political economy – Unity–Struggle–Unity

Pan-Africanism

Comrade Editor J. Katsfoter — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 13:58:22 +0000

This is the political project of creating solidarity and revolutionary action between all African communities across the entire diasporic population. It is one way in which global anti-Blackness can be combatted. Pan-Africanism urges the countries of Africa to band together to throw off the chains of neocolonialism, which is necessary because of the historical forced underdevelopment of Africa by the Atlantic slave trade, and the union of interests and solidarity of movements in diasporic African communities (e.g., New Afrika in the U.S. Empire, Afro-Caribbean movements in Latin America, etc.).

Capitalist

Comrade Editor J. Katsfoter — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 01:54:33 +0000

Another word for an “owner,” that is, a member of the bourgeoisie; i.e., someone who owns capital but does not support themselves through their own labor.

State

Comrade Editor J. Katsfoter — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:57:29 +0000

(see also, class dictatorship)

The “public power” which no longer directly coincides with the population organizing itself. This public power becomes necessary as a matter of historical development when society splits into classes. The public power consists “not merely of armed men but also of material adjuncts, prisons, and institutions of coercion of all kinds”.

Stagism

Comrade Editor J. Katsfoter — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:56:45 +0000

The theory, a chief proponent of which was Georgi Plekhanov, the Menshevik, which posits that societies must go through varying stages of revolution before they can reach Communism; in particular, that societies must pass through the feudal mode of production and then a stage of capitalism before they can begin socialist construction.

Solidarity

Comrade Editor J. Katsfoter — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:55:52 +0000

Solidarity is giving support to a stranger on their own terms. It is different from philanthropy because it is given on the stranger’s terms, not that of the giver.

It is the fundamental ethos of the workers’ movement.

Solidarity is necessary to organize workers and to create labor movements; workers join together to aid one another on the mere grounds that they share a class. This is a necessary prerequisite to defeating the ruling classes at their game of divide-and-conquer.

Thus, solidarity is the ethos of the social revolution, for it is only in standing in solidarity with all oppressed and working people that the revolution can be victorious.

Just as the socialized means of production are the necessary prerequisite for the Communist movement and scientific socialism, so they too does this socialization produce the ethic of solidarity as the only means of combatting the power of the bosses.

Reproductive labor time

Comrade Editor J. Katsfoter — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:55:39 +0000

The amount of time that each worker must work in order to reproduce their own class position. The working day is divided between reproductive time and surplus value. The necessary labor time of any given class is dictated by the commodities that society deems necessary to the continued existence of members of that class. The most basic commodities are shelter, clothing, food, and access to some basic form of transportation.

In the U.S. empire, the reproductive value of the proletariat usually encompasses certain means of communication (phones), modes of receiving state propaganda (television, computers), and so forth. These are all considered to be necessarily covered by wages, and therefore are factored into reproductive labor time for most proletarians in the U.S.

Socialist construction

Comrade Editor J. Katsfoter — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:54:03 +0000

This is the period during which the material basis for socialism is being laid down. Productive relations are being changed, social formations are being altered, and, in the periphery, productive forces are being expanded.

Security forces

Comrade Editor J. Katsfoter — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:53:09 +0000

This term generally refers to the police, intelligence services (in the case of the United States this would be the F.B.I., C.I.A., N.S.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force Intelligence Agencies, the Depart of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, the Depart of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analaysis and U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence, the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Office of National Security Intelligence, the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis), and armed forces of any state.

Revolutionary masses

Comrade Editor J. Katsfoter — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:51:52 +0000

The proletariat and lower sections of the petit-bourgeoisie when taken together en masse. The revolution springs from the revolutionary masses.

Reaction

Comrade Editor J. Katsfoter — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:48:59 +0000

This term refers to both the class-forces and individuals that represent or desire a return to a prior time or period. Reactionaries are opposed to social progress. In the period of revolution, reactionaries are also counter-revolutionaries. This term is also used more broadly to refer to all social conservatives.