The article shows that the traditional opposition of positive and normative approaches to each other is incorrect, since in reality the positive (positive) approach is opposed to the negative (negative) approach. The normative approach in the field of economics is in contradictory unity with the real measure of economic processes as their subjective, regulatory side associated with the establishment of rules of economic activity. As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that the reproduction of the commodity form of labor force as a whole includes four types: a) the production of goods through goods, b) the production of people through people, c) the production of knowledge through knowledge, and d) the production of man himself as human capital. In the modern economy, a complex two-way process, which, on the one hand, frees workers from performing heavy and routine operations, and, on the other hand, creates prerequisites for changing the target function of the economy, its real measure: that is, the transition from the production of material wealth to the production of their own human wealth associated with human capital. The development of human capital based on the growth of labor potential and the complexity of the work performed is a kind of “demand of the time” and involves the revival of the institution of labor rationing in the broadest sense, including both economic and institutional aspects.