CREDENTIALS
“In my own professional work I have touched on a variety of different fields. I’ve
done my work in mathematical linguistics, for example, without any professional credentials in
mathematics; in this subject I am completely self-taught, and not very well taught. But I’ve often
been invited by universities to speak on mathematical linguistics at mathematics seminars and
colloquia. No one has ever asked me whether I have the appropriate credentials to speak on these
subjects; the mathematicians couldn’t care less. What they want to know is what I have to say. No
one has ever objected to my right to speak, asking whether I have a doctor’s degree in mathematics,
or whether I have taken advanced courses in the subject. That would never have entered their minds.
They want to know whether I am right or wrong, whether the subject is interesting or not, whether
better approaches are possible—the discussion dealt with the subject, not with my right to discuss
it.
“But on the other hand, in discussion or debate
concerning social issues or American foreign policy, Vietnam or the Middle East, for example, the
issue is constantly raised, often with considerable venom. I’ve repeatedly been challenged on the
grounds of credentials, or asked, what special training do you have that entitles you to speak of
these matters. The assumption is that people like me, who are outsiders from a professional
standpoint, are not entitled to speak on such things.
“Compare mathematics and the political sciences—it’s
quite striking. In mathematics, in physics, people are concerned with what you say, not with your
certification. But in order to speak about social reality, you must have the proper credentials,
particularly if you depart from the accepted framework of thinking. Generally speaking, it seems fair
to say that the richer the intellectual substance of a field, the less there is a concern for
credentials, and the greater is concern for content.” —Noam Chomsky, Language and Responsibility
(1979), pp. 6-7.
[It seems to me that the more fundamental
difference between these two cases is not the differing level of intellectual substance (though that
is often true as well), but rather the absolute necessity for the bourgeois ruling class to
suppress any social ideas which go against their class interests in an “unacceptable way” or which
even threaten their continued rule. This requires a system that, in one way or another, regulates who
is even allowed to speak out about society, at least to a mass audience. —S.H.]
CREDIT CARDS
Cards, generally made of plastic, which allow consumers to receive short-term loans to make
purchases. Although these loans are usually interest free if they are paid off in the first
month, many credit card holders are unable to pay off the entire amount immediately and
therefore end up paying what are in effect usurious interest rates to the credit card company.
The credit card company also charges businesses which accept their credit cards a percentage
fee. This forces businesses to raise their prices to cover these fees, but they are willing
to do this to attract more customers to their shops. Moreover, those using credit cards tend
to spend more, even if they really cannot afford to do so. Many workers and other low-income
consumers end up getting very deeply into debt because of these factors.
“One section of the book discusses how credit cards are used to
‘phish’ [deceive and ripoff] the unsuspecting. Why do shops accept cards when it is so
costly? One study found that credit-card firms charge convenience shops fees that
amount to over twice their profits. But cards also trick people into spending more
than they really want to. Richard Feinberg of Purdue University demonstrated this in
a psychology experiment. After putting MasterCard symbols nearby, subjects said that
they would pay significantly more for a basket of goods than the control group—in
some cases 200% more. You, the consumer, may think that credit cards make life more
convenient. In fact they ‘phish’ you on a daily basis.”
—“The Econonomics of Deception:
You Have Been Warned”, the Economist, Sept. 19, 2015, p. 82. This is a book
review of: George Akerlof and Robert Shiller, Phishing for Phools: The Economics of
Manipulation and Deception (2015).
“The average annual percentage rate, or APR, on a credit card is 16.97
percent, nearly the highest in two decades and up from 13.53 percent in 2015. Lenders
are tacking on an average margin of 11.72 percentage points to the rates banks themselves
pay, the highest on record.” —Wall Street Journal report, summarized in
The Week magazine, Oct. 25, 2019, p. 36.
“According to Federal Reserve data, about 56 percent of people earning
less than $25,000 carried a credit card balance in 2022, compared with 38 percent of
those earning more than $100,000.” —New York Times, “How High Rates Hit
Have-Nots”, National Edition, May 14, 2024.
[“Carrying a credit card balance”
means not paying off the entire amount due each month. This subjects the credit card
user to extremely high (usurious) interest rates on the amount rolled over to future
months. Not surprisingly, the information here shows that low income workers and others
are much more likely to have to roll over part of their credit card bill, and thus to
be victimized even more than better paid people. This is just one way in which the
capitalist credit system works to especially victimize the poor. —Ed.]
CRIME
Crime is the violation of a law. And what are laws? They are the rules established by a state
(government) controlled by some specific ruling class primarily for the benefit of that one
social class. Thus, if the capitalists who own an automobile factory or giant agribusiness
corporation steal half or more of the wealth produced by “their” workers (via the extraction
of surplus value in the production process), amounting to
millions or even billions of dollars every year, that is not of course a crime in capitalist
society. But if a poor, starving unemployed worker steals a loaf of bread, that is a very
serious crime and a worrisome break down in law and order.
The revolutionary proletariat views the worst
real crimes in society as those forms of exploitation (theft), oppression, mass killings
(mostly through endless imperialist wars), and so forth, which are technically not crimes in
bourgeois society at all (since there are no laws against them). It is also true, however, that
the bulk of the great many smaller crimes (according to the legal code itself), such as robberies
and burglaries, though mostly committed by “lumpen”
elements among the masses, are also directed primarily at workers and others among the masses.
The ruling class is mostly concerned about such “petty crimes” only because they are also the
occasional victims themselves.
“Mark the part of your city where crime flourishes. Now look at the map
of your city. You have marked the areas where there are slums, poor schools, high
unemployment, widespread poverty; where sickness and mental illness are common, housing
is decrepit and nearly every site is ugly—and you have marked the areas where crime
flourishes.... Poverty, illness, injustice, idleness, ignorance, human misery, and crime
go together. That is the truth. We have known it all along. We cultivate crime, breed it,
nourish it. Little wonder we have so much. What is to be said of the character of people
who, having the power to end all this, permit it to continue?” —Ramsey Clark, Attorney
General in the Lyndon Johnson Administration, quoted in Andrew Karmen, “Poverty, Crime,
and Criminal Justice,” in Wm. Heffernan & John Kleinig, eds., From Social Justice to
Criminal Justice: Poverty and the Administration of of Criminal Law (2000), p. 28.
CRISIS THEORIES (For Capitalist Economic Crises)
There are a large number of different theories attempting to explain why economic crises periodically
develop in capitalist society. Most bourgeois economists, when pressed to explain such social disasters,
try to say that the causes are all “exogenous” (external) to the workings of capitalism itself. Usually
they claim that financial panics, recessions, depressions, etc., are instead entirely due to the foolish
errors and missteps on the part of the government authorities. In some cases, though, they’ve come up
with rather bizarre theories, such as William Stanley Jevons blaming
sunspot cycles! It seems quite fair to say that bourgeois economists, and bourgeois economics as a
whole, have no good explanation whatsoever for the existence and continual development of capitalist
economic crises, as important as those crises certainly are!
However, economists in the Marxist tradition have many
different theories, and/or sub-theories, to explain this phenomenon of recurring economic crises under
capitalism. Virtually all Marxists, from Marx on, say that these crises are inherent to capitalism, and
will continue to occur as long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist. Marx gave the name
Overproduction Crises to them, and quite obviously, overproduction is definitely a central aspect
to them. However, the various theories that have been created and defended are focused on what the basic
cause of these crises is, which could conceivably be something else entirely. Here we list the
three three main categories of Marxist theories of capitalist economic crises. For further discussion of
each, go to the specific entries:
I. The
Overproduction Theory itself, as it is usually called, is the most central and important crisis theory.
In brief outline, it basically argues that since the capitalists pay their workers for only a fraction of
what they produce, the workers can therefore only buy back a fraction. Since the
surplus value (the value produced by the workers that the capitalists
don’t pay them for) is enormous and continually accumulating, it is up to the capitalists themselves to
buy all the remaining commodities produced. But even after spending great amounts on their own luxurious
lifestyles, there is still a mountain of loot left. For a long while they use that loot mostly to build
more factories, but that just makes the underlying problem worse. Even more goods are produced for
which there is no true market. So they grant credit to the workers and other consumers for a long while,
in order to artifically expand the market; and similarly the capitalists have their government go into ever
greater debt to buy the excess production (often in preparation for capitalist wars). And, really, it is
only this continual expansion of credit and debt that allows a capitalist economy to keep functioning at
all. But finally the debt bubble collapses in a financial crisis and there follows a recession or even a
depression, characterized by a true mass of commodities which cannot be sold even while people are in great
need of them; and also, the much greater problem for the capitalists is exposed, the vast array of
idle factories representing the overproduction of productive capital itself.
However, some superficial and naïve versions of this
overproduction theory, such as that of Rodbertus, focus only on the
overproduction of final consumer commodities as compared to the limited market demand for them, and ignore
the massive overproduction of productive capital itself and the necessary endless expansion of debt. Those
writers who favor a different theory of capitalist economic crises prefer to call this the
“underconsumption” theory, rather than the overproduction
theory, as a means of emphasizing the erroneous idea of a few, like Rodbertus, who thought that these crises
could then be prevented by simply raising workers’ wages somewhat. However, this criticism of the
overproduction/“underconsumption” theory is setting up a straw man and is essentially dishonest. Virtually
all modern proponents of the overproduction theory of crises totally reject such naïve versions of it as
that of Rodbertus!
Marx’s own overproduction theory focuses on the overproduction
of productive capital itself, and is for that reason often referred
to as overaccumulation, although Marx himself generally just used the
term ‘overproduction’, since productive capital, like final consumer goods, is also created via the production
of commodities under capitalism.
II. The
Anarchy of Production Theory. The basic idea here is that capitalist production is not done according to an
overall plan for what society needs, and therefore too much of some things and too little of other things get
produced. While that is certainly true, capitalism does not care about what people really need; only about
producing commodities that can be sold. And in terms of the effective demand
for goods, capitalist corporations generally seem reasonably efficient in switching production to meet any shifts
in that demand. (In fact, the U.S. capitalists frequently bragged about this ability as compared with the
sluggishness in the U.S.S.R. in its state-captialist era.) The proponents of this crisis theory, however, say
that the market itself tends to lead to disproportionalities that result in crises. Mostly, it seems to us, that
they have not proven their point. And the most important disproportions that do in fact arise—such as the
continual construction of unnecessary new factories (given actual demand without excessive credit expansion)—can
be better explained by the overproduction theory (see above).
It is of course true that there can still be disruptions in
production which throw the economy seriously out of whack for a while, such as major crop failures, earthquakes,
hurricanes and other severe weather, wars, or pandemics like Covid-19
which led to sudden major but temporary shifts in market demand for many commodities, and therefore all kinds of
“supply chain” problems. However, it should be noted that these sorts of major truly exogenous problems can lead
to problems under every mode of production, including even socialism and communism. Most of those who
nevertheless still favor the theory that capitalist economic crises are basically due to its unplanned nature, or
to the independent production of commodities by “many capitals”, prefer to speak in terms of disproportionalities
rather than anarchic production. But it is not clear that merely changing the terminology makes this theory any
more plausible.
It should also be noted that this anarchy-of-production-theory
of capitalist economic crises has itself historically had some very negative consequences. For example, it has
reinforced the tendency for people to misunderstand socialism as simply the nationalization of industry. And in
addition it was very puzzling to many upholders of this crisis theory to see the Soviet Union in its final
state-capitalist decades fall into ever deeper economic crisis even though it was the least anarchic, and
most organized and monopolized economy on earth!
III. The
Falling Rate of Profit Theory. It has long been supposed, even in classical bourgeois economics such as by
Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and many others, that there is a long-term overall tendency in capitalism for the
average profit rate to fall. (Real profit rates are difficult to ascertain, especially for periods with poor
statistical records.) However, the empirical evidence we have from that period of classical bourgeois economy
does suggest that this may have been true back then, for reasons which might remain not fully explained, even by
Marx. However, for long periods since the beginning of the capitalist-imperialist era, this is certainly no longer
true. See: Falling Rate of Profit Theory—Empirical Investigations
This strongly suggests that falling profit rates—when they do occur—may be more the result of other negative
factors, than they are the supposed primary driving causal factor leading to crises.
Of course profit rates generally fall during a serious
economic crisis! But that is no more the explanation for the cause of the crisis than laying sick in bed is the
cause of your getting the flu. Moreover, even during the course of a really prolonged overproduction crisis,
such as the current one which actually began around 1973 and a half-century later is still continuing to develop
and worsen, there may well be numerous sub-periods when average profit rates rise as well as other sub-periods
when they decline.
There are various quite different reasons why the capitalists
may pull back on new investment and thus weaken or further weaken the economy, and not just because of falling
profit rates. How about the fact that their existing factories might already produce all they can sell, for
example, whether their current profit rates are high or not! (The overproduction explanation.) At the very most,
the falling rate of profit theory is only an adjunct or secondary component of a full and complete explanation
for overproduction crises.
Yes, Marx also believed (at least in his earlier decades) that
there was a long-term tendency for the rate of profit to fall. And in the mid-1860s he also believed and wrote
drafts about his theory at that time that this was a deeper cause of overproduction crises. But after about 1965
he stopped writing anything at all about this particular crisis theory—even though it was obviously in need of
a lot more work. And since he didn’t die for another couple decades (in 1883), it seems quite plausible to think
that he gave up on this theory completely. (For a thorough discussion of this matter, see Michael Heinrich,
“Capital after MEGA: Discontinuities, Interruptions, and New Beginnings”, online at:
https://www.bannedthought.net/MLM-Theory/PoliticalEconomyOfCapitalism/Crises/CapitalAfterMEGA-Discontinuities-Heinrich-2016-OCR.pdf
Engels incorporated those passages from the mid-1860s about
the falling rate of profit theory into Volume 3 of Capital which he edited, but it should not be assumed
from this fact that by the end of his life Marx himself would have done so.
All three of these main crisis theories are derived from
the writings of Marx himself, including directly from the various drafts of his great but unfinished work
Capital. Moreover, it is quite clear that all three theories have at least some relevance and partial
validity to them in that each may at least contribute to the overall explanation for capitalist economic crises
and how they develop. For example, the falling rate of profit is not the first or most basic cause of
overproduction crises, and simple overproduction is the basic cause (since as both Marx and Engels put
it in different places, the expansion of the capitalist market is unable to keep up with the expansion of
production). Nevertheless, that falling rate of profit which then develops early in the crisis, and because of
it, will certainly compound the situation, and for one thing, make capitalist companies even more reluctant to
start investing again in new factories, thus at least helping to prolong the crisis. Similarly, even if the
anarchy of “many capitals” is not actually the cause of overproduction crises, it will certainly contribute to
the problem as the crisis develops. For example, each corporation will try to keep as many of its own factories
operating, and try to force the other companies to permanently close down their plants. Since the
de facto destruction of excess productive capital is the only real way to resolve the crisis, the individual
interests, reserves and reluctance of each competing company will tend to strongly slow down the resolution
process and extend the crisis. (These are just two of many examples of how these other subsidiary crisis
theories also enter the overall picture.)
Nevertheless, it is incorrect to try to say that all three of
these crisis theories are equally correct, or equally important, or somehow equally “the basic cause” of
overproduction crises, as some Marxist or pseudo-Marxist writers have tried to claim. In reality the
overproduction of commodities, including most especially the overproduction of productive capital itself, is
the basic and primary cause of these crises—which is why they are indeed appropriately called overproduction
crises. But in the further development of these crises there are in fact elements of capitalist anarchy and
disproportions, and also falling rates of profits, which then compound, amplify, and extend the overall crises.
This, in part, and along with the necessity of getting into the financial aspects of crises, are what makes
fully understanding overproduction crises a somewhat challenging task. —S.H. [March 31, 2023]
See also:
ECONOMIC CRISES,
FINANCIAL CRISES
CRITICISM AND SELF-CRITICISM
Political criticism of oneself or of one’s comrades and others for the purpose of improving
the effectiveness of the revolutionary work of individuals, groups, parties and the
revolutionary movement as a whole. Making regular and appropriate use of criticism and
self-criticism within our ranks is a fundamental characteristic of any genuine
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organization or party, and is essential to our development and
success.
Criticism involves pointing out shortcomings
of individuals which are interfering with their political efforts. This includes the
deficient character of the relationships which individuals may have with the masses, their
manner of interacting with comrades or the masses, or any other aspect of their activity (or
lack of it) which is deemed harmful to the political work. Criticism also involves pointing
out aspects of the general or collective work of the group which is holding things back.
This can extend at times even into criticism of part of the political line which the group
is putting forward to the masses, or how that is being done.
See also the sub-topics below, and the essay
“How Critical Should Revolutionaries Be of Each Other?” (2004), by Scott
Harrison, at:
https://www.massline.org/Politics/ScottH/HowCritical.htm and:
CONFABULATION,
CONFESSIONS—False or Insincere,
INNER-PARTY STRUGGLE,
SELF-CRITICISM
“We have the Marxist-Leninist weapon of criticism and self-criticism.
We can get rid of a bad style and keep the good.” —Mao, “Report to the Second Plenary
Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China” (March 5,
1949), SW 4:174.
“I wondered also at the new level of tolerance and understanding
attained by the whole group [attending a Communist Party conference in rural China in
1948] through the method of self-and-mutual criticism. The method, I began to realize,
was something that had to be learned. It did not flow naturally out of the extremely
individualistic, face-conscious culture in which the majority of the team members had
been reared.
“To practice self-and-mutual
criticism well one had to cultivate objectivity in several ways. First, one had to be
willing to be objective about oneself. One had to be willing to seek out that kernel
of truth in any criticism regardless of the manner in which it was presented. Second,
one had to be objective about others; one had to evaluate others from a principled
point of view with the object of helping them to overcome their faults and work more
effectively. One had to raise others up, not knock them down. In practice these two
considerations meant that one had to pay great attention to one’s own motives and
methods when criticizing others, while disregarding in the main the motives and
methods used by others towards oneself.
“Above and beyond this, one had
to cultivate the courage to voice sincerely-held opinions regardless of the views held
by others, while at the same time showing a willingness to listen to others and to
change one’s own opinion when honestly convinced of error. To bow with wind, to go
along with the crowd was an irresponsible attitude that could never lead to anything
but trouble for oneself, for the revolutionary movement, and for China. The reverse
of this, to be arrogant and unbending was just as bad.” —William Hinton, Fanshen:
A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (1966), p. 395.
CRITICISM — By the Masses
“It seems that some of our comrades still do not understand the
democratic centralism which Marx and Lenin talked of. Some of these comrades are already
veteran revolutionaries, with a ‘three-eight
style’ or some other style—anyway they have been Party members for several decades,
yet they still do not understand this question. They are afraid of the masses, afraid
of the masses talking about them, afraid of the masses criticizing them. What sense does
it make for Marxist-Leninists to be afraid of the masses? When they have made mistakes
they don’t talk about them. The more frightened they are, the more haunted they become.
I think one should not be afraid. What is there to be afraid of? Our attitude is to
hold fast to the truth and be ready at any time to correct our mistakes. The question
of right or wrong, correct or incorrect in our work has to do with the contradictions
among the people. To resolve contradictions among the people we can’t use curses or
fists, still less guns or knives. We can only use the method of discussion, reasoning,
criticism and self-criticism. In short, we can only use democratic methods, the method
of letting the masses speak out.
“Both inside and outside the Party
there must be a full democratic life, which means conscientiously putting democratic
centralism into effect. We must consciously bring questions out into the open, and let
the masses speak out. Even at the risk of being cursed we should still let them speak
out. The result of their curses at the worst will be that we are thrown out and cannot
go on doing this kind of work—demoted or transferred. What is so impossible about that?
Why should a person only go up and never go down? Why should one only work in one place
and never be transferred to another?” —Mao, “Talk at an Enlarged Central Work Conference”,
Jan. 30, 1962, in Stuart Schram, ed., Chairman Mao Talks to the People: Talks and
Letters: 1956-1971 (1974), p. 160-1.
CRITICISM — In Socialist Society
“Thoroughgoing materialists are fearless; we hope that all our fellow
fighters will courageously shoulder their responsibilities and overcome all difficulties,
fearing no setbacks or gibes, nor hesitating to criticize us Communists and give us
their suggestions. ‘He who is not afraid of death by a thousand cuts dares to unhorse
the emperor’—this is the indomitable spirit needed in our struggle to build socialism
and communism.” —Mao, “Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on
Propaganda Work” (March 12, 1957); Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, 1st
ed. (1966), pp. 258-259.
“If we have shortcomings, we are not afraid to have them pointed out
and criticized, because we serve the people. Anyone, no matter who, may point out our
shortcomings. If he is right, we will correct them. If what he proposes will benefit
the people, we will act upon it.” —Mao, “Serve the People” (Sept. 8, 1944), SW 3:227.
CRITICISM — Sharp
“Criticism should be sharp. I don’t find the criticism made by some
comrades at this conference very sharp; they seem to be afraid of offending others. If
you are not sharp enough, if the sting doesn’t reach home, the person criticized will
not feel any pain and take any heed.... Fear of offending others is only fear of losing
votes and of an uneasy relationship at work. Will I lose my rice-bowl if you don’t vote
for me? Nothing of the kind. Actually, if you speak your mind and lay the issues on the
table sharply, you’ll find it easier to get along with others. Don’t draw in your horns.
Why does an ox have two horns? They are for fighting, for self-defense and attack. I
often ask comrades if they have ‘horns’ on their heads. Comrades, touch and feel if you
have any. I can see some comrades have horns, some have horns but not very sharp ones,
and others have no horns at all. In my opinion, it is better to have them, for that
goes well with Marxism. One of the tenets of Marxism is criticism and self-criticism.”
—Mao, “Speeches at the National Conference of the Communist Party of China: Concluding
Speech” (March 31, 1955), SW 5:170-1.
“[I]n opposing subjectivism, sectarianism and stereotyped Party writing
we must have in mind two purposes: first, ‘learn from past mistakes to avoid future
ones’, and second, ‘cure the sickness to save the patient’. The mistakes of the past
must be exposed without sparing anyone’s sensibilities; it is necessary to analyze and
criticize what was bad in the past with a scientific attitude so that work in the future
will be done more carefully and done better. This is what is meant by ‘learn from past
mistakes to avoid future ones’. But our aim in exposing errors and criticizing
shortcomings, like that of a doctor curing a sickness, is solely to save the patient and
not to doctor him to death. A person with appendicitis is saved when the surgeon removes
his appendix. So long as a person who has made mistakes does not hide his sickness for
fear of treatment or persist in his mistakes until he is beyond cure, so long as he
honestly and sincerely wishes to be cured and to mend his ways, we should welcome him
and cure his sickness so that he can become a good comrade. We can never succeed if we
just let ourselves go, and lash out at him. In treating an ideological or a political
malady, one must never be rough and rash but must adopt the approach of ‘curing the
sickness to save the patient’, which is the only correct and effective method.”
—Mao, “Rectify the Party’s Style of Work” (Feb. 1, 1942), SW 3:50.
CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAMME [By Marx]
A very important work criticizing the Gotha Programme, a
draft of which had been prepared for a conference of the united German Social Democratic Party
to be held in the city of Gotha in 1875.
This work by Marx is available in many
editions, including MECW 24:75-99, and also online at several places, including:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm
“Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme deals with fundamental
questions of the theory and programme of the working class party. It consists of a series
of comments on points contained in the draft programme prepared for a unity conference
of the German working class movement held at Gotha in 1875. Marx’s comments were
suppressed by the opportunist leadership of the German Social Democratic Party, and were
subsequently published by Engels in 1891, against the wishes of the leadership.
“The intention of the draft
programme—the ‘Gotha Programme’—was to provide a platform behind which the whole German
working class movement could unite. But for the sake of ‘unity’ it made a number of
concessions on points of principle to the followers of the splinter group led by Ferdinand
Lassalle.
“What are the principal points
clarified in Marx’s critique?
“1. He shows that the
capitalist mode of production has created the material conditions for advancing to
socialism, and deals with the way in which the social product will be distributed in
socialist society. Socialism is only the first phase of communism, and is guided by
the principle, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his labor.’ It
will lead to full communist society, the principle of which is, ‘From each according to
his ability, to each according to his need.’
“2. He attacks the reformist
slogan of ‘a fair distribution of the products of labor,’ and exposes the theoretical
confusion behind this slogan. For the distribution of the products of labor, must
always be a consequence of the mode of production. He likewise attacks the reformist
slogan of ‘state aid under democratic control,’ and shows that the aim of the working
class must be ‘to revolutionize the present conditions of production.’
“3. He attacks the conception
that, relatively to the working class, all other classes are only one reactionary
mass. It is necessary to examine concretely the actual position of each class at each
stage of history, and not lump them all together as ‘reactionary.’ Thus the workers may
fight together with sections of the capitalists against feudal survivals, together with
the lower middle class for certain democratic demands, and so on.
“4. He affirms the
international character of the working class struggle in opposition to the
narrowly national aims of the Gotha Programme.
“5. He refutes the conception
of an ‘iron law of wages,’ according to which the worker’s real wages can never be raised
above a minimum subsistance level.
“6. He attacks the reformist
slogan of a ‘free state,’ and shows that ‘between capitalist and communist society lies
the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There
corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing
but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.’”
—Maurice Cornforth, Readers’
Guide to the Marxist Classics (London: 1952), pp. 9-10.
CRYPTOCURRENCY
A digital form of “money” (or, more accurately, something pretending to be money) which is based on
complex computer coding and widely distributed bookkeeping of its ownership (via “blockchains”) which
keeps individuals from easily producing endlessly more of it. Bitcoin is the best known example,
but there are now at least hundreds of others.
Money was originally some
rare special commodity itself, such as gold or silver, which
served as a relative measure for the value of other commodities, as a means of exchange, and as a store
of value. When powerful governments were established, the possibility of establishing
fiat money arose, that is, printed paper which only has value because
the government says it does (and because people are willing to believe the government and use that
currency because the government doesn’t excessively inflate prices of real commodities by printing too
much of the fiat currency). But governments cannot be trusted not to do this, especially in times of
economic or social crisis. For this and other reasons, skilled computer programmers, originally of an
anarchist inclination, have recently created many forms of cryptocurrency independently of governments,
in hopes that these will replace government-issued fiat money.
However, cryptocurrencies are also fiat money! That is,
they only have value because people believe they have value. A single bitcoin, for example, has no
inherent value in the way that an ounce of gold does. Some cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, allow for
the gradual expansion of the number of coins (for a limited period) through what is referred to as
“mining” (i.e., by using computers to solve difficult mathematical calculations and thus be rewarded
with newly issued bitcoins). Others have a permanently fixed number of digital “coins”. And all these
cryptocurrencies can be bought or sold for ordinary money issued by governments. Their price varies
constantly, commonly with huge speculative swings up and down.
In reality, it is usually extremely difficult or even
outright impossible to use any “cryptocurrency” as actual money to buy real commodities (such as food,
clothing, or to pay your rent), and few people even try to do so. Those who buy these cryptocurrencies
are doing so only because they think their price will go up, and they will be able to sell them at a
higher price later on. In other words, the current cryptocurrency boom is actually an old-style Ponzi
Game, in which the gamblers hope to cheat each other, or else are ignorant of the whole situation. This
can only end with most people involved losing most or all of their real money they “invested”.
[Apr. 20, 2022]
See also below, and:
NATIONAL DIGITAL CURRENCY,
PRICE OF A THING WHICH HAS NO VALUE
“Twenty percent of American adults—36 percent among millennials—own cryptocurrency,
according to a recent Morning Consult survey.” —“Crypto is Here to Stay”, Sunday Business
Page, New York Times, March 20, 2022.
CRYPTOCURRENCY — Collapse Of
Just months after the above entry on cryptocurrency was added, a major collapse in this Ponzi-like boom
occurred in late 2022, with the “value” [i.e., current market price] of cryptocurrency investments crashing
by about 75%, from about $3 trillion to around $800 billion. (That remainder may well also disappear in the
not-too-distant future.) In response to this collapse many victims have been calling for government
regulation of the “crypto industry”. This is foolishness of course. It is like calling for govenment
regulation of fraud and confidence games! [Jan. 4, 2023]
“Following a series of bankruptcies of crypto companies, and following the total
collapse of some stablecoins, and following the general collapse of crypto prices, and following
revelations of all kinds of imaginable and previously unimaginable shenanigans, scams, and frauds in
the entire crypto and DeFi space, the US banking regulators today issued a warning to banks about the
crypto and DeFi space, amid fears of contagion to the banking sector.”
—Wolf Richter, “Fed, FDIC, & OCC Warn Banks about
Contagion from Cryptos, with Laundry List of Sordid Stuff Inherent in the Crypto Scene”, on WolfStreet.com,
Jan. 3, 2023.
“This is another example of the regulators closing the barn door after the proverbial
horses have bolted. Yet so many people, including numerous commenters on this [WolfStreet.com] site,
still have faith in the regulatory process.
“Go look at the history of regulation. This is how
it always works. A mania or bubble followed by widespread fraud that is supposedly ‘shocking’ to the
politicians and public. This is followed by regulatory ‘reform’ to ‘prevent’ the crisis or fiasco that
just happened.
“No amount of regulation can prevent manias or
regulate moral hazard. It’s not possible to fix stupid either. In the case of crypto, the stupid is
believing that nothing is something. It’s also stupid to pretend that nothing (crypto) is something and
then regulate it, yet this is virtually guaranteed to happen.
“There is no need to pass some statute or write
endless pages of regulations for anything that is fraud or theft. That’s already covered by English
Common Law, the foundation of the US legal system.”
—Agustus Frost, posting on the WolfStreet.com
blog, Jan. 4, 2023.
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The major stock market crash and financial crisis that
broke out in the United States in the fall of 1929 and is generally viewed as the beginning of
the Great Depression of the 1930s.