Dictionary of Revolutionary Marxism

—   Mo - Mt   —

MODE OF PRODUCTION
One of the major forms of the economic organization of society: primitive communalism, slave production, feudalism, capitalism, socialism or communism. The mode of production can be viewed as a combination of the productive forces of society together with the social relations of production. Once the ever-advancing and developing productive forces become restrained or fettered by the existing relations of production, the current mode of production begins to break down. An era of socio-economic revolution then begins which leads to a new mode of production more in tune with the advancing productive forces. We Marxists conclude that this social development must ultimately result in communist society with a communist mode of production.

MONAD
[In the philosophy of Leibniz]: The supposed “ultimate” units of reality which give rise to matter and mind. Thus an entity postulated to underlie a dualistic conception of the world. The notion is clearly incoherent. God is supposed to be the “supreme monad”, whatever that means.
        There was, however, an element of primitive dialectics in Leibniz’s conception of the monad, and (unlike Descartes) he recognized that substance has within it an active force or principle of movement. Both Marx and Lenin [LCW 38:380] took note of this. Today we would just say that movement arises (or development occurs) due to the opposing forces within things, i.e., because of the dialectical contradictions within them.

MONETARISM
A complex of various theories in bourgeois economics, championed by reactionary economists such as Milton Friedman. Two prominent specific monetarist views are:
1. The theory that inflation is basically caused by the undue expansion of the money supply. (Marxist political economy pretty much agrees with this!)
2. The theory that capitalist economic crises (recessions and depressions) are caused by mismanagement of the money supply. (This is utter bourgeois stupidity which doesn’t begin to understand that crises are inherent in the capitalist exploitation of labor!)

MONISM
The view that everything in the world is derived from, or can be explained by, the existence of just one fundamental type of thing. There are various kinds of naive monism (“all is made of water”), but the more modern view of monism is just that it is a denial of dualism. Dialectical materialism is a type of monism because it holds that although mind exists, it exists as a set of characteristics or functional aspects of the brain (i.e., of highly organized matter in motion). That is, matter is primary, and mind depends on matter, is an “outgrowth” or “development” or set of aspects or characteristics of certain complex forms of matter (brains, or their equivalent).

MONOPOLY
[To be added... ]
        See also: OLIGOPOLY

MONOPOLY CAPITAL (1966 Book)
This is an influential book written by Paul M. Sweezy and Paul Baran, and published in 1966. There are widely differing opinions as to just how correct and important this book is. John Bellamy Foster, who is now the editor of the magazine Sweezy co-founded, Monthly Review, talks about the book in rather glowing terms:

“The appearance in 1966 of Monopoly Capital by Baran and Sweezy (published two years after Baran’s death) represented a turning point in Marxian economics. Although described by the authors themselves as a mere ‘essay-sketch’, it rapidly gained widespread recognition as the most important attempt thus far to bring Marx’s Capital up to date, as well as providing a formidable critique of prevailing Keynesian orthodoxy.
         “Where Sweezy himself was concerned, Monopoly Capital reflected dissatisfaction with the analysis of accumulation and crisis advanced in The Theory of Capitalist Development [his book from 1942]. His earlier study had been written when mainstream economics was undergoing rapid change due to the Keynesian ‘revolution’ and the rise of imperfect competition theory. Thus, he had provided a detailed elaboration of both Marx’s theory of realization crisis (or demand-side constraints in the accumulation process), and of work by Marx and later Marxian theorists on the concentration and centralization of capital. As with mainstream theory, however, these two aspects of Sweezy’s analysis remained separate; and hence he failed to develop an adequate explanation of the concrete factors conditioning investment demand in an economic regime dominated by the modern large enterprise. It was essentially this critique of Sweezy’s early efforts that was provided by Josef Steindl in Maturity and Stagnation in American Capitalism (1952: 243-6), who went to show how a more unified theory could ‘be organically developed out of the underconsumptionist approach to Marx’ based on Michal Kalecki’s model of capitalist dynamics, which had connected the pehenomenon of realization crisis to the increasing ‘degree of monopoly’ in the economy as a whole.
         “In fact, it was out of this argument, as outlined by Steindl, that the underlying framework for Baran and Sweezy’s own contribution in Monopoly Capital was derived. Thus, they suggested that Marx’s fundamental ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’ associated with accumulation in the era of free competition, had been replaced, in the more restrictive competitive environment of monopoly capitalism, by a law of the tendency of the surplus to rise (defining surplus as the gap, at any given level of production, between output and socially necessary costs of production). Under these circumstances, the critical economic problem was one of surplus absorption. Capitalist consumption tended to account for a decreasing share of capitalist demand as income grew, while investment was hindered by the fact that it took the form of new productive capacity, which could not be expanded for long periods of time independently of final, wage-based demand. Despite the fact that there was always the possibility of new ‘epoch-maing innovations’ emerging that would help absorb the potential economic surplus, all such innovations—resembling the steam engine, the railroad and the automobile in their overall effect—were few and far between. Hence Baran and Sweezy concluded that the system had a powerful tendency toward stagnation, largely countered thus far through the promotion of economic waste by means of ‘the sales effort’ (including its penetration into the production process) and military expenditures, and through the expansion of the financial sector. All such ‘countervailing influences’ were, however, of a self-limiting character and could be expected to lead to a doubling-over of contradictions in the not too distant future.” —John Bellamy Foster, “Paul Malor Sweezy”, in John Eatwell, et al., eds., The New Palgrave: Marxian Economics (1990), p. 352-3.

However, to my eyes much of this seems to be unnecessary and even downright wrong. Yes, there is a more fully coherent “underconsumptionist” approach (or overproductionist approach, I would prefer to say) than Sweezy put forward in his 1942 book, and it comes straight out of Marx himself. The problem, it seems to me, is that not only in 1942, but also in this 1966 book Monopoly Capital there is an unnecessary and incorrect adulteration of Marx with Keynesian conceptions. Thus contrary to Foster’s comment that this book provides “a formidable critique of prevailing Keynesian orthodoxy”, I would say the book has still not sufficiently broken with Keynesianism!
        The basic problem with capitalism is that it does not pay the workers enough to buy back all that they produce for the capitalists. The capitalists themselves can for a long while spend a large part of the surplus value they extract from the workers in building new factories and buying more machinery. And for a fairly long while they can still sell the output from these new and old factories by granting credit to the workers and by having the government borrow money from the rich (or else simply print up money) to buy weapons, military supplies, and other commodities. In other words, the continual and ever-faster expansion of debt can keep the system working for quite a while. But eventually this massive credit bubble must pop, and then—according to Marx—the only thing that can clear the ground for a new expansion is the destruction of all the old excess capital, including that massive overhang of excess factories and machinery that was artificially built up during the long credit boom. This is really pretty much all there is to it, and no Keynesian conceptions at all are necessary to further explicate the situation.
        It is true that Sweezy and Baran were right to point out mechanisms such as wastefulness, innovation, and so forth, as ways which to a degree help keep the system going for a while. But these are quite secondary to the main thing, the expansion of the consumer and government credit bubbles. That is the place to focus one’s attention! And when this giant credit bubble pops it is totally inadequate to say that there will then be stagnation; actually there will then be long-term and intractable economic depression!
        So while there are indeed some things of interest in the book Monopoly Capital, and some valid points, overall it still seems to me to be a Keynesian-influenced down-playing of how central and how serious the economic contradictions really are within the capitalist system. —S.H.
        See also: STAGNATION THESIS

MONOPOLY CAPITALISM
One of several names for the form capitalism has taken during the capitalist-imperialist era (starting in the late 19^th century). It is also called capitalist-imperialism and finance capitalism. [More to be added... ]

MONOTHEISM
A form of religion, often viewed by biased contemporaries as a “higher stage” of religion, in which the doctrine holds that there is only a single God, rather than many gods (as in polytheism, such as among the ancient Greeks and Romans). It is usually said that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are monotheistic religions, while Hinduism is not. However, the claim that Christianity, at least, is a monotheistic religion is essentially erroneous. First there is the totally incoherent notion of the “Trinity” among most Christians, that God is both a single god, while simultaneously being also three separate entities (“Father, Son [Jesus], and Holy Ghost”). Second, there is the claim that the “Devil” exists, who is in effect an evil god (though an inferior one). Finally, many Christians, including the largest group of them—the Roman Catholic Church—hold that there also exists the “Mother of God” [Mary], angels, and saints (humans raised to minor god-like status), all of which are claimed to have certain god-like attributes such as immateriality and immortality, and are said to “answer prayers”, and so on and so forth.
        When people look at the world, even though mostly with a lack of scientific comprehension, they see multiple forces and agencies at work, and both good and evil, and it is very difficult for them to consistently fit these perceptions into the religious doctrine that one, and only one, supernatural god exists. For these reasons it may well be that virtually no religion is truly monotheistic, strictly speaking.

MONTAGNARD
See: MOUNTAIN AND GIRONDE

MONTESQUIEU, Charles Louis   (1689-1755)
Writer and thinker of the French Enlightenment, and political ideologist of having a constitutional monarchy. His major work was L’Esprit des Lois [The Spirit of the Laws] (1748).

MONTHLY REVIEW
An important socialist magazine in the United States, established by Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman in 1949. After Huberman died, Harry Magdoff became a co-editor with Sweezy, and now that Sweezy and Magdoff have both died, it is edited by John Bellamy Foster. [More to be added...]

MONTHLY REVIEW SCHOOL
This is not a formal school, but a loose collection of political economists centered around the Monthly Review magazine (see above). Most of these economists are quite eclectic in their views and are also strongly influenced by Keynes and Keynesianism to one degree or another, as well as by Marx.
        See also: MONOPOLY CAPITAL (Book), STAGNATION THESIS, Paul SWEEZY, Paul BARAN, Harry MAGDOFF, John Bellamy FOSTER

MONUMENT TO THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL
A proposed ultra-modernistic monument by the Constructivist artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin. He constructed a 6 meter high model which was exhibited in Moscow in 1920, but the proposed 400 meter version—higher than the Eiffel Tower!—was never built. This design became very famous worldwide among those enthusiastic about abstract modern art.

MOORE, G. E. [George Edward]   (1873-1958)
English idealist philosopher. In ethics he was an intuitionist who believed the word ‘good’ is indefinable.
        See also: Philosophical doggerel about Moore.

MOORE, Samuel   (1838-1911)
English lawyer and member of the (First) International, and friend of Marx and Engels. He translated into English Vol. 1 of Marx’s Capital (in collaboration with Edward Aveling) and also the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

MORAL (Adj.)
The word ‘moral’ is often a slightly more formal near synonym for either ‘good’ or ‘right’, depending on the context. Thus “He’s a moral person” means something very nearly the same as “He’s a good person”.

MORAL HAZARD (In bourgeois economics)
A variety of related views, such as:
        1) The problem that having insurance can cause people to behave in more risky ways. (This is bad from the perspective of the bourgeoisie not because it increases the risk of harm to people, but because it increases the chances that they will collect insurance, thus leading to rising insurance premiums.)
        2) Government bailouts of failing companies (even if there was no previous promise that this would occur), which amounts to a form of insurance payment anyway, and tends to increase the chances that companies will act imprudently (stupidly!) again in the future. This should lead bourgeois economists to oppose government bailouts, but most of them find some special excuse to make an exception when the matter comes up in any major way—such as at the present time with the trillions of dollars being given to banks that recklessly invested in “securities” based on highly risky sub-prime mortgages.

MORAL MAXIM
A general rule about what is right or wrong, such as “Lying is wrong.” According to Kantian ethics, such moral maxims are absolutes, and must always be followed regardless of the circumstances or the specific consequences. But more rational people understand that there are times when lying is not wrong (and even occasions when it is morally wrong not to lie!). Therefore, more rational people treat virtually all moral maxims not as absolutes, but rather more like “rules of thumb” which are generally valid, but not invariably so. On this conception, moral maxims must be evaluated in the particular situation, and by ascertaining if they agree or conflict with more general moral principles, and especially the most central moral principle: something is good and right only if it answers to (or satisfies) the interests (or meets the needs) of the people.
        See also: CLASS INTEREST THEORY OF ETHICS

MORALITY
1. Conformity to the standards of right conduct.
2. The norms, standards, principles or rules of right conduct themselves.
3. Ethics, although most philosophers (Marxist and non-Marxist alike) try to keep the concepts of ethics and morality separate, with ethics being the theory behind any system of morality.

MORTGAGE
A loan (from a bank or other financial company) for the purpose of buying a house (or other real estate), and for which the property itself serves as the security for the loan. If the person buying the house fails at any time to make the interest payments due on the mortgage, the bank may foreclose on the loan and take ownership of the house (which it will then sell to someone else).
        See also: ADJUSTABLE RATE MORTGAGE (ARM), NEGATIVE AMORTIZATION LOAN, REVERSE MORTGAGE, SUB-PRIME MORTGAGE

MOSADDEGH, Mohammad   [Pronounced, roughly: mo-sad-DECK]   (1882-1967)
Nationalist prime minister of Iran, elected in 1951 and serving until August 19, 1953 when he was overthrown in a coup d’état organized by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Mosaddegh, who was from an aristocratic family, was actually quite conservative, and was opposed to communism and any type of “socialism”. But he was also a nationalist who opposed foreign intervention in Iran and who believed the national resources of the country (including its oil) should belong to Iranians and not foreigners. He also favored some bourgeois democratic reforms such as ending forced feudal labor on landlords’ estates.
        The Iranian oil industry had been controlled since 1913 by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), later renamed British Petroleum, and then BP. When Mosaddegh tried to nationalize AIOC, the British imperialists and their American allies began falsely calling him “pro-Soviet” and “pro-Communist”. Winston Churchill, for example, said that Mosaddegh was “increasingly turning towards communism”. Determined not to lose their imperialist control of Iranian oil, Britain’s spy agency (MI6) arranged with the U.S. CIA to organize a coup to overthrow Mosaddegh. The chief of the CIA’s Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. (the grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt) then went to Tehran and directed the coup, which the CIA called “Operation Ajax”. The fact that by their own bourgeois standards Mosaddegh had been democratically elected didn’t bother them in the least. Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three years and then kept under house arrest until his death.
        This CIA coup restored the absolute monarchy of Shah Pahlavi, who ruled in a viciously tyranical manner with the aid of his secret police organization SAVAK until he himself was overthrown in 1979.

MOTION — Dialectics Of
From the standpoint of classical physics, motion is a simple thing. Motion just means that an object (whether it be an electron, an atom, or a multitude of such particles making up a large conglomerate object such as a rock or a baseball) changes its location (with respect to other objects) over time. Thus, if a car is heading from east to west, the measure of its average velocity during some interval (and hence the overall motion of the car during that interval) is the direction and distance traveled from one given point to another specific point divided by the time it takes to go from the first point to the second. And its instantaneous velocity, or velocity at a given instant or point in time, is defined as the limit of the average velocity in ever smaller intervals around the point of time in question. All this is elementary, and straightforward, and causes no serious conceptual difficulties once the mathematical concept of a limit is understood.
        Ah, but what is motion itself? What does it mean physically at the sub-atomic level for an object to move at all? Does it make any sense to ask what it means to move from one spot “to the very next spot”? Or are space and time absolutely continuous (in reality and not just conceptually) so that there is no such thing as two minimally adjacent locations and two minimally adjacent moments of time? The answers to these questions still seem to be unclear and unsettled. There are scientific theories that maintain that the “Planck length” (10^-20 of the diameter of a single proton) is the smallest distance which is meaningful in physics. If this is the case, then motion must perhaps consist of a series of jumps each of which is some discrete number of “Planck lengths”. And presumably to really clarify what motion ultimately is, we would have to be able to say precisely what happens physically when some object traverses one or more Planck lengths. Or putting it all another way, can we be absolutely sure we understand exactly what motion is unless we are sure what space (or space-time) itself is, and whether or not it is discrete or continuous at some super-tiny level?
        Philosophically, the point is not really to engage in scientific speculation about quantized space (or space-time), but simply to point out that from a philosophical perspective it is still possible to be puzzled about what space and motion actually are. Motion may not really be the totally simple thing that it is assumed to be in everyday common sense, or that it is represented to be in introductory physics classes.

“Motion itself is a contradiction: even simple mechanical change of position can only come about through a body being at one and the same moment of time both in one place and in another place, being in one and the same place and also not in it. And the continuous origination and simultaneous solution of this contradiction is precisely what motion is.” —Engels, Anti-Dühring (1878), MECW 25:111. [It is possible that some sensible physical interpretation of what it might mean for a body to be “in one and the same place” and also “not be in it” may someday be put forward, either within quantum mechanics or in some other conceptual framework. In other words, what appears on the surface here to be a logical contradiction may in fact be a high-level characterization of some deep physical process. —S.H.]

“[T]he question is not whether there is movement, but how to express it in the logic of concepts.” —Lenin, “Conspectus of Hegel’s Book Lectures on the History of Philosophy” (1915), LCW 38:256.

MOTIVES
See: CONSEQUENTIALISM

MoU
A Memorandum of Understanding, which is usually an agreement among governments, and/or between a government and one or more private corporations, and which is similar in nature to a bourgeois legal contract. The term MoU is currently especially common in India, where the central and state governments have frequently signed such agreements with giant corporations (including MNCs) allowing them to steal the land and resources of tribal peoples (adivasis).

MOUNTAIN AND GIRONDE
La Montagne [the Mountain] and Gironde are two different Departments (administrative regions) of France. In the great French Revolution a group known as the Montagnards (from La Montagne) arose and formed a more determined revolutionary opposition to the irresolute bourgeois revolutionary forces from the Gironde. Although originally the “Mountain” consisted of diverse political forces, they soon came to be characterized as uncompromising men of action, and included such important revolutionary figures as Jean-Paul Marat, Georges-Jacques Danton, and Maximilien Robespierre. The Montagnards gained control of the Jacobin Club, and the terms “Jacobin” and “Montagnard” become virtually synonymous. The Mountain dominated the National Convention and Committee of Public Safety, and imposed what came to be called “The Terror”. The Mountain split into different factions, including the faction led by Danton which favored an alliance with the masses, and the proponents of The Terror led by Robespierre. After Robespierre’s execution the group dissolved.
        After the February Revolution of 1848 in France, the Mountain was briefly reborn as the left-wing faction of the national Assembly.

“The Mountain (la Montagne) and the Gironde were the names of two political groupings of the bourgeoisie at the time of the French bourgeois revolution of the end of the eighteenth century. The Mountain—the Jacobins—was the name given to the more determined representatives of the revolutionary class of the time—the bourgeoisie—who advocated the abolition of absolutism and feudalism. Unlike the Jacobins, the Girondists wavered between revolution and counter-revolution, and entered into deals with the monarchy.
         “Lenin called the opportunist trend in Social-Democracy the ‘socialist Gironde’, and the revolutionary Social-Democrats—proletarian Jacobins, the ‘Mountain’. After the R.S.D.L.P. split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Lenin frequently stressed that the Mensheviks were the Girondist trend in the working-class movement in Russia.” —Note 96, Lenin, SW1 (1967).

MOVEMENT — Dialectics Of
See: MOTION—Dialectics Of

MTS
See: MACHINE TRACTOR STATION

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