Dictionary of Revolutionary Marxism

—   Go - Gq   —

GOD
An imagined “spiritual” (immaterial) human-like entity who is unseen but who supposedly exists everywhere, is all-powerful, all-knowing, and who created the physical world and everything in it including human beings. This is an absurd, philosophical idealist and unscientific notion if ever there was one, since it supposes that a non-material “thing” is the source and cause of the material world. From a genuine materialist perspective the concept of God is simply incoherent and ridiculous.
        See also entries below, and: PROBLEM OF EVIL, and Philosophical doggerel about God.

“The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black, while the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair. Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, and could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each would shape bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.” —Xenophanes of Colophon, ancient Greek philosopher and poet, c. 570-c.478 BCE.

What were the real reasons for primitive peoples coming up with the idea of God or gods? It certainly was not any abstruse theological consideration! Their early thinking was probably based on crude analogies. (And today too, analogies are our basic human way of thinking, though in general no longer quite so crude!) People saw that they could throw a rock or a spear, so maybe there was some human-like entity in the sky who threw lightning bolts. But by the time that people came to understand the real nature of lightning that analogy had completely collapsed. The even bigger puzzle was where human beings themselves came from. As long as there was no correct (scientific) answer for that, the “God explanation” somehow seemed plausible. Of course Darwin’s theory of evolution put a final end to the need for any God-based explanation for humanity’s existence.
        A short cut for summarily dealing with all existing or future imagined “proofs” of God’s existence is to instead present a proof that God (as he is imagined to be) cannot possibly exist! A disproof rules out any possible proof, now or ever. Evolutionary science did knock the plausibility out of the primitive notion that there must be a God (or gods). But it didn’t absolutely prove that no God could exist. It might be imagined, for example, that God himself created man through the method of evolution.
        But there is another science which we can use to totally prove that no God (as he is imagined to be) can possibly exist. And that is cognitive psychology. The fundamental organizing principle of cognitive psychology is that mind and mental terms and states can only be correctly understood as aspects or functions of the physical brain (or its equivalent). That is to say, minds and mental processes can only be understood as brain processes and states. And since this is true, there simply cannot possibly be any such thing as a thinking and acting being who does not have a brain and a body. Marxists have understood this from the beginning. But now modern cognitive psychology has not only accepted this idea, but made it the foundation of its entire science. In short, science has now proven, beyond any further doubt whatsoever, that God, and gods (as well as ghosts, and similar incorporeal entities) do not exist.
        See also: ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN,   ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

“God-building—a philosophic trend, hostile to Marxism, which arose in the period of the Stolypin reaction among a section of the Party intellectuals, who departed from Marxism after the defeat of the Revolution of 1905-07. The god-builders (A.V. Lunacharsky, V. Bazarov and others) advocated the creation of a new, ‘socialist’ religion in an attempt to reconcile Marxism with religion. At one time they were joined by Maxim Gorky.
         “The reactionary nature of god-building was revealed by Lenin in his book Materialism and Empirio-criticism and in his letters to Gorky during February-April 1908 and November-December 1913.” —Note 77, LCW 20:581.

GOING AGAINST THE TIDE
Mao said that “Going against the tide is a Marxist-Leninist principle.” [Quoted by Wang Hongwen, in his “Report on the Revision of the Party Constitution”, adopted by the Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China on Aug. 28, 1973. See the book, The Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (Documents), (Peking: FLP, 1973), p. 48, online at: https://www.bannedthought.net/China/MaoEra/CCP/CCP-10thNatlCongressDocuments-1973.pdf]
        Naturally every revolutionary person is strongly going against the overall bourgeois tide in capitalist society! But Mao’s principle applies within the revolutionary movement too, and even within a proletarian revolutionary party.
        But what does this principle mean there? Does it mean that each party member should go their own way, pay little attention to the party line, completely reject vast aspects of that line on a routine and regular basis, and develop their own ideas with little or no reference to the existing and hard-won collective political thinking and work of the party? And maybe even do whatever the hell they please?! Well, no, of course not! Every comrade is of course expected to pay close attention to the party’s political line, to become very familiar with it and with the reasons the party has for thinking it is correct and just why it is that the party believes this line and these policies should be upheld and put into practice. And this is why it is necessary for each party member to especially investigate and seriously think about those occasional aspects of the party line and activity that they are personally inclined to question or disagree with. But on the other hand, it is actually a positive thing that party members do their own thinking about the party line, and especially the party’s line on how to lead the struggle of the masses. If this widespread thinking and re-thinking is not going on in the party, how is it ever going to correct the mistakes it makes? (And every party and every person makes some mistakes.) This continual re-examination of the party’s thinking and activity by all its members (and not just by a handful of leaders) is what makes the revolutionary party into the most useful tool it can be for the working class and masses.
        Well, then, what about democratic-centralism?! Doesn’t D-C always require us to “uphold the party line” and sincerely try to put it into practice? It is extremely important for every party member to understand that while there are indeed disciplinary aspects to democratic-centralism, that this discipline is primarily in regard to how we engage in political activity among the masses and how we engage in inner-party struggle. Democratic-centralism does not discipline our own ideas nor prohibit our own thinking! On the contrary, the most essential reason why MLM parties even have democratic-centralism is so that we can act among the masses as if we are entirely of one single mind, even while we are not only allowed, but actually strongly encouraged, to seriously think about how our existing political line and activity can be further improved, or corrected (where it is in error). Those who don’t understand this basic point about democratic-centralism really don’t understand what it is about at all. The spirit of “going against the tide” is also part of democratic-centralism, if the democratic aspect of it is actually for real.

GOLD STANDARD
A monetary system where the value of a unit of currency of a country (such as a dollar) is defined in terms of a set amount (weight) of gold, and in which that currency may be freely exchanged for gold from the government at that set rate. This restricts the ability of the central bank of the country to inflate the currency unless it devalues, i.e. decreases the amount of gold it is willing to pay out in exchange for a unit of currency. Thus countries on a gold standard tend to have less inflation, and even a certain amount of gentle deflation if the economy is expanding at a rate faster than the world production of gold.
        The gold standard worked fairly well throughout history and through the 19^th century. It was sometimes suspended during wars (at least as far as the payment of international debts was concerned), but then resumed after the wars were over. However, bourgeois economists have falsely blamed the Great Depression of the 1930s on deflation and the gold standard, and also wish to have a freer hand to engage in changes in the monetary supply (including through the promotion of modest inflation). At the Bretton Woods conference near the end of World War II a modified gold standard was put in place, intermediated by the U.S. dollar, since the U.S. was then the dominant capitalist country in the world and also held most of the gold. This fell apart in 1971 when President Nixon was forced to end the convertibility of dollars into gold even by foreign governments. Since then all the currencies of the world have been fiat money depending for their value on their continued ability to buy commodities and on the promise of the governments issuing the currency not to inflate the money supply at “too fast a pace”.

The “Golden Rule” is the precept that you should treat other people the way you wish to be treated. This is an extremely popular ethical theory among both religious and non-religious people. It is one of many conflicting ethical theories that are explicit or implicit in the Bible, which quotes Jesus as saying in the Sermon on the Mount: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” [Matthew 7:12] One of the ethical theories in the Bible that is inconsistent with this is that of “an eye for an eye”: “And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” [Exodus 21:23-25]
         Although my grandmother once assured me that the King James version of the Bible was “God’s own language”, these days you usually hear the Golden Rule expressed something like this: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Incidentally, the Golden Rule is not exclusively (or even originally) a Christian precept. It has been a common theory in many diverse cultures, going way, way back. Confucius, for example, said “What you do not desire, do not effect on others” (even though that principle conflicts with some of his other principles).
         It is amazing how little sense the Golden Rule makes when you actually think about it critically. (Of course hardly anybody ever does! They repeat it without much thinking.) You should treat people the way you wish to be treated… OK, what if you really wish to be treated as boss, or king? Should you then treat all other people as your “boss” or as “kings”, bowing and scraping in abject obedience? Or consider a slave master: He would have others (his slaves at least) treat him as master, while he treats them as slaves. In light of the Golden Rule, should he start treating his slaves as his masters, and encourage them to treat him as their slave? (This might be poetic justice, but it would still hardly be the ideal moral society!)
         Or what about masochists? Should they inflict pain on others just because that’s the way these totally screwed up people themselves want to be treated? Or what about someone who expects, and even wants, others to be cheats and crooks, because he figures he is better at it and will come out ahead in any completely dog-eat-dog world? There are people like that, you know. (We live in a capitalist society, after all!) Does he then have a moral license to proceed with his chicanery and fraud?
         George Bernard Shaw wrote “Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.” He was putting it in a humorous fashion, but there is some real truth behind his statement. Schopenhauer put it even better: “Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t like done to yourself. This is, perhaps, one of those arguments that prove, or rather ask, too much. For a prisoner might address it to a judge.”
         The basic problem with the Golden Rule is that it assumes that people are already moral, or basically so—which is very far from always being the case. If you are a good, fair and reasonable person, you will want good, fair and reasonable things done to you. And in that case it is indeed generally reasonable to say that you should do to others as you would have them do unto you. But if you are not already a good, fair and reasonable person, you may not yourself wish others to treat you in a good (moral), fair and reasonable way. And in that case it is very wrong for you to treat others as you would have them treat you. This is such an obvious point that it is really astounding that all the champions of the Golden Rule never seem to have even an inkling of it! —S.H., An Introduction to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Class Interest Theory of Ethics, Chapter 1, section 1.2B, from the draft of 6/14/07 as posted at: https://www.massline.org/Philosophy/ScottH/MLM-Ethics-Ch1-2.pdf

GOLOS   [“The Voice”]
A Russian-language daily newspaper published by Mensheviks in Paris from 1908-1911.

GOOD (Adj.)
1. [In general:] Answering to (or satisfying) certain interests. (The specific interests at issue are normally clear from the context.) Thus a good knife is one that is sharp, doesn’t rust or easily break, keeps its edge well, and so forth, because these are our usual interests in knives. A good apple is typically one that is unspoiled and unblemished, tastes good, and so forth because these are our usual interests in apples. On the other hand, if you are making an apple pie, what you will view as a good apple may differ somewhat, because in that case your interests are somewhat different. (A good pie apple is not necessarily a good eating apple; it might not be as crisp or pleasing to look at, for example.)
2. [In moral discourse in class society:] Answering to (or satisfying) the common, collective interests of a social class (the class being implied by the ideology of the speaker).
3. [In moral discourse referring to classless society:] Answering to (or satisfying) the common, collective interests of the people as a whole.
        For an extensive discussion of the meaning of the word ‘good’, both in general and specifically with ethics and politics, see chapter 2 (and especially section 2.7) of my work in progress An Introduction to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Class Interest Theory of Ethics, at: https://www.massline.org/Philosophy/ScottH/MLM-Ethics-Ch1-2.pdf . See also: DOING GOOD

GOOD AND BAD
See: POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE,   TURNING A BAD THING INTO A GOOD THING

GOOD OF THE PEOPLE, The
See: WILL OF THE PEOPLE

GOTHA PROGRAMME   [Pronounced: GO-tuh]
The programme adopted by the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) at the Gotha Congress in 1875 when the Eisenachers and Lassalleans came together to form a united working-class party. Unfortunately the Eisenachers (who were much more Marxist in their orientation) made too many concessions to the Lassalleans, and the resulting Programme suffered from eclecticism and opportunism. Marx and Engels made scathing criticisms of the Gotha Programme and considered it to be a backward step as compared to the Eisenach Programme of 1869. See especially CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAMME by Marx.

GOULD, Stephen Jay   (1941-2002)
American liberal-radical paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, best known for his long-running series of erudite and literary essays about evolution in Natural History magazine.
        Together with Niles Eldridge, Gould developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which modifies the traditional Darwinian conception of uniformly gradual evolution by pointing out that within that overall gradualness there are occasional periods of relatively rapid evolutionary change in which new species can arise after long periods of relative stasis. Punctuated equilibrium is one example of the recognition of the importance of qualitative leaps (or dialectical leaps) in science, which Marx established as a fundamental principle of materialist dialectics. And, indeed, punctuated equilibrium was apparently suggested to Gould by his radical upbringing. (His father was a Marxist.) When pro-gradualist critics lampooned the theory of punctuated equilibrium as “evolution by jerks”, Gould shot back by referring to his critics’ theory as “evolution by creeps”!
        Gould was a powerful opponent of sociobiology and its supposedly sanitized reincarnation, “evolutionary psychology”, and criticized these bourgeois perversions of biology for their “deterministic view of human society and human action.” He pointed out that there was little actual evidence for genetic or other forms of biological determinism, and that such views merely represented the cultural or class biases of their supporters. Gould also pointed out that adaptive behaviors are often passed on through human culture and not genetics. He of course recognized that the genetic and biological foundation of human beings and our brains certainly can and do affect our behavior, but appropriately insisted that our biological makeup allows for a very broad range of actual behavior. This flexibility “permits us to be aggressive or peaceful, dominant or submissive, spiteful or generous… Violence, sexism, and general nastiness are biological since they represent one subset of a possible range of behaviors. But peacefulness, equality, and kindness are just as biological—and we may see their influence increase if we can create social structures that permit them to flourish.” Gould is also to be praised for his opposition to racist and sexist notions presented in the supposed form of “science”. See especially his important book Mismeasure of Man (1981).
        Gould was an important advocate of evolutionary science, and an effective and important critic of creationism and other religious attacks on biology. However, his rejection of Marxism sometimes led him into serious error when he wandered into other topics (as when he promoted the classless notion that the Golden Rule should be viewed as the foundation of morality, rather than the Marxist view that class interests form that foundation). And like many prominent intellectuals in bourgeois society he feared appearing to be “too radical”, and thus failed to critize religion in general even though he did strongly criticize religious attempts to oppose or distort evolutionary biology specifically.
        The worst example of this was in his theory of “non-overlapping magisteria” in the book Rock of Ages (1999) which absurdly claimed that there need be no true conflict between science and religion. According to Gould the “magisterium [or sphere] of science” covers the “empirical realm”, while the “magisterium of religion” covers questions of “ultimate meaning” and morality. He claims that these two “magisteria” do not overlap and should not poach in each other’s legitimate domain. In reality morality too has an objective basis in the collective group interests of people (or, in class society, in class interests), and ethics therefore has its basis in science just as the theories in biology or physics do. Furthermore, all religion is deeply opposed to at least some parts of science. The nearly universal religious claim that there are one or more immaterial gods, for example, is opposed to modern cognitive psychology which explicates mind as a set of functional aspects of material matter (brains) and which therefore denies even the possibility of any such thing as a “disembodied mind”.
        While Gould played a very positive role in the defense of evolutionary science, his bourgeois idealist conceptions in psychology led him into major errors in other spheres. It is unfortunate that he was not a more consistent materialist.
        See also: “DOCTRINE OF THE TWO BOOKS”

GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS
The financial rescue of a failing private corporation or bank, or their investors, by a capitalist government. A bourgeois government generally represents the collective interests of the capitalists as a whole, which in most cases should not lead it to bail out some individual bankrupt corporation (since that might lead to higher taxes on other corporations, for example). However, sometimes an individual company will have its own special influence within the government (such as through large “campaign donations” or other forms of bribery), which can lead to special favors on its behalf. And during the monopoly imperialist era many corporations and banks have grown so large that their failure might bring down whole industries or even the entire economy. This leads to the phenomenon of companies that are supposedly “too big to fail” (or too big for the bourgeoisie to allow them to fail). Then too, some individual giant corporations may have strategic importance to the ruling class as a whole, such as manufacturers of tanks, war planes, and advanced computers & electronic gear. For reasons such as these the capitalist government may decide to loan or outright give billions of dollars to particular corporations to keep them going.
        Examples of massive government bailouts during the Great Recession of 2008-9 were to most of the big financial corporations in America, including CitiCorp, Bank of America, AIG (the world’s largest insurance company), and manufacturers such as General Motors, and Chrysler Corporation.
        Before many banks and corporations got “too big to fail” they were often more conservative in their operations. In particular, during booms many banks used to recognize that the booms might not continue indefinitely, and that as the good times continued and the profits rolled in it would be wise to increase their reserves so that they might be better able to weather a possible downturn. In effect, they frequently built up what are now known as “counter-cyclical capital buffers”. However, doing this did cut into profits (since some capital was “sitting idle” and not being loaned out. One recent study found that money-center (big) banks in the pre-regulation era (before the Great Depression of the 1930s) generally built up buffers of between 3% and 5% of total assets during economic expansions. This is said to be about double what modern big banks do. These buffers enabled many banks in that era to continue operations without government assistance in all but the worst economic crises. [See: Christoffer Koch, et al., “Countercyclical Capital Buffers: A Cautionary Tale”, NBER Working Papper No. 26710, Jan. 2020.] But now, with at least tacit government guarantees of bailouts, it no longer makes sense for these big banks to build up their own capital buffers. In theory it is possible for regulators to force them to do so, but experience has taught at least us Marxists that “regulated capitalism” does not work. For one thing, the rich banks and corporations supposedly being “regulated” soon capture control of the regulatory agencies along with the government as a whole.
        See also: GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES

“[We should try to eventually end] our country’s bailout culture that privatizes gains while socializing losses.” —Jonathan McKernan, FDIC Board Member, which had just OK’d the bailout of the investors in the collapsed First Republic Bank, at a cost of $13 billion for the FDIC, May 1, 2023.
         [There is in fact no end in sight to such bailouts for the rich, and they will certainly only get bigger and bigger over time as the current capitalist overproduction crisis and its continuing associated financial crises get worse and worse. —Ed.]

GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS HEADQUARTERS (GCHQ)
The British government spy agency which is the equivalent of the National Security Agency in the U.S., and which works closely with the NSA in its attempt to spy on every person in the world.

GOVERNMENT SECURITIES
Bonds or similar entities issued by the government and sold to investors. Marx noted that “These are not capital at all, but merely outstanding claims on the annual product of the nation.” —Marx, Capital, vol. 2, Ch. 17, sect. 2 (International, p. 349; Penguin, p. 353.)]
        See also: BOND

GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ENTERPRISE (GSE)
A business which is either officially, or de facto, owned and part of some capitalist government. Examples in the U.S. include Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae, which are all nominally independent, but actually at least supported and insured by the government.

GOVERNMENT SPYING (On its Own Citizens)
See: U.S. GOVERNMENT SPYING (On its Own Citizens),   “NATIONAL SECURITY STATE”

GPS
See: GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM

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