Notice!
Because of its growing size, this file has been split into these separate files:
Although this older “CO.htm” file still exists (in case there are still links to its contents),
all new entries and revisions to old entries are being made to the above files.
CoBRA
Short for Combat Battalion for Resolute Action. This is yet another Indian government
paramilitary force attempting to suppress the Naxalites (Maoist
revolutionaries).
CODE SWITCHING [Linguistics]
Varying your use of language when speaking to different types of people, or in different
situations, or on different topics, etc.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE [Psychology]
Internal psychological conflict which arises from incongruous ideas and beliefs held
simultaneously. Thus the confusion which results from holding incompatible or incoherent
ideas.
Cognitive dissonance often develops for
a period after someone initially changes their mind about some one important idea. For
example, if a religious person abandons their irrational belief in God, they might for a
time be confused about morality (assuming they previously thought that God’s word was the
source of moral principles). Making one change in a person’s ideas often leads to a
necessary cascade of further related changes, as the person switches from one general
outlook to another, and tries to develop a new coherent overall worldview. Anybody who
learns to seriously think at all has to go through this sort of thing. Thinking necessarily
involves periods of confusion that take time and further thought and/or investigation to
clear up.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
[To be added...]
COGNITIVISM
[In ethics:] The first big division among all the various ethical theories that have
been developed over the centuries is between cognitivism and
non-cognitivism. Cognitivism holds that moral judgments
are meaningful, and that they are either true or false. Non-cognitivism, incredibly, denies
these facts! MLM Class Interest Ethics is of course a
cognitive ethical theory. Thus we say a sentence such as “The U.S. imperialist war against
Iraq is wrong!” is both clearly meaningful, and definitely true!
COINTELPRO
A secret program within the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the U.S. federal government
to frame revolutionaries for crimes they didn’t commit, foment suspicions and conflict
within revolutionary and radical groups, and blacken the reputations of revolutionaries
with all sorts of false accusations and rumors. Although this sort of thing has gone on at
one level or another within the government for well over a century and continues to happen
today, the official COINTELPRO program ran from 1956 to 1971.
COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series
of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political
organizations within the United States. The FBI used covert operations from its
inception, however formal COINTELPRO operations took place between 1956 and 1971. The
FBI’s stated motivation at the time was “protecting national security, preventing
violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order.”
According to FBI records, 85% of
COINTELPRO resources were expended on infiltrating, disrupting, marginalizing, and/or
subverting groups suspected of being subversive, such as communist and socialist
organizations; the women’s rights movement; militant black nationalist groups, and the
non-violent civil rights movement, including individuals such as Martin Luther King, Jr.
and others associated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Congress of Racial Equality, the
American Indian Movement, and other civil rights groups; a broad range of organizations
labeled “New Left”, including Students for a Democratic Society, the National Lawyers
Guild, the Weathermen, almost all groups protesting the Vietnam War, and even individual
student demonstrators with no group affiliation; and nationalist groups such as those
“seeking independence for Puerto Rico.” The other 15% of COINTELPRO resources were
expended to marginalize and subvert “white hate groups,” including the Ku Klux Klan and
National States’ Rights Party.
The directives governing COINTELPRO
were issued by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered FBI agents to “expose, disrupt,
misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” the activities of these movements and
their leaders. [From the Wikipedia entry on COINTELPRO.]
See also: GERONIMO PRATT, RAINBOW COALITION, and COINTELPRO: FBI’s War on Black America
(1989) [high quality 50 min. documentary video by Denis Mueller & Deb Ellis].COLD WAR
The long post-World War II contention between United States imperialism (and its bloc) and
the Soviet Union (and its bloc). This contention came very close to becoming an
inter-imperialist nuclear war at several points, most notably during the
Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. But fortunately
(and rather surprisingly!), all-out war did not happen. The contention was fierce, however,
and involved a number of “proxy wars” by each side against the other, an enormous military
arms race, major economic struggle, and so forth. During the first period (up until the
mid-1950s), the Soviet Union was still a socialist country—though one with many serious
defects—and from then on the Soviet Union was a social-imperialist
country (i.e., socialist in name only, but capitalist-imperialist in actual fact). Thus most
of the Cold War was an inter-imperialist contention between the two capitalist superpowers
armed to the teeth. Humanity was lucky to have survived it!
[More to be added... ]
COLLATERALIZED DEBT OBLIGATION (CDO)
A type of financial security often composed of the riskier portions of mortgage-backed
securities; i.e., a share in a package of bonds or mortgages which is most often created in
order to hide the high-risk nature of these particular bonds or mortgages. Since the risks of
the underlying debt are hidden from view, both credit rating agencies and investors can be
fooled into treating these CDOs as more conservative and valuable investments than they really
are. The financial institutions issuing the CDOs can therefore trick unsuspecting (but greedy)
investors into buying very risky debt by promising high interest rates. Thus even in their
actual purpose, CDOs are yet another form of capitalist financial fraud.
See also:
SECURITIZATION
“COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY” (In the Russian Village Commune)
See: VILLAGE
COMMUNE—Collective Responsibility In
COLLECTIVISM
1. Living and working together as a group (as opposed to
individualism).
2. An ethical theory based on the collective interests of groups of people (such as classes),
rather than on the separate interests of individuals.
COLOMBIA
See: FARC-EP,
WAR ON DRUGS
COLONY [Imperialist]
A country or territory owned, controlled and economically exploited by the ruling class of
another (imperialist) country. In the early period of
capitalist-imperialism (from the late 19th century up until World War II), the possession
and exploitation of outright colonies was the dominant form of modern imperialism. However,
after World War II a variation of capitalist-imperialism, known as
neocolonialism, became the dominant form. Unlike colonies,
neocolonies are not typically controlled and exploited by just a single imperialist country,
but rather in a somewhat more hidden and indirect fashion by the imperialist system as a
whole.
[More to be added.]
“Europe needs colonies. She does not even have enough. Without colonies, from an economic point of view, we shall sink to the level of China.” —Eduard David, a German Social-Democrat, during the colonial period of imperialism, and illustrating the strong support for imperialism by revisionists. Quoted in Robert Clough, Labour: A Party Fit for Imperialism (London: 1992), p. 41.
COLTAN MINING
Coltan is an ore which is a blend of minerals (columbite and tantalite) which are rich in the
valuable elements niobium and tantalum. These elements are now in wide demand for the
construction of cell phones and other electronic equipment.
Although coltan exists in many places in the
world, and China is the largest producer, much of it now also comes from Africa (especially
the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda), and other countries victimized by imperialism
in Latin America and Asia. There are many outrageous cases of child labor, forced labor,
super-exploitation, extremely dangerous working conditions, and other atrocious situations in
these mining regions, including militias backed by different imperialist powers fighting over
this wealth. On top of this, there are many serious and growing environmental problems
related to this mining. Coltan mining is a clear example of the horrors of modern
capitalist-imperialism at large in the world today.
COMEDY
See: HISTORY—As Comedy
COMINTERN
See: COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL
COMMAND ECONOMY
A term used by bourgeois economists to describe planned economies (socialist or
state-capitalist) where there is no (or very limited) open market for commodities at least
within the sphere of production. (Even under socialism distribution of consumer goods to the
public is still mostly through commodity markets until we get to a communist society.)
Bourgeois ideologists oppose these “command economies” to the so-called “free market”
economy, and therefore view “command economies” as inherently authoritarian and opposed
to “freedom”. What they have failed to notice is that within virtually every
capitalist corporation itself, there exists this very same sort of “command economy”! Thus
every automobile corporation makes detailed and elaborate plans about how many cars to build,
in a given period, the processes and materials to use, the design and location of its new
plants, etc. State capitalism in the Soviet Union was also a planned economy for the most
part, and in a sense “one big corporation” with multi-leveled layers of detailed planning.
The commandist (anti-democratic and anti-mass line) structure and operation of revisionist
Soviet industry has colored the conception of bourgeois economists about what a “command
economy” must be like.
Under genuine socialism, and communism too,
it will be important to oppose any actual commandist aspects that may develop in production,
especially within the individual workplaces (where they are nearly universal and mandatory
in capitalist production today). Emphasis on the mass line,
proletarian democratic management of industry, and obtaining ideas and input from all the
workers involved are our main tools to combat the possible secondary bad aspects of economic
planning.
See also:
PLANNING (Economic),
DECENTRALIZATION—Socialist
COMMANDISM
Ordering, or even forcing, people to do something, rather than using the method of
discussion and persuasion to convince them to act. Commandism is a bourgeois method of
leadership, not a proletarian method. But unfortunately, some revolutionaries have not
been adequately trained and educated in the use of proletarian democratic methods. For this
reason commandism within our own ranks is a continuing problem to be struggled against.
“Marxists have always held that the cause of the proletariat must depend on the masses of the people and that Communists must use the democratic method of persuasion and education when working among the laboring people and must on no account resort to commandism or coercion. The Chinese Communist Party faithfully adheres to this Marxist-Leninist principle.” —Mao, “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People” (Feb. 27, 1957), SW 5:391.
“Commandism is wrong in any type of work, because in overstepping the level of political consciousness of the masses and violating the principle of voluntary mass action it reflects the disease of impetuosity. Our comrades must not assume that everything they themselves understand is understood by the masses. Whether the masses understand it and are ready to take action can be discovered only by going into their midst and making investigations. If we do so, we can avoid commandism.” —Mao, “On Coalition Government” (April 24, 1945), SW 3:316.
COMMERCIAL BANK
See: BANK
COMMERCIAL PAPER
Certificates (IOUs) for unsecured short-term loans, often for a 3-month period, from one
corporation to another. Holders of these IOUs can also sell them to other corporations.
COMMISSAR
A government minister (high official) in the Soviet Union.
COMMISSARIAT
A ministry (government agency) in the Soviet Union.
COMMITTEES OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM
The Committees of Correspondence is a social-democratic
(i.e., revisionist and non-revolutionary) organization, originally organized within the
revisionist Communist Party USA as a pro-Gorbachev, anti-Gus Hall faction,
and opposed to what was called “Leninism”
in the CPUSA milieu. They were led by Gil Green and included many prominent members and close
associates of the CPUSA, such as Herbert Aptheker,
Angela Davis and the folk singer Pete Seeger. In 1991, at
the time that Soviet social-imperialism was collapsing,
they split off from the CPUSA to form an independent organization. Their name (appropriately)
comes from the committees organized by the governments of the American states during the
American bourgeois revolution for the purpose of promoting coordinated action against
Britain. In the year 2000 they added the phrase “for Democracy and Socialism” to their name,
which is ridiculous since they have no idea what either genuine democracy or genuine socialism
even are! They are sometimes referred to by their initials as CCDS, and allow dual membership
with the reformist so-called Socialist Party USA.
COMMODIFICATION
1. The transformation (as in a pre-capitalist society) towards the production of more
commodities (goods produced for sale) rather than goods produced for use by the maker of
them.
2. [Modern bourgeois sense:] The transformation of a product into a commodity in the narrow
bourgeois sense [See definition 3 in the entry for COMMODITY below.]
“And while societies can be more capitalist or less capitalist, they are the most capitalist when all inputs (including labor-power) and outputs of the production process are completely commodified.” —Robert Albritton, Economics Transformed: Discovering the Brilliance of Marx (2007), p. 10.
COMMODITY
1. [In Marxist political economy:] A product of labor made for sale, rather than for
direct use. “[A] commodity, that is, a use-value which has a certain exchange-value.”
—Marx, TSV, 1:399.
2. [Widespread broad bourgeois sense:] Any product, regardless of whether it is produced to
be sold or not.
3. [Narrow bourgeois sense:] A product which is produced by a large number of seriously
competing companies, the sale of which therefore cannot create extra profits for any
monopolistic or oligopolistic producer. Thus we see comments such as: “PC’s have become a
commodity, which is why IBM got out of the business of selling them.”
COMMODITY PRODUCTION
Economic production in which goods and services are produced in order to be exchanged for
each other in some form of market. The commodities are produced by individuals or groups of
people who engage in their activities more or less separately and independently from one
another. The most widespread form of commodity production today is of course
capitalism, but commodity production existed in more
primitive and limited forms before capitalism developed, and long before capitalism became
the dominant socioeconomic system in the world.
Commodity production is contrasted
to production in a natural economy (which is production
for direct use without exchange in any market).
COMMON SENSE
The mental skills and ideas that most people in a given society or social era share. Common
sense is much more extensive and complex, and includes vastly more implicit knowledge, than
most people realize. However, it also includes the biases and erroneous conventional opinions
of the given age as well.
“It [common sense] is the mode of thought of its time, containing all the prejudices of this time.” —Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy; quoted in Lenin, LCW 38:273.
COMMUNAL VIOLENCE
This means violence between different “communities” (ethnic or religious groups) in a
society, and is most commonly referred to in connection with India.
See also:
BJP, and HINDUTVA
COMMUNE
See: PARIS COMMUNE,
PEOPLE’S COMMUNES (China),
UTOPIAN COMMUNE,
VILLAGE COMMUNE (Russia)
COMMUNISM
1. Communist society.
2. A social ideal and theory of society in which there are no social classes.
3. [In bourgeois usage:] Any government or political movement which is at least vaguely
or nominally influenced by Marx, Lenin or Mao Zedong, regardless of its real nature.
COMMUNISM — Among Early Christians
“Christianity knew only one point in which all men were equal: that all were equally born in original sin—which corresponded perfectly to its character as the religion of the slaves and the oppressed. Apart from this it recognized, at most, the equality of the elect, which however was only stressed at the very beginning. The traces of community of goods which are also found in the early stages of the new religion can be ascribed to solidarity among the proscribed rather than to real equalitarian ideas. Within a very short time the establishment of the distinction between priests and laymen put an end even to this incipient Christian equality.” —Engels, Anti-Dühring (1878), MECW 25:96.
COMMUNISM — Bourgeois Objections To
[To be added... ]
See also:
FREE RIDER PROBLEM
COMMUNIST
[Marxist sense:] A person who works to bring about the overthrow of capitalism by the
working class, and the transformation of capitalist society into socialism and then into
communist society. Communists attempt to do this collectively, which means they form and
promote revolutionary parties.
“They [Communists] have no interests separate and apart from those
of the proletariat as a whole.
“They do not set up any sectarian
principles of their own, by which to shape and mold the proletarian movement.
“The Communists are distinguished
from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the
proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the
common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In
the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the
bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of
the movement as a whole.
“The Communists, therefore, are
on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class
parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other
hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of
clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general
results of the proletarian movement.” —Marx & Engels, Manifesto of the Communist
Party (1848), Ch. II, MECW 6:497.
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL (COMINTERN)
An international association of communist parties established under the leadership of Lenin...
Also known as the “Comintern” for short, as the “Third International” (since it followed the
Second International), and often simply as “the
International”. [More to be added... ]
See also the sub-topics below.
“The Communist International, that is, the Third International, was a
united international body of the world’s Communist Parties and communist organizations.
After the outbreak of World War I the revisionists who had usurpted the leadership of
the Second International were further unmasked. In unity with the revolutionary Leftists
of various countries, Lenin waged an unrelenting struggle against these types. On March
2, 1919, under his leadership, the First Congress of the Communist International was
held in Moscow, at which the founding of the Third International was officially
announced. In the 24 years from its founding to its dissolution, the Third International
defended Marxism-Leninism and helped the advanced elements of the working class in all
lands to organize revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Parties. It supported the Soviet Union,
the world’s first socialist state, lent assistance to the liberation movements of the
oppressed nations in the East, and carried on an international struggle against fascism.
During World War II, in view of the fact that the growing complexity of the changes
taking place both in various countries and in the international arena had made it
impossible for the existing organizational form to answer the needs of the new situation,
the Communist International, with the unanimous approval of the Communist Parties of all
lands, announced on June 10, 1943 its official dissolution.” —Reference note, Peking
Review, #47, Nov. 18, 1977, p. 26.
[Whether it was actually correct
to dissolve the Comintern in 1943 is a contentious issue, as are many questions about
how the organization actually operated, such as its complete domination by Stalin, and
so forth. —S.H.]
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL — First Congress
“The First Congress of the Communist International was held on
March 2-6, 1919, in Moscow. Fifty-two delegates attended, 34 with the right to vote and
18—with voice but no vote. The following Communist and Socialist parties, organizations
and groups were represented: the Communist Parties of Russia, Germany, German Austria,
Hungary, Poland, Finland, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Byelorussia, Estonia,
Armenia, of the German colonies in Russia, the Swedish Left Social-Democratic Party,
the Norwegian Social-Democratic Party, the Swiss Social-Democratic Party (Opposition),
the Revolutionary Balkan Federation, the United Group of the Eastern Tribes of Russia,
the French Zimmerwaldian Left, the Czech, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, British, French, and
Swiss Communist groups, the Dutch Social-Democratic Party, the American League of
Socialist Propaganda, the American Socialist Labor Party, the Chinese Socialist Labor
Party, the Korean Workers’ League, the Turkestan, Turkish, Georgian, Azerbaijan and
Persian Sections of the Central Bureau of Eastern Nations and the Zimmerwald
Commission.
“The first meeting of the
Comintern passed a decision ‘to consider this meeting as an international communist
conference’, and adopted the following agenda: 1) the inauguration, 2) reports, 3)
the platform of the international communist conference, 4) bourgeois democracy and
proletarian dictatorship, 5) the Berne Conference and the attitude towards socialist
trends, 6) the international situation and the policy of the Entente, 7) the Manifesto,
8) the White terror, 9) elections to the Bureau, and various organizational questions.
“The conference, whose work
centered on Lenin’s theses and report on bourgeois democracy and proletarian
dictatorship, unanimously expressed solidarity with Lenin’s theses and adopted a
decision to refer them to the Bureau for dissemination in the various countries. The
conference also adopted a resolution tabled by Lenin, in addition to the theses.
“On March 4, after the theses and
the resolution on Lenin’s report had been adopted, the conference decided to constitute
itself as the Third International, and to take the name of the Communist International.
On the same day a resolution was unanimously passed to consider the Zimmerwald Left
dissolved, and the Comintern platform was approved, on the following main principles:
1) the inevitability of the capitalist social system being replaced by a communist
system; 2) the necessity of the proletariat’s revolutionary struggle to overthrow
bourgeois governments; 3) the abolition of the bourgeois state and its replacement by
a state of a new type, i.e., the state of the proletariat, of the Soviet type, which
will ensure the transition to a communist society.
“One of the most important
documents of the Congress was the Manifesto to the world proletariat, which declared
that the Communist International was the successor of Marx’s and Engels’s ideas as
expressed in the Communist Manifesto. The Congress called upon the workers of the
world to support Soviet Russia, and demanded non-interference by the Entente in the
internal affairs of the Soviet Republic, the withdrawal of the interventionist troops
from Russian territory, recognition of the Soviet state, the raising of the economic
blockade, and the resumption of trade relations.
“In its resolution on ‘The
Attitude Towards the “Socialist” Parties and the Berne Conference’, the Congress
condemned the attempts to re-establish the Second International, which was ‘an
instrument of the bourgeoisie only’, and declared that the revolutionary proletariat
had nothing in common with that conference.
“The establishment of the Third,
Communist International played a tremendous part in restoring links between the
working people of many countries, in forming and consolidating Communist parties, and
in exposing opportunism in the working-class movement.” —Note 73, LCW 31.
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL — Second Congress
“The Second Congress of the Communist International met from
July 19 to August 7, 1920. The opening session was held in Petrograd and the
subsequent sessions in Moscow. It was attended by over 200 delegates who represented
workers’ organizations of 37 countires. Apart from delegates representing the
Communist parties and organizations of 31 countries, there were delegates from the
Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany, the Socialist parties of Italy and
France, Industrial Workers of the World (Australia, Britain and Ireland), the National
Confederation of Labor of Spain and other organizations.
“Lenin directed all the
preparatory work before the Congress. At its first session he made a report on the
international situation and the fundamental tasks of the Communist International.
Throughout the Congress, in his reports and speeches, Lenin fought uncompromisingly
against the opportunist Centrist parties, who were attempting to penetrate into the
Third International, and levelled sharp criticism at the anarcho-syndicalist trends
and ‘Left’ sectarianism of a number of communist organizations. Lenin took part in
the work of various commissions and delivered reports and speeches on the international
situation and the fundamental tasks of the Communist International, the national and
the colonial questions, the agrarian question and the terms of admission into the
Communist International. Lenin’s theses on the fundamental tasks of the Second
Congress of the Communist International, the national and the colonial questions, the
agrarian question and the terms of admission into the Communist International were
endorsed as Congress decisions.
“The Second Congress laid the
foundations of the programme, organizational principles, strategy and tactics of the
Communist International.” —Note 77, LCW 31.
COMMUNIST LEAGUE
The first international organization of the revolutionary proletariat, which was founded in
London in the summer of 1847.
“The League was organized and guided by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, who, on instructions from the League, wrote its programme—the Manifesto of the Communist Party. The Communist League set itself the aim of overthrowing the bourgeoisie, destroying the old bourgeois society founded on the antagonism of classes and establishing a new society without classes and without private property. The Communist League played an important historical role as a school for proletarian revolutionaries and as the embryo of the proletarian party; it was the predecessor of the International Working Men’s Association (the First International). It existed until November 1852, its most prominent members later playing a leading role in the First International.” —Note 7 to Lenin, Selected Works, vol. I, (Moscow: 1967).
COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
The world-famous and deeply profound document written by Marx and Engels in 1847 and first
published in February 1848. Its formal title is The Manifesto of the Communist Party. It
contains the first and probably still the best overall summary of the theoretical principles of
Marxism and the strategy and tactics of the Communist revolutionary movement.
The Communist Manifesto is online in
numerous places, including:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
“It [the Communist Manifesto] was commissioned by the Second
Congress of the Communist League in November 1847, and it was first published in February
1848.
“This was a stormy period: the period
of the February 1848 Revolution in France and of the climax of the
Chartist Movement in Britain, when the working class
appeared for the first time on the stage of history as an independent force.
“Readers who want to know something
of the background of the Manifesto should read the various prefaces—written by Marx
and Engels to different editions (published with the Manifesto), and should also
turn to Engels’ History of the Communist League and Marx’s Class Struggles in
France, 1848-50.
“The Manifesto was an
epoch-making document. Up to that time, socialists had been putting forward utopian schemes
(imaginary projects for an ideal society) or were engaging in secret conspiracies, while
the rising working class movement lacked a revolutionary theory. The Manifesto
signified the union of scientific socialism with the mass working-class movement.
“The fundamental ideas of the
Manifesto may be summed up under five main headings:
1. The Theory of the Class Struggle
“The history of all societies since
the break-up of the primitive communes has been the history of class struggles.
“In capitalist society a stage has
been reached when the victory of the exploited class, the proletariat, over the ruling
exploiting class, the bourgeoisie, will once and for all emancipate society at large from
all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.
“The conception of the working class
struggle set forth in the Manifesto follows from Marx’s materialist conception
of history, the essentials of which are summarized in Engels’ prefaces to the English
edition of 1888 and to the German edition of 1883.
2. The Development of Capitalist Society
“Capitalism itself developed out of
feudalism, and the capitalist class is itself the product of a long course of development,
of a series of revolutions in the mode of production and exchange.
“The capitalist class has conquered
exclusive political sway in the modern parliamentary state. In its development, it has
played a most revolutionary role. It has brought into being the great new productive forces
of modern industry. But in creating modern industry it has created its own gravediggers,
the proletariat.
3. The Development of the Proletariat
“The growth of the proletariat as a
class is accompanied by the growth of its organization, both economic and political.
“At first the proletariat is incoherent
and scattered. It is originally dragged into the political arena by the bourgeoisie, which
must appeal to the proletariat to help fight the remnants of feudalism. The Manifesto
deals with the stages of political development through which the proletariat becomes
organized into a class, and consequently into a political party, combined against the
bourgeoisie.
“While the proletariat fights against
all relics of feudalism and for the fullest extension of democracy, it leads the struggle
for socialism against the capitalists, a struggle which must culminate in the proletariat
conquering power and becoming itself the ruling class.
4. From Socialism to Classless Society
“With power in its hands, the
proletariat makes drastic inroads into the power of the capitalists and into capitalist
property relations.
“From the rule of the proletariat will
come classless society, in which will arise new people, new human relations—‘an association
in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.’
5. The Aim of the Communist Party
“The Manifesto contains a
trenchant defense of the aims of Communism, and it exposes various fashionable brands of
‘socialism’ as expressions, not of the working-class standpoint, but of the reactionary
standpoints of other classes—of the decaying aristocracy, the petty-bourgeoisie or the
bourgeoisie itself. The ideas of Communism, on the other hand, are not inventions of any
would-be reformers, but spring from the existing class struggle.
“Communists have no interests apart
from those of the working class as a whole. Their policy is to fight for the immediate
aims of the class, to form an alliance with every movement opposed to the existing social
order, and in the movement of the present always to take care of the future, striving to
unite the class for the overthrow of capitalist class rule and for the conquest of power.”
—Maurice Cornforth, Readers’ Guide
to the Marxist Classics (London: 1952), pp. 6-7.
“The Communist Manifesto of 1847 is an extraordinary document, full of insights, rich in meanings and bursting with political possibilities. Millions of people all around the world—peasants, workers, soldiers, intellectuals as well as professionals of all sorts—have, over the years, been touched and inspired by it.” —David Harvey, in his introduction to an edition of the Communist Manifesto.
COMMUNIST MORALITY
1. The morality of people in communist society.
2. The morality of communists (i.e., the same thing as
proletarian morality while classes still exist). [I personally try to use the term only
in the first sense, in order to avoid confusion. —S.H.]
COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA
[Usually referred to in short as the “CCP”, for Chinese Communist Party, rather than the
“CPC”.] This is the great revolutionary party founded in 1921, and which—under the leadership
of Mao Zedong—led one of the greatest revolutions in world history, achieving state power on
the mainland of China in 1949. During the 1950s it transformed China into a socialist country,
both in industry and through cooperatives and the people’s communes in the countryside. It then
engaged in a massive ideological struggle against the revisionist Soviet Union, and against
revisionists and capitalist-roaders within its own ranks. These revisionists were pushed from
positions of power in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, and until Mao’s death in 1976. Unfortunately, at that point the proletarian
revolutionary followers of Mao were defeated. Under the leadership of the arch villain Deng
Xiaoping, China was transformed back into a capitalist country.
[More to be added...]
See also the sub-topics below.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA — Party Congresses
| National Congresses of the Chinese Communist Party | |||
| Congress | Opening and Closing Dates |
Place Held | Comments |
| First | July 23-31, 1921 | Shanghai and (on the last day only) Jiaxing, Zhejiang |
12 delegates representing 50 party members. Zhang Guotao & Chen Duxiu are top leaders; Mao represents Hunan. |
| Second | July 16-23, 1922 | Shanghai | 12 delegates; 195 party members. Mao absent. |
| Third | June 12-20, 1923 | Guangzhou | About 30 delegates; 420 members. |
| Fourth | Jan. 11-22, 1925 | Shanghai | 20 delegates; 994 members. |
| Fifth | April 27-May 9, 1927 | Hankou | About 80 delegates; 57,967 members. |
| Sixth | June 18-July 11, 1928 | Moscow | About 84 delegates (plus 34 alternates); membership about 40,000. Held outside China because of reactionary GMD attacks. Mao absent. |
| Seventh | April 23-June 11, 1945 | Yan’an [Yenan] | 544 reg. delegates; 1.21 million members. Mao named undisputed leader & Mao Tse-tung Thought added to Party Constitution. |
| Eighth (1st Session) |
Sept. 15-27, 1956 | Beijing | 1,026 delegates; 10.73 million members. Mao Tse-tung Thought removed from Constitution. |
| Eighth (2nd Session) |
May 5-23, 1958 | Beijing | |
| Ninth | April 1-24, 1969 | Beijing | 1,512 delegates; 22 million members. Liu Shaoqi & Deng Xiaoping removed; Lin Biao becomes Vice-Chairman. Mao’s Thought added back into Constitution. |
| Tenth | Aug. 24-28, 1973 | Beijing | 1,249 delegates; 28 million members. Lin Biao condemned. This is the high tide of proletarian revolutionary power in the CCP. |
| Eleventh | Aug. 12-18, 1977 | Beijing | 1,510 delegates; 35 million members. Deng Xiaoping reinstated in all previous posts. |
| Twelfth | Sept. 1-11, 1982 | Beijing | 1,600 delegates; 40 million members. Hu Yaobang replaces transitional figure Hua Guofeng. |
| Thirteenth | Oct. 25-Nov. 1, 1987 | Beijing | 1,936 delegates; 46 million members. New generation revisionist Zhao Ziyang replaces partially retiring Deng Xiaoping. |
| Fourteenth | October 12–18, 1992 | Beijing | 1,989 delegates; 51 million members. Jiang Zemin is CCP General Secretary. Hu Jintao elevated to Politburo Standing Committee. |
| Fifteenth | September 12–18, 1997 | Beijing | 2,074 delegates; 60 million members. Jiang Zemin announces plans to sell or close most state-owned enterprises. |
| Sixteenth | November 8–15, 2002 | Beijing | 2,114 delegates; 66 million members. Hu Jintao becomes General Secretary. Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” nonsense added to CCP Constitution. |
| Seventeenth | October 15–21, 2007 | Beijing | 2,217 delegates; 73.4 million members. Hu Jintao’s bourgeois ideas enshrined in Party Constitution as the official guiding ideology. |
|
[Sources: Colin Mackerras & Amanda Yorke, The Cambridge Handbook of Contemporary China (1991), and various Internet sites.] | |||
COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA — Revisionist Period (1977-?)
[To be added...]
“We are the Communist Party, and we will decide what communism means.” —Chen Yuan, a top banker and a leading member of the contemporary CCP. Quoted in “‘The Party is like God’”, The Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 2, 2010, p. 42; originally quoted in Richard McGregor, The Party (2010).
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST)
The largest revisionist so-called “Communist” party in India, most often referred to by
their initials as the “CPM”. [More to be added... ]
“How uncivilised, if the wave of ‘boss-napping’ in France is indeed
sinister. [Referring to the article “Vive la différence!”, The
Economist, May 9, 2009.] It was different in West Bengal in the 1970s when the
Communists [CPM] took power. One afternoon, a colleague was informed that he and I
would be gheraoed (sourrounded, literally) at close of day
by the staff at the Calcutta office in protest at our regressive management policies.
Alarmed at what would be a delayed start to the usual whisky session at our club, we
negotiated and were granted permission by the protestors to leave early, go home to
shower, change into comfortable clothing and return suitably armed with our favoured
libation.
“And so we spent our evening
surrounded by 35 staffers who made impassioned speeches and gave high-decibel calls
for death to capitalists as we depleted a bottle of Black Knight. It didn’t much
improve the taste of the whisky, and the calls for our demise did at times seem over
the top. But sinister? Not at all.” —Letter from Stanley Pinto of Bangalore, India,
to the editor of the British ruling class business magazine, The Economist, May
30, 2009, p. 20. [It is clear that even back in the 1970s the CPM was merely pretending
to be revolutionary. Their calls for the “death of the capitalists” were merely part
of their stage play secretly conducted along with the capitalists and designed
to fool the masses.]
COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRAN (MARXIST-LENINIST-MAOIST)
A Maoist party founded on May 1, 2001, as a continuation of the Union
of Iranian Communists (Sarbedaran). Its party organ is called Haghighat [“Truth”].
It was a member of RIM while that organization existed, and has often
been viewed as being closely aligned with the RCPUSA.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF NEPAL (United Marxist-Leninist)
A totally revisionist and politically decadent bourgeois party, which has long since given
up any serious pretense of being a revolutionary party. It is one of the three largest
parties in Nepal and provides a rather transparent “left cover” for bourgeois forces there,
and generally takes very similar positions to that of the openly bourgeois party, the Nepali
Congress.
“The Vice Chairman of Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist Leninists (UML) Mr. Bam Dev Gautam has opined that there exists no difference between his own party and Nepali Congress. He made this remark in the district of Dang, November 3, 2010. ‘People have begun feeling that there is no difference between my party and the Nepali Congress’, he said and added, ‘We have failed because we cannot differentiate between our friends and foes.’” —Telegraph Nepal, Nov. 4, 2010.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION
[To be added... ]
COMMUNIST PARTY OF TURKEY/MARXIST-LENINIST [TKP/ML]
The largest and most important revolutionary (anti-revisionist) Communist party in Turkey. Note
that this Party uses a slash (“/”) in its name; there are (or have been) other similarly named
parties which use other punctuation.
The TKP/ML was founded in 1972, and its great
founding leader was Ibrahim Kaypakkaya who was tortured
to death in prison in 1973. The TKP/ML’s most important periodical is called Partizan
[“Partisan”]. It has a military wing, “TIKKO” (Liberation Army of Workers and Peasants of Turkey),
which is engaged in guerrilla warfare.
Many of the documents and statements of the
TKP/ML are available online at:
http://www.bannedthought.net/Turkey/index.htm
COMMUNIST PARTY OF TURKEY (MARXIST-LENINIST) [TKP(ML)]
A different party than the TKP/ML. One of its documents, “Maoism—Lives, Fights, Wins and Keeps
Winning!”, from 1997, is posted at:
http://www.bannedthought.net/Turkey/index.htm This party later renamed itself
as the Maoist Communist Party of Turkey and North Kurdistan.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF TURKEY/MARXIST-LENINIST — Hareketi [“Movement”]
A party which split off from the TKP/ML in 1976. It renounced Maoism and people’s war in 1980,
and leaned strongly toward Hoxhaism and the Albanian Party of Labor.
In 1994 it merged with the Communist Workers Movement of Turkey (TKIH) to form the Revolutionary
Communist Workers Movement of Turkey.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF TURKEY/MARXIST-LENINIST (Maoist Party Centre)
A party founded in 1987 as a split off from the TKP/ML. One of its documents (from 1990) is
posted at:
http://www.bannedthought.net/Turkey/index.htm
COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [CPUSA]
A liberal-radical reformist political party which has been hopelessly revisionist for most of
its history. When the Soviet Union existed it slavishly followed orders from Moscow.
[More to be added... ]
COMMUNIST REVOLUTION
The social revolution which transforms capitalism into communism, via a transitional stage
of socialism, and in the process eliminates all social classes
and therefore all exploitation of one class by another. The
“Four Alls” listed by Marx state the four essential points of
communist revolution.
COMMUNIST REVOLUTION — Bourgeois Fear Of
[Intro material to be added...]
“A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism. All the Powers
of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar,
Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.
“Where is the party in opposition that
has not been decried as Communistic by its opponents in power? Where the Opposition that
has not hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced
opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?” —Marx & Engels,
opening words to the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), MECW 6:481.
COMMUNIST SOCIETY
A classless socio-economic system in which all the means of production are owned
and controlled by the people as a whole. The basic economic principle of communist
society is “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”
See also:
SOCIALIST SOCIETY
COMMUNISTS — Aims Of
The long-term goal of communists to is bring about communist
society. However, there are many more immediate tasks which must be carried out for this
to occur, each of them with many sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks. The communists must:
Organize themselves into a political party;
Connect themselves up closely with the
class struggles of the working class;
Educate the working class on the need
for social revolution and what that means;
Help the working class organize
itself for revolution;
Lead the working class and its allies
in seizing political power;
After this seizure of power, transform
capitalism into the transitional stage of socialism;
Lead the working class in struggling
against any attempts by the old (or any newly developed) bourgeoisie to return to power; and,
Lead the working class in transforming
socialism into communism, where no social classes exist any longer.
“The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.” —Marx & Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. II: MECW 6:498.
“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.” —Marx & Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV: MECW 6:519.
“The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.” —Marx & Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV: MECW 6:518.
“While actively leading immediate struggles, Communists in the capitalist countries should link them with the struggle for long-range and general interests, educate the masses in a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary spirit, ceaselessly raise their political consciousness and undertake the historical task of the proletarian revolution. If they fail to do so, if they regard the immediate movement as everything, determine their conduct from case to case, adapt themselves to the events of the day and sacrifice the basic interests of the proletariat, that is out-and-out social democracy.” —A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement: The letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in reply to the letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963), p. 19.
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.” —Marx & Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV, final paragraph: MECW 6:519.
“We Communists do not conceal our political views. Definitely and beyond all doubt, our future or maximum programme is to carry China forward to socialism and communism. Both the name of our Party and our Marxist world outlook unequivocally point to this supreme ideal of the future, a future of incomparable brightness and splendour. On joining the Party, every Communist has two clearly-defined objectives at heart, the new-democratic revolution now and socialism and communism in the future, and for these he will fight despite the animosity of the enemies of communism and their vulgar and ignorant calumny, abuse and ridicule, which we must firmly combat.” —Mao, “On Coalition Government” (April 24, 1945), SW 3:282.
COMMUTING
In the U.S. and most other countries workers no longer live near to where they work, and have
to commute to and from work. Of course, this is time for which they are not paid, and it is
quite substantial. According to the Christian Science Monitor Weekly (March 18, 2013, p.
10), 8.1% of U.S. workers spend more than 60 minutes commuting each way. This is a substantial
part of their non-working, non-sleeping time. The average U.S. daily one-way commute is 25.5
minutes, which is still substantial. About 23% of long-distance commuters use public
transportion.
COMPANY TOWN
A community that is created and dominated by a single capitalist corporation which often owns
the homes of the residents as well as the stores, city agencies and services. The people living
in company towns usually have no choice but to work for the one dominating company, and are
at risk of not only losing their jobs but of also being forced to move away with nothing if they
say or do anything that the company dislikes.
Under capitalism in general, workers are in
effect the property (wage slaves) of the capitalist class as a whole. But those living in
company towns are often not merely wage slaves, but in a condition a step closer to complete
slavery.
Company towns were once fairly commonplace,
especially in the U.S., but over the past century they have become less common, especially with
the great decline of U.S. manufacturing.
“America has had more experience with company towns than any other country
(though presumably China will eventually catch up with America in this, as in everything
else).... At their height there were more than 2,500 such towns housing 3% of the
population.
“Company towns usually came in one of
two forms—the satanic and the Utopian. The satanic type were little better than gulags, where
workers were forced to live in company shacks and spend their money in company shops. You
could pass a lifetime in a company town without knowing any real freedom. But many other
towns were monuments to the Utopian spirit. Benevolent bosses such as Milton Hershey, a
chocolate king, and Henry Kaiser, a shipping magnate, went out of their way to provide their
workers not just with decent houses but with schools, libraries and hospitals. This Utopian
impulse inevitably went hand-in-hand with benevolent bossiness. Hershey served as his town’s
major, constable and fire chief and employed a squad of ‘moral police’ to spy on the
workers.” —The Economist, Oct. 16, 2010, in a review of the book by Hardy Green,
The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills that Shaped the American
Economy (2010).
COMPANY UNION
A labor union, usually of workers at a single company, which is actually controlled (to a degree
or totally) by the management of that company, and which—despite its claims to the
contrary—actually represents the interests of the company and not those of the workers. Company
unions are only possible where at least a significant portion of the workers can be fooled with
regard to what their real interests are.
It should be noted, however, that most
unions, even those which militantly represent the short-term and immediate interests of its
members and which therefore cannot properly be called “company unions”, nevertheless do not really
represent all the interests of their members and the working class as a whole. Typically
even militant labor unions, especially in advanced capitalist countries, do not at all promote the
true political and long-term interests of the working class, and especially their most central
long-term interest—seizing working-class political power through social revolution.
COMPATIBILISM
The philosophical view that free will is compatible with
determinism. In other words, the view that although everything
(including each of our own decisions) has definite causes, we are nevertheless still able ourselves
to decide what actions to take. Dialectical materialism supports this compatibilist viewpoint.
Of course, there are normally reasons (either
explicit or implicit, and either important or trivial) which determine what we consciously decide
to do, but far from precluding a free choice, these reasons are what help us decide
what choice to make. Conscious human beings (and also many other animals, for that matter) are
themselves part of the causal chains that lead to the choices that they make. The parts
of the causal chains that are internal to them, and which they are conscious of, are the parts
they have control over, and therefore manifestations of their free will.
The opposite view, incompatibilism, holds
that if determinism is true (i.e., if everything has causes—including each choice we make),
then free will is impossible. But this is a simple-minded or naïve conception of what “free
will” might plausibly be construed as. Philosophical idealists often
subscribe to incompatibilism, because they do not wish to view people’s actions as being determined
by physical causes. On the other hand, naïve materialists
also sometimes subscribe to incompatibilism because they have a simplistic notion of what “free
will” must mean, a notion similar to that of the idealists. Thus these naïve materialists
accept the fact that everything, including each of our own choices, has causes, but falsely
conclude that this means there can be no such thing as free will.
COMPETITION
1. Under capitalism: The antagonistic struggle between different commodity producers for
more advantageous conditions of production and sale of commodities and for higher profits.
2. SOCIALIST COMPETITION: A non-antagonistic sport-like contest between
different production teams or enterprises to see which is capable of producing more and better
goods for the people while at the same time striving to use less labor and fewer raw materials.
The better methods developed by the winners are then freely communicated to all other socialist
enterprises.
COMPLEMENTARITY (Quantum Mechanics)
A set of related philosophical concepts especially associated with the idealist
Copenhagen Interpretation of
quantum mechanics. On a gross level, complementarity can
simply refer to wave-particle duality in which the
view of entities in the microworld as behaving as waves in some situations complements
the view that these entities behave as particles in other situations. Here the concept of
complementarity can be innocuous, and might only mean that in some experiments and situations
it is useful to view electrons and other subatomic particles as waves instead of
as particles.
However, complementarity usually implies an
idealist philosophical stance, such as the view that microworld entities like electrons are
in fact both waves and particles, or the view that they are “neither” until they are observed
or measured, or the view that electrons and the like actually do not even have any definite
properties at all until they are measured, and so forth. Here is one description of this
conception of complementarity with an unsupported idealist philosophical conclusion at the
end:
“A profound aspect of complementarity is that it not only applies to measurability or knowability of some property of a physical entity, but more importantly it applies to the limitations of that physical entity’s very manifestation of the property in the physical world. All properties of physical entities exist only in pairs, which Bohr described as complementary or conjugate pairs (which are also Fourier transform pairs). Physical reality is determined and defined by manifestations of properties which are limited by trade-offs between these complementary pairs. For example, an electron can manifest a greater and greater accuracy of its position only in even trade for a complementary loss in accuracy of manifesting its momentum. This means that there is a limitation on the precision with which an electron can possess (i.e., manifest) position, since an infinitely precise position would dictate that its manifested momentum would be infinitely imprecise, or undefined (i.e., non-manifest or not possessed), which is not possible. The ultimate limitations in precision of property manifestations are quantified by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and Planck units. Complementarity and Uncertainty dictate that all properties and actions in the physical world are therefore non-deterministic to some degree.” —From the Wikipedia article on Complementarity.
This idealist conclusion that “all properties and actions in the physical world are therefore non-deterministic to some degree” simply doesn’t follow! This is only a limitation on the formulas of quantum mechanics to determine properties and actions beyond a certain level of accuracy, not a limitation on the reality or definiteness of reality itself.
COMPRADOR BOURGEOISIE
The comprador bourgeoisie, or comprador capitalists, refers to that section of the bourgeoisie
within a country (especially a Third World country) which acts as the local agents of one or
another foreign imperialist power and/or the corporations headquartered in one of those
imperialist countries. Thus in China in the period leading up to World War II there was a major
group of comprador capitalists working in league with the Japanese imperialists, and another
major group of compradors working in league with the U.S. capitalists.
COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS
An analysis or evaluation of some situation, phenomenon or process which is thorough, and which
focuses on the most important contradictions at work there, and on all the most important facts
relating to it. This is in contrast to a superficial investigation, or one which focuses only
on a few isolated facts.
COMPROMISES [Political]
[Intro material to be added... ]
“The proletarian party must be flexible as well as highly principled, and on occasion it must make such compromises as are necessary in the interests of the revolution. But it must never abondon principled policies and the goal of revolution on the pretext of flexibility and of necessary compromises.” —A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement: The letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in reply to the letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963), p. 24.
COMPUTER
A data or information processing machine or entity, capable of performing mathematical
calculations and other operations on the input information, and giving output information
as a result.
The first things that were called “computers”
were the human beings who performed mathematical calculations, and especially those who were
set to work on the more complex calculating tasks such as preparing tables of logarithms.
Then mechanical calculators were invented to do some of the computing chores that humans can
do (such as multiplications and divisions). Finally, around the time of World War II and
shortly afterwards, programmable electronic digital computers were invented which soon became
able to perform most or all of the mathematical calculations that humans can do (but vastly
faster and more reliably than humans can), and also an ever larger part of the other
intellectual operations that humans can perform—including image processing, pattern
recognition, semantic processing, recognition of analogies, and so forth.
Though the term “computer” today most often
still refers to the present digital electronic machines with only moderately
sophisticated programming and capabilities (though rapidly improving), there is also the
more abstract philosophical concept of a computer that includes not only existing
machines, and the much more powerful ones that will be constructed in the future, but also
the brains of the higher animals and of human beings ourselves. On this general philosophical
conception of what a computer really is, a human brain is also a computer (or a
complex of multiple computers working together).
See also the topics below.
COMPUTERS — and Society
The development of ever more sophisticated computers is having a profound effect on human
society. It is a major factor in these and other regards:
* Computers are leading to a
qualitative increase in the productivity of human labor, and very rapidly so in a historical
time frame.
* Computers are rapidly leading to
the automation of mental work as well as physical labor. [See entry below on
COMPUTERS AND UNEMPLOYMENT.]
* Computers, through their networking
aspect, are allowing the shifting of more and more jobs to low-wage countries overseas.
* Computers are aggravating the
fundamental contradiction of capitalism, that between social production and private
appropriation.
* Computers, therefore, are making
the need for social revolution and the transformation of capitalism into socialism and then
communism all the more urgent.
* Computers will make it all the
easier to construct socialism and then communism, once the working class is able to achieve
political power.
The advent of computers is perhaps the
culmination of the technological revolution that is a prerequisite for social revolution
and the successful full transformation of capitalism into communist society.
Even in socialist and communist society
computers will continue to have long-term profound transformative effects on humanity,
though surely in generally more positive ways than they often have now.
COMPUTERS — and Unemployment
The mechanization of work has been a major and growing trend in society since the industrial
revolution. For a long time the types of work which were moved to machines were hard physical
labor and routine physical operations that were performed over and over again in production.
Human beings were still necessary to guide and control these sorts of machines. So though
these early types of machines did substantially decrease the total amount of human labor
necessary, they did still require some new jobs to be opened up, jobs which often required
higher levels of skills and provided better pay.
Digital computers first began to be
utilized in corporations in the 1950s. In the first few decades of their use they were
mostly employed to do new tasks which were not feasible before, and especially in the
preparation of many detailed business reports to aid managers (which mushroomed far beyond
their level of true usefulness). Only a relatively small number of clerical jobs were lost,
and these were more than made up by the large number of jobs which then arose in data
processing and in the manufacture and servicing of computers and related equipment. This
phenomenon led to a dogma among bourgeois economists and social observers that claimed that
while computers (and technology in general) did eliminate many jobs, on balance they led
to more and better jobs. This, however, was only a temporary situation.
By the 1990s computers were clearly
eliminating more jobs than they were creating, and this trend has really taken off in the
new 21st century and under pressure from the developing economic crisis. The bloated
levels of management and management reports are now being trimmed (under the rubric of
“restructuring”). And the availability of much improved software for the management of
capitalist businesses, along with ever cheaper computer power, is automating more and more
clerical sorts of jobs, and now even much intellectual work (including within data
processing and the computer industry itself!).
In addition, the combination of computers
and industrial machines, which now very frequently take the form of industrial robots, is
also eliminating many of the remaining manufacturing jobs.
We could put the overall situation this
way: The first wave of automation starting in the mid-20th century mostly eliminated many
“blue-collar” manufacturing jobs. The second wave of automation, made possible by computers,
began also eliminating large numbers of “white-collar” clerical jobs, especially from
the 1990s on. And now this second wave of automation is also being extended to so-called
“knowledge workers”, or intellectual work, middle-level management, and so forth. As just
one example of this newest trend, many former extremely well paid Wall Street financial
analysts are now losing their jobs because their work can be done vastly more cheaply (and
generally more reliably) by computers.
The end result is that computers are
enormously intensifying the trend towards higher unemployment under capitalism. Under
socialism, of course, the elimination of onerous work through the employment of computers,
robots, and other advanced machinery, is an extremely good thing, and the benefits from
this will be spread among the entire population. But under capitalism it leads to enormous
unemployment and desperate poverty, and is thus a disaster for the working class. The
root problem is not really with computers, of course; it is instead due to the private
appropriation of wealth by a tiny class of exploiters under capitalism.
COMTE, Auguste (1798-1857)
Reactionary French bourgeois philosopher and sociologist, best known as the founder of
positivism.
CONCEIT (“INDISPENSABILITY”)
“The danger of conceit. Don’t play the braggart. Our cause depends on the many for its success and the few play only a limited role. While the few, that is, the leaders and cadres, play a role that should be recognized, it is not a role of signal importance. The role of signal importance is played by the masses. The correct relationship between the cadres and the masses is such that, necessary as the cadres are, it is the masses who do the actual work, with the cadres giving leadership, a role which should not be exaggerated. Would things be in a mess without you? Things can get along without you, as history and many facts of life can testify.... Confucius has been dead for ages and today we have a Communist Party in China, which is surely wiser than Confucius; this goes to show that we can do better without Confucius. As for good people, they are not indispensable either. Would the earth stop turning without them? The earth will go on turning all the same. Things will proceed as usual or perhaps even better.” —Mao, “Speeches at the National Conference of the Communist Party of China: Concluding Speech” (March 31, 1955), SW 5:166.
CONCENTRATION CAMPS
Concentration camps made their appearance with the advent of
capitalist imperialism. Where there is imperialism, there is
the resistence to it on the part of the subjugated peoples. This always presents a serious
problem for the conquerors, to find some method to keep the oppressed masses of people under
control, docile, and unable to organize and fight against the imperialists. One method
imperialist powers everywhere have learned to use is to force the people to leave their
homes and villages and to live within concentration camps. These are essentially big
prisons, where the inmates activity can be continuously monitored, and where the people can
be kept away from revolutionary ideas and organizers.
In addition, since imperialist wars are
always, in essence, wars against the people of the subjugated country, concentration
camps have very frequently functioned as death camps in actual practice, and even purposeful
genocidal mass extermination camps at times (as by the Nazis).
Concentration camps are of undoubted use
to imperialists, and certainly do make organizing the people to struggle against their
foreign oppressors more difficult. And yet, the use of concentration camps by the
imperialists is also a self-exposure. And the experience of anti-imperialist struggles over
the past century and more shows that a determined anti-imperialist revolutionary movement
can overcome not only the enemy’s use of concentration camps, but all their vicious
tactics.
“The laws governing warfare and conflict make no reference to
concentration camps. But for more than a century, concentration camps have been a
venue for wholesale war crimes and the symbol of the worst abuses against civilians
in wartime.
“It was a Spanish general,
Valeriano Weyler, who established the first reconcentrados or ‘concentration
centers’ in Cuba in his drive to suppress the 1895 rebellion. Britain introduced
concentration camps on a massive scale during the Boer War from 1899 to 1902. To deny
the Boer guerrillas food and intelligence, Gen. Lord Kitchener ordered the British
Army to sweep the Transvaal and Orange River territories of South Africa ‘clean.’
Civilians—women, children, the elderly, and some men of fighting age—were herded
from their homes and concentrated in camps along railway lines, with a view to their
eventual removal from the territory. The Boers, to whom these camps became a symbol
of genocide, called them laagers.
“The Nazis developed a vast
network of Konzentrationslager, using them at first to hold political
prisoners, later slave labor, and finally to annihilate European Jewry and to kill
large numbers of Poles, Russians, and Gypsies. Of the nearly 6 million Jews killed
under Hitler’s ‘Final Solution,’ 2 million died in Auschwitz, the main extermination
camp.”
[The writer then describes over
a number of paragraphs the wretched humanity he personally witnessed when he and
others from the British TV network ITN arrived at an Serbian concentration camp for
other ethnic groups in Bosnia in 1992.]
—Ed Vulliamy, “Concentration
Camps”, in Roy Gutman, et al., eds., Crimes of War (2007), p. 121.
[There have been many other
horrible examples of concentration camps over the past century, including those
used by the Japanese imperialists in World War II in China, the Philippines, and
other countries; and by the United States in its long imperialist war against
Vietnam. In Vietnam some of these were given the euphemistic name of “Strategic
Hamlets” by the U.S. military.]
CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH
See: WEALTH DISTRIBUTION—U.S.
CONDILLAC, Étienne Bonnot de (1715-1780)
French philosopher and economist who was a follower of Locke.
CONDUIT [Contemporary Capitalist Finance]
A “special purpose vehicle” (dummy corporation) set up by a bank
or financial corporation in order to: 1) keep risky assets and deals off of their own
books (to circumvent the legal requirement that they keep larger reserves on hand, which
would cut into their profits); and/or 2) for the purpose of engaging in misleading or
fraudulent financial maneuvers and shenanigans. There are various financial deals that banks
and financial corporations want to profit from, but which are too risky for them to engage
in under their own name, so they set up these dummy corporations to do the same thing under
a different name and to conduct the profits back to the mother corporation.
Conduits typically hold asset-backed debt
(such as mortgages and car loans), credit card
receivables, etc., and often borrow money from third parties (most commonly in the form
of “commercial paper”) in order to buy these risky assets.
Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs) are one particularly devious
type of conduit.
CONFUCIUS (551-479 BCE)
[To be added...]
CONFUCIUS SHOP, The
A term used in China to describe Confucius and the reactionary political and cultural
ideology he represented. The slogan “Down with Confucius’ Shop”, which became especially
prominent in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, meant
breaking down the worship of Confucius and criticizing Confucius and the reactionary
ideology associated with him.
See also the article,
“Ghost of Confucius’ Shop and Actual Class Struggle”, by Chi Fan-hsiu, in
Peking Review, #50, Dec. 12, 1969,
pp. 18-21. Also available separately online at:
http://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1969/PR1969-50-ConfuciusShop.pdf
CONGRESS — United States
Almost all U.S. government institutions are appropriately in ever lower esteem in the
eyes of the American people. But as the results of a series of Gallup polls over the
years show (see graph at right), this is especially true of the United States Congress.
Although most Americans still have a very low class consciousness and do not at all
currently understand just why Congress does not work in their interests, they
certainly do recognize more and more clearly that this is the actual situation.
CONJUNCTURE THEORY
[To be added...]
See also:
Nikolai KONDRATIEV
CONSCIENCE
The internalization of morality within an individual to the degree that it becomes
an automatic response, akin in some ways to an emotion. (The physical location of the
conscience within the brain has been found to be in the prefrontal cortex.)
CONSCIOUSNESS
[To be added... ]
CONSCIOUSNESS — In the Labor Process
“We pre-suppose labor in a form that stamps it as exclusively human.
A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee conducts
operations that puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But
what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect
raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of
every labor-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the
laborer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on
which he works, but he also realizes a purpose of his own that gives the law to his
modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is
no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands
that, during the whole operation, the workman’s will be steadily in consonance with
his purpose. This means close attention. The less he is attracted by the nature of
the work, and the mode in which it is carried on, and the less, therefore, he enjoys
it as something which gives play to his bodily and mental powers, the more close his
attention is forced to be.” —Marx, Capital, vol. I, ch. VII, sect. 1,
(International Pub. ed., p. 178; Penguin ed., pp. 283-4).
[This passage deserves much
closer attention and careful reflection than it is usually given by readers. Marx
seems to be suggesting that not only is this conscious intent and purpose in
the labor process the thing that distinguishes human labor from the activity of
spiders, bees, etc., but—in the context of his conception of the labor theory of
value as whole—he seems to be implying that this somehow explains why human
labor, and only human labor, can create surplus
value in the capitalist production process. But Marx does not explain here, or
elsewhere, why this difference in labor consciousness allows human labor alone
to create new value. Why does this matter? Moreover, if this difference nevertheless
does somehow explain why human labor power can generate surplus value, then we
would be forced to admit that some future computer consciousness controlling machinery
might also be able to create surplus value in a capitalist system of production.
In other words, labor which was definitely “exclusively human” on this definition in
Marx’s era may not always be so! (This idea will be explored further in
Android Thought Experiment and some
sub-entries about the Labor Theory of Value.) —S.H.]
CONSENSUS
General agreement; much more than “mere” majority agreement, and often pushed close to
meaning near or total unanimity.
Social change requires struggle, and by far
the greatest part of social change must occur when a strong majority favors it, even though
there may still be at that point a significant minority that opposes the change. If changes
can only be made when there is near or total unanimity, then most changes cannot be made at
all. This is a point that infantile anarchists are unable to appreciate. The demand for
a consensus before any changes are made is an anti-democratic stance. It obstructs the will
of a majority, and even of an overwhelming majority. It is also undialectical from a
philosophical perspective.
CONSEQUENTIALISM
1. The view that only the consequences of an act are relevant in determining its
moral justification, not the motives or intentions or “duty” of the person performing the
act. Marxist ethics is an example of a consequentialist ethical theory, while Kant’s
ethics is an example of one which is not.
See also:
DEONTOLOGY
“In examining the subjective intention of a writer or artist, that is, whether his motive is correct and good, we do not judge by his declarations but by the effect of his actions (mainly his works) on the masses in society. The criterion for judging subjective intention or motive is social practice and its effect.” —Mao, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art” (May 1942), SW 3:88.
CONSPIRACY THEORY
A theory that a secret conspiracy existed (or continues to exist) which led to some event,
most often some well-known event such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in
1963. Generally conspiracy theories are foolish nonsense cooked up by individuals who may
or may not be right in being suspicious about some event, but who often construct elaborate
stories to explain the event which are based on little or no evidence or investigation.
Thus, while an occasional conspiracy theory might turn out to be true, in general such
theories are a triumph of suspiciousness over investigation.
Sometimes young or naïve revolutionaries
will construct or adopt conspiracy theories about capitalist society. Thus when first learning
about social classes and the dictatorship of the ruling capitalist class, they might jump to
the silly conclusion that this means that there are periodic secret meetings of all the
important capitalists in a big room somewhere where all the important decisions are made.
Such folks are not sophisticated enough to understand that all the ordinary public
institutions of American society, including the Presidency and executive branch, the Congress
and the judicial system, are themselves the means by which the capitalist class makes
its decisions and rules. While there may indeed sometimes be secret meetings of important
big-shots, for the most part the mechanisms of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie are quite
open and public. However, the fact that this system of rule is actually the
dictatorship of one class, the bourgeoisie, is something that is almost never openly
admitted, and may not even be fully understood by all of those who are actually exercising
that class dictatorship.
CONSTANT CAPITAL
The sum total of the value of the means of production:
the factories, machines, raw materials, fuel, electrical power, and other necessary products
and material inputs used up in the production process, but not including
labor-power which is placed in a separate category,
variable capital.
[The above description is the standard
definition of constant capital, as presented by Marx. However, on another interpretation
still within the Marxist milieu, machinery can also be considered to be variable
capital. For discussion of this point see the entries for variable
capital and the Labor Theory of Value.]
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY
Properly speaking, a parliament, congress or Convention elected for the purpose of drawing up a
constitution. Often the difference between a constituent assembly and an ordinary parliament is
quite blurred, as in the case of Nepal in the period from 2008 on. The Nepal Constituent Assembly
has been unable to agree on a new constitution, and so has merely functioned as an interim
parliament.
CONSTRUCTIVISM
A very influential modernist school of painting, sculpture and architecture during the period of
the Russian Revolution and in the early Soviet Union, which itself was influenced by the slightly
earlier modernist school of literature and art known as Futurism.
Constructivism strove to create a three-dimensional version of Cubism using modern industrial
materials such as steel and glass. It rejected traditional easel painting, and realistic
representations of people and nature. Its “constructions” were instead abstract and
non-objective. One of the most prominent artists involved in this artistic movement was
Vladimir Tatlin, who designed a huge tower, “The
Monument to the Third International”, which, however, was never built.
Although the Constructivists opposed
“art for art’s sake”, and sought to promote the
revolutionary reconstruction of Russia, their works tended to appeal much more to the
bourgeois intelligentsia than to ordinary workers and
peasants. Trotsky was the most influential political patron of
Constructivism, even though he was hostile to the Proletkult
movement which was closely connected to it. Constructivism remained very influential in the
Soviet Union until around 1934, when the major promotion of
Socialist Realism began.
See also:
POST-CONSTRUCTIVISM
CONSUMER PRICE INDEX (CPI)
An index of the change in the cost of living in the U.S. which is issued by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics each month. (The CPI-U is for urban areas, and is the one most commonly
referred to.) If the price of a weighted basket of goods and services of the sort that the
“average person” supposedly regularly buys goes up by 1.5% from the month before, the CPI
is said to rise by 1.5%. This figure is distorted by the government in a variety of ways,
including in the selection of which goods to include in this “basket”, the mathematical
weight given to each item, and so forth. Up until the 1990s this index was somewhat more
reliable, though even then no separate statistical series were kept for different classes
and class strata. (Thus the true cost of living can be going up much faster for the poor
than it is for the rich.) But starting in the Clinton Administration the statistical
distortions became qualitatively worse. More recently, with the
“chained CPI” technique now being used, cheaper goods are
regularly substituted for more expensive goods in the basket, making the published CPI
even more phony.
The graph at the right, for the years
2001-2007, compares the official CPI increase percentages with what they would have been if
the method used up until the Clinton years had been continued. As you can see there is a
difference of roughly 3 percentage points between the two! [This graph is
taken from Kevin Phillips, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global
Crisis of American Capitalism (2008), and is based on calculations by the Shadow
Government Statistics website.] A good rule of thumb, therefore, is to add 3
percentage points to whatever the government claims the CPI inrease rate is.
See also:
ECONOMIC STATISTICS—Distortion Of
“The U.S. consumer price index continues to be a testament to the art of economic spin. Since wages, Social Security cost-of-living increases and some agency budgets are tied to it, the government has a vested interest in keeping it as low as possible.” —Columnist John Wasik, Bloomberg News, 2007.
CONSUMER SPENDING (Consumer Share of the Economy)
It is frequently claimed that consumer spending constitutes about 70% of the U.S. economy
(i.e., 70% of GDP). Upon closer inspection, however, this claim does not hold up.
“We often hear consumer spending is 70% of economic activity since ‘personal consumption expenditures’ total $10 trillion out of $14 trillion in GDP. But this overstates the importance of consumers to the U.S. economy. PCE includes imported goods such as consumer electronics, which mainly stimulate foreign production. It also includes nonconsumer items, such as spending by religious groups. All told, household ‘out-of-pocket’ spending drives roughly 40% of U.S. economic activity.” —Michael Mandel, “Reconsidering Consumers’ Impact on the U.S. Economy”, Business Week, Sept. 28, 2009, p. 17. [The 40% estimate is based on the consumer outlays for domestically-produced goods and services, plus half of import-intensive goods, plus 15% of health-care services.]
As that article also notes, the official “personal consumer expenditures” (PCE) portion of
U.S. GDP includes:
• Operating expenses of private
organizations, such as religious groups, and other nonprofit organizations (NGOs) in
excess of sales of goods and services (2% of GDP): However, most of this expenditure is
actually controlled by boards of directors or government funders rather than by households.
• Imputed services (10% of GDP):
Items like the “rental of owner-occupied nonfarm housing”—what, according to idiotic bourgeois
economic theory, you “pay yourself” to live in your own home! But imputed services do not
actually represent household cash outlays or any direct support whatsoever to U.S. economic
activity.
• Import-Intensive Goods (12% of
GDP): Includes clothes, electronics, motor vehicles and parts, gasoline, and other goods with
large import components. But half or more of this expenditure supports foreign production
rather than U.S. production.
• Health-Care Goods and Services
(15% of GDP): Includes almost all health-care outlays by not only consumers, but also by
HMOs and government programs like Medicare. Only about 15% of this category comes directly
from households (though they pay for it all through wage deductions, taxes, or other types of
ripped-off value that workers create).
• Domestically Produced Goods and
Services (31% of GDP): Any consumer good or service produced mainly in the U.S. for sale
here. This category does directly feed into domestic economic activity.
Thus while all wealth comes ultimately
from workers acting on the natural resources of the world, the direct contribution of
consumer-controlled expenditures to the U.S. economy is only in the neighborhood of 40%.
CONSUMERISM
A term often used by both leftists and bourgeois commentators to describe the current mania in
capitalist society for accumulating material possessions. Often, the term will be used when the
commentator in question is too timid (or ignorant) to use the other ‘c’ word. The term
conveniently lets the basic relations of production of capitalism off the hook, because
it makes it seem as though the drive towards commodification and endless buying and selling is
a pathology deriving from outside capitalism (perhaps emanating from “human nature”, a lack of
religious values, or some such. Proposing that capitalism itself should be done away with is
clearly too scandalous for many of these commentators); it also instills the notion that
capitalism is sustainable, so long as people employ “sensible” consumption. Those who push such
notions seem to want to feel that they are “doing something” to alleviate the horrible damage
that capitalism does to the planet and the people on it, while leaving the basic relations of
production, which provide the objective conditions out of which consumer mania arise from,
intact.
Corollaries of consumerism have also been
identified, for example the “marketing orientation” as elucidated by the late Swiss psychoanalyst
and socialist Erich Fromm. He wrote of how the structures and
habits of thought associated with the production and sale of commodities has seeped into
human-to-human relations, affecting even the most intimate aspects of human existence. These are
in fact organic extensions of capitalist production (not simply by “allowing”, as Fromm suggested,
“our means to become our ends”), for capitalism must, by necessity, always seek new ways of
converting capital into more capital and henceforth breaking down every barrier to capital’s
expansion. One of the most insidious examples of the utter depravity of consumerism (i.e., the
current mode of capitalism as it relates to human psychology and social life) is the modern
advertising industry, which constantly aims to find new ways of exploiting personal vulnerabilities
and fears—indeed, engendering such pathologies which it then promises to “fix”—as a means of
cajoling the target audience to buy the product in question. As the writer and activist Noam
Chomsky has remarked, the current system aims to make people as stupid as it’s possible for a
human being to be. Consumerism is part-and-parcel of a society that has reached such extremities
of sickness and filth that many people are even willing to riot over Nike shoes, as happened
recently across the United States when the company released a line of “special edition” sneakers!
Providing a systemic critique of this alienation and bringing it to the masses is one of the most
urgent tasks for revolutionaries, within the broader and more long-term framework of fighting
against material incentives as primary motivations for work.
Material possessions are one of the things that
capitalism has dangled in front of the proletariat to trick them into thinking that they have a
fundamental, objective stake in maintaining the system. Unfortunately, this has worked quite
effectively for a long time, though this is perhaps reaching its limits as the negative aspects
of work under capitalism (such as longer working hours, psychological problems, and stress and
work-related illnesses) have become overtly associated with the self-evidently mindless and
destructive drive to subjugate all of life towards the production of more stuff. Many people are
increasingly turning towards job security and quality of life rather than money as their ideal
reward system for work. Under socialism, there would be a clear drive to improving the overall
material state of the society (in particular in oppressed and poor parts of the world), but this
would be geared towards facilitating cooperative human relations, eliminating hunger and disease,
emancipating work, and bringing culture and intellectual fulfillment to the masses. —L.C.
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
A broad categorization of the sorts of bourgeois philosophy typically engaged in in modern
European countries. It finds its primary precursers in Hegel and
Kant, especially. It is generally highly speculative and
“metaphysical” (in the worse sense of that word). It also
strongly tends toward esoteric terminology and obscurity, often with coinages of new terms
which are rarely adequately defined. It often seems that philosophers in this milieu are more
concerned to obfuscate than to clearly state anything, perhaps because if they were to make
things really clear the vacuity of their work would be all too obvious.
Continental philosophy has a bad reputation
even within other areas of bourgeois philosophy, such as
analytic or
linguistic philosophy (which has been much more
common in English-speaking countries).
Virtually no one describes themselves as
a “Continental philosopher”; instead they are much more likely to characterize themselves as
being within one of the many specific sub-areas or schools encompassed by it, such as French
philosophy, absolute idealism, phenomenology,
existentialism, structuralism,
deconstructionism, and so forth. But bourgeois philosophers
in general dislike being pinned down and categorized. They consider that demeaning.
However, some of the well-known philosophers
who we can quite clearly place in the Continental Philosophy category are (in addition to Hegel
and Kant): Nietzsche, Croce,
Heidegger, Jaspers,
Collingwood, Adorno, Husserl, Sartre,
Foucault, Lyotard, Habermas,
Derrida and Badiou.
Analytic philosophers sometimes consider
Marxist philosophy to be another variety of Continental philosophy, in part because
some Continental philosophers have been superficially influenced by Marxism (such as
Althusser and Badiou). Adherents of genuine Marxist philosophy
(dialectical materialism) consider this inclusion to be a total insult.
CONTRACEPTIVE PREVALENCE RATE
The percentage of women who are practicing, or whose sexual partners are practicing,
any form of contraception. As defined by the World Health Organization, this is
usually measured only for married women of ages of 15 through 49.
CONTRADICTION — Antagonistic
See: ANTAGONISM
CONTRADICTION — Dialectical
[To be added...]
See also:
DIALECTICS,
ONE-INTO-TWO and
Philosophical
doggerel about dialectical contradiction.
“The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics.” —Mao, opening sentence in his famous essay, “On Contradiction” (Aug. 1937), SW1:311.
CONTRADICTION — Fundamental
In any entity or process there is (according to Marxist dialectics) always one contradiction
which is the most fundamental, and which determines the fundamental nature of the thing or
process. [More to be added... ]
See also:
FUNDAMENTAL CONTRADICTION OF
CAPITALISM, WORLD CONTRADICTIONS
(Fundamental)
CONTRADICTION — Logical
[To be added...]
See also:
Philosophical doggerel
about logical contradiction.
CONTRADICTIONS — In Nature
The dialectical contradictions which exist in nature (the physical world) itself. According
to Marxist dialectics, there are contradictions not only in human thought and human society,
but also in the physical world. Those who don’t understand the basic idea of dialectical
contradiction often fail to understand this. Thus Engels quotes Eugen Dühring as saying
“Contradiction is a category which can only appertain to a combination of thoughts, but not
to reality.” [Anti-Dühring, MECW 25:110.] Engels responds by pointing out that
Dühring incorrectly identifies contradiction with absurdity, and therefore
says that contradiction cannot occur in the real world. In short Dühring is not talking
about dialectical contradiction at all, but
rather about logical contradiction. Dialectical
contradiction is a matter of oppositions (or conflict) within things and processes,
while logical contradiction is simply a matter of simultaneously affirming a statement and
denying it. Yes, it is unfortunate that the same term, ‘contradiction’, is used for these two
very different things, but we are stuck with this situation for historical reasons. An
educated person must come to understand that the term ‘contradiction’ means something different
in different contexts. In speaking of contradictions in nature we are of course talking
about dialectical contradictions, and not logical inconsistencies.
[More to be added... ]
CONTRADICTIONS — Within Socialism
See: SOCIALISM—Contradictions
Within
CONTRAT SOCIAL
One of the most important works by Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, which was published in Amsterdam in 1762. The full title is Du contrat social;
ou, Principes du droit politique [The Social Contract; or the Principles of Political
Law]. The central theme of the book is the claim that every society should be the result
of a social contract between the people. This is obviously
a bourgeois perspective, and a philosophically idealist conception. But in the context of
feudal France in the 18th century this ideology played a very progressive revolutionary role.
It put forward the demands for bourgeois equality, the abolition of the privileges of the
land-owning aristocracy, and the establishment of a bourgeois republic to replace the monarchy.
It thus helped prepare the ground for the great French
Revolution of 1789.
CONVICTIONS [Of Crimes]
Being convicted of a crime under a bourgeois legal system does not always mean that the person
is actually guilty of anything; there are many false convictions in the contemporary American
“justice” system, for example. Furthermore, there are many actions which bourgeois governments
call crimes which should not be so called. This often includes people “illegally gathering”
to protest wars, racism and other forms of injustice in society, “illegally speaking out” at
times and places where they are not allowed to do so, “illegally” attempting to stop people from
harming them (such as scabs crossing a picket line or employer’s goons sent to attack them), etc.,
etc.
“More than 2,000 people [in the U.S.] who were falsely convicted of serious crimes have been exonerated in the past 23 years, according to a new archive compiled by two law schools. The most common causes of erroneous convictions were false testimony, mistaken eyewitness identification, and the planting of guns and drugs by police.” —Associated Press news report, quoted in The Week magazine, June 1, 2012, p. 16. [Of course most people who are falsely convicted are never fortunate enough to be exonerated.]
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” —Anatole France, Le Lys Rouge [The Red Lily] (1894), chapter 7.
COOPERATION — In Nature
[Intro material to be added... ]
See also:
KROPOTKIN, Peter
“Of Darwin’s doctrine, I accept the theory of evolution, but assume Darwin’s method of verification (struggle for life, natural selection) to be merely a first, provisional, incomplete expression of a newly discovered fact. Before Darwin, the very people who now, wherever they look, see nothing but the struggle for existence (Vogt, Büchner, Moleshott and others), once laid particular stress on co-operation in organic nature, the way in which the plant kingdom supplies oxygen and food to the animal kingdom and, conversely, the latter supplies plants with carbonic acid and manure, as indicated notably by Liebig. Both conceptions are to some extent justified, but each is as one-sided and narrow as the other. The interaction of natural bodies—both dead and living—comprises harmony as well as strife, struggle as well as co-operation. Hence, if a self-styled naturalist takes it upon himself to subsume all the manifold wealth of historical development under the one-sided and meagre axiom ‘struggle for existence’, a phrase which, even in the field of nature, can only be accepted cum grano salis [with a grain of salt], his method damns itself from the outset.” —Engels, Letter to Pyotr Lavrov, November 12-17, 1875, MECW 45:106-7.
CO-OPTATION
Being absorbed or assimiliated into a group or into a new ideological perspective. Sometimes
the meaning is innocuous, as in “she was co-opted into the central committee”, where
it just means that the person was brought into an existing central committee as a new
member. But often the term implies a sinister intent on the part of those doing the co-opting,
such as in effect bribing someone to change their ideas. Thus the capitalist ruling class
co-opts many young activists into its ideological perspective and system of governance through
such means as offering them paid jobs in political or social work, offering them respect and
acclaim as authors if they say “acceptable” things, etc. So being “co-opted” in this sense
means essentially the same thing as being bought off.
COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION (of Quantum Mechanics)
The absurdly idealist philosophical interpretation of
quantum mechanics put forth by Niels Bohr, Werner
Heisenberg, and their supporters. According to this bizarre conception, there is no such
thing as an objective world until it is perceived (or “measured”) by someone. Heisenberg,
for example, stated that “Some physicists would prefer to come back to the idea of an
objective real world whose smallest parts exist objectively in the same sense as stones or
trees exist independently of whether we observe them. This however is impossible.”
Another physicist, David Mermin of Cornell University, under the spell of the Copenhagen
Interpretation even went so far as to claim: “We now know that the moon is demonstrably
not there when nobody looks.” It is difficult to believe
that anyone can seriously put forward such nonsense!
In response to this sort of foolishness,
Albert Einstein commented: “The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving
subject is the basis of all natural science.” And he
added, more specifically, that “The Heisenberg-Bohr tranquilizing philosophy—or religion?—is
so delicately contrived that, for the time being, it provides a gentle pillow for the true
believer from which he cannot very easily be aroused. So let him lie there.”
[All these quotations are taken from Nick Herbert,
Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics (1987).]
See also:
COMPLEMENTARITY,
SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT
COPERNICUS [KOPERNIK], Nikolaus (1473-1543)
Great Polish astronomer who founded the modern heliocentric conception of the solar
system.
CORPORATE STOCK BUY-BACKS
See: STOCK BUY-BACKS
CORPORATE TAXES [U.S.]
“How much tax do corporations pay? In theory, their top tax
rate is 35 percent—one of the highest in the world. In reality, most U.S. companies
pay far less by exploiting tax breaks and loopholes. Of the 500 major companies in
the S&P 500 stock index, 115 paid a tax rate of less than 20 percent over the past
five years. Nearly 40 paid less than 10 percent. Boeing, for example, paid 4.5
percent in taxes on its profits over the past five years, Southwest Airlines paid
6.3 percent, and Yahoo paid 7 percent, according to research firm Capital IQ. General
Electric, one of America’s largest corporations, reportedly will pay little or no
federal tax on its $14.2 billion in global profits for 2010.
“Has it always been this
way? No. As a result of the loopholes and deductions added to the byzantine tax
code in recent decades, corporations pay a far smaller share of total U.S. taxes
than they once did. In the 1950s, Washington collected 30 percent of all its federal
revenue from business taxes. Last year, it was just 9 percent.” —The Week [a
bourgeois news magazine], Sept. 2, 2011, p. 13.
[Of course it is only liberals
who argue about whether corporate taxes are “too low” or not; Marxist revolutionaries
don’t think capitalist corporations should exist at all. —S.H.]
“Corporations are paying the lowest level of taxes in four decades. Last year companies paid taxes of just 12.1 percent on their U.S. profits, the lowest share since at least 1972 and far lower than the 25.6 percent they paid on average from 1987 to 2008.” —A Wall Street Journal report quoted in The Week, Feb. 17, 2012, p. 38.
See also: TAX LAWYERS, TAX LOOPHOLES, INVERSIONS
CORPORATION
[To be added... ]
CORPORATION — As a “Person”
In 1886 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern
Pacific Railroad Company that a corporation has some of the same legal rights
as a person, a human being, has. Since then this absurd doctrine has been expanded
by the courts as well as in actual practice to cover other legal rights of persons under
the U.S. Constitution. At present this has reached the point where corporations now
ridiculously claim to have the right of “free speech”, and thus supposedly cannot be
prevented from spending millions of dollars to promote politicians who are in their pocket,
nor from indoctrinating the public with reactionary ideas and opinions that suit them.
Corporate capitalism already essentially controls the U.S. and the world, but this is not
enough for them. They want to keep expanding their control and power until it is
absolute, and the masses have no say whatsoever. Thus one liberal bourgeois constitutional
scholar, Garrett Epps, after attending Supreme Court hearings in 2009, expressed the
opinion that some Justices (such as John Roberts and Antonin Scalia) now seem to feel that
corporations do not simply enjoy the same rights as persons, but rather that they
actually enjoy greater rights than mere people do!
“Corporations are people, my friend!” —Mitt Romney, leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, while campaigning in Iowa, Aug. 11, 2011.
CORPORATIONS — Cash Hoards Of
During good economic times and booms, capitalist corporations do not generally keep huge
amounts of cash on hand, beyond what is needed for ordinary operating expenses and a
reserve fund for exceptional situations. Instead, they typically use their excess money
to invest in the expansion of production or else to pay off existing debt.
However, at the present time there is
a still-developing long-term overproduction
crisis in the U.S. and world capitalist economies. In this situation most
corporations can already produce all the goods they can sell with their existing factories
and machinery and have no reason at all to expand production to any greater excess over
what they have already done. Moreover, many of them have either little debt or else only have
long-term, low-interest debt, which does not need to be paid off soon. Furthermore, as of
2014 corporate profits are at or near record levels. In this situation U.S. corporations
are accumulating ever-greater hoards of cash which they simply do not know what to do
with! (Many, however, have been resorting to massive stock
buy-backs, to keep their piles of cash from growing quite so fast.)
In the chart at the right we see the
rapid accumulation of cash by American non-financial corporations over the last few years.
(This does not include the huge piles of money that banks and financial institutions have
also accumulated, let alone the trillions of dollars which the Federal Reserve has created
and made available to banks in its programs of quantitative
easing.)
The Economist noted in its caption
for this chart that:
“Corporate America is holding $1.73 trillion in cash, with the top five companies hoarding almost half a trillion between them, according to a report published by Moody’s Investor Services. The firm estimates $1.1 trillion (or 64%) of the total is being held abroad, a 16% increase on the previous year, as companies choose to take advantage of cheap borrowing costs at home to fund their spending, rather than face the tax bill when repatriating profits. Technology firms are increasingly responsible for this stockpiling of money. Tech companies now hold $690 billion in cash between them, more than double their 2009 holdings, and 40% of the total. Apple alone holds $178 billion.” [May 16, 2015, p. 85.]
CORRECTION [In bourgeois finance]
A substantial fall in a stock market, or other financial market, after a previous large
run up in average prices. Often a fall of 10% in these circumstances is considered to be
a “correction”. The general assumption of speculators is that this correction will soon
reverse itself and the “bull” market will resume.
CORRUPTION
The extra-legal expropriation of wealth by some group or individuals (usually capitalists
and their servants) for their own benefit and personal aggrandizement. Corruption is
officially regarded as an evil in bourgeois society because it degrades the credibility
of the system in the eyes of the proletariat (and in some cases even destabilizes and
threatens the viability of the system itself). Corruption is supposed to be “policed” by
various regulatory and investigative bodies of the state. However, in the era of
monopoly-finance capitalism, the large enterprises and banks have become so powerful that
most “punishments” they receive are effectively little more than slaps on the wrist
designed to placate public hostility. Occasionally, however, some capitalist or servant
of capitalism is convicted of a particularly brazen crime and much fanfare is devoted to
the need for subsequent reforms intended to “prevent” people like this from being
empowered. Of course, corruption—and the personalities that partake in it!—are themselves
organic outgrowths of the basic relations of production in capitalist society, and are
another manifestation of how capitalists become “the embodiment of capital”. —L.C.
“It is hard to say which has sunk lower in the last three years, the monarchy or the republic. The monarchy—on the continent of Europe, at least—is everywhere assuming its final form. Caesarism, at an increasing pace. Everywhere sham constitutionalism with universal suffrage, an overgrown army as the buttress of government, bribery and corruption as the chief means of government, and enrichment through corruption and fraud as the sole end of government, are irresistibly undermining all the splendid constitutional guarantees, the artificial balance of forces of which our bourgeois dreamt in the idyllic days of Louis Philippe, when even the most corrupt were still angels of innocence compared with the ‘great men’ of today. As the bourgeoisie daily loses the character of a class temporarily indispensable in the social organism, shedding its specific social functions to become a mere gang of swindlers, its state turns into an institution for the protection, not of production, but of the overt theft of products.... The republic, however, is not faring any better.” —Engels, “The Republic in Spain” (Feb. 1873), MECW 23:417. [We wonder what Engels would have thought of the vastly more extreme corruption in America today, when Wall Street swindlers control the government and have been literally able to loot it and the public of trillions of dollars over the past few years!]
CORRUPTION — Political
“In the last days of the [parliamentary] session, which ended on Saturday, the Lower House was concerned almost exclusively with election scandals, which have sprung up like mushrooms out of the ground and covered every wall of the Houses of Parliament. There was a fearful stench of corruption, which harmonized excellently with the odors of the Thames and would have nauseated the honorable members if they had not been accustomed to such things. In some cases it was a question of individuals who had bought or sold herds of British voters openly (and that was the offence) like so many herds of sheep...” —From the “Political Review” section of Das Folk, Aug. 19, 1859, MECW 16:637. [This German-language newspaper was published in London and was at this time under the editorship of Marx, who may have written this item.]
CORVÉE LABOR
Unpaid labor which feudal serfs or peasants are forced to supply for whatever purposes a
feudal landlord demands. The amount of such corvée labor required is most often a
traditional arrangement (such as so many days/month).
COSMOPOLITANISM
A term of derision for fully consistent internationalists, used primarily by those
(including Stalin) who seek to combine nationalism and Marxism.
COST-PRICE
[To be added...]
COST OF LIVING INDEX
See: CONSUMER PRICE INDEX
COUNCIL FOR MUTUAL ECONOMIC AID (CMEA)
An intergovernmental council, known familiarly as Comecon, originally set up in
January 1949 by the USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania, to promote
mutual trade and the coordination of the economic plans of the member countries. Even during
the Stalin era the organization tended to serve the economic interests of the Soviet Union
more so than any of the other member countries. (This was an aspect of the “great nation
chauvinism” that Stalin was sometimes guilty of.) But in the revisionist period in the
Soviet Union (mid-50s on) Comecon became more and more simply a means for the social-imperialists
to exploit the other nominally socialist countries under their thumb. This occurred through
bullied and unfair trade agreements, international planning decisions more favorable to the
development of the Soviet Union than to the other countries, and so forth.
Albania joined CMEA in February 1949, East
Germany (the German Democratic Republic) in 1950, Mongolia in 1962, Cuba in 1972 and Vietnam
in 1978. Yugoslavia became an associate member in 1964. In the late 1950s North Korea and
China acquired observer status, though after 1961 China no longer sent observers. After 1961
Albania also no longer participated. Romania weakened its connection to Comecon in 1973 and
moved closer to the European Community.
Comecon was initially hailed by supporters of
the Soviet Union as “the Russian Marshall Plan”. In its early days it did help to develop
the economies of the Eastern European countries. Besides developing general goals for trade
and technical assistance, Comecon organized joint scientific research and development.
In 1954 Comecon moved more in the direction of
economic integration of the member countries through the coordination of the various five-year
economic plans, and in 1955 production priorities were set for each country. Energy policies
were also coordinated. In 1961 “Basic Principles” for the long-term development of member
countries were drawn up. But Khrushchev’s proposals in 1962 for the creation of a single
economic plan and single planning authority for all the countries was rejected by the other
Comecon countries on the grounds that it was a major encroachment on their national
sovereignty. Romania was especially outraged by the Soviet “suggestion” that it should
specialize in agriculture instead of any all-round development of its economy.
In the Brezhnev era the Soviet
social-imperialists further stepped up their efforts to integrate the Comecon economies
under Soviet direction, but there was much resistance to this from all the countries except
Bulgaria whose lacky rulers seemed happy with its assigned agricultural role.
In 1963 Comecon set up the International
Bank for Economic Cooperation as an alternative to the IMF, and in 1970 the International
Investment Bank to finance projects that were part of coordinated five-year plans, and as an
alternative to the World Bank.
The Comecon countries agreed in 1970 to
medium and long-term economic cooperation up to 1980, and a central planning bureau was set
up in Moscow to direct this. In 1987 joint Comecon ventures between some productive
enterprises and research institutes in the USSR and Eastern European countries were
established. But the still crude forms of economic cooperation were illustrated by the fact
that profits from these joint enterprises could be returned in the form of commodities because
of the problems involved in currency negotiations. Overall, trade and economic cooperation
and integration within Comecon declined during the Gorbachev period.
By 1989 the increasingly market-oriented
ideology in all the Comecon countries led to many calls for less economic planning, and there
no longer seemed much point to CMEA to the revisionists. In June 1991 CMEA was formally
dissolved.
See also:
“INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOR”,
“INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST OWNERSHIP”,
“STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION”
COUNTER-REVOLUTION
1. [In bourgeois society:] Opposition to social revolution,
and defense of the oppressive and unjust status quo.
2.The replacement of one socioeconomic formation
with another, lower one (or attempts to do so). This implies a return to an earlier,
more oppressive form of society, and hence a change which is very much against the interests
of the people. After every successful revolution the forces of counter-revolution must be
contended with, and suppressed. (See:
DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT)
“COUNTRYSIDE SURROUNDING CITIES”
See: FOREIGN EXPERIENCE
CPM
See: COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST)
CPSU
See: COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION
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