AGE DEPENDENCY RATIO
The ratio of the number of people of ages which are normally dependent on others (i.e.,
children and old folks) to the number of people who are of working age. The World Bank
generally defines the age dependency ratio as the number of people who are either
younger than 15 or older than 64 divided by the number of people whose ages are 15 through
64. Of course not all working age people actually work (since some are disabled, sick or
unemployed, for example), and some people outside the 15-64 range actually do work
(including not only many older people but also considerable numbers of child laborers),
but the ADR nevertheless gives a rough estimate of the relative number of non-workers to
workers in a given population.
AGITATION
1. [Wide sense:] Oral, printed and visual political works or activity whose purpose is
to influence people’s consciousness and mood, and to motivate them to take political
action.
2. [Narrow (Leninist) sense:] As above, but specifically with respect to a single
issue.
See also:
PROPAGANDA
“Those who make nation-wide political agitation the corner-stone of their programme, their tactics, and their organizational work, as Iskra does, stand the least risk of missing the revolution.” —Lenin, “What Is To Be Done?” (1902), LCW 5:513.
AGNOSTICISM — About the Existence of God
Claiming not to know, or the view that one cannot know, whether or not
God exists. Agnosticism in this sense is most commonly a liberal
evasion of what in this modern scientific age should be considered common sense
materialism, that no such thing as a “disembodied mind”
(as gods and ghosts are supposed to be) can possibly exist.
“But this philosophical idealism, openly, ‘seriously’ leading to God, is more honest than modern agnosticism with its hypocrisy and cowardice.” —Lenin, referring to the neo-Platonists, in a note while reading Hegel’s book Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1915), LCW 38:303.
AGNOSTICISM — Epistemological
Philosophical, or epistemological, agnosticism is the view that no one can really know
anything about the world, at least with any certainty.
See also:
RELATIVISM—Epistemological, and
Philosophical doggerel
about agnosticism.
“Agnosticism (from the Greek words ‘a’ no and ‘gnosis’ knowledge) is a vacillation between materialism and idealism, i.e., in practice it is vacillation between materialist science and clericalism. Among the agnostics are the followers of Kant (the Kantians), Hume (the positivists, realists and others) and the present-day Machists.” —Lenin, “Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Death of Joseph Dietzgen” (May 5, 1913), LCW 19:80.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY
The ratio of agricultural production to the number of workers who produce that production.
For a given crop, the production may be measured by volume or by weight, but for agricultural
production as a whole it must usually be measured by the money value of all the crops added
together. To compare agricultural productivity from one time to another or from one place
to another, the money value must be translated into a single currency which is also adjusted
for inflation. Even so, there will probably be problems in making such comparisons if the
prices of the various crops have significantly changed for non-inflationary reasons (such as
because of supply and demand fluctuations).
AHIMSA
The philosophy of nonviolence as promoted by Mohandas K.
Gandhi. He called nonviolent action itself satyagraha.
AI SIQI [Old style: Ai Ssu-ch’i]
[Pronounced (roughly): eye suh-chuh] (1910-66)
Well-known Marxist-Leninist philosopher in revolutionary China. Mao often sought him out for
philosophical conversations both during the Yan’an (Yenan) period
and in later years. Ai was well-known for his ability to explain and popularize abstract
ideas to the masses, using easy to understand examples and ordinary language, and even
employing Chinese proverbs and well-known literary allusions. His most famous book was
Philosophy for the Masses (c. 1934-36), which—like his other works—has not been
translated into English (unfortunately!).
Ai Siqi was actually a pen name; his
original name was Li Shenxuan. As a young man he was educated in philosophy in Japan, and
returned to China in the early 1930s. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1935, and
went to Yan’an in 1937. There he taught both philosophy and Marxist-Leninist theory more
generally, in higher party schools. In 1937 he published his book Philosophy and Life,
which is said to address the unjustified criticism leveled at Marxism that it has no moral
or ethical principles. Besides his own writing, he also translated many foreign works of
Marxist philosophy into Chinese, including many Soviet books and articles.
In 1949 the CCP started an important
theoretical journal (Study) and Ai was a frequent contributor. He was an important
and influential person in philosophical circles in revolutionary China, and often led in
the criticism of bourgeois and reactionary philosophical ideas including those which
sometimes arose within the Party. Ai was one of the people in charge of establishing the
China Philosophical Society, and was a member of the philosophy and social sciences section
of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. But perhaps his most important contribution was that,
after Mao himself, for three decades Ai was the most important populizer and polemicist in
philosophy in China.
AKRASIA
Greek philosophical term which means weakness of the will, lack of self-control, or doing
something against one’s own better judgment. The first extensive discussion of this topic
was in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, book 7.
AKSELROD
See: AXELROD
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