In the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (in German: Produktionsweise, meaning 'the way of producing') is a specific combination of:

• productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (e.g. tools, equipment, buildings, technologies, knowledge, materials, and improved land).
• social and technical relations of production: these include the property, power, and control relations governing society's productive assets (often codified in law), cooperative work relations and forms of association, relations between people and the objects of their work, and the relations between social classes.