Glossary of Revolutionary Marxism

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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, 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.

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.

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
[Often without the hyphen.] The form that value takes in the act of EXCHANGE. [More to be added...]
        See also: PRICE

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: 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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