ABSTRACT
In Marxism, the relations of production are the social relations that exist between the class of producers and the class of owners within an economy. In Marxist theory, all societies are characterised in terms of conflict between two major classes. The subordinate class is the class that actually produces goods and services, through the exercise of its labour power. The dominant class owns and controls the resources that are used in the production process (the means of production), and as such are able to control the production process and the fate of the product. Different modes of production, or historical epochs, are characterised by distinct relations of production and levels of technology (or forces of production). The relations of production are inherently static, and social revolution occurs when the productive potential inherent in developing forces of production can no longer be contained or fully exploited within the existing relations of production. (See mode of production.) [AE]
The notion that the social forms or structures which operate within a culture are neither wholly determined by nor wholly independent of the cultural whole (a notion which is well illustrated by Louis Althusser’s conception of ideological state apparatuses). [PS]
Many attempts have been made to define religion from the points of view of a number of different disciplines: psychologists have characterised it as a projection of human desires (or even as a kind of neurosis), while political thinkers have understood it to be a means of social control which preys upon instinctive human fears. Anthropological definitions, by contrast, attempt to describe religion on its own terms-to understand it from within.
