The elements needed to produce goods and services: land, labour, and capital. Any production process depends upon a particular material configuration of the means of production (Hudson (2008) J. Econ. Geog. 8, 3). Marx believed capitalism to be characterized by a split between the capitalist owners of the means of production, and the proletarians, with only their labour to sell. Akram-Lodhi (2005) J. Agrar. Change 5, 1 notes that the 1980s decollectivization of Vietnamese agriculture has divorced the landless from the means of production.