Dictionary of Revolutionary Marxism

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ECONOMIC CRISES
See: CRISES—ECONOMIC, CRISIS THEORIES, DEPRESSIONS, FINANCIAL CRISES, GREAT DEPRESSION OF THE 1930s, OVERPRODUCTION CRISES, PANICS, RECESSIONS.

ECONOMIC CYCLES
Any of a number of different cycles in a capitalist economy which either actually exist, or which are postulated by one or another economist to exist.
        One that certainly exists is the standard industrial cycle that Marx talked so much about, with a period of 5 to 10 years. Marx explained how these cycles occur in terms of the overproduction of capital which builds up and must in one way or another be destroyed in order to clear the ground for the next cycle. At the time when (according to Marx) these cycles first appeared, i.e., in the early 19^th century, they lasted on average about 5 years. During the last part of the 19^th century they seemed to have changed to closer to a 10-year period, according to Engels. Over the past 110 years in the U.S., however, there have been about 25 such cycles (though some have been quite mild), which implies a period of a little less than 5 years again. Some bourgeois economists, not wanting to give any credit to Marx, call this the “Juglar Cycle”, after the French physician and statistican, Clément Juglar, who superficially discussed them in 1860 (long after Marx first talked about them!).
        A quite questionable cycle (or “wave”) is Kondratiev’s Long Wave, which the semi-Marxist Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev could not plausibly explain, but which he identified empirically from historical economic records from the 19^th century. He variously said this cycle had a period of 45, 50 or 60 years. There were indeed long-term ups and downs in the European economies during the 19^th century, but it is doubtful if this was due to some actual economic cycle at that time. (For more on this point, see: Chapter 4 of my work in progress, An Introductory Explanation of Capitalist Economic Crises. —S.H.) However I have argued that beginning in the imperialist era there is in fact a longer economic cycle which led first to the Great Depression of the 1930s, and now to the beginnings of a new depression. This cycle does not, however, have any definite period to it. (See Chapter 5 of the same work mentioned for more on this point.) See also: split-cycle theory.
        In addition to the standard 5-to-10 year cycle, and the possible long-term cycle of non-regular duration, the following economic cycles have also been postulated (on very weak evidence) by bourgeois economists:
        The “Kitchin Cycle”, named after Joseph Kitchin. This is supposed to be a cycle with a period a little over 3 years long, based on inventory fluctuations. According to the bourgeois economist Joseph Shumpeter there are exactly 3 “Kitchin” cycles in one “Juglar Cycle”, and exactly 6 “Juglar Cycles” in one “Kondratiev Cycle”! (This is a kind of economic numerology and pseudo-science!)
        The “Kuznets Cycle”, postulated by Simon Kuznets, which is supposed to be an intermediate cycle between the standard industrial cycle and Kondratiev waves, and lasting around 20 years. Kuznets thought that demographic changes (due to changing birth rates, immigration, etc.) explained these cycles. Why such demographic changes should be imagined to be so “cyclical” is the big mystery here!

ECONOMIC PLANNING
See: PLANNING (Economic).

ECONOMISM   [Often capitalized.]
1. An opportunist trend in the Russian Social-Democratic movement in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century, which focused almost exclusively on promoting the workers’ economic struggle and neglected or even opposed political struggle by the working class against Tsarist absolutism.
2. Similar trends in other countries, such as those which focus almost entirely on trade union and economic struggles and avoid participation in revolutionary political education and struggle.
        Ordinary Economism has little or no real interest in revolution, even as an ultimate goal, and seldom (if ever) talks about it. What is sometimes known as “Left” Economism is a trend which does desire social revolution, but which imagines that the path toward eventual revolution lies through focusing entirely (or almost entirely) on current mass economic struggles and other reforms. The idea here is often that the masses are “not yet ready” to be exposed to revolutionary ideas, and that this will have to come “later”. (Always indefinitely far into the future.) Sometimes it is even supposed that the workers and masses will spontaneously develop revolutionary ideas after engaging in prolonged struggles over reforms!
        On the other hand, the term “Left” Economism is sometimes misused by “left” sectarians. These are people (such as the RCP in the U.S.) who do talk about revolution, but who refuse to participate with the masses in most of their day-to-day struggles over reforms. The revolutionary Marxist approach, in contrast, is to definitely participate in struggles around reforms, but to do so most of all for the purpose of being better able to bring revolutionary ideas to the masses. Strangely, neither “left” Economists nor “left” sectarians are able to understand this basic political method of Marx and Lenin.

“The Economists [in Russia] limited the tasks of the working class to an economic struggle for higher wages and better working conditions, etc., asserting that the political struggle was the business of the liberal bourgeoisie. They denied the leading role of the party of the working class, considering that the party should merely observe the spontaneous process of the movement and register events. In their deference to spontaneity in the working-class movement, the Economists belittled the significance of revolutionary theory and class-consciousness, asserted that socialist ideology could emerge from the spontaneous movement, denied the need for a Marxist party to instil socialist consciousness into the working-class movement, and thereby cleared the way for bourgeois ideology. The Economists, who opposed the need to create a centralized working-class party, stood for the sporadic and amateurish character of individual circles [or collectives]. Economism threated to divert the working class from the class revolutionary path and turn it into a political appendage of the bourgeoisie.
         “Lenin’s Iskra played a major part in the struggle against Economism. By his book, What Is To Be Done?, Lenin brought about the final ideological rout of the trend.” —Footnote 76, Lenin: SW 3 (1967).

EGOISM
1. The view that an individual’s self-interest is (or should be) the only determiner of one’s actions.
2. The ethical theory that morality is (or should be) based on individual self-interest. Ayn Rand was one of the foremost proponents of this quintessentially bourgeois theory of ethics.

ELECTRON
One of the primary components of atoms and matter in general.

“The ‘essence’ of things, or ‘substance’, is also relative; it expresses only the degree of profundity of man’s knowledge of objects; and while yesterday the profundity of this knowledge did not go beyond the atom, and today does not go beyond the electron and ether, dialectical materialism insists on the temporary, relative, approximate character of all these milestones in the knowledge of nature gained by the progressing science of man. The electron is as inexhaustible as the atom, nature is infinite, but it infinitely exists. And it is this sole categorical, this sole unconditional recognition of nature’s existence outside the mind and perception of man that distinguishes dialectical materialism from relativist agnosticism and idealism.” —Lenin, “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” (1908), LCW 14:262.

EMBOURGEOISMENT
Acquiring the characteristics of the bourgeoisie, and especially large parts of their ideology. Sometimes those classes, strata or individuals which are embourgeoised, or made more bourgeois, also acquire some objective characteristics of the bourgeoisie, such as partial bourgeois relationships towards the means of production. (For example, a relatively well-paid worker might buy some shares of stock or make other investments, even though he or she must still continue to hold down a job.)
        A fundamental principle of historical materialism is that the prevailing ideas of any age are ordinarily those of the ruling class. And thus, in bourgeois society, most of the members of other classes are also indoctrinated to one degree or another with aspects of the ideology of the bourgeoisie. In other words, in bourgeois society most of the petty-bourgeoisie and even most of the proletarians are embourgeoised to some degree. However, the term embourgeoisment usually refers to situations beyond this mere superficial indoctrination, and where the members of other classes more deeply internalize bourgeois ideology and habits.
        Embourgeoisment of the working class is more common in imperialist countries like the U.S. wherein a labor aristocracy arises which to some limited degree shares in the spoils the imperialists rip off from other countries. The ruling class has sometimes allowed this to happen in order to keep the workers quiet at home while they exploit the rest of the world. Interestingly enough, however, as economic problems and eventually a major economic crisis develops, the ruling class is forced to drive these relatively well off workers down again. The capitalist necessity becomes that of reproletarianizing the partially embourgeoised working class. This has been happening in the U.S. in recent decades, and as of 2009 is now tremendously speeding up as the intensifying crisis develops in the direction of a new great depression.

“EMBRACES BUT CANNOT REPLACE”
A phrase and concept used by Mao in his Talks at the Yenan Forum which describes the relationship between Marxism and other spheres such as art or natural science. This concept was later borrowed by Bob Avakian, and has apparently become one of the main points in Avakian’s claimed “New Synthesis” of communist theory. Here is what Mao wrote:

“To study Marxism means to apply the dialectical materialist and historical materialist viewpoint in our observation of the world, of society and of literature and art; it does not mean writing philosophical lectures into our works of literature and art. Marxism embraces but cannot replace realism in literary and artistic creation, just as it embraces but cannot replace the atomic and electronic theories in physics.” —Mao, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art” (May 1941), SW 3:94.

Mao seems to mean here that there are many things of value in the world in addition to Marxism, things such as aesthetic values in art and scientific theories of nature, which Marxism by no means rejects or replaces. But ‘embraces’ means not just “accepts” or “welcomes”, but also “to take in or include as a part ... or element of a more inclusive whole” [Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10^th ed.]. Thus while Marxism does indeed accept or welcome aesthetic values and scientific theories of nature, it also seeks to unite them with Marxist principles into an overall coherent world outlook and expression. In art and literature, for example, we by no means identify aesthetic merit with the exposition of or agreement with Marxist ideas and principles; but we do judge works of art based not only on their aesthetic merit, but also on the basis of whether or not they serve revolutionary proletarian interests, both morally and politically.
        Similarly, in natural science, we do use Marxist principles to help arrive at and evaluate scientific theories. Our philosophy, dialectical materialism, is simply the most abstract conceptions which we have derived from all the sciences, and therefore it is not surprising that it is of considerable value in determining and evaluatating new scientific theories even in other spheres besides social science. Even in the natural sciences there are sometimes put forward theories which purport to be scientific, but which can be almost immediately ruled out based on the principles of dialectical materialism. (Two recent examples are “creationism” and “intelligent design”, which have been promoted by Christian fundamentalists within biology and the educational system.) In other cases, certain aspects of a natural science theory must be revised in light of Marxist philosophy or principles. (For instance, we reject “Social Darwinism” even though this was a very secondary aspect of Darwin’s theory of evolution (and was promoted even more by bourgeois reactionaries after Darwin). Similarly, in evaluating the “Big Bang” theory in cosmology, by no means must we accept the religious dogma usually included in it that the universe and “time itself” were “created” in the Big Bang.) Of course, some dogmatists (e.g., Stalin and Lysenko) have gone too far with this evaluation of theories in natural science and rejected some valid and correct theories (such as basic genetics). We must of course carefully guard against that sort of thing happening again!
        In addition to using Marxism to help derive or evaluate theories in natural science, we also insist on using the principles of Marxism (and most fundamentally, the basic interests of the people) as our primary guide in how the discoveries and theories in science are actually made use of in society. For example, the decision of whether or not to build a nuclear power reactor must be made not only on technical grounds, but also in light of the possible severe danger it may have for the people should an accident occur. “While we say that Marxism cannot replace natural science, we do not mean to weaken the guiding role played by Marxism.” [“Repulsing the Right Deviationist Wind in the Scientific and Technological Circles”, Peking Review, v. 19 #18, April 30, 1976, p. 7.]
        There are in fact multiple aspects to what it means when we say Marxism embraces but cannot replace the theories of natural science. And while Mao first put it in these precise terms, this entire general approach to the arts and sciences has been a core part of Marxism from the very beginning. It is thus sheer nonsense to imagine that Avakian has added anything new to Marxism by including this principle of “embracing but not replacing” as a central element in his supposed “New Synthesis”!

EMOTIVISM
The positivistic ethical theory that moral statements are neither true nor false, but merely express the emotions of the speaker. One exponent of this nonsense was Charles Stevenson.

EMPIRIO-CRITICISM
[To be added...]
        See also entry on Lenin’s 1908 book: MATERIALISM AND EMPIRIO-CRITICISM.

“END OF HISTORY”
An absurd notion, briefly entertained by ideologists of the ruling bourgeoisie in the United States, that ideological development, the evolution of society, and all “history” had come to an end, leaving only capitalism, bourgeois democracy and bourgeois ideology to continue to exist until the end of time! (Of course they did not state the notion in quite this way.)
        Marx, of course, characterized all of history (since classes first arose in ancient times) as being the story of class struggle, and this “end of history” claim seems to implicitly agree with that as one of its premises. But when the (revisionist) Soviet Union and its dominion collapsed in 1989-1991, the ruling classes in the U.S. and other “Western” capitalist-imperialist countries were overjoyed and thought that their ideology had permanently triumphed over all their enemies. One of these U.S. bourgeois ideologists, Francis Fukuyama, proclaimed that:

“What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or a passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” —The End of History and the Last Man (1992), an expanded version of his essay “The End of History?”, which appeared in the ruling class journal, the National Interest, in 1989.

Strangely enough, however, the bourgeois ideologists only had a few years to gloat and “history” soon reasserted itself with a vengeance. Capitalist financial crises broke out leading to the major financial panic in 2008 within an overproduction crisis which is already the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. There is also renewed and expanding class struggle and other forms of struggle around the world. Many people are now justifiably starting to wonder if capitalism will be able to survive this new crisis at all!

ENDS AND MEANS
The relationship between “ends and means”, and the general question of what might justify the means to some good end or goal is a major issue of contention and confusion within bourgeois ethical theory. It arises from the fact that often the only means available to achieve a given desirable end are themselves not good or desirable. (For example, to stop a murderer, it might be necessary to kill him.) So how then can these less than desirable means be justified?
        The answer is actually quite simple. The means are justified on two conditions:
        1) The overall result, including both the means and the end added together, is still on balance good and desirable; and
        2) There is not any obviously better (i.e., more moral) means available to achieve that same end.
        See also: Philosophical doggerel relevant to this question.

ENEMY, The
[In Marxist, especially Maoist, usage:] The bourgeoisie, its agents, and strata from other classes which support it, in opposition to “the people”.

“Kindness to the enemy is cruelty to the people. If you do not oppress the exploiting classes, they will oppress you. In advocating ‘no oppression’ China’s Khrushchov [Liu Shaoqi] was in fact trying to abolish the dictatorship of the proletariat.” —Proletarian revolutionaries of the Political Academy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is Dictatorship by the Masses”, Peking Review, #44, Nov. 1, 1968, p. 15.

ENGELS, Frederick   (1820-95)
Co-founder, with Marx, of scientific social theory (Marxism) including its philosophy, dialectical materialism. In their conscious division of labor Marx concentrated on political economy while Engels focused on philosophy, science and military questions.

“So this volume is finished. It was thanks to you alone that this became possible. Without your self-sacrifice for me I could never possibly have done the enormous work for the three volumes. I embrace you, full of thanks!” —Marx, in a letter to Engels upon the completion of volume I of Capital, August 16, 1867, in Marx-Engels Selected Correspondence (Moscow: 1975), p. 180; with very slight differences in MECW 42:405.

ENLIGHTENMENT, The (or the AGE OF REASON)
The period of European thought (esp. French, but also Scottish, English and German) from the early 17^th century to the early 19^th century. Thinkers of this period put forward the view that reason should govern people’s ideas and human existence, and that this would lead to the liberation of humanity. Prominent individuals of the Enlightenment include Voltaire, Rousseau, D’Alembert, Diderot, d’Holbach, Montesquieu, Francis Bacon, Helvétius, Hobbes, Locke, and Leibniz.

“The great men, who in France prepared men’s minds for the coming revolution, were themselves extreme revolutionists. They recognized no external authority of any kind whatever. Religion, natural science, society, political institutions—everything was subjected to the most unsparing criticism; everything must justify its existence before the judgment-seat of reason or give up existence. Reason became the sole measure of everything.” —Engels, Anti-Dühring (1878), MECW 25:16.

“Every form of society and government then existing, every old traditional notion was flung into the lumber-room as irrational; the world had hitherto allowed itself to be led solely by prejudices; everything in the past deserved only pity and contempt. Now, for the first time, appeared the light of day, henceforth superstition, injustice, privilege, oppression, were to be superseded by eternal truth, eternal Right, equality based on nature and the inalienable rights of man.
         “We know today that this kingdom of reason was nothing more than the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie; that this eternal Right found its realization in bourgeois justice; that this equality reduced itself to bourgeois equality before the law; that bourgeois property was proclaimed as one of the essential rights of man; and that the government of reason, the Contrat Social [Social Contract] of Rousseau, came into being, and only could come into being, as a democratic bourgeois republic. The great thinkers of the eighteenth century could, no more than their predecessors, go beyond the limits imposed on them by their epoch.” —Engels, Ibid., MECW 25:16-19.

EPIPHENOMENALISM
An epiphenomenon is a secondary effect or process that accompanies, or derives from, a more fundamental process. In its most common usage in philosophy, the term epiphenomenalism is the doctrine that mind and mental processes are epiphenomena of the physical operations within the brain. While this way of looking at things is sort of on the right track, it usually tends to still be rather naïve and skewed.
        Materialism views matter (including brains) as primary and minds and mental processes and states as outgrowths of the physical operation of brains. So far this sounds like epiphenomenalism. However, epiphenomenalism—in its usual form—has the connotation that the epiphenomena involved are somehow actually “fictitious”, or at least do not play any real role in the actual functioning of the human being. In this view, everything important is really determined by physical processes in the brain, and our minds and mental life are merely sorts of phenomenalistic appendages added on later. Those championing epiphenomenalism have mostly viewed mind and mental states along the lines of “illusions” which people have, and in their theories brains give rise to the epiphenomena of minds, but minds and mental processes do not in turn have any genuine role in what we actually do.
        In reality, our minds and mental processes do exist, and can definitely affect what we do. For example, I can decide to raise my arm and do so because of that decision. However, this is possible only because my mental decision itself is merely a sophisticated way of viewing one part of the complex physical process in my brain-body that leads to the raising of my arm.
        It is certainly true that our minds and mental processes and states derive from the physical operations within the brain. But what the epiphenomenalists do not clearly understand is that mental phenomena and states are just special high-level, summary ways of looking at the physical operations going on in the brain. Thus mentalistic operations such as deciding, remembering, thinking, etc., are not simply “unnecessary” or “illusory” perceptions, but are themselves special ways of talking about very important aspects of the physical functioning of the brain-body system.
        Thus epiphenomenalism, in its usual form, is sort of a naive concession to dualism. Like ordinary dualism, it tacitly understands mind and mental phenomena as something different than, or “beyond”, the physical functioning of the brain. But unlike ordinary dualism, it considers these mental epiphenomena as more or less useless and unnecessary. It recognizes the fundamental physical basis for what is actually going on in brains/minds of human beings, but it doesn’t clearly understand what mental phenomena themselves are. It doesn’t really understand that mental processes and states are just the very convenient (and absolutely necessary) ways we have of monitoring in a summary fashion what is going on in our brains, and that these mental phenomena themselves really do have a physical basis.

EPISTEMOLOGICAL AGNOSTICISM
See: AGNOSTICISM

EPISTEMOLOGY
In less fancy language, the theory of knowledge; the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge, its nature, how it is acquired and verified, how much human beings can know, etc.
        See also: Philosophical doggerel about epistemology.

EQUITY   (Economics)
The current market value of a house (or other item) minus the amount of money still owed on it (in the form of a mortgage or other loan). Thus if a family’s home has a market value of $300,000, and after paying mortgage payments for 12 years the nominal “owners” of the house still owe the bank $200,000, the family’s equity is $100,000 and the bank still actually owns two-thirds of “their” house.

And finally there is the view that nothing really makes anything “right or wrong”, “good or bad”, that these are merely arbitrary biases that people have, either in different cultures, or even individually. There seem to be three main motives for holding this view:
         1)   The argument from ignorance. (“I can’t figure out what makes human actions right or wrong, so it must be impossible to say.”)
         2)   Extreme cynicism about humanity. (“Everybody tries to justify what they say and do, but at bottom it is all just excuse making for doing whatever they selfishly want to do.”)
         3)   Learning about other cultures which have different ideas about right and wrong.
         This third reason is why cultural anthropologists have been particularly prone to ethical relativism, and why the theory was first put forward in a systematic way by philosophers such as Edward Westermarck who were strongly influenced by the rise of modern anthropology. A number of cultural anthropologists have at various times gone to live with native peoples in various parts of the world and have found (to their evident surprise) that these peoples have somewhat different conceptions of morality, conceptions which seem to serve them just as well as the differing moralities of other cultures serve those societies. Since these anthropologists had also not thought through the basis for morality in their own society, they tended to jump to the conclusion that no particular morality is really “better” or “more valid” than any other, but rather that all of them are merely somewhat arbitrary conveniences for particular cultures.
         More recently, this same sort of thinking has been generalized and spread to other academic departments, especially to English faculties at universities, in the form of “post-modernism”, which goes so far as to claim that the world views of the scientific community are really no better than those of native peoples living in the Amazon, or those of religious communities such as Christian fundamentalists who believe the world was created in 4004 B.C.! (Some people cannot recognize a reductio ad absurdum argument when they see it!)
         As with some of the specific traditional explanations of morality surveyed above, there are no doubt some small and secondary aspects of truth to the relativist viewpoint. Different societies, with different ways of living and different levels of social production, do require somewhat different social norms and moral codes in order to function smoothly. But what the central core of the relativist viewpoint fails to understand is that there is a deeper level of analysis which will explain why the moral systems of different societies still have so much in common, and also explain the differences between them in terms of the same underlying analytical concepts. Once we have that explanatory analytical framework in place we will be able to more rationally discuss the differences between moralities in different forms and stages of society. —S.H., An Introduction to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Class Interest Theory of Ethics, Chapter 1, section 1.2E, from the draft of 6/14/07 as posted at: http://www.massline.org/Philosophy/ScottH/MLM-Ethics-Ch1-2.pdf

ETHICS
The branch of philosophy which deals with the theory behind morality, including its explication and justification, nature and essence, structure and functions, origin and development.

EVIL—PROBLEM OF
See: PROBLEM OF EVIL

EVOLUTION
[To be added...]
        See also: DARWIN and COOPERATION—In Nature.

EXCHANGE VALUE
[Sometimes with a hyphen.] The value of commodities (goods or services produced for sale) as they are bought and sold in the marketplace; roughly the same as price. Or more precisely, the form that value takes in the act of EXCHANGE. Exchange value is contrasted to use value, which is the capacity of the commodity to satisfy human needs or wants.

EXISTENTIALISM
A bourgeois philosophy of despair, which holds that there is no objective truth, that there are no universal values, that the human “essence” is a matter of free choice by the individual, and that consequently people are in a permanent state of anxiety because of their realization of this free will. Among the religious existentialists are Kierkegaard, Martin Buber and Gabriel Marcel. Nietzsche and Heidegger were authoritarian or fascist existentialists, and Sartre is often called a “Marxist” existentialist, though genuine Marxism is quite incompatible with any form of existentialism.
        See also: ALBERT CAMUS, and Philosophical doggerel about existentialism.

EXPLOITATION
1. The unjust or improper use of another person for one’s own profit or advantage.
2. [In the Marxist sense in the context of the political economy of capitalism:] The expropriation (theft) of the labor of a worker (via the extraction of surplus value) by the owners of the means of production (the capitalists).

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