EAST IS RED, The
[In Chinese: Dong Fang Hong] One of the best known revolutionary songs in China
during the Maoist period. It was written in 1942 in praise of Mao and the Communist Party
of China by Li Yu-yuan, a folk singer from northern Shensi province, who himself had once
been a hired farmhand of the landlords. After Liberation in 1949, the song was popularized
throughout China, and may be viewed as part of the personality cult that was constructed
around Mao. The musical score and lyrics in Chinese and English was printed in Peking
Review in issue #41, Oct. 6, 1967, and is available online at:
http://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1967/PR1967-41-EastIsRed.pdf [PDF: 119 KB]
The East Is Red [Literal translation of the lyrics.]
The east is red, the sun rises.
China has brought forth a Mao Tse-tung.
He works for the people’s happiness,
(hu er hai yao!)
He is the people’s great savior.
Chairman Mao loves the people,
He is our guide.
He leads us onward,
(hu er hai yao!)
To build the new China.
The Communist Party is like the sun,
Wherever it shines, there is light.
Where there’s the Communist Party,
(hu er hai yao!)
There the people will win liberation.
ECO-SOCIALISM
A current within the world socialist movement that seeks to align ecological concerns about
environmental destruction and resource depletion with socialism in order to build an
ecologically sustainable society that is also equitable and provides for the material needs and
wants of the masses. Eco-socialism has often emphasized the need to eliminate economic growth
and to instead redistribute society’s existing resources and technologies so that they meet the
needs of the masses rather than the needs of capitalist profit. While this may be a feasible
route for any revolution that occurs in the First World, a revolution that occurs in the Third
World will certainly need a period of economic growth to secure the conditions for building
socialism. Indeed, it may even be necessary for a while to enter into a New Democratic phase in
which certain segments of the national bourgeoisie are allowed to engage in capitalism (though
under the strict direction and limitations set down by the dictatorship of the proletariat).
However, there is no reason why such growth cannot be done in a way that minimizes waste and
pollution, and that at the same time the state and the masses are devising and already starting
to implement new technologies, industrial and consumption practises, and educational campaigns
that make environmental protection and the eventual elimination of material growth a serious
goal. Certainly, with the environmental crisis today being perhaps the primary contradiction
in the world, any socialism that emerges must necessarily and urgently address this crisis.
Also related to this, the environmental hardships inflicted on oppressed nations as a result
of capitalist accumulation in the First World provide an opportunity for socialists to
crystallize in the minds of the world’s proletariat and peasantry that capitalism is leading
humanity to catastrophe unless drastic action by the working class and its allies is taken.
Eco-socialism has been championed and elaborated
on by such writers as John Bellamy Foster and Fred
Magdoff, who have written extensively about the unsustainability of capitalism as a result of
its basic imperative to accumulate. Such analyses place the environmental crisis in its proper
context, instead of focusing upon the particular practices of certain enterprises or groups
(which is the tact often chosen by commentators who see the problem not as being capitalism per
se but as a particular variant of it, namely ‘consumerism’, which they think they can ameliorate
with moralistic and individualistic pleas and appeals).
Eco-socialism has expressed one of its forms in
the policies of President Evo Morales in Bolivia, where the government has sought to adopt
programs that benefit the environment and that respect the interests and culture of its
indigenous peoples, many of whom live a life much more in tune with direct reliance upon and
respect for the environment. However, even in Bolivia, the difficulties of operating in an
environment dominated by imperialist capital have become apparent, with the government being
compelled to make many key concessions to imperialist capital (particularly with respect to
mining operations that seek to extract the country’s vast lithium resources, ironically in order,
among other things, to allow multinational corporations to build electric cars) and breaking
several promises to its indigenous support base. This shows the limitations of a program that is
not through-and-through revolutionary but is instead really reformist and remains tethered to
and dependent upon the world capitalist market for its development (as well as, domestically,
remaining within the realm of bourgeois parliamentary democracy). So long as capitalism remains
the predominant economic system in the world, there can be no authentic solution to the
environmental destruction that it wreaks. —L.C.
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
19th century, they lasted on average about 5 years. During the last part of the
19th 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 19th 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 19th 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 PREDICTIONS
Any science, insofar as it actually is a science!, must be able to make at least
some predictions about future events and developments, at least given the presumption of
certain specific conditions. We do not demand that all predictions made by economists turn
out to be correct. But we do say that events as they develop test the correctness of
economic theories, and when explicit or implicit predictions turn out to be incorrect this
should lead to modifications, or in some cases, complete rejection of the theories that
gave rise to those erroneous predictions.
In the 1840s Marx was already able to predict
that periodic economic crises of overproduction were inherent in capitalism and would continue
as long as capitalism existed. Bourgeois economists denied this (as many of them still do!),
and asserted that the previous panics and “market gluts” were caused by special external
factors (such as government missteps) that could be avoided in the future. The bourgeois
economists have been proven wrong in their prediction, and Marx’s prediction has been proven
correct. Marx made other important economic predictions as well, such as that capitalist
economies would become more and more monopolistic—which likewise has been proven quite
correct.
Some of Marx’s economic predictions have
been somewhat more problematic, such as his prediction of the further
immiseration of the proletariat over time. Actually, on a
world scale he has been proven correct here too as the many billions of people who are forced
to live on less than two or three dollars a day amply demonstrate! However, it is true that
within capitalist-imperialist countries the ruling bourgeoisie has been able to raise
the wages of many workers because of the huge wealth they have stolen from the rest of the
world. Followers of Marx, and Lenin specifically, have somewhat modified or extended Marx by
developing the theory of capitalist-imperialism to account
for this.
There are also a few very important
socio-economic predictions made by Marx that have not yet come true, but very well still
might. The most central of these is that capitalism will lead to such crisis and misery
that the workers and masses will eventually be forced to rise up and completely overthrow it.
If humanity is to have a future, we had best do everthing we can to help make that prediction
come true too!
Compare the widespread and general success
of Marx’s economic predictions to the almost complete failure of bourgeois economists to make
any successful predictions! It is easy to see which is the real science here!
See also:
ECONOMIC FORECASTING (Bourgeois),
RECESSIONS—Predicting
“There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one:
the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes
into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.”
—Frédéric Bastiat, “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen”, in Selected
Essays of Political Economy, translated by Seymour Cain (Foundation for Economic
Education, 1995). [Although Bastiat was a bourgeois
economist, and a minor one at that, he is right here in suggesting that the real test
of the theories of any economist lies in what successful predictions he or she is able
to make. —S.H.]
“Central bankers still debate whether it’s possible to recognize asset
bubbles when they occur and whether they can or should be deflated....
“This failure left the world
unprepared for the most recent financial crisis [2008-9], and the economics profession
has been far too complacent about it. Economists can’t be expected to predict the
future. [sic!] But they should be able to identify threatening trends and to better
understand the conditions that can turn a change in prices into a financial tsunami.”
—“The Enduring Mystery of Financial Markets”, Bloomberg Businessweek, Oct. 21-27,
2013, p. 14. Emphasis added.
ECONOMIC STATISTICS — Distortion of by Capitalist Governments
Bourgeois governments, such as that of the U.S., collect and publish a large diversity of
economic statistics. However, it is clearly in their interests to distort these statistics,
and it is easily shown that they regularly do so. Statistics that make the government and
the ruling class look better, such as a higher GDP growth rate or a
higher capacity utilization rate, are routinely
exaggerated. And statistics which make the capitalist system and the goverment look bad,
such as the unemployment rate, the inflation rate, or a big increase in the
consumer price index, are routinely falsified downward, often
hugely so.
One method the govenment (and the compliant
ruling class media) uses to accomplish this is to have multiple statistical series, and to
only publicize in a major way the particular series which makes things look relatively better.
Thus the U.S. goverment has six different versions of the unemployment rate. The one that is
widely publicized (U-3) does not include all the millions of people who have given up looking
for work after many months of trying and finding nothing, nor all the people who are forced
to work only part time when they actually want and need to work full time. The U-6 series,
which is seldom mentioned in the press, includes many of those people, but still does not
count many other unemployed people. [For a good discussion of how the government distorts the
unemployment rate, see “The Actual U.S. Unemployment Rate as of Early 2009”, from John Bellamy
Foster’s “Editor’s Notes” in Monthly Review, April 2009, at:
http://www.massline.org/PolitEcon/MR/ActualUnemploymentEarly2009.htm.]
A similar technique is to talk about a
seasonally adjusted set of statistics when that looks better, and to talk about the
non-seasonally-adjusted figures when they look better.
Of course the most basic technique of all
is just to lie about the real statistics or to consciously distort them. In the case of
the consumer price index (CPI), for example, the ruling class has a strong vested interest in
shaving the true value. They have been forced to increase Social Security benefits if the
cost of living goes up, and some multi-year union contracts also include “escalator” clauses,
increasing pay each year to compensate for cost of living rises. So the capitalists
minimize the impact of this to their profits by rigging the statistics. (The CPI is determined
by the cost of a weighted basket of different commodities that an average person supposedly
buys. But this makes it easy to rig the statistics by changing just what commodities are
included in the basket, and the precise economic weight given to each.)
See also:
CHAINED CPI
[Speaking in reference to a table of indices of industrial output in
different years for the U.S., Britain and France:] “Every time the methods for computing
indices are changed, the results exceed those obtained before. The inclusion in U.S.
indices of the rapidly growing servicing sphere has a particular distorting effect.”
—Eugen Varga, Politico-Economic Problems of Capitalism (1968), p. 168.
ECONOMISM [Often capitalized.]
1. An opportunist trend in the Russian Social-Democratic movement
in the late 19th century and early 20th 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.
See also:
SOCIALIST ECONOMISM
“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 threatened 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).
EFFICIENT MARKET HYPOTHESIS [Bourgeois Economics]
1. The absurd bourgeois theory that capitalist “free markets” are maximally efficient from
an economic point of view (i.e., with respect to the appropriate allocation of goods and
services) since those who buy and sell are totally rational agents, and since the market
incorporates all the relevent information about both supply & demand and relevant risks
which goes to determine the appropriate prices.
2. The application of this theory to the stock market and similar sorts of gambling, where
it claims that the prices of shares on the stock market are the best available estimates of
their real value in light of their real levels of risk. Obviously this theory (at least in
its strong form) discounts the possibility of widespread inside information; the possibility
that some gamblers may have a better general sense than others of the real general direction
of the economy at a given moment; and so forth.
“By the 1970s the Efficient Market Hypothesis had become conventional
wisdom, preached from academic pulpits at the University of Chicago and elsewhere.
“However, not everyone bought
into it. A popular joke among economists neatly captures its logical absurdities. An
economist and his friend are walking down the street when they come across a
hundred-dollar bill lying on the ground. The friend bends down to pick it up, but the
economist stops him, saying, ‘Don’t bother—if it were a real hundred-dollar bill,
someone would have already picked it up.’” —Nouriel Roubini & Stephen Mihm, Crisis
Economics (2010), p. 41.
“I’d be a bum on the street with a tin cup if markets were always
efficient.” —Warren Buffett, billionaire stock market investor. Quoted in the Wikipedia
entry on the “Efficient Market Hypothesis”.
“EIGHT IMMORTALS”
The “Eight Immortals” (or in a more literal translation, the “Eight Great Eminent Officials”)
were the leading Chinese capitalist-roaders, or revisionists, who from 1977 into the 1990s
completed the transformation of China from a socialist country back into a capitalist country.
(The phrase “Eight Immortals” is actually an allusion to a group of Taoist deities known by
that name, and is sometimes viewed as being sarcastic in this context.) These despicable
individuals are all now dead, and good riddance to the lot of them! The members of what to us
Maoist revolutionaries were a very notorious group of traitors to the proletariat were:
Deng
Xiaoping (1904–1997), the ring-leader, or “Paramount Leader”, Politburo Standing
Committee member 1977–1987, Political Consultative Conference chairman 1978–1983, Central
Military Commission Chairman 1980–1989, and Central Advisory Commission chairman 1982–1987;
Chen Yun (1905–1995), Politburo Standing
Committee member 1977–1987, Central Advisory Committee Chairman 1987–1992, Central Discipline
Inspection Commission first secretary 1979-1987;
Li Xiannian (1909–1992), Politburo
Standing Committee member 1977–1987, President of the PRC 1983–1988, then Chinese People’s
Political Consultative Conference chairman;
Peng Zhen (1902–1997), National People’s
Congress Chairman 1983–1988;
Yang Shangkun (1907–1998), President of
the PRC 1988–1993;
Bo Yibo (1908–2007), Central Advisory
Committee Vice Chairman;
Wang Zhen (1908–1993), Central Advisory
Committee Vice Chairman;
Song Renqiong (1909–2005), CAC Vice
Chairman.
It is said that under Deng Xiaoping’s
“paramount leadership” all important Chinese government and CPP decisions were made in Deng’s
own home by this group of eight leading revisionists.
In today’s capitalist-imperialist regime in
China those known as privileged and powerful “Princelings” are primarily descendants of these
“Eight Immortals”. In the fashion of any feudal/bourgeois nobility, they are presumed to
outrank other individuals within the now bourgeois “Communist” Party of China and have amassed
huge family fortunes (as has been reported in detail by news sources such as the New York
Times and Bloomberg). The families of the “Eight Immortals” are now the core of the
capitalist class dictatorship in China.
ELEATIC SCHOOL
A loose school of ancient Greek idealist philosophical thought which was most likely founded
by Parmenides of Elea in the 6th century BCE, and included his
followers Zeno of Elea (who was also Parmenides’s lover) and
the lesser-known Melissus of Samos. However, Xenophanes of
Collophon, who may have influenced Parmenides, is called the founder of the Eleatic School
by Plato.
The fundamental doctrine of this school was
that (despite all appearances) the world consists of one indivisible and unchanging reality.
They even thought that movement was “impossible”! Strangely, Hegel said that the origin
of dialectics was with the Eleatics, though he really just had
Zeno’s famous paradoxes in mind as he said this. In effect Zeno may have been using some early
idealist dialectical thinking to (absurdly) argue against the possibility of movement,
change or development in the physical world itself.
“The Eleatic school (end of 6th-5th century B.C.) was named after
the town of Elea in Southern Italy. In contradistinction to the natural dialectic teachings
of the Miletian [or Ionian] school, and of
Heraclitus, regarding the changeable nature of things, the
Eleatic school believed in their individisible, immovable, unchangeable, homogeneous,
continuous, eternal essence. At the same time, some of the propositions of representatives
of the Eleatic school, and particularly the proofs advanced by Zeno concerning the
contradictoriness of motion (the so-called paradoxes of Zeno), despite their metaphysical
conclusions, played a positive role in the development of ancient dialectics, having
raised the problem of expressing in logical concept the contadictory character of the
processes of motion.” —Note 77, LCW 38:572-3.
ELITE THEORY
The “elite theory”, or “elites theory”, is the bourgeois sociological doctrine that the
state, particular governments, and the political world in general, should be analyzed in
terms of elites, or the powerful people who run the world versus those who they
govern. This theory was consciously developed, and is most often consciously still
promoted, in opposition to the Marxist analysis of society in terms of socioeconomic
classes, and the actual dominance and rule in class society
of one or another of these social classes over all the others. Bourgeois sociologists have
not been able to deny that some people in society are in a powerful privileged position
which allows them to rule the others. So they are all the more concerned to at least hide
the fact that this ruling group of people is the capitalist class and their chosen
representatives. Thus these bourgeois ideologists are willing to talk about “ruling elites”,
but virtually never the ruling capitalist class.
The theory of “elites” was developed at
around the beginning of the 20th century in Italy by Gaetano Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto.
Mosca wrote a book called The Ruling Class in 1896 (English translation 1939) in
which he championed this theory. He was careful to define what he meant by “class” in elite
power and organizational terms, as opposed to economic terms of the relationship of differing
groups of people to the means of production. He
did talk about the rulers and the ruled, and recognized that the ruling class was a rather
stable privileged group which had both wealth and power, which he attributed primarily to
their much better organization. Mosca viewed liberal democracy as basically a sham, which
it in fact is. Mosca is therefore both the founding figure and a transitional figure in the
development of the theory of “elites” away from Marxism.
Although Mosca developed this basic “elites”
theory of how a privileged powerful few rule the many, it was the bourgeois economist and
sociologist Vilfredo Pareto who apparently first used the precise term “elites” in a huge
1916 book on sociology (translated into English in 1935). Pareto switched the explanation
for how elites are able to rule from their superior organization to various psychological
factors. After World War II, liberal bourgeois sociology and “political science” around
the world quickly adopted the concept of “elites” as the basis of their thinking about
society. Strangely, they nearly always fail to draw Mosca’s own conclusion that this
clearly shows that liberal bourgeois democracy is a fraud! One prominent bourgeois
sociologist in the U.S. who promoted the adoption of the theory of “elites” was C. Wright
Mills, with his book The Power Elite (1956).
While bourgeois ideologists cannot deny
that powerful groups of people run society in their own interests, this admission actually
serves the interests of the ruling capitalists in one important way. They argue that this
rule by “elites” is inevitable in every society, and that no social revolution will
ever be able to institute genuine rule by the people. The message to the working class is,
“So why even try?!”
We Marxists should not only cringe when we
hear the word “elites” but also clearly recognize that the speaker is looking at society
from a bourgeois perspective which rejects any Marxist class analysis. People who talk in
terms of “elites” are distorting social reality, and—consciously or not—hiding the actual
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
“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, 10th 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”!
“EMERGING ECONOMIES”
“Emerging economies”, “developing economies”—these are the sorts of euphemistic terms used by
the bourgeoisie to refer to the poor countries of the world, most of which are neither
“developing” nor “emerging”, since they are bled dry under the thumbs of the imperialism
countries. Even the bourgeoisie itself sometimes admits these terms are totally phony:
“It makes even less sense to speak of the ‘south’ as shorthand for the
planet’s poor countries (what about Australia or Singapore?) or of the ‘West’ as synonymous
with industrialization and political freedom—what’s ‘western’ about Japan? ‘Third World’
dates from the Cold War, when the planet had capitalist ‘First’ and communist ‘Second’
compartments. Its most recent replacement, ‘emerging economies’, already seems out of date,
as some erstwhile star performers, such as Argentina, submerge. And the term unhelpfully
lumps together hardworking manufacturers (Vietnam, say) and service-based economies (Dubai)
with those blessed—or perhaps cursed—by natural resources (Nigeria, Saudi Arabia,
Russia).” —“A menagerie of monikers”, leader (editorial) in The Economist, Jan. 9,
2010, p. 16.
EMPIRICISM
1. The view that the only source of knowledge of the world is the experience of the
senses... [More to be added...]
See also:
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE (esp. Mao quote)
“Empiricist ideology, which was the collaborator and assistant of
dogmatism [within the Communist Party of China] in the period of its domination, is
likewise a manifestation of subjectivism and formalism. Empiricism differs from
dogmatism in that it starts not from books but from narrow experience. It should be
emphasized that all the useful experience gained by vast numbers of comrades in
practical work is a most precious asset. It is definitely not empiricism, but
Marxism-Leninism, to sum up such experience scientifically as the guide to future
action, just as it is definitely not dogmatism, but Marxism-Leninism, to take the
theories and principles of Marxism-Leninism as the guide to revolutionary action and
not as dogma. But if there are some comrades among all those versed in practical
work who remain satisfied with their own limited experience and with that alone, who
take it for dogma that can be applied everywhere, who do not understand and moreover
do not want to acknowledge the truth that ‘without revolutionary theory there can be
no revolutionary movement’ [Lenin, “What Is To Be Done?”, LCW 5:369] and that ‘in
order to lead, one must foresee’ [Stalin, Works, 11:39], and who consequently
belittle the study of Marxism-Leninism which is the summation of world revolutionary
experience, and are infatuated with a narrow practicalism which is devoid of principle
and with a brainless routinism that leads nowhere; and if they nevertheless sit and
give orders from on high ... then indeed these comrades have become empiricists.”
—Mao, “Appendix: Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party”,
adopted April 20, 1941, SW 3:211-212.
EMPLOYEE MENTALITY
Viewing one’s work within the revolutionary movement, or for a revolutionary party, in
the same way an employee of a capitalist corporation might view their work. Naturally, since
the corporation exists not to benefit its employees or the public, but only to make profits
for its rich owners, few employees will go out of their way to do the very best job that
they can. They will most often do only what they are told to do by their supervisor, and
often only to the minimum acceptable level. However, when it comes to our revolutionary work,
each of us involved in it shares the greatest responsibility for making it as successful as
we can. Each of us must continually think about how we can do a better job in our revolutionary
work, and about what further tasks we can perform that really need to be accomplished. We must
not think like exploited employees, but rather like people who are really dedicating their
lives to serving the people.
“3. The ‘employee’ mentality. Some comrades do not understand that the
Party and the Red Army, of which they are members, are both instruments for carrying out
the tasks of the revolution. They do not realize that they themselves are makers of the
revolution, but think that their responsibility is merely to their individual superiors
and not to the revolution. This passive mentality of an ‘employee’ of the revolution is
also a manifestation of individualism. It explains why there are not very many activists
who work unconditionally for the revolution. Unless it is eliminated, the number of
activists will not grow and the heavy burden of the revolution will remain on the
shoulders of a small number of people, much to the detriment of the struggle.” —Mao, “On
Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party” (Dec. 1929), SW 1:113.
“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!
“The end of history? — a 1989 essay by the bourgeois social ‘scientist’
Francis Fukuyama, in which he posits that the world is nearing a period in which armed
conflicts will end and the world will become homogenized into a liberal-democratic order
(preferably with the United States as its guarantor). Fukuyama sees capitalist free
enterprise and market systems as a force for stability, peace and prosperity, and claims
that these are making alternatives (like Islamist theocracy and Marxist-Leninist
socialism) less and less appealing.
“Like all bourgeois analysts,
Fukuyama has severe blind spots about capitalism that are crystallised in this infamous
essay, and lacks anything approaching authentic dialectical thinking when it comes to
the dynamics and characteristics of capitalism as a system. He assumes, for example,
that capitalism will reach some optimal equilibrium (once conditions are just right)
that will benefit everyone by lifting living standards and that this state of affairs
will continue indefinitely. He fails to see that economic crises are not aberrations but
rather necessary features of capitalism, and that these crises will continue to get
worse, and that in doing so they will continue to engender resistance to capitalism, as
well as having various other effects (feeding into ethnic conflicts, inter-imperialist
rivalries, and providing the objective basis for wars and so forth). Fukuyama expresses
a very typical liberal bias: the assumption of non-ideology. That is, he sees ideology
as belonging to the realm of previous economic and socio-political systems, but assumes
that capitalist liberalism is a type of natural state devoid of ideological baggage. The
radicalization of the proletariat and peasantry across vast swathes of the world will,
unfortunately for Fukuyama, continue to provide plenty of fodder for history! The very
demonstrable and even grotesque absurdity of Fukuyama’s thesis makes it too much even
for many enthusiastic supporters of capitalist-imperialism to stomach, but it does serve
as a fine example of the depths of delusion to which capitalist ideologues can sink, and
the essay is interesting for that reason alone. Indeed, the very existence of colossal
military spending (which is actually increasing every year) demonstrates that there is
more than enough turmoil and instability generated by their wonderful system for them to
need to keep a lid on.” —L.C.
ENLIGHTENMENT, The (or the AGE OF REASON)
The period of European thought (esp. French, but also Scottish, English and German) from
the early 17th century to the early 19th 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.
See also:
ENCYCLOPEDISTS
“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.
EQUILIBRIUM THEORY [Bukharin]
A dubious conception of dialectics put forward by Nikolai
Bukharin, which initially does not sound unreasonable until you look into what is only
implied and is not usually overtly stated. Here is his basic conception:
“In other words, the world consists of forces, acting in many ways,
opposing each other. These forces are balanced for a moment in exceptional cases
only. We then have a state of ‘rest,’ i.e., their actual ‘conflict’ is concealed.
But if we change only one of these forces, immediately the ‘internal contradictions’
will be revealed, equilibrium will be disturbed, and if a new equilibrium is again
established, it will be on a new basis, i.e., with a new combination of forces,
etc. It follows that the ‘conflict,’ the ‘contradiction,’ i.e., the antagonism
of forces acting in various directions, determines the motion of the system.” —Nikolai
Bukharin, Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology (1925: University of
Michigan ed., 1969, p. 74.)
Although Bukharin does mention the phrase “internal contradictions” (though in scare
quotes, as if to say they are so-called internal contradictions!), it is not at all
clear that he really understands the nature of dialectical contradiction as being inherent
in, and really internal to specific things. It is not just “the world” that consists
of opposed forces, but also all the things in the world; that is what shows the
dialectical nature of every single thing. Moreover, though Bukharin starts by focusing on
the ubiquity of change, he subtly negates this emphasis when he switches his focus to
equilibria. The page before the above quoted passage Bukharin gives some examples of what
he is discussing, and then says:
“In all these examples it is clear that we are dealing with one
phenomenon, that of equilibrium. This being the case, where do the
contradictions come in? For there is no doubt that conflict is a disturbance
of equilibrium....”
Note that Bukharin has made equilibrium (not contradiction!) his central concept
in dialectics. He then approvingly quotes the German chemist H. von Halban who says:
“The precise conception of equilibrium is about as follows: ‘We say
of a system that it is in a state of equilibrium when the system cannot of itself,
i.e., without supplying energy to it from without, emerge from this state.’”
This is an explicit rejection of the idea that change is based on development occurring
within a system, and emphasizes that it must come from without. (In a simple
chemical example this might actually be the case because the “system” is viewed too narrowly.
But the use being made of this example by both von Halban and Bukharin is to promote the
general view that change must most essentially be caused by external forces.) On the
next page Bukharin emphasizes that this is actually his own view:
“Any object, a stone, a living thing, a human society, etc., may be
considered as a whole consisting of parts (elements) related with each other; in other
words, this whole may be regarded as a system. And no such system exists in
empty space; it is surrounded by other natural objects, which, with reference to it,
may be called the environment.... Man’s environment is society, in the midst
of which he lives; the environment of human society is external nature. There is a
constant relationship between environment and system, and the latter, in turn, acts
upon the environment. We must first of all investigate the fundamental question as to
the nature of the relations between the environment and the system; how are they to
be defined; what are their forms; what is their significance for their system.”
—Nikolai Bukharin, ibid., pp. 75-76.
So, again, it seems that Bukharin’s conception places the real source of change and
development not within the dialectical nature of the thing that changes, but rather in
the external environment. This is not in accordance with the perspective of Hegel, Marx,
Engels, Lenin or Mao. They all viewed the internal contradictions within things as
the fundamental basis for change, while recognizing that external factors are also
often of considerable importance. In the situations where “external factors” are truly
determining, and truly of central importance, then the process should be reconceived
in a larger way so that the governing contradictions at work include those important (and
not truly “external”) factors.
See also:
THEORY OF TWO POINTS
“Equilibrium, Theory of. Based on a vulgarized conception of
mechanics, this theory attempts to explain evolution in nature and society solely by
means of the laws of equilibrium in mechanics. In opposition to dialectics it holds
that rest (equilibrium) is the natural and normal condition of things, and that motion
or evolution is temporary, transient. The theory of equilibrium denies that motion is
ultimately self-motion, self-evolution. The application of this theory to society
leads to the conclusion that the evolution of society depends on its interrelations
with its surrounding natural environment, that the dynamic of this evolution is not
the internal contradictions of society, not the class struggle, but its external
contradictions with nature. The theory of equilibrium stems from Comte, Spencer,
Dühring, Kautsky, and other idealists and eclectics.” —Handbook of Philosophy
(International: 1949), ed. by Howard Selsam, and based on the Russian work Short
Philosophic Dictionary, by M. Rosenthal and P. Yudin.
ETHICAL RELATIVISM
The ethical theory that there is no objective basis for morality, that different moral
views are simply a matter of custom or convention, and therefore vary from one place to
another, and from one time to another.
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
EUROPEAN SOVEREIGN DEBT CRISIS (2009-?)
A slowly developing but very serious and prolonged financial crisis of the nations of
Europe, especially in the Euro zone. It is the result of the
enormous and ever-growing debts their governments and banks have accumulated. This
crisis first arose in 2009 as one important aspect of the worldwide capitalist financial
crisis of 2008-2009 which developed during the “Great
Recession”. And all of this, in turn, is but one chapter in the string of financial
crises arising out of the current world overproduction
crisis. Although proclaimed as over and resolved on numerous occasions, this European
sovereign debt crisis keeps arising anew.
A “sovereign
debt crisis” is one where a national government has borrowed too much money, risks
defaulting on the loans it has already received, and is thus unable to easily borrow more.
In most cases in recent times, these loans are in the form of government bonds sold to
private banks and the wealthy general public, or else in the form of more direct loans from
private banks or from other governments. But in a situation where governments such as Greece,
Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy (and others) have borrowed so much money from banks, it is
not only those countries which are in bad financial shape, but also the banks themselves who
may never get their money back. This puts the entire capitalist financial system of Europe
at risk of collapse. And this in turn would have extremely serious repercussions for the
United States and the whole world capitalist system.
In the spring of 2010 the European
Union and the International Monetary Fund bailed out the Greek government with €110
billion ($150 billion) and set up a further contingency fund of €500 billion ($680
billion). (It should be well understood, however, that the bailout of governments such as
Greece really means the bailout of the private banks and investors to whom the
governments owe the money.) This bailout only reassured the capitalist bond markets for a
short time. The austerity measures (cutbacks in government services and employment) forced
on Greece, Ireland and Portugal soon led to further declines in those economies, and to a
new round of the debt crisis.
By the spring of 2011 this led to the
collapse of governments in Ireland and Portugal, and unrest in Spain. Greece needed a
second bailout, and interest rates for government bonds began to rise steeply in Spain
and Italy. (Bonds which are perceived as riskier demand higher interest rates.) The
European Central Bank [ECB] began buying large amounts of Spanish and Italian bonds, in
an attempt to reassure rich investors and to keep interest rates down. In July Greece
received its second bailout (of $157 billion) and was allowed a small reduction in the
amount of debt it owed. The ECB also expanded the funding and capability of the
EUROPEAN FINANCIAL STABILITY FACILITY, the fund which it had
set up to prop up governments in danger of default.
In September 2011 a new round of assurances
and bailouts was arranged for Greece and other weak European economies, which eased the
acuteness of the crisis only for a moment. Everyone knows that this overall debt crisis is
by no means over. European politicians have recently been discussing the necessity to create
a stronger and more centralized European government, something along the lines of a “United
States of Europe”, to stabilize the Euro zone and bring the European sovereign debt crisis
to a real end. But first, even such a new political union can not achieve this result, and
second, the prospects for building such a stronger political union in Europe are quite
dismal at the present time.
[Some of the information
here is taken from the Wikipedia.]
EXTERNAL WORLD
The world around us; i.e., the everyday world of objects and things that we perceive, move
among, and act upon. In philosophy, to speak of the “external world” is to implicitly adopt
a materialist position, that the objective physical world
exists outside of the mind of the person contemplating it. For this reason
philosophical idealists often object even to the usage of the
term external world! For these idealists there is actually no external world
outside the mind (or, at least, outside the mind of “God”).
Even for modern dialectical materialists,
however, the term “external world” has sort of an early Twentieth Century quaintness about
it, since we now take the existence of the objective world outside of any mind as something
that is totally obvious, and scarcely necessary of any further argument.
“The external world is not dependent on us, it is a thing absolute in
itself, a thing we must face, and the discovery of the laws governing this absolute
has always seemed to me the most wonderful task in a scientist’s life.” —Max Planck,
Wissenschaftliche Selbstbiographie [Scientific Autobiography] (Leipzig: 1948),
p. 7.
[This great physicist, though he
was a conservative and religious person, nevertheless took a materialist stance on the
existence of an objective external world. Note, however, the terminology he still uses,
referring to the objective world as the “absolute”, a
term previously mostly used by idealists such as Hegel for their very non-materialist
conception of the world.]
“The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving
subject is the basis of all natural science.” —Albert Einstein, Ideas and
Opinions, (NY: 1954), p. 266.
This map is based on satellite photos of the light produced in various regions of the earth
adjusted to show how much light (and by implication how much electricity and economic
development in general) is produced per capita in different countries and areas. It
is thus one indication of the relative wealth and development in some countries and areas
compared to the relative poverty and under-development in other areas, and an indication of
the overall gross inequality of wealth and modern amenities in the world today. (Of course
some large areas like Greenland show up as “highly developed per capita” only because the
population is so extremely sparse there.)
The percentage of the population that has jobs. In the U.S. this percentage increased for a
number of decades following World War II as growing numbers of women had to find jobs
outside the home to help maintain family income levels (as real wages of men began to fall).
However, in recent years, more and more people (men and women both) have been laid off and
have been unable to find new jobs, as the economic crisis continues to develop. And many
young adults who look for jobs once they are out of school cannot find them at all. The
drop in this employment/population ratio was especially sharp in the
The world economic crisis, which took a turn for the worse with the world financial crisis
of 2008-2009, is still continuing to develop. This is especially the case in Europe as well
as the U.S. and Japan. The chart at the right shows the recent trends for falling GDP and
rising unemployment in five of the most seriously afflicted European countries.