Marxist Terminology

Communism

"A theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state. "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability." - Marx

Socialism

"The organisation of society in such a manner that any individual, man or woman, finds at birth equal means for the development of their respective faculties and the utilisation of their labour. The organisation of society in such a manner that the exploitation by one person of the labour of his neighbour would be impossible, and where everyone will be allowed to enjoy the social wealth only to the extent of their contribution to the production of that wealth." - August Bebel

Public policy

Any formal action or goal undertaken by a State; includes decisions concerning budgetary allocations, creating new regulatory systems, or changing laws.

Adam Smith

(1723-1790) Scottish economist. Regarded as founder of classical economics, was the first to complete a comprehensive theory of political economy. He saw labour as the sole source and measure of value.

Ideological hegemony

The domination of a system of ideas reinforcing the position of a particular class. In a capitalist society the ideology of the capitalist class is hegemonic (pervasive, dominant).

Laissez Faire

The economic policy in which the government reduces its interference in the economic affairs to a minimum.

Democracy

A political system of rule by the majority. It is a much-abused term however, with even the most stunted, abstract and limited forms of suffrage going by the name.

Utility

A quantity reflecting the subjective value someone attaches to a commodity, which is reflected in how much they are willing to pay for it.

Policy planning networks

A series of interlocking institutions—foundations, think tanks and policy-discussion groups—that form the organizational basis for upper-class power in creating public policy.

Metaphysics

A branch of philosophy dating back to the time of Aristotle, referring to the study of what is "beyond the senses". By the 16th century it became synonymous with Ontology, the study of Being or Existence. For Hegel and later Marx, it is an opponent to dialectics, for it deals with things or concepts abstracted from their interconnection with other things (concepts) and put into static 'self-identical' objects.

Free labor class

A class of people whose only means of subsistence is to sell their labor-power; termed "free" because the workers are legally "free" to sell their labor power to whomever they want and for whatever activities they choose. However, the decision to hire out themselves for a wage is coerced by the need to survive. This is why capitalism is sometimes referred to as a system of "wage-slavery". Furthermore, the type of work and the length of the workday are completely constrained by labor market conditions and not "free will." In contrast to historically prior modes of production, capitalists "externalized" the costs of sustaining and reproducing the labor force, and created a dependent class of workers for which they are neither ethically nor legally liable beyond the paying of contractual wages.

Social Contract

A foundation myth invented by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as a legitimation for the authority of the state. According to this myth, originally human beings lived in a state of nature, free and independent of one another. The creation of private property and inequality created antagonisms which needed to be moderated. Thus free people came together and made a contract in which they all agreed to arrogate law-making power to the state.

Bourgeois Democracy

A government that serves in the interests of the bourgeois class. The word Democratic is attached to such a government, because in it all people in such a society have certain freedoms: those who own the means of production, the bourgeoisie, are free to buy and sell labor-power and what is produced by it solely for their own benefit. Those who own only their own ability to labor, the proletariat, are free to sell themselves to any bourgeois who will buy their labor power, for the benefit of maintaining their own survival, and giving greater strength and power to the bourgeoisie.

Class

A group of people sharing common relations to labor and the means of production.

Labor power

A human's capacity to work. Workers' must sell their ability to work. Labor is the actual, kinetic activity. Workers get paid the value of their labor power but not the value of their labor; that is, they get paid what it costs to keep them alive (as socially determined through political struggle) rather than getting paid a sum equivalent to the value of what they produced.

Commodity

Any article which... 1) was crafted by human labor 2) satisfies a human need (use-value) 3) is sold, or traded, in a market (exchange-value)

Labor market

A social institution that is structured by the interactions of workers seeking employment and employers seeking workers. The interactions determine the levels of employment/ unemployment, the average wages (on the whole and in specific industries), and the types of industry in the market. The boundaries of the markets can be physical (local, regional, national, etc.) or legal (nationality, ethnicity, "race", sex, age, etc.)

Division of Labor

A specific mode of cooperation wherein different tasks are assigned to different people. It is as old as labor itself, stretching back to the birth of the human race. Which is characterized by the ever-increasing complexity of it.

Ideology

A system of ideas about social reality. Those favoring the status quo are created and sustained by the upper class to protect its class dominance; those challenging the status quo are created by the oppressed classes which generally don't have the means to systematically spread their ideas.

Idealism

A thought process (ex. rationalism) of how the material world adheres to ideas. Idealists follow a certain ideal concept (ex. faith) and understand everything from its adherence to that concept.

Society

A vague term which expresses the interconnectedness of all human life and the social nature of human beings, but should never be used as if it were an entity capable of having will or opinion, or counterposed to its institutions.

Labor theory of value

Almost all economic value is produced by labor. Marx's contribution to the LTV is his understanding that all production is social in nature because it is interconnected through society's division of labor. Furthermore, he demonstrated that exploitation is the fundamental social relation between workers and capitalists.

Class consciousness

An awareness of (1) the class structure of society, (2) the process of exploitation by which one class controls the labor of another in order to appropriate the wealth created by the laboring class, and (3) your class position and interests in this system. Members of the capitalist class generally possess this; many workers do not.

Slavery

An involuntary economic arrangement where a person is, through custom or law, bound to a master as a laborer or servant. The customs and laws governing the status of these enslaved peoples (e.g. treatment, rights, possibilities of freedom) varied throughout history according to time and place.

Use value

An object's utility. A commodity's use-value is determined by its fulfillment of a practical and general social need—like wheat (food) or electricity (power). Its utility must extend past the individual need of the producer. Capitalists produce use-values only in so far as they also have exchange-values. They are not in the business of satisfying needs; they are in the business of selling things.

Crisis of overproduction

As capitalists chase profit they overinvest in areas where profit is being made; this creates overcapacity and eventually a crisis of overproduction. This leads to underconsumption. Profits fall as inventories of goods pile up unsold. Production is cut back (workers are laid off or furloughed). Capitalists try to restore profits by cutting wages and the government services to workers, by expanding into new markets, and - when the latter proves impossible - by going to war to re-divide the global markets. This is a process that takes years but comes with warning signs: development of a culture of violence, promotion of the military and militarism, ideological attacks on government services as "socialistic", attacks on unionized employees as incompetent and overpaid, promotion of nationalistic feelings, promotion of the need for war, directing working-class resentments away from employers towards "outsiders" who are blamed for society's problems, increase of police powers of surveillance and arrest, increased militarization of police, increased forcible intimidation of foreign-born workers through ICE workplace raids, arrests. detention and deportation.

Class basis of the media

Based within the capitalist class in at least three ways. First, they are owned by capitalists. Second, they are heavily interlocked with and dominated by other corporations. Third, the media are also dependent on corporations for profits (from advertising revenue). Thus, through ownership, interlocks and revenue dependency the mass media are companies controlled by the capitalist class and can be expected to reflect the perspective of that class. The interests of the working class will be neglected.

Magic

Belief in the existence and power of supernatural forces; a belief that non-physical forces (beings) exist that affect the natural world, have plans humanity should follow, and must be placated and served.

Class basis of foundations

Besides being trusts of upper-class money, the boards of these institutions are filled by members or appointees of the upper class. In a study of 12 such institutions in the US, half of all the trustees were members of the upper class, and 10 were found to have at least one direct tie to the 201 largest corporations; most had more than one.

Marxism

Both a current within the revolutionary movement against capitalism and a current of social theory which engages a wide spectrum of people. It originates from the political and scientific work of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the 1840s, but the words are of later origin.

Class basis of think tanks

Directors of these institutions are members of the "power elite." Sixty percent of board directors from the Brookings Institute and American Enterprise Institute (AEI)—the two largest institutions—sit on an average of 1.3 corporation boards of directors. Their members have also served as advisors and staff to the Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan, and Bush administrations. AEI was founded as an adjunct to the US Chamber of Commerce. Funding, of course, comes from the upper class.

Concentration of capital

During economic crisis, small capitalists firms are unable to compete and collapse or are acquired by larger capitalist firms. The capitalist class, then, takes the opportunity to consolidate interests. This often means mergers between the largest industrial capitalists and financial capital—further cementing the dominance of and interlocks between financial capital and industrial monopolies.

Productive and Unproductive Labor

Either labor which is productive in the economic sense, or labor which creates new value or labor that doesn't.

Imperialism

Essentially, this is the acquisition of foreign markets—labor markets in particular—in order to exploit them. At first, these foreign markets may provide a temporary patch to the crisis of overproduction as they become dumping grounds of surplus labor; however, by exporting capital investments, imperialists are seeking the domination of foreign economies. It involves five parts or stages: 1) industrial monopolies dominate domestic economy 2) industrial monopolies and banks merge to form financial oligarchies 3) foreign direct investment (exporting capital) in external markets becomes the focus of finance capital. 4) international, monopolistic associations emerge 5) the most powerful capitalist powers lay claims on territories around the world.

Think tanks

Non-profit organizations that recruit academics and experts to research specific topics. They introduce new ideas into the policy-planning network in order to help the upper-class solve social problems on terms favorable to the upper-class.

Value of labor

For the capitalist this is the cost of sustaining the working class; it includes the cost of reproducing the next generation of workers. This cost is socially determined in a struggle between workers and capitalists - the workers want to raise the cost (i.e. standard of living) while the capitalists want to lower the cost (wages) to maximize profits. In other words, wages are not determined by inexorable market forces beyond the control of humans but by political struggle.

Managerial class

Often from the highest ranks of the working class (the level referred to as the "upper middle class"), these men and women are recruited and specially trained to oversee production as executives, administrators and managers. While they themselves may not become actual owners of the means of production, they are the well-paid and psychologically assimilated agents of the capitalist class.

Capital

In everyday language and mainstream economics, this refers to the assets accumulated by banks and nonfinancial corporations in order to make profits. To Marx this was fundamentally a social relation between the owners of the assets (means of production) and the wage-earners who are dispossessed of them.

Schooling

Institutions that transmit values, political ideas, and skills to students so they may fulfill class-based economic roles and reproduce the class structure. Students are taught obedience, regimentation, passivity, and the repetitive performance of mindless tasks. Imagination, curiosity, and critical thinking are systematically undervalued and limited.

Dialectical Materialism

Is a way of understanding reality; whether thoughts, emotions, or the material world. Simply stated, this methodology is the combination of Dialectics and Materialism. It is the theoretical foundation of Marxism (while being communist is the practice of Marxism).

Labor

Life-activity. "The first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, [is that humans] must be in a position to live in order to be able to "make history". But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life. " - Marx

Policy-discussion organizations

Non-partisan groups that bring together State officials, corporate officers, academics, and members of the media to familiarize themselves with contemporary issues, debate topics, and train and recruit future leadership. Policy-discussion groups disseminate opinions into the public through its members and publications. Although non-partisan (not Republican, not Democrat), they are pro-capitalist and anti-working class.

Capitalist class

Owners of the means of production; they invest in the production of commodities in order to make profits. By owning the means of production the capitalists can control the production process (e.g. number of jobs available) and thereby influence the terms under which wages and benefits are established. They make money by paying workers a wage that is less than of the true value of their production.

Estates

Political life in feudal society was based on the representation of orders or classes of the community. Typically there were three of these, broadly speaking the Landed Aristocracy, the Church and the Bourgeoisie, though the precise definition of each differed from nation to nation.

Segmented labor markets

Segmented labor markets are sub-groups in the labor market that do not cross-over. This labor market segmentation means that wage differentials between sub-groups of workers (men and women, citizen and immigrant, ethnic groups, etc.) results from their concentration into different industries. This is not the same as split labor markets (which are created by pitting workers against each other in the same industry).

Commodity

Something that is produced for the purpose of exchanging it for something else, and as such, is the material form given to a fundamental social relation — the exchange of labor power. Marx saw the commodity as the "cell" of bourgeois society (i.e., capitalism).

Foundations

Tax-free institutions established by capitalists to fund a variety of philanthropic causes; most important of these are think tanks and policy discussion groups. They allow the upper class to directly create, support and control social and political "causes". In this way liberal groups are channeled into reformist (rather than revolutionary) directions that do not challenge upper class power.

Dispossession of the peasantry

The bourgeoisie (capitalists) used the State (law and armed force) to force peasants from collective farmlands in order to create private property (means of production). This transformed the relations of production by destroying the class of small farmers and the class of serfs and transforming them from self-sustaining peasantry into a class of wage laborers. The transformation of the forces of production (privatization of land) changed the relations of production (peasants became proletarians).

Bourgeoisie

The class of people in bourgeois society who own the social means of production as their Private Property, i.e., as capital.

Mode of production

The combination of the forces of production and the relations of production constitutes this aspect of society. In the capitalist mode of production the main classes are those of the proletariat (workers) and the capitalists (owners).

Commodity production

The coordination of human labor with the intention of producing objects to be exchanged on a market. While simple this process occurred marginally in other eras when independent producers traded their own surplus commodities in markets, capitalism makes this process the predominant form of economy and is dependent on the transformation of small independent producers into wage-laborers.

Utilitarianism

The ethical doctrine that the rightness of an action must be judged according to whether it increases the sum of human happiness, or utility in the sense given to the word by political economy. It is in fact political economy translated into the language of ethics, and expresses the ethos of a bourgeois society.

Forces of production

The factors making possible economic production; includes the means of production and human labor power (people's ability to work). It is any "force" (work) that humans apply as part of the production process; includes physical, technical, service, and coordinative (managerial) work.

Socio-economic Systems

The first was tribal society, also referred to as "primitive communism" and then feudalism. The breakdown of all traditional relationships, and the subordination of relations to the "cash nexus" characterizes capitalism. Transcendence of the class antagonisms of capitalism, replacing the domination of the market by planned, cooperative labor, leads to socialism and communism.

Class struggle

The interaction of classes seeking their best interests. There is a conflict because the interests of each class are opposite (antagonistic): -the exploitation of the working class through private ownership of the means of production is in the best interest of the capitalist; the redistribution of socially produced goods and collective ownership over the means of production are in the best interest of the working class. Capitalists seek to maximize profits by driving down wages; workers want to increase wages but doing so reduces profits.

Wage Labor

The labor process in capitalist society where the owners of the means of production buy the labor power of those who do not own the means of production, and use it to increase the value of their property. In pre-capitalist societies, the labour of the producers was rendered to the ruling class by traditional obligations or sheer force, rather than as a "free" act of purchase and sale as in capitalist society.

Dialectics

The method of reasoning which aims to understand things concretely in all their movement, change and interconnection, with their opposite and contradictory sides in unity.

Surplus value

The money form of surplus labor; it is realized when capitalists sell the commodities produced by surplus labor. Surplus labor is any labor that is obtained from workers that is not returned to them in their wage.

Capitalism

The organization of society characterized by three basic features: 1) an economy structured around commodity production for profit, private ownership of the means of production, and distribution of commodities through markets. 2) a political system based on a State that makes bourgeois rights universal. The State protects private property rights, provides infrastructure for commerce that may then be privatized, establishes a common currency, regulates territorial and financial markets, and represses the working class when necessary through law and armed force. 3) a class system with two antagonistic classes (the proletariat vs the bourgeoisie, the workers vs the capitalists). The capitalist class dominates the economy, the State, and society's ideological apparatus.

Accumulation of capital

The organizational goal of capitalism and driving force behind competition. "Money making more money;" money is transformed into capital by investing in both fixed capital (machines, land, etc), circulating capital (raw materials), and variable capital (labor). Labor then creates more value (surplus value) in the form of commodities than it earns in wages (surplus labor). Capitalists transform the surplus value into money by selling these commodities; the money they receive is more than they invested in the production process. This difference between more money received than money invested is called profit or the accumulation of capital. This leads to the continual concentration and centralization of wealth in a society.

Primitive accumulation

The origin of capitalism required the accumulation of wealth for investment purposes. The wealth originally came from the brutal exploitation of labor and seizure of the means of production. This original accumulation was the precondition to the development of capitalism. It entailed: 1) divorcing the independent producers from their means of production, 2) the ruling class expropriation of these means of production, 3) the creation of a class which monopolizes the means of subsistence -the capitalist class 4) the creation of a class which is dependent on the other for its subsistence—the working class, and 5) the creation of the original (or "primitive") capital necessary to begin the cycle of capital accumulation

Exploitation

The overarching class relation between the working class and capitalist class. Capitalists require workers to work for a wage that does not reflect the total value they create; the wage is less than the value of labor power expended. So, workers are shorted (cheated) when paid because the full value of their labor is not remunerated. Furthermore, the wages they do receive are often not enough for the workers to survive or reproduce themselves (i.e. raise children). Capitalists attempting to accumulate as much capital (surplus value) as possible must extract as much surplus labor from workers as possible at the risk of being pushed out of the capitalist class and into the working class.

Neoliberalism

The policies, practices and ideas associated with the sharp turn to market regulation of social life since the 1970s. Because this glorification of the market was first preached by the liberalism of the eighteenth- and nineteenth- centuries, the recent version is commonly referred to as a new version. It preaches hostility to socialism, trade unions, and social welfare programs, all of which are alleged to "interfere" with the market. Associated with Hayek and Friedman, as well as Thatcher and Reagan. The effects of it include increased social inequality, indebtedness for much of the Global South, and heightened policing and militarism.

Exchange

The practice of releasing property on condition of receiving an equivalent in return.

Socialisation

The process by which activity and relationships move out of a private, or in general more restricted, domain into a broader sphere of action. In particular, it is used in reference to the transformation of private businesses into public enterprises, or on the other hand, moving labour which is taking place within a closed, domestic domain into the general economic sphere.

Over-accumulation

The process by which capitalist enterprises accumulate more productive capacity- factories, machines, offices, mines, shopping malls, buildings, and so on- than they can profitably utilize. This is caused by intense competition to boost the productiveness of their companies by investing in new plants and technologies, which results in over-capacity.

Distribution and Exchange

The process by which the total social product is divided up among the general population and the practice of trading different products of equal value, between different individuals or organizations.

The Classes

The proletariat (the sellers of labour power) and the bourgeoisie (the buyers of labour power). The value of every product is divided between wages and profit, and there is an irreconcilable class struggle over the division of this product.

Labor Theory of Value

The proposition that the value of a commodity is equal to the quantity of socially necessary labor-time required for its production.

Necessary but antagonistic relations

The reality that the two economic classes need each other (necessary relations) but have opposite (antagonistic) interests. That is, capitalists cannot produce anything without workers and workers cannot subsist without the jobs supplied by capitalists; yet their interests are opposite because the capitalists want more goods produced for lower wages while laborers want higher wages for less work.

Rate of profit

The relative profit of a commodity compared to the initial capital investment. Ratio is: (surplus value) /(capital investment).

Freedom

The right and capacity of people to determine their own actions, in a community which is able to provide for the full development of human potentiality. It may be enjoyed by individuals but only in and through the community.

Credit

The separation between the purchase of a commodity and the payment for it. It is essential for the development of production and distribution, but it is also a form of debt. Historically, it gives rise to various forms of fictitious capital, and to paper money and plastic in place of "hard cash" (i.e., gold or silver coin whose value is intrinsic, not relying on the "guarantee" of the bank or government, because it is the product of a certain quantity of labor.)

Essence

The significance or meaning of something.

Bourgeois Society

The social formation in which the commodity relation - the relation of buying and selling - has spread into every corner of life. The family and the state still exist, but - the family is successively broken down and atomized, more and more resembling a relationship of commercial contract, rather than one genuinely expressing kinship and the care of one generation for the other; the state retains its essential instruments of violence, but more and more comes under the sway of commercial interests, reduced to acting as a buyer and seller of services on behalf of the community.

Relations of production

The social organization of people in the production process based on the division between those who control (usually through ownership) the means of production and those who do not. Those families controlling (owning) the means of economic production have the power to decide what is produced and where, when, and how it is produced. They also expropriate the economic surplus thus making themselves wealthy and more politically powerful.

Direct Action

The tactic whereby workers bypass established forms of mediation, and act directly on their own behalf to solve an immediate problem.

Means of Production

The tools (instruments) and the raw material (subject) you use to create something.

Production and Consumption

The two inseparable aspects of the production and reproduction of human life, but in modern society these concepts have become separated.

Reserve army of labor

The unemployed. They are a reserve "army" because they can be "called up" (hired) to perform labor when production expands. Its members can also be used as strikebreakers if the employed workers go on strike.

Productive Forces

The unity of means of production and labour: 1. All labour (individual, union) 2. Instruments of production (buildings, machines) 3. Subjects of production (raw materials, labor)

Profit

The unpaid labor expropriated from workers by a capitalist and distributed by various means among the capitalist class, measured in proportion to the total capital invested.

Value

The value of all commodities is equivalent to the "socially required" labor-time it took to make it. Additionally, an era's productive forces (technology, organization of labor, etc.) determine the amount of labor-time that is socially required. Every commodity embodies two social values: Use-value and Exchange-value.

The media

These are the organizations that disseminate ideas and values: Print media and electronic media. The media are often divided into two different political categories: "mainstream" media and "alternative" media. The former refers to corporately owned newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television companies. Mainstream media is further divided into "liberal" and "conservative". Although there are differences between the "liberal" and "conservative" media, both represent ruling class points of view. Neither the liberal nor the conservative media advocate working-class control of the means of production and neither opposes imperialism. Alternative media refers to media that are not owned and controlled by capitalist corporations. The alternative media can be divided into reformist and revolutionary perspectives. Reformists believe in private enterprise and the existing form of government. They are, however, highly critical of the failures of capitalism and propose to reform capitalism to make it more humane. Revolutionaries are very skeptical of the possibility of reforming capitalism which they view as a system of labor exploitation and imperialist warfare; they generally advocate radical political, economic and cultural changes to be designed and implemented by the working class.

Exchange value

This is determined in relation to the labor-time it took to produce other commodities. It represents the quantity of other commodities for which it could be traded. A "price" attempts to fix this relation among commodities with money.

Class basis of schooling

This is seen in its patterns of funding (resource allocation) and its different curricula. Upper-class students are prepped for corporate and State leadership in private schools or elite public schools and then funneled into private or elite public universities. In contrast, the majority of public schools and community and state colleges have a curriculum designed to prepare working class students for working class jobs in which they are expected to be obedient and efficient. "Exceptional" working class students may be recruited by the upper-class to serve it.

Money

This is the commodity whose sole use is for storing value and acting as a means of payment. That is to say, it is a commodity, but one which has been singled out to play a special role in relation to all other commodities, as the measure of their values.

Class basis of magic

This offers a cultural rationalization for the existence of class-based societies. Based on tradition, it separates production and the distribution of social goods in a society by assigning different types of work to different classes. The class basis of it lies not only in its non-scientific view of the world which prevents effective analysis of class domination, but also in the fact that, as a general historical rule, the preachers of it are supported (funded) by the dominant class and generally uphold the views of the ruling class.

Bond labor

This refers to the practice of people being legally bound (required, forced) to work for someone rather than freely entering into a contractual agreement. It was a common labor practice before modern capitalism and included slavery and serfdom neither of which were abolished until the late 19th century. Capitalism extensively used this for "primitive" accumulation during the 17th through mid-20th centuries - especially in colonial societies and fascist regimes. It was also a common practice in the U.S.A. after the abolition of slavery where it existed in the form of prison labor, convict-lease, contract labor, and debt peonage.

The manufacture of consent

This refers to the process by which the dominated class (the working class) is mentally manipulated into agreeing with the positions of the exploiting class (the capitalist class). It is an effect of the ideological hegemony of the ruling class.

Materialism

Those philosophical trends which emphasize the material world (the world outside consciousness) as the foundation and determinant of thinking, especially in relation to the question of the origin of knowledge. Thoughts are "reflections" of matter, outside of Mind, which existed before and independently of thought.

The means of economic production

Those things used to make goods through labor (i.e. raw materials, tools, workshops, factories,); does not include human labor itself.

Anarchism

Those who stress the importance of achieving individual liberty and social equality for the working class, through the abolition of authority.