[Intro to be added...]
“Everything in nature is analogical.” —Leibniz, quoted in Lenin, LCW 38:383. [It is not clear to me exactly what Leibniz meant by this; it could have just been a comment on how there are a great many analogies between the physical structures of different living things—for reasons that Leibniz himself did not understand. (A great many of the analogies between animals result from their common evolutionary descent, for example, which Leibniz was not aware of.) In any case, and for a great many additional reasons as well, this is a profound comment. —S.H.]
“How do we ever understand anything? Almost always, I think, by using one or another kind of analogy—that is, by representing each new thing as though it resembles something we already know. Whenever a new thing’s internal workings are too strange or complicated to deal with directly, we represent whatever parts of it we can in terms of more familiar signs. This way, we make each novelty seem similar to some more ordinary thing.” —Marvin Minsky, researcher in artificial intelligence, in his Society of Mind (1986), p. 57.
See also: Philosophical doggerel about this topic.
A statement that is true by definition, or simply because of the meanings of the words in it. Thus the statement “All ducks are birds” is true (in the usual context) simply because the word ‘duck’ is defined as a certain type of bird. The opposite of an analytic statement is a synthetic statement.
The analytic/synthetic distinction (or at least this terminology) was introduced by Kant, but there are various sorts of questions and disputes that have been raised about it in academic philosophy. The logical positivists worried about proving that all knowledge which can be known a priori must be analytic. The bourgeois philosopher W.V.O. Quine claimed that we do not have sufficient criteria to be able to know whether or not the subject and object of a sentence have the same essential meaning. (This is a typical example of the sort of excessively picky quibbling that bourgeois philosophy is prone to.)
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See also below, and: CHOMSKY, Noam
ANARCHISM — Individualist
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See also: STIRNER, Max
ANARCHY OF PRODUCTION (Under Capitalism)
“[A]narchy, which is irreconcilable with the socialization of labor, is an inherent feature of capitalist society.” —Lenin, “What the ‘Friends of the People’ are” (1894), LCW 1:177.
ANARCHY OF PRODUCTION THEORY (For Capitalist Economic Crises)
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ANAXIMANDER OF MILETUS (c. 610-c. 546 BCE)
An early Greek materialist philosopher of the Ionian School, a pupil of Thales, and the first philosopher whose views are known to any significant degree. Like Thales and other members of the Ionian School, he was also in effect an early scientist. He constructed the first geometrical model of the universe, and made maps of both the earth and the skies. His cosmological theory consisted of the earth, which he thought had the shape of a flattened cylinder, at the center of the Universe, with three rings (solar, lunar and astral) surrounding the earth. He invented the gnomon (or upright pointer) on sundials, which gave them greater accuracy in keeping time. Anaximander also originated the concept of biological evolution. He thought that human beings, like other animals, had evolved from fish. (This idea probably arose from examining the fish-like appearance of spontaneously aborted early fetuses. See: “ONTOGENY RECAPITULATES PHYLOGENY”)
Anaximander was the author of the first written work of philosophy in ancient Greece, On Nature, which—unfortunately—has not been preserved. He was a natural dialectician. He introduced the concept of arché, or the “primary principle”, or the underlying impetus of all things, which however does not seem to be any sort of reference to a god or gods. And these “all things” themselves (or at least their original state) he called the apeiron, or the boundless, indefinite, never-ending, multiplicity of our surroundings which are in constant motion. This is perhaps the first attempt to refer to what materialists later came to call “matter in motion”. And Anaximander thought that out of the apeiron, all worlds, and all the objects in them, have been produced through a dialectical struggle of opposites.
ANAXIMENES OF MILETUS (c. 588-525 BCE)
Greek materialist philosopher and natural dialectician of the Ionian School who was a student of Anaximander (see above). He gave Anaximander’s conception of apeiron (original matter in motion) a more concrete form, by arguing that everything develops from the primary matter air, forming first clouds, then water, and finally earth and rock. Unfortunately, in this case this more definite form of the theory was a step backwards, similar to returning to Thales’s naïve idea that everything is composed of water. However, Anaximenes did seem to understand and utilize the general dialectical principle of the transition of quantity into quality.
Marx supposed that only the labor of human beings is capable of producing surplus value in a system of capitalist production. The android thought experiment, which occurred to me some decades ago, is a way of seeing that it is at least conceivable that Marx is wrong on this point.
The thought experiment starts by assuming that there is nothing mystical about human beings or their labor that allows them alone to create new value, but instead that it might just be because there is some special exclusive characteristic, or set of characteristics, of human beings that allows their labor alone to produce surplus value in capitalist production. Such a characteristic might be intelligence, ingenuity, creativity, or some such thing. (Marx himself implies at one place in Capital that the essential thing which distinguishes human labor from the industrious activity of other animals is our sense of conscious purpose.) But the thought experiment then supposes that some non-human entity might someday be created, such as an artificial “man” or android, which has that same characteristic (or set of characteristics). In short, an artificial human—if it truly replicates the relevant essential characteristics of a human being—should also be capable of generating surplus value in capitalist production. This is the foot in the door.
The next stage in the argument is to recognize that all characteristics of human beings come in degrees. Intelligence or creativity, for example, are not absolutely uniform characteristics of every human being. Some people are more creative than others. We do not say that a somewhat less intelligent or somewhat less creative human being is unable to produce surplus value in at least many forms of labor under capitalism. In the same way, we are forced to admit that an android might be able to create surplus value even if it were somewhat less intelligent or creative than the average human being. Further considerations along these lines leads us step-by-step to recognize that any “special characteristic” that might allow human labor to generate surplus value must be part of a continuum, only gradually rising from zero to the full abilities of the most capable human being (and then conceivably way beyond!). Finally, in this age of ever growing computer sophistication and artificial intelligence research, we have to at least consider the possibility that computer-controlled robots might someday possess enough of this hypothesized special characteristic (whatever that may be) that they too would have to be viewed as generating surplus value.
However, the main persuasiveness of this thought experiment does not depend on any belief that androids will ever actually be constructed! It just shows what we would have to say if they ever are constructed. It is a thought experiment, and not a prediction about robots and artificial intelligence. But it already shows that Marx’s insistence that only human labor alone can create surplus value is at least subject to serious doubt.
of resolving contradictions, that is, the forms of struggle, differ according to the
differences in the nature of the contradictions. Some contradictions are characterized
by open antagonism, others are not. In accordance with the concrete development of things,
some contradictions which were originally non-antagonistic develop into antagonistic ones,
while others which were originally antagonistic develop into non-antagonistic ones....
“Lenin said, ‘Antagonism and contradiction are not at all one and the same. Under socialism, the first will disappear, the second will remain.’ That is to say, antagonism is one form, but not the only form, of the struggle of opposites; the formula of antagonism cannot be arbitrarily applied everywhere.” —Mao, “On Contradiction” (Aug. 1937), SW 1:344-5.
entitled “The Place of Antagonism in Contradiction”, from which the above quotation is taken,
and these more specialized essays:
“Antagonistic and Non-Antagonistic
Contradictions”, by Ai Siqi (1957), in which he discusses the concept of antagonistic and
non-antagonistic contradictions as expounded in several works by Mao. [PDF format: 107 KB];
“An Attempt to Discuss ‘Antagonism’
and ‘Antagonistic Contradictions’”, by Shan Hong (1957) [PDF format: 108 KB].
See also: CONTRADICTIONS—Dialectical
A reactionary political position, point of view, or piece of propaganda opposing communism, revolution, and often also opposing most other ideas or measures which significantly promote the interests of the working class or masses as a whole. Communism is often portrayed as the most horribly evil system, and communists are routinely portrayed as vicious man-eating monsters and the like!
See also: TO BE ATTACKED BY THE ENEMY IS A GOOD THING
This famous book by Frederick Engels, published in 1878, was directed against a crude petty-bourgeois theory of socialism put forth by Eugen Dühring. The formal title of Engels’ book is Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft (Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science). Engels did such an excellent job of exposing Dühring and at the same time putting forward the essentials of his and Marx’s much more coherent and profound theory of scientific socialism, that Anti-Dühring has ever since its publication been considered an essential textbook of Marxism.
[This book analyzes] “highly important problems in the domain of philosophy, natural science and the social sciences. This is a wonderfully rich and instructive book.” —Lenin, “Frederick Engels” (1896), LCW 2:25.
See also: HISTORICISM
“Nothing is more characteristic of the bourgeois than the application of the features of the modern system to all times and peoples.” —Lenin, “What the ‘Friends of the People’ Are” (1894), LCW 1:154 (footnote).
ANTI-LIN BIAO, ANTI-CONFUCIUS CAMPAIGN
A mass campaign in Maoist China launched in late 1973 and promoting criticism of both the disgraced Lin Biao and Confucius. Lin Biao died in 1971 in a plane crash in Mongolia while attempting to flee China after his plot to assassinate Mao had been exposed. Mao and the CCP recognized that Lin’s betrayal was connected to some deeper lingering problems in the ideology of people left over from the old China, and therefore appropriately attempted to criticize not just Lin, but the broader ideological problem that still remained. This campaign is sometimes considered to be one of the later phases of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and sometimes considered to be a separate mass campaign.
[Often without the hyphen:] An uncommon type of matter composed of “anti-particles” (such as anti-protons and “anti-electrons”, or positrons) which when brought together with ordinary matter leads to mutual annihilation and the release of enormous quantities of energy in accordance with Einstein’s equation: E = mc2
Some forms of anti-matter differ from ordinary matter in the electrical charge carried. Thus while ordinary protons carry a positive charge, anti-protons carry a negative charge. More fundamentally, the difference between ordinary particles and anti-particles lies in their internal characteristics or constituents. Thus ordinary neutrons and anti-neutrons are both electrically neutral, but consist internally of either quarks or anti-quarks which can still annihilate each other when brought together.
The term “matter” in physics can in one sense refer only to ordinary matter, and in a more inclusive sense can refer to both ordinary matter and anti-matter. Both particles of matter and anti-matter have mass and generally have the same intrinisic properties as their anti-particle forms.
The even more abstract conception of matter in the materialist philosophical sense includes both ordinary matter and anti-matter, and also energy in all its forms.
“The Anti-Socialist Law was introduced in Germany in 1878 by the Bismarck government with the object of combating the labor and socialist movement. The law banned all Social-Democratic Party and mass working-class organizations, and the labor press; socialist literature was confiscated, and Social-Democrats were hounded and deported. These repressions, however, did not break the Social-Democratic Party, which readjusted its activities to the conditions of illegal existence: the Party’s central organ Sozial-Demokrat was published abroad and Party congresses were held regularly there (1880, 1883, and 1887); in Germany, Social-Democratic underground organizations and groups headed by an illegal Central Committee were rapidly restored. Simultaneously, the Party made wide use of legal opportunities to strengthen contact with the masses, and its influence steadily grew. The number of votes cast for the Social-Democrats in the Reichstag elections increased more than threefold between 1878 and 1890. Tremendous assistance to the German Social-Democrats was given by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. The Anti-Socialist Law was repealed in 1890 as a result of pressure from the mounting mass labor movement.” —Note 209, LCW 20:611-612.
Laws nominally for the purpose of preventing or restricting the growth of capitalist monopolies, trusts, cartels and oligopolies. Marx discussed the strong tendency toward the development of monopolies as weak firms fail or are bought out, especially during recessions or depressions. Bourgeois economists and politicians have been forced to acknowledge this trend as well, and also its economic harmfulness, usually after it has already become well advanced. Even some early economists such as Adam Smith considered monopolies, price agreements, and the like to be “conspiracies against the public”.
In 1890 the U.S. Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in response to public alarm about the growth of giant capitalist combines. While there were a few famous breakups of monopolies, “the primary effect of the Sherman Act over the next few decades was to weaken labor unions” [E. K. Hunt & Howard Sherman, Economics: An Introduction to Traditional and Radical Views, 1981, p. 118.] However, in 1914 the Clayton Act was passed to give the anti-trust laws a few more teeth, and to exempt labor unions.
The most famous anti-trust case was the breakup of the Rockefeller Standard Oil Trust in 1911 into 34 separate companies. But this was more a matter of the short-term, and for public image purposes. Even soon after the breakup these companies still colluded and engaged in price fixing, and the like. Many of the 34 companies were rather small and not central to the matter of industry price fixing, and this made it easier for the few big ones to collude, not only with each other, but also with the small number of other big oil companies around the world. For example, “In 1928 the heads of British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, and Standard Oil met in the Scottish highlands and secretly agreed to limit production in the wake of the huge discoveries in the Middle East.” [U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 14, 1998, pp. 26-27.]
More to the central point, there are today, after more than a century of supposed anti-trust regulation, a very small number of super-giant oil companies that completely dominate that industry worldwide. In the 1998-2001 period there was a further consolidation: Exxon merged with Mobil, Chevron with Texaco, BP with Amoco, Arco with both Conoco and Phillips, and in Europe, Total merged with PetroFina and Elf.
Even bourgeois economists recognize that anti-trust legislation has been largely ineffective. In 1949 there was a symposium on the topic in the American Economic Review, and every participant agreed that anti-trust legislation was a dismal failure. However, the situation is actually far worse than what these economists admit. Far from being an opponent of monopoly (though an “ineffective” one), governments in the imperialist era actually promote monopoly. The “anti-trust” legislation on the books is at most a false cover for this real stance. As the radical economists E.K. Hunt & Howard Sherman summed it up, “the enforcement of antitrust laws and the actions of the numerous government regulatory commissions have consistently aided and abetted the achievement and maintenance of monopoly power”. [Op. cit., pp. 329-330.]