long as the labor and needs of people exist, the products of labor and nature will have this property. Therefore, in its original manifestation, use value is a natural property of the good.
It should be noted that one and the same product of labor can satisfy diverse needs, just as one and the same need can be satisfied by different use values.
The main economic problems facing society
Society is a probabilistic system, during the development of which far from all potential possibilities are realized, and the unpredictability of many events is a general pattern.
There are a number of main economic problems facing modern society:
1) Which of the goods and services should be produced and in what quantity? (What to produce?) individual person can provide for himself necessary goods in various ways: produce them yourself, exchange them for other goods, receive them as a gift. Society as a whole cannot have everything immediately. Because of this, it must decide what it would like to have immediately, what it can wait to receive, and what it should refuse altogether.
2) How should goods and services be produced? (How to produce?) There are various options for the production of a set of goods, as well as each good separately. By whom, from what resources, with the help of what technology should they be produced? Through what organization of production? According to different projects, you can build an industrial and residential building, according to different projects, you can produce cars, use a piece of land. The building can be multi-story and single-story, a car can be assembled on a conveyor or by hand, a piece of land can be sown with corn or wheat.
3) Who is the product for? (For whom to produce?) Since the number of goods and services created is limited, the problem of their distribution arises. Who should use these products and services, benefit from them? Should all members of society receive the same share, or should there be poor and rich, what should be the share of both? What should be given priority - intellect or physical strength? The solution of this problem determines the goals of society, the incentives for its development.
4) The growing importance of information in the life of society.
5) Changing the position and role of man in the world, his relationship with nature and technology. It is most commonly defined as the appearance information society and information man, a kind of collective intelligence of the inhabitants of the planet;
6) The rise of a new economic consciousness, the emergence and development economic man;
7) Limited resources and limitless needs.
A need is a need, a need for something that requires satisfaction. This is such a physiological or psychological state of a person, felt as a lack of something that creates an incentive to labor activity and aims the individual to receive rewards, i.e. getting the desired benefit.
The motive of labor is the motive for the labor activity of an individual, caused by his interests and needs, the satisfaction of which is possible by obtaining benefits that are a vital necessity, with the least moral and material costs.
BASIC CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS OF MOTIVATION AND STIMULATION OF WORK
Motivation of labor activity - this is the desire of an employee to satisfy his needs for certain benefits through labor aimed at achieving the goals of the organization.
In the process of motivation of labor activity, labor motives are formed and function. The motives of labor activity are part of the totality of human motives. They are formed when at the disposal of society (or the subject of management) there is a necessary set of benefits that corresponds to the socially determined needs of a person. To acquire these benefits, the labor efforts of workers are needed. It is labor activity that opens up the opportunity for an employee to receive these benefits with less material and moral costs than other types of activity.
A motive in the broad sense of the word is a motive, a reason, a reason for any action, an act of a person, caused by his interests and needs.
The formation of the motive of labor occurs in several stages:
- stage 1 - a person's awareness of his needs, the satisfaction of which is possible through labor activity;
- stage 2- an idea of the benefits that a person can receive as a reward for work;
- stage 3- the mental construction of the process by which a connection is made between needs and the goods that satisfy them. Weighing, evaluating the costs that a person must incur in order to receive the benefit, setting the price of labor activity;
- stage 4- labor activity, satisfaction of needs and receipt of remuneration.
Of great importance for the formation of labor motives is the assessment of the probability of achieving goals. If obtaining the desired good does not require special personal efforts, or if this good is very difficult to obtain, i.e. super-efforts are required, then the motive of labor is most often not formed. In both cases, the motive of labor is formed only when labor activity is, if not the only, then the main condition for obtaining the benefit.
If the criterion in distribution relations is status differences (position, qualification grades, degrees, titles, etc.), work experience, belonging to a certain social group(veteran, disabled person, participant in the war, single mother, etc.), then motives for promotion are formed, career development, receiving a rank, degree or title, securing a workplace, etc., which do not necessarily involve the worker's labor activity, as they can be achieved through other activities.
The strength of the motive is determined by the degree of relevance of a particular need for the employee. The more urgent the need for a certain good, the stronger the desire to receive it, the more actively the worker acts. A feature of labor motives is their focus on themselves and others, due to commodity production. The product of labor, having become a commodity, as a use value satisfies the needs not of the worker himself, but of other people, while the goods satisfy the needs of the worker through their value.
The market economy, through the mechanism of competition, harmonizes the motives “for oneself” and “for others”. The planned economy under the conditions of the command-administrative system led to a mismatch of these motives, since in it the worker gave to society significantly more than he received for his work. The reaction to this was a decrease in the quality of labor, a deterioration in the consumer properties of manufactured products.
The deeper the gap between what the worker gives to society and what he receives in return, the less such labor motives as duty to people, society as a whole, the desire to bring benefit to people with his work mean to him. At the same time, the motives of material remuneration for labor are hypertrophied in his mind. These processes develop most strongly when the level of payment of the worker is significantly lower than the cost of the required product.
A great influence on the decrease in the strength of the motive "for oneself" "professional burnout"- a set of negative mental experiences, exhaustion from prolonged exposure to stress caused by intense interpersonal interactions, accompanied by increased emotionality. "Professional burnout" occurs under the conditions if the employee evaluates his work as insignificant, is not satisfied professional growth, lacks independence, role uncertainty due to fuzzy requirements for him, overload or underload, etc.
The consequence of the decline in the importance of labor motives “for others” is deprofessionalization workers. Raising Care professional qualifications ceases to be relevant because consumer properties manufactured products have no personal meaning, are not related to the satisfaction of their own needs.
There are several groups of labor motives that together form single system. These are the motives of the meaningfulness of labor, its social utility, status motives associated with the public recognition of the fruitfulness of labor activity, motives for obtaining material benefits, as well as motives focused on a certain intensity of work. On fig. 1.1 shows the motives that encourage better work.
The structure of the process of forming the motive of work implies the presence of the following elements:
1) need, that the employee wants to satisfy;
2) good, capable of satisfying this need;
3) labor activity, necessary to receive a benefit;
4) labor cost as the physical and moral costs of its implementation.
Let's take a closer look at these elements..
Needs play an important role in human development. The meaning of organizing a person as a living being is not to always have everything, but to ensure that at a certain moment this necessary manifests itself. Needs are active in nature and serve as an incentive for a person to activity, which in the end is always aimed at satisfying needs: in carrying out his activity, a person strives to satisfy them more strongly and more fully.
Human activity is the most important factor in the formation of needs: the wider and more multifaceted it is, the more diverse and richer the needs of a person and the more fully they are eventually satisfied. The source of the development of human needs is the relationship between the production and consumption of material and spiritual goods. Satisfaction of needs leads to the generation of new needs, and this distinguishes a person as a subject of the historical process that transforms the natural and social environment, from an animal that only adapts to the environment.
Good in the broad sense of the word is what a person strives for, what he needs. In the ethical sense, good acts as a synonym for the concept of good. In philosophy, good means something that contains a certain positive meaning. In economics, the benefits at the disposal of society are considered in two aspects: from the point of view of their usefulness (the ability to satisfy a certain human need) and from the point of view of a person’s contribution to their production, which corresponds to the concepts of “use value” and “ price". In the process of the formation of the labor motive, the benefits acquire their stimulating function as a means of satisfying human needs.
Let's give a definition of the good that is provided to the employee by the organization where he works.
Good - this is what satisfies the needs, brings well-being to the employee, this is the remuneration that he receives as a result of his labor activity in a particular organization.
Labor activity - it is a conscious, energy-consuming, aimed at creating material and spiritual values (benefits), a generally recognized expedient human activity that requires effort and work.
Through labor activity, with the help of tools of production, a person modifies the objects of nature and adapts them to satisfy his needs. In order for a motive to work to be formed, the benefits at the disposal of the organization and the actual needs of employees must be connected precisely by labor activity.
A person is motivated to work by the need to acquire material goods for himself and his family, the desire to do something that is interesting, the desire for self-expression (in this case, through work), i.e. motives of a personal nature, as well as an awareness of the need to benefit society, a desire to help other people, a social attitude to the need for work, i.e. public impulses.
Living in modern society, the individual most often does not have other ways to realize his needs, except through work. But at the same time, the implementation of labor activity occurs in different people in different ways: for some, with passion and "light"; for others - with reluctance and "creaking"; for others, with inevitability; the fourth - with pleasure and joy.
What drives a person, what encourages him to active activity, what underlies this or that behavior? Basically, human behavior is associated with the motivation of labor activity, in which the leading role belongs not to physiological, but to economic and psychological mechanisms, since the analysis of the situation, the choice of goals and the construction of an action plan are carried out consciously under the influence of one's own life experience, intellectual resources, culture and other factors.
But, living and working in society, a person cannot but depend in his decisions and actions on the influence of the environment. The formation of motivation is influenced by the social environment, the features of the content and nature of work, the way of life of the family and the immediate social environment, the moral and ethical standards and moral principles declared in society.
Therefore the path to good governance the modern worker lies through the understanding of the motivation of labor activity. Only knowing what motivates a person, what motivates him to work, what motives underlie his actions, can one develop effective system forms and methods of managing labor behavior and answer questions about why some people work with interest and pleasure in the same conditions, while others are dissatisfied with everything?
Why does one person need to be praised in order to get a high result, and another person needs to be paid for? It depends on the motivation of labor activity how and in what direction a person's abilities will be used. It determines the intensity and perseverance in the implementation of labor activity and the achievement of its results. Motivation of work activity is, in fact, an orientation towards work, formed due to the combined action of motives and incentives that encourage a person to be active in the process of exercising the labor function.
Any activity is associated with certain costs and has a price..
The price of an employee's labor activity is determined by the physical and moral costs associated with its implementation. High intensity of labor can scare away workers if there are not sufficient conditions for the restoration of working capacity. Poor organization of labor, unfavorable sanitary and hygienic conditions at work, underdevelopment of the social and domestic sphere in many cases determine such a strategy of labor behavior in which the employee prefers to work less, but also receive less, since the price of intensive labor is unacceptable for him.
However, another situation is also possible, when an employee, in order to maintain a certain level of well-being, is ready to pay with his health for additional benefits: allowances and benefits related to working conditions; increased pay for overtime work, etc. Moreover, the society, establishing such benefits, sanctions such a situation.
People consciously appreciate possible options behavior, try to choose the shortest path to the desired result. But a person makes a decision in favor of carrying out this or that action, having weighed all the pros and cons, i.e. determining the price of their labor activity.
For example, a modern person can satisfy material needs by exchanging money for the goods or services he needs to meet his needs. Then his actual need is to have money. How to get them? The first, most obvious way to modern man- earn. If this method is the only or main source of satisfaction of this need, a motive for this activity will form - a motive for work. But modern society provides other opportunities - to win money in the lottery, to pawn existing values in a pawnshop, to borrow.
If any of these types of activity involves less expenditure of energy, effort on the part of a person and will have the same opportunities to satisfy needs and obtain the desired benefit, then a motive for this type of activity will be formed, and not for work. Which of the activities a person chooses in the specific conditions of the actualization of the need for money depends on many conditions. The determining role in the formation of motives, along with the inherent characteristics of the individual, is played by the image, level and quality of life of his family and the immediate social environment. It is through them that the assimilation of real (and not declared by society and others) social norms and value orientations takes place.
In the process of labor activity, human energy is transformed into a certain behavior, the expected result of which is the effective joint actions of employees that implement the plans of the organization. Organizational mechanisms come into play that encourage employees (an individual, a group of people or a team) to work to achieve the specific goals of the organization and the specified results of work.
These actions (stimulation) are carried out by the subject of management (the state, enterprise management bodies, immediate supervisor, etc.), setting in motion the process of forming labor motives - the motivation of labor activity.
L.S. Vygotsky noted that “the motive is in in a certain sense reaction to a stimulus and that stimuli, as it were, call allies (settings) to life, introduce them into battle and fight for a common motor field, armed with motives ... ". It would be more accurate to call a reaction to a stimulus not the motive itself, and the process of its formation is motivation.If a motive is an internal conscious motivation, then incentives are a set of values (benefits) that act as an object of aspirations.The benefits that an organization can provide to an employee in exchange for fulfilling predetermined conditions are a basis that, under certain conditions, can create incentives for labor activity.
Obviously, the greater the number of diverse needs a person realizes through labor, the more diverse the benefits available to him, and also the lower the price he has to pay compared to other types of activity, the more important role labor in his life, the higher his labor activity.
From this it follows that incentives can be any benefits that satisfy significant human needs, if their receipt involves labor activity. In other words, the good becomes a stimulus for labor if it forms the motive of labor. In one case we are talking about an employee seeking to obtain a benefit through labor activity (motive), in another - about a management body that has a set of benefits necessary for an employee and provides them to him under the condition of effective labor activity (incentive).
The motive of labor is formed when labor is, if not the only, then at least the main prerequisite for obtaining good. Then the good acquires a stimulating function and becomes a stimulus for labor.
In economic theory, the concept of "material good" is poorly developed. It is believed to be clear. In addition, there is indicative list good, so scientists think little about it. At the same time, the phenomenon has a number of features that are worth dwelling on.
The concept of good
Even the ancient Greek philosophers began to think about what is good for a person. It has always been perceived as something positive for the individual, bringing him pleasure and comfort. But for a long time there was no consensus about what it could be. For Socrates, it was the ability to think, the human mind. An individual can reason and form correct opinions - this is his main goal, value, purpose.
Plato believed that the good is a cross between rationality and pleasure. In his opinion, the concept cannot be reduced to either one or the other. The good is something mixed, elusive. Aristotle comes to the conclusion that there is no single good for all. He closely links the concept with morality, arguing that only the correspondence of pleasure with ethical principles can be good. Therefore, the state assigned the main role in creating benefits for a person. From here came two traditions to consider them a model of virtue or a source of pleasure.
Indian philosophy singled out four main benefits for a person: pleasure, virtue, benefit and liberation from suffering. At the same time, its component is the presence of a certain benefit from a thing or event. Later, material wealth began to be correlated and even identified with the concept of God. And only the emergence of economic theories translates reflections on the good into a practical area. By them in the broadest sense is understood something that satisfies the requirements and meets the interests of a person.
properties of goods
In order for a material good to become such, it must meet certain conditions and have the following properties:
- the good must be objective, that is, fixed in some material carrier;
- it is universal, as it has significance for many or all people;
- the good must have social significance;
- it is abstract and intelligible, as it reflects in the minds of man and society a certain concrete form, as a result of production and social relations.
At the same time, goods have the main property - this is utility. That is, they should bring real benefits to people. This is where their value lies.
The good and the needs of man
In order for a good to be recognized as such, several conditions must be met:
- it must meet the needs of the person;
- the good must have objective properties and characteristics that allow it to be useful, that is, to be able to improve the life of society;
- a person must understand that the good can satisfy his certain requirements and needs;
- a good person can dispose of it at his own discretion, that is, choose the time and method of satisfying needs.
To understand the essence of goods, you need to remember what needs are. They are understood as internal incentives that are implemented in activities. The need begins with the awareness of need, which is associated with a feeling of lack of something. It creates discomfort of varying degrees of intensity, an unpleasant feeling of lack of something. Makes you take some action, look for a way to satisfy the need.
A person is simultaneously attacked by several needs and he ranks them, choosing the most relevant ones to satisfy first. Traditionally, biological or organic needs are distinguished: in food, sleep, reproduction. There are also social needs: the need to belong to a group, the desire for respect, interaction with other people, the achievement of a certain status. As for spiritual needs, these requirements correspond to the highest order. These include cognitive need, the need for self-affirmation and self-realization, the search for the meaning of existence.
Man is constantly busy satisfying his needs. This process leads to the desired state of pleasure, gives in the final stage positive feelings, to which any individual aspires. The process of emergence and satisfaction of needs is called motivation, as it makes a person carry out activities. He always has a choice of how best to achieve the desired result and he independently selects best ways removing the scarcity. To satisfy needs, the individual uses various objects and it is these that can be called good, since they lead a person to a pleasant feeling of satisfaction and are part of a large economic and social activity.
Economic theory about goods
The science of economics could not ignore such a question of the good. Since the material needs of a person are satisfied with the help of objects produced on the basis of resources, then the theory of economic benefits arises. They are understood as objects and their properties that can meet the requirements and desires of a person. Feature of the satisfaction process material needs is such that the needs of people always exceed the possibilities of production. Therefore, the benefits are always less than the needs for them. Thus, economic resources always have a special property - rarity. There are always fewer of them on the market than necessary. This creates an increased demand for economic goods and allows you to set a price for them.
Resources are always needed for their production, and they, in turn, are limited. In addition, material goods have another property - utility. They are always associated with profit. There is the concept of marginal utility, that is, the ability of a good to satisfy a need most fully. As consumption increases, marginal demand decreases. So, a hungry person satisfies the need for food with the first 100 grams of food, but he continues to eat, while the benefits decrease. Positive characteristics different goods may be similar. A person chooses the necessary of them, focusing not only on this indicator, but also on other factors: price, psychological and aesthetic satisfaction, etc.
Classifications of goods
Diverse consumption of material goods leads to the fact that in economic theory there are several ways to divide them into types. First of all, they are classified according to the degree of limitation. There are goods for the production of which resources are spent and they are finite. They are called economic or material. There are also goods that are available in unlimited quantities, for example, sunlight or air. They are called non-economic or free.
Depending on the mode of consumption, goods are divided into consumer and production goods. The former are designed to meet the needs of the end user. The latter are necessary for the production of consumer goods (for example, machine tools, technology, land). Material and non-material, private and public goods are also distinguished.
Tangible and intangible goods
Various human needs require specific means of satisfying them. In this regard, there are tangible and intangible benefits. The first includes objects that are comprehended by the senses. A material good is everything that can be touched, smelled, examined. Usually they can accumulate, be used for a long time. Allocate material benefits of one-time, current and long-term use.
The second category is intangible goods. They are usually associated with services. Intangible benefits are created in the non-productive sphere and affect the state and abilities of a person. These include health care, education, trade, service, etc.
Public and private
Depending on the mode of consumption, a material good can be characterized as private or public. The first kind is consumed by one person who has paid for it and owns it. These are means of individual demand: cars, clothes, food. The public good is indivisible, it belongs to a large group of people who collectively pay for it. This type includes environmental protection, cleanliness and order on roads and in public places, protection of law and order and the defense of the country.
Production and distribution of wealth
Creating wealth is a complex, costly process. Its organization requires the efforts and resources of many people. In fact, the entire sphere of the economy is engaged in the production of various types of material goods. Depending on the dominant needs, the sphere can independently regulate itself, releasing the necessary goods. The process of distribution of wealth is not so simple. The market is a tool, however, there is also a social sphere. It is in it that the state assumes the functions of distribution in order to reduce social tension.
Service as a blessing
Despite the fact that it is customary to understand material goods as a means of satisfying a need, services are also a means of eliminating need. Economic theory today actively uses this concept. According to her, material services are a kind of economic good. Their peculiarity is that the service is intangible, it cannot be accumulated or evaluated before it is received. At the same time, it also has utility and rarity, like other economic goods.
