THE RED FEATHER DICTIONARY

                               of

                     CRITICAL SOCIAL SCIENCE

  A Teaching Dictionary of Key Words for Progressive, Radical,
      Critical, Marxist, Feminist, Left-Liberal as well as 
                Postmodern Scholars and Students

                               in

           Sociology, Philosophy, Economics, History,
      Social Psychology, Political Science and Anthropology
                as well as Religion and Theology.

DRAFT: November 22, 1995

                     Dedication and Foreword

     This working dictionary is dedicated to every one who has ever
been a student and enquired into the nature of a thing; to every
one who will ever be a student in search of knowledge, wisdom and
understanding.  The dictionary is different from standard
dictionaries in several ways upon which the student should reflect;
first and foremost, the dictionary is not neutral; it offers those
terms which are central to the critique of alienation social
relations and supportive of life-affirming social relations.  Then
too, the dictionary is postmodern in that it does not treat terms
as neutral descriptions of reality but as part of the process by
which realities are called into being...not excluding the kind of
orderly and predictable social dynamics so dear to the heart of a
modern scientist.

     In addition, the dictionary takes to include not only the
ordinary meaning of a word but also the emotional content which
celebrates or profanes the thing or deed to which the word speaks. 
Words are also prescriptions for action or proscriptions against
behavior; I have tried to indicate the political content as well.

     Finally, I take the position that pre-modern, modern and
postmodern world views are equally valuable to the human project;
this will disturb those who work out of one and tend to reject the
other two but the case is compelling to me: pre-modern knowledge
processes give us the capacity to believe, to trust, to hope, to
sanctify or to condemn; without them social life worlds would not
be possible.  Modern science has done much to contribute to the
human project in agriculture, transport, health care, housing,
communications and education; this knowledge process continues to
provide accurate, timely, useful knowledge and cannot be set aside
regardless of the limitations of the truth claims and the politics
which shape and pre-shape the quest of valid knowledge.  Postmodern
knowledge gives us reason and responsibility impossible in a god-
hewn world or one run by impersonal and eternal laws.  The wise
student will extricate the best of each epoch/approach to the
knowledge and to life.  To this work, I commend the reader.

                                                  T.R. Young

ASSOCIATE EDITORS:
Bruce Arrigo took his doctorate from Penn State and teaches
criminology at Duquesne University.  Prior to his work in academia,
Arrigo worked with the homeless and mentally ill and as a community
activist and organizer.  His scholarly work explores critical
issues in crime, law, justice, community and society.  He is
working on three books: The Contours of Psychiatric Justice; A
Postmodern Critique; A Primer in Social Justice [forthcoming] and
a book on Chaos and Crime: From Criminal Justice to Social Justice.

Alan Harrison is a graduate of the Universities of Birmingham (B.A.
English) and Warwick (M.A. Sociology of Labour).  He was for
several years the senior representative for the Manufacturing,
Science and Finance Union (MSF) at GPT, Ltd, Coventry.  Perhaps he
was too good a unionist, since the company fired him in 1993! He is
now researching at the University of Wolverhampton into corporate
communications with employees.

Rivers of knowledge are here, arts and sciences flow from hence;

 bottomless depths of unsearchable      councils are here.

    ...John Donne

                   THE RED FEATHER DICTIONARY

                               of

                     CRITICAL SOCIAL SCIENCE

PREFACE   This dictionary was inspired by the inadequacies of
dictionaries in use in the United States in defining and explaining
basic socialist concepts.  One can conceive of the meaning of a
word only within the usage normally found within one's own society. 
In a capitalist society, definitions and explanations tend to
discredit socialism; the same is true, of course in slave, feudal
or other elitist cultures.  For this reason, the failings of those
who prepare standard dictionaries within a capitalist or elitist
society are understandable.  It is not that there is any conspiracy
to restrict the things about which we think nor can one point to
any deliberate policy of censorship to account for the absence or
the distorted meanings of concepts basic to the creation and
evaluation of a socialist society.  It is simply that concepts like
praxis, self, community, ideology, alienation and reification are
outside the ordinary discourse in capitalist/elitist societies.

     We assume that one cannot think without concepts and that,
without socialist concepts, one cannot think about how a socialist
society might be.  Sociology, as a profession, is especially barren
of concepts used routinely in critical analysis by marxist
scholars.  One may think that words are words or that we can make
words mean anything we want them to.  But things are not that
simple.  Deprivation of terms by which to gauge the anguish and
outrage of a poorly designed social life world leaves us mute and
angry.  We tend to strike out blindly in our desperation; we
sometimes focus our anger inappropriately, on people we love or
focus upon our own limitations and failings.  We all have failings
and faults enough to serve.

      And without the concepts by which a vision of things-as-they-
could-be available, the absence blinds us to things as they are. 
When existing social discourse and the practices to which it points
lead to alienation, to exploitative behavior, to destructive fury
and brutal crime, we must have a new set of concepts by which to
consider new ways of organizing the life of our children and
ourselves.  We need concepts like praxis, community, culture and
Species being with which we can generate a vision of that which
could be and should be if we are to live with dignity and within
the kind of social relationships which affirm each one of us as a
competent member of society.

     A dictionary should not limit the imagination nor should it
limit the critical capacities of those who use it.  Above all, a
dictionary should not pose as a neutral instrument when, in fact,
its organization and content shapes and limits consciousness.  This
dictionary is avowedly political. it includes concepts by which to
evaluate and to resist expropriation, depersonalization and
dehumanization.  It emphasizes those concepts by which to criticize
every existing social product (including the dictionary itself).

     We are all frail humans who need others to help us think and
know.  A rational and decent society requires that we trust the
persons and the books which help us think and know.  For that
reason, this book is prepared.  While considerable effort is made
to provide the best socialist meanings available, one must know
that mistakes and errors happen even when intentions are well
meant.  For that reason, one should not treat these concepts or the
meanings delineated as the final word.  Words are only guides to
action and understanding.  If the concept or the meaning given here
produces thought or action unworthy of pro-social consciousness; of
an encompassing sense of the sacred potential of nature and
society, then that word and its meaning is suspect.  One should
then subject that word and its meaning to criticism and thus,
improve it.  There is always a dialectic tension between the
general meaning of a word and its specific employment in a
historically existing situation.

     But, any change in the socialist vocabulary or in the meanings
of a standard socialist concept must be made collectively and be
made in full view of the socialist world.  Private meanings or
meanings instituted by coercion or by authoritative fiat are
inimical to the grounding concepts of praxis and community.  We
invite serious and constructive criticism of this dictionary and
will incorporate such in future revisions.  We quite understand,
that, living in a capitalist social life world, we are prone to
distort concepts, the definition of which would be better were we
living in a well designed socialist social life world.  However,
none of us live in such a world so no one of us has any monopoly
over insight and understanding.  Taken as a collective, American
socialist social scientists do have enough wisdom and judgement by
which to begin a dictionary.  What the final product might be is
unknown.  We trust it will light and sustain the impulse toward
community and human dignity which burns now brightly in the hearts
of human beings in Canada, the United States, South America,
Africa, Asia, and in Europe.

     The task of creating socialist societies is huge and is
dangerous.  A goodly part of the world is ruled by military right
wing dictatorships sponsored by the United States State Department. 
Another portion of the world is controlled by socialist
bureaucracies whose organization is hostile to praxis and to
community.  Still another portion of the world suffers under left-
wing military regimes more interested in power and repression than
in authentic socialist endeavor.  And the rest of the world, so
easily conceptualized as the free world, suffers from the triple
malady of management science, welfare and warfare professions.  A
people whose consciousness is managed by social science, by coer-
cion and terror, or by class elites can, in nowise, be said to be
free or to be socialist.

     It is a travesty of the language to confuse the narrow freedom
in the market place found in capitalist societies with the larger
freedom to create oneself as Species being.  It is a vicious hoax
and a terrible tragedy to enforce a definition of the Soviet
experience as we see it to date as socialism.  While the creation
of material culture may be collective in the East European
countries, with small exception, the creation of ideologic and
political culture is not collective.

     While a "dictatorship" on behalf of the workers may have been
warranted in the early years of socialism in specified nations,
there comes a time when it loses its license and becomes, itself,
just another form of domination.  At that point, it becomes an
enemy to Species being rather than midwife to it.  The central test
for any society which purports to be socialist is the quality of
praxis in the creation of culture.  It is incumbent upon socialist
social scientists to critique all existing societies in terms of
praxis as well as community.  In authentically socialist societies,
the responsibility of the socialist theorist is largely one of
analysis and evaluation.  In repressive and elitist societies,
praxis requires action of a more revolutionary nature.  Whatever
the requirements of praxis for a socialist social scientist, know-
ledge, use, and publication of socialist concepts is central.  This
book is dedicated to that purpose.

                                        T.R. Young,
                                        Red Feather, Colorado
                                        Christmas, 1976


PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
     The preparation of this dictionary has been an invaluable
experience in growth and understanding for those who worked on it. 
The first edition has many errors, both of a technical and a
political nature, as well as many omissions.  Perhaps the biggest
problem of the first edition was the treatment of economic and
fiscal concepts--a major failing in a work which purports to be in
the marxian tradition.  This failure has been corrected to some
extent--and we now actively look for such concepts as a matter of
course.  A second problem was the heavy emphasis on the humanist
element in marxist theory at the expense, I believe, of the
programmatic and structural features of the theory.  This emphasis
will remain as an integral part of the content but we hope to
better balance subsequent editions.

     A third shortcoming of the first edition, and a serious one at
that, was its lack of revolutionary impulse.  As with most
Americans, I had come of age believing that the United States was
a special case; that democratic forms and personal freedoms provide
favorable conditions for a peaceful transition to new and more
humane social relations in which the area of human dignity is
expanded and a richer life of praxis would be possible.  I am no
longer so content with that view.  The University of Washington
address by President Kennedy had assured my generation that the
U.S. was too principled; too noble, too committed to democratic
forms to ever engage in the dark deeds of a fascist or totalitarian
country.  I believed that speech and the hundred other similar such
speeches.  At the same moment Kennedy was making that speech, he
had given instructions to the CIA to assassinate Castro and to
organize a secret army to invade Cuba.  The nobility of the U.S.
was, as it turned out, a dramaturgical impression mounted by
Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and others before them while the oppressive
character of U.S. politics was shrouded in secrecy abroad and
disguised as administrative routine at home in universities,
factories, stores, schools, and public agencies.  Even as I write,
this dictionary itself is subjected to censorship at Colorado State
University by a lower echelon functionary adducing administrative
procedural reasons for prohibiting its distribution to CSU
students.

     For these reasons and more, I now think much more attention
must be given to marxist-leninist theory and concepts than when
first the project started some three years ago.  Barely mentioned
in the first edition, we plan to spend a lot of time on Leninist
concepts in subsequent editions.  I do not want to preclude the
possibility of peaceful transition to socialism in the U.S.,
however one cannot stay innocent, even foolish, forever.  The
right-wing armies are building, the CIA payoffs to foreign heads of
state, the use of the state apparatus by Nixon against liberal
democrats, the FBI campaigns against women's liberation movement,
against civil rights movements, against labor movements and against
the right to dissent in peaceful assembly all serve to shatter
one's trust that somehow the U.S. is morally superior and above the
forms of oppression, coercion and subversion.

     Finally, I would like to repair an oversight in the first
edition.  In that preface we failed to mention that this dictionary
is a companion to the Transforming Sociology Series also published
by the Red Feather Institute.  The two, together with the
conferences and other work of the Institute is pointed toward a
practice of sociology qualitatively different from its present
orientation.  The papers on Conflict Methodology are pointed toward
a critical capacity of research explicitly geared to human praxis
and community both as means and goals.  The papers on bureaucracy,
social psychology, stratification, public opinion and mass society
all are aimed at transforming the conservative theoretical
perspectives now predominant in American Sociology.  Theory,
methodology, and analytic concepts go together to form a coherent
and systematic opposition to American sociology.  Those of us who
labor in this direction mean to transcend and transform the poor,
alienated instrument as it has been built by the last three
generations of technically minded sociologists.  It is to that
purpose our efforts are bent.  We assume that social science has
some small part to play in social revolution in its political,
economic, social, and cultural modes.  It is our responsibility to
make the revolution in whatever realm of everyday life in which we
may find ourselves.  For sociologists, this realm is science and
culture.  Another day it may be located more in the political
realm.
                    T.R. Young, Red Feather, Christmas,  1977


PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.  Twenty years have passed since last
I looked at this dictionary.  Much has changed in both the
socialist and the capitalist worlds.  In the socialist world, the
Soviet Bloc has collapsed to be replaced by a melange of political
economies; some brutal and viciously ethno-centric such as in
Serbia; some corrupt and indifferent to common need such as that in
what is now Russia; some trying hard to find a decent accommodation
to the difficult times in which they exist; Hungary and Poland are
examples.  In China, a curious form of capitalism has emerged about
which it is far too early to make judgments...indeed, in such a
sprawling country, judgments usually last but until the next town
or province.  Cuba has made some accommodations with the new
realities, inviting private capital in from Latin American
countries but trying to retain some of the gains of the socialist
revolution.  Castro, in his late 60's, is now open to liberation
theology and market dynamics more so than in the 70's when the
first editions appeared.  Vietnam has just signed a protocol with
the USA for official recognition.

     The capitalist world is in great turmoil...the globalization
of the economy continues apace...a globalization which will
transform significant areas, peoples and which greatly alters
existing politics in Europe and North America.  Whole cultures will
disappear, absorbed in the rush to industrial/urban life.  In
brief, without the Socialist Bloc to stabilize politics and in the
face of emergent competitors in the third world which destabilize
economics, a dramatic swing to the Right is seen in both Europe and
North America.  Canada has just elected a very conservative Prime
Minister and the weak democratic center in the USA is under heavy
political stress.  The story in short is that programs of social
justice are difficult to support without profits from the third
world, deficit spending and/or full employment.  These suffer.

     The first editions of the Dictionary were grievously flawed in
that they did not do justice to feminist ideas and gender politics. 
There were many basic ideas in the sociology of law, religion,
philosophy, moral development and political sociology which were
not treated.  This edition is much better in those terms. There are
many sources to which I have turned in the 25 years of the making
of the dictionary; none so valuable and, I believe, so trust-worthy
as that of W.L. Reese.  His Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion
is superb; it helped repair much of that which was flawed or
missing.

     Then too, postmodern sensibility has come along to bemuse and
to infuriate those with both modern and pre-modern sensibility. 
Add to that very mixed knowledge process, the quite revolutionary
changes in philosophy of science being wrought be Chaos/Complexity
theory and one has a very unsettled knowledge process which
parallels the very unsettled political economics now seething and
boiling around the world.  The postmodern turn is embedded in the
entries from Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty as well as
feminist theory and nonlinear dynamics.  This turn focuses upon
language in particular and the knowledge process in general.  In
its more affirmative moments, it tries to empower, to diversify,
and to legitimate that which is excluded, omitted, degraded and
distorted by the negativities of both pre-modern as well as
modernist approaches to thought, language and being.  But the
dictionary does not privilege postmodernity; it honors many pre-
modern and modern contributions to the knowledge process simply by
including them; thus one will see entries about grace, faith,
belief, trust, and sanctification; all essential to social
interaction and social life.  Equally, the many and continuing
contributions of modern science to the human project are honored
while the negativities are made visible, not to discredit modern
science but rather to expand it and to re-unite it with pre- and
postmodern thought.

     My personal life has changed as well.  My children are grown
and give me ever more pleasure.  My dear wife died in accident and
left me bereft; I still weep at the loss.  Email and internet have
brought me into realms never imagined 20 years ago.  I have had the
pleasure to work with several faculties around the country and meet
a great diversity of students after leaving Colorado State
University where this dictionary was created and used in so many
classes for so many years.  I no longer sit at tables at national
and regional conferences chatting with people as they pick up Red
Feather papers at 25› each.  Now they down load them for the
Progressive Scholars Network put together by Don Roper and Martha
Gimenez.  Now I lecture frequently on the Socgrad Network and reach
more graduate students in a day than in all my years at CSU.  I now
write a lot more poetry than once I did.  I now have more respect
for the liberative potential of religion than once I had.  Life
goes well with me even while I watch inequality and immiseration
increase at home and around the world.  It is not difficult to be
a radical scholar in such a world.  It is difficult to be a
progressive citizen or an activist in such conservative times; it
takes a social base for progressive politics and the times are not
conducive; all the progressive movements of the 60's are but an
echo in the songs and programs we now see pushed away as nostalgia.

     In spite of all these dramatic and disturbing changes, the
fact of the matter is that most people live and manage to survive
within all this turmoil...for billions in India, China, South
America and indeed in the developed countries, young people fall in
love, get married, find work, raise children, attend to some kind
of religious impulse and more often than one might guess, reaches
out to support and sustain others in times of trouble or tragedy.

     And there is much which gives one hope; much in the way of
creative thinking and honest re-evaluation in the socialist camp. 
Much in the way of liberative and liberation theology.  Much in the
way of progressive social programs...conservatism is a relative
term: conservatives of the day is not like that of Charles Dickens
or Sinclair Lewis.  Housing is better; health care is better;
transportation and communication is far better for most people on
earth than just a hundred years ago.  Infant mortality rates are
down and longevity rates are up; both are good indications of the
quantity and quality of life in an age.  The progressive task is to
extend these benefits and to enclose them inside a context of
loving compassion rather than the mean-spirited and grudging spirit
which now distorts so much politics around the world.

     There is still much to be done: better, more democratic
politics are needed; better, more accessible education and health
care need development; better, more affordable housing remains a
challenge; responsive and responsible economic systems have yet to 
instituted; the information super-highway is still a toll road upon
which only a few hundred million can travel; art, drama, fiction
and music remain in thrall to ethnic and/or class interest. 
Science itself remains an arrogant despot which excludes all forms
of knowledge other than that which can be simplified and
mathmaticized.  Too many children are born and fail to receive the
loving, intensive parenting they need; too many elderly die alone
and rejected after a lifetime of productive labor;  too many women
are beaten by too many men made angry and anxious about their
essential masculinity.  The use of sex and violence to entice
children and/or customers remain subversive to the human project.

     One can see that a book about words can but reveal a tiny
fraction of the incredibly complex social life world now before us. 
Yet words help in the tasks before us.  Indeed, without words,
social life worlds as such would be impossible.  The interesting
question, is how to make the words which move us, glacially, toward
social justice, social peace and the transcending joy of music,
art, drama, literature and play.  This book may help.  Twenty years
ago, it was a gift I gave to the world at a particular holy time in
Christian reckoning.  The nice thing about the gift is that it can
be given over and over; the bad thing about it, is that for some,
it is hard to take.

     Finally, this dictionary cum glossary is written for students;
always the student and for North American students especially.  To
that end, I have tried to strike a balance between those things
students would be interested and those things they need to know and
in which they might not be so interested.  It has been my
experience that students are interested in sex and gender
relations, crime and justice, sports and the organization of play,
religion and to their great credit morality, as well as the
everyday politics of life...I have tried to speak directly to these
interests in the choice of terms/ideas.  Students are also
interested in money...money more so perhaps than the macro-
economics within which money comes and goes; I've tried to tie
these macro-economics to their fate in life.

                                        T.R. Young,

                                        Innisfree Cottage,
                                        Lake Isabella, Michigan.
                                        September, 1995

AARP: The American Association of Retired Persons.  This
organization was founded to help solve the problems of the elderly
who were often discarded after a life-time of productive or
reproductive labor.  It is concerned with social security, medical
care, housing, nutrition and well being of elderly people.  It is
now the biggest union in the USA with over 40 million members.  Of
late, it has expanded its concerns to include children and women's
needs.  In so far as it calls for government support of social
justice programs, it has become a serious problem for Republicans.

Abortion:  The process by which a pregnancy is terminated, usually
within three months of conception.  This activity has aroused great
debate and much direct social action to prevent it.  Many people
argue that every life is sacred and that to abort a fetus is the
same as murder.  Many people believe that such activity is a matter
of private concern to be decided in terms of the circumstances in
which the mother and/or the father find themselves.  Some countries
provide abortion on demand at very low fees; other countries forbid
it entirely.  Some see abortion as a major device for birth control
while others see it as a way to avoid collective care for unborn
children.  See birth control/'over' population for more things to
consider.

Abuse, Child:  The use of force against a child to force it to obey
and comply to rules or orders of adults.  Often a polite synonym
for child rape.  It can include psychological acts which distress
a child greatly.

Abuse: spousal:  The use of force or violent language to intimidate
a marriage partner.  Usually males abuse females; there are three
common sources of spousal abuse; refusal to provide sexual access,
failure to provide housekeeping services and refusal to defer to
and show respect to the male.  Abuse of male partners occurs but is
rare.  See Macho, Sexism, Gender.

Act:  Latin: agere = to do.  Early philosophers called the
Scholastics used the concept, first act, to refer to the form of a
thing while second act was used to refer to what it did.  In
symbolic interactional theory, Mead used the concept of the act to
refer to the basis unit of social meaning.  An act is not just
behavior but behavior which is used to hang meaning on.  The
gesture is, for Mead, a physical motion with which one conveys
meaning to another person who has learned how to interpret it.  See
Act, Philosophy of.

Act, Philosophy of:  One of the more important issues in all of
social philosophy centers around the question, 'To what degree are
humans the passive object of history and/or acting subjects which
can plan and fulfill their own destiny.  The structuralist answer,
in its more deterministic claims, is that single human beings are
the object [not subject] of social forces.  The Interactionist
view, in its most reductionist moments, argues that each individual
is the object and agent of its own destiny.  If a person is rich or
poor, it is due to their own merits or failings.
     In philosophical terms, an act is only an act when there is
insight and the conscious use of material goods to change outcomes. 
For example, McDonald's claims to sell the same Big Mac in every
restaurant in the world and thus defeat both individual action and
culture variety.  Your assignment, if you care to take it, is to
check it out; is Big Mac the same in England, Japan, Nicaragua or
Vienna?  Do McDonald's clerks do and say things to customers not
scripted and rehearsed and sanctioned by supervisors??  If so, not
even a corporation as large and as powerful as McDonald's can
defeat human action.  See alienation, the 'I,' Praxis.

Aquinas, Thomas, St. (1225-1274):  Aquinas is credited with the
most effective grounding of the God concept through reason.  As
such he adds reason to faith in support of belief in God and
incorporates Aristotlean logic into Christendom.  Later on, this
legitimation of rationality will help protect fledgling modern
science from the inquisition.  His five arguments are: 1) the fact
of motion in the world implies a first mover, i.e., God. 2) there
are efficient causes in the world but the notion of causality
implies a first cause, i.e., God.  3) all things are contingent and
can, presumably, disappear entirely at the same time.  Since we
cannot get something from nothing [assuming they did or will
disappear], there must be something is non-contingent, absolute,
i.e, God.  4)  In practice, we assume degrees of truth, beauty,
goodness and nobility.  Since we have such things in degree, there
must be some absolute standard/pattern from which we can make such
judgments, i.e., God.  5). all things are goal directed; inanimate
objects cannot direct themselves toward a goal [think of an arrow],
therefore there must be someone guiding/directing them, i.e., God.

     Aquinas is important in the sociology of law as well; he
specifies four kinds of law: a) divine law which is eternal, b)
natural law which is given to humans via revelation [and now,
reason]; natural law has two sub-forms, c) civil law which can be
variable to fit the circumstances of differing societies and d) the
law of nations which govern all societies.

Acton, Lord (1834-1971):  Acton's dictum on power is basic to all
efforts for social justice: power tends to corrupt; absolute power
corrupts absolutely.  T.R. Young offers a complementary dictum:
poverty tends to corrupt; absolute poverty corrupts absolutely.

Adolescence:  An age grade composed of young people between 12 and
17.  Every society has age grades.  Usually they begin with
infants, 1-3; children, 4-11, adults, 12-65, aged, 65+.  All
societies socialize children until puberty then confer adult status
on them in a rite of passage.  Industrial societies extend the
socialization process to include mastery of reading, writing and
calculating thus childhood is extended to age 18 and call the
people between 18 and 18, adolescents [small adults].  High tech
societies extend childhood even further and postpone adult status
until 23, 27, 31, and in the case of psychiatrists, until 40+.

Advertising: A 30 billion dollar industry (1977) in which market
demand is created for products in order to realize profit. 
Products which are essentially similar to others of the same kind
are endowed with special symbolic meaning [sexuality, power, magic,
or status] in order to increase demand and thus expand a market
enough to absorb all that is/can be produced.  In capitalism,
markets are made small since workers are not paid 100% of the value
of the goods they produce--hence cannot buy back 100% of the
product.  The too, capitalism disemploys ever more people and the
market shrinks more.  Then too, the quest for profits lowers
qualities; advertizing offers the dramaturgical facsimile of
quality or necessity to those who buy time and talent on the mass
media.  Advertising is usually directed at those who have
discretionary income; young, single working professionals (since
they have relatively more discretionary income) or the housewife
(who must make a choice between items produced under standardized
conditions).   A major problem generated by the advertising world
is the preemption of artistic talent and information media for
commercial purposes.  A secondary problem is the use of sex,
violence and sports to generate publics for products otherwise
without special merit.  See Realization, the problem of.

Adventist [religious groups]:  Adventist religious groups assume
that the end of the world is near and that a savior will arrive
[advent] to save those who believe.  They put away things of the
flesh and seek spiritual purity in expectation of the second coming
of a Christ.  The 7th Day Adventists are the best known sect but
periodically new sects appear; especially at each millennium [see
which] after the death of Christ.

Aesthetics:  Greek aisthesis = sensation.  In Philosophy, the ideas
about beauty in nature and in cultural products.  Pre-modern and
modern sensibility argue there are absolute standards for
determining that which is beautiful, superb and excellent. 
Postmodernists hold that such definitions are a matter of power and
convention.  In some cultures, heavy women are considered
beautiful; in other cultures, slim women are so considered.

Aesthetic (Socialist):  The socialist understanding of all forms of
art is not divorced from everyday life nor restricted to an elite
in the form of "high culture."  In socialist thought, art and
society as a totality are reunited.  Art is at once an affirmation
and a critique of social life.  While capitalist art aims to cele-
brate privatism and consumption, socialist art speaks to questions
of solidarity, species being, and liberated nature.  It is neither
one-sidedly subjective nor one-sidedly objectified.  It does not
tend to freeze social relations.  Rather it emphasizes the
processual character of society and nature.  It does not "redeem"
the bitter imperfection of life by diversion, but transforms,
illuminates, and mobilizes people to action.

Affect: Emotional response.  Different societies define different
emotional states as appropriate to given social situations.  Fear,
anger, joy, love, delight, rage, tenderness, sorrow, sympathy and
such are closely regulated by a society.  Failure to feel and
express the proper emotional state (affect) is cause for great
concern for those charged with socializing youngsters.  Capitalist
and elitist societies suppress affect since emotion gets in the way
of the mass processing of people and thus jeopardizes profit and/or
control.

Age:  One of the more important systems of stratification and
differentiation found in all societies involves the chronological
age of members.  Human infants are very dependent upon adults for
both food, protection and rich interaction.  After this first
period of dependency, age grades become increasingly reflective of
economic and cultural factors.  In sociology, age grades are
usually offered in five year blocs.  These together give a picture
of birth rates and death rates.  As such they are good indicators
of the degree to which social justice is instituted in all other
social divisions.  Infant mortality rates are especially sensitive
to racism, sexism and class privilege.

Age grades: A system of allocating status (and tasks) to a series
of age cohorts.  Each age cohort is initiated into a particular
status at the same ceremony wherein rights and duties are defined. 
Age grades are destroyed in capitalism as "irrational." It is
profitable for the young to work at "adult" jobs for lower pay and
the rationality of the market requires anything be sold to anyone
with the cash at hand.  The same is true of sex differentiation,
ethnic differentiation and racial distinctions--much of the
liberalism of capitalism is this thin, profit-oriented liberalism
restricted to economic advantage rather than a complete, rounded
social liberation; still it is progressive in this respect.

Aged, lmmiseration of: The marxist theory of the problems besetting
the aged focuses upon the dynamics of capitalism.  Older workers
are less productive, more assertive and prone to illnesses-all of
which affect costs and profit.  The aged (arbitrarily defined as
55+) are forcibly retired since capitalist can make more profit on
the labor power of the younger, more docile worker.  And when the
aged have nothing to exchange for profit, they are excluded from
the various delivery systems in capitalism: health and medical,
food, shelter, clothing, transport, recreation and education.  In
a popular democracy, such as the U.S., the state, responding to
voting, provides goods and services to the pauperized aged but, in
a depersonalized rather than social mode.  Thus many people who
built the roads, bridges, houses and provided essential services at
one stage in their life find themselves miserable as they grow
older in the wealthiest country in the history of civilization.

Agency, human:  The ability of people to change the institutions in
which they live.  In both pre-modern and modern sensibility, human
agency is absent, minimal or pathological.  In many pre-modern
ideas, there are Gods who know and control every act of every
living thing, hence very little agency is possible.  In modern
science, 'laws' are said to regulate all human behavior; sexual,
economic, criminal, or political.  In postmodern science, human
agency has much more room.  In Chaos theory, there are moments when
agency is possible and times when it is very difficult to change
things.  Democracy presumes people have both the wit and the
ability to change 'social laws' to some other pattern.  Radical
scholarship tries to enhance that capacity.

Agitation:  There are two major purposes of radical politics
including research and education; first is to connect good theory
with good organization and good politics.  To do this, one takes
every day events of interest to students, workers, women or
minorities and lays them in a structural context together with a
plan for remedy.  The second is to seek the moment at which
progressive politics is possible.  Particularly outrageous
incidents of gender violence, police brutality, worker insult or
university policy provide a wealth of such opportunities to the
radical scholar/activist.  It takes wisdom, judgment and
considerable courage to wait or to act.  See also Utopianism.

Agnosticism. This word means, literally, without knowledge. 
Usually without sure and certain knowledge of the existence of a
God.  Agnosticism arose in the 18th c. as capitalists and bourgeois
philosophers mounted a challenge to the 'divine right' of kings to
rule.  See also atheism and postmodern theology.

Agrarian society: A vanishing form of social life based upon the
labor intensive production of crops by families and small
communities.  In 1790, twenty farm families produced enough surplus
value to support one city family.  In the USA, the Amish,
Hutterites, some few Mormons and other fragments of Agrarian life
survive.  Now huge industrial farms using capital intensive
production can produce food for thousands.  The rural population,
driven from the land, gathers as a surplus population in the city
and as a reserve army of cheap labor.  Without work to pay for
food, the surplus population goes hungry while the industrial farm
production is shipped abroad to feed the middle classes.  In Costa
Rica, protein and grain production are up as agribusiness displaces
agrarian society while the per capita consumption is down.  Most of
the beef produced in Costa Rica goes to fast food hamburger chains
in the U.S. like Burger King, McDonald's and Arby's.

Agriculture:  The process of tending crops and herds for food.
There have been several different ways of producing food in human
history; hunting and gathering wild plants and animals slowly
turned into planting, herding and harvesting crops.  When that
happened, new social forms developed; people settled down and built
more permanent homes and more permanent relationships.  The next
big event in agriculture was irrigation [or hydraulic agriculture]. 
It provided enough food to support specialist and a division of
labor and skilled crafts appeared.  The most recent development in
agriculture is called agro-business; it refers to giant corporate
farming which uses capital intensive production: huge machines,
chemicals, and vast fields to grow and harvest crops.  Now, genetic
engineering and synthetic foods are under development.  Again,
social organization is affected: small farms disappear; almost all
food is commodified.

Agriculture, hydraulic societies:  There have been five great
hydraulic societies in human history: the first what in Persia
along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.  The second was along the
Nile in Egypt; the third along the Ganges in India; the fourth
along the Yellow River in China and the fifth in around what is now
called Mexico City.  Hydraulic agriculture required social
differentiation [specialization]; it did not require social
stratification as so many historians argue.  But both occurred to
change forever the ways in which people live.  But see the new
developments above. 

Agrippa:  3rd Century Greek philosopher who laid the basis for a
postmodern philosophy of knowledge in five tropes [headings].  1)
There is no sure basis for deciding among different philosophical
claims.  2)  All data are relative to the beholder.  3) Every proof
rests upon assumptions which in turn have to be proved ad
infinitum.  4) One cannot trust the hypotheses when the truth value
of its premises are unknown.  5) There is a vicious circle in which
sense data are used to inform reason which, in turn, is used to
establish what is to be taken as data.

Ahistoricism: The term refers to a scientific trick by which a
given social form is endowed with the appearance of being part of
the eternal and natural order of things.  For example, Weber's
study of bureaucracy ignores the origins, the changes, the many
variations produced by historical conditions.  Similarly, Hegel and
Simmel's ideas about Ideal Forms tends to destroy the changing,
variable historical nature of social realities.  All social issues
are seen as purely technical questions since the basic form is seen
as eternal and unchanging.  Ahistorism tends to freeze analysis in
the present and to reify the status quo.  Bureaucracy, gender,
class, racist and other social forms thereby cease to be a human
products and begin to be a means of domination (or structural
force). (After Goldman).

Alienation: The domination of humans by their own products; ma-
terial, political, and ideological.  The separation of humans from
their humanity; the interference with the production of authentic
culture; the fragmentation of social bonds and community.  Any
process which reduces people to their animal nature.  Liberal
definitions of alienation have to do with feelings; socialist
definitions have more to do with relations and positions in a
social order.  In Marx, a variety of terms are used to capture the
flavor and variety implicit in the process of alienation:
"Trennung" (divorce or separation), "Spaltung" (division or
cleavage), "Absonderung" (separation or withdrawal), "Verderben"
(spoiled, corrupt), "sich selbst verlieren" (lost to oneself), "auf
sich zuruckziehen" (withdrawn into oneself), "ausserlich machen"
(externalized), "alle Gattungsbande zerreissen" (ties with others
disintegrated), "die Menschenwelt in eine Welt atomisticher
Individuen auflosen" (humanity dissolved into fragmented
individuals).  Taken together these constructs constitute and
create the meaning of the term "alienation" (Entausserung,
Entfremung). (From Meszaros).

Alienation (assumptions): A militant humanism makes the following
assumptions: (1) that humans may become dominated by their own
social and cultural products, (2) that alienation is the chief
source of conflict in society, (3) that there is a hierarchy of
forms (economic, ideological, political and religious) and 4) that
in capitalist societies, alienation is produced by a economic
system in which people and cultural products are transformed into
a commodity to be sold for private profit.  These contrast to the
premarxian view that alienation involves separation from God; the
hegelian view that alienation involves failure to understand
objective reality or the freudian assumption that alienation
involves separation between different parts of the psyche.  Each
view entails a different solution; The first social revolution, the
second an effort to return to a state of grace by hard work, faith
and/or meditation; the hegelian views calls forth modern, order-
oriented science as a solution to alienation, while the freudian
approach requires that one come to terms with one's own anxieties
and compulsions.

Alienation, psychological:  Most American sociologists reduce
alienation to psychological states: feelings of loneliness,
powerlessness, hopelessness.  For socialist sociology, happy and
well paid workers can be alienated; they can be fired tomorrow,
they can lose their pensions overnight, they can be re-assigned
from friends and family, they must be polite and helpful to those
defined as 'superior' in the table of organization of the firm in
which they work (after C. Wright Mills).  And those at the bottom
of a stratification system can live for years with perfect peace of
mind: women, slaves, wage laborers, migrant workers are able to
fashion both culture and solidarity out of the fragments of wealth
they receive (after E.P. Thompson).

Algorithm:  The term used to mean any arithmetic operation using
arabic notations.  In Chaos theory, it refers to two or more
numerical values, at least one of which is a constant and one of
which is a variable.  The feedback loop generated by multiplying a
constant by a variable produces very complex patterns some of which
cannot be predicted.  This fact grounds a postmodern philosophy of
science in which the quest for precision and order is decentered to
be replaced by a quest for knowledge of the changing mix of order
and disorder.

Analogy: Greek; ana = according to, logos = reason, ratio.  The use
of the features of a known thing to explain an unknown thing. 
Reasoning by analogy is very tricky; usually there are significant
differences hidden or set aside by the analogy.  Thus a whole
society resembles an organism but can also be said to resemble a
ship or a machine or an imaginary beast.  Each is quite different. 
Beware of organic analogies when studying the parts of a society,
one can justify stratification, elitism, sub-division of labor and
any number of other social features which should be the subject of
politics more so than poetry.

Analysis:  Greek: analyein = to break down into component parts.

Anarchy:  Greek: a = without; archos = head, ruler.  It has come to
be used to condemn all efforts of impose order by a state as
hopelessly oppressive.  Lenin said that an anarchist is just a
bourgeois turned inside out. There is a more benevolent view that
social behavior should emerge through free and open interaction
among responsible members of a society.  Bakunin, Proudhon,
Kropotkin are credited with these views on anarchy.  In this view
that all human interaction should be uncoerced by power relations. 
Anarchy assumes the possibility of full socialist consciousness in
every adult member of a society.  Bourgeois versions substitute
elites for the state.  Anarchy is often used as a pejorative word
to refer to those who would dismantle the forms of privilege and
hierarchy.

     Marx made the case that capitalism in its pure form is
anarchy.  Capitalists compete fiercely with each other; rules are
set only to be broken as opportunity for profit comes along, they
try to take markets from each other, they use the state apparatus
in one country to exploit capitalists in another country, they
neglect essential but low profit lines of production and they have
no moral foundation other than profit.  But see Capitalism,
advantages of.  See also corporate crime for forms of co-operation.

Anti-semitism:  Activities which harass and oppress Jews.  This
usually diverts the discontent of workers from the real sources of
economic insecurity and puts the blame on 'jewish bankers' or an
alleged plot to take over the world.  In turn, Irish, Indians,
Italians, Polish, Afro-Americans, Catholics, Muslims, Japanese and
Hispanics have been harassed and vilified.  See also racism, sexism
and ethno-centrism for such pre-theoretical answers to real
problems created by the stratification of class, power and/or
social honor.  Such practices divide opposition to powers elite.

Animal functions: Eating, sleeping, dressing, drinking.  In
general, those activities which keep a person alive physically but
not morally.  Capitalist society tends to reduce evermore people to
animal functions as they become surplus to the productive needs of
capitalism.

Anomia: A phrase coined to refer to the psychological feelings pro-
duced by Anomie: normlessless.  The idea is that a normative order
brings security and psychic peace to people.  Such a phrase neatly
switches attention from the social conditions of alienation to the
individual response to that disorder.  Those who resist and rebel
within racist, sexist, slave or elitist normative structures suffer
from 'anomia:' they are said to be ill, maladjusted, sinful, or
poorly socialized.

Anomie: Normlessness (lit. without order. a=without; nomy=order). 
A term used by Durkheim to indicate "the collapse of the normative
order." The term implies that conformity to norms is natural and
normal; that resistance is pathological.  Then too, embedded in the
concept is the idea that norms are above and beyond the individuals
who are said to organize their behavior in terms of the normative
structure.  However, there is a marxist position that the normative
structure is a product of transacting humans rather than a "super-
organic" thing.  To imply, as did Durkheim, that the normative
structure is a thing apart from the behavior of people actively
engaged in producing situated patterns of behavior through
judgment, insight, and mutual purpose is a conservative political
act.  The political character of the act comes from a misleading of
students of sociology about the nature of norms, normative
structures and norming.  Norms are not eternally fixed directives
for behavior to which all normal people subscribe and which
collapse apart from the understanding of people that the norms are
inadequate to deal with the present situation.  See alienation.

Anthropocentrism:  Greek: anthropos = human being; kentron =
center.  The practice of treating human species as if it were the
center of all values and the measure of all things.  Pre-modernists
and most modernists take this position uncritically. 
Postmodernists point out that 99% of the species which have ever
lived are now extinct; that one day human beings too will evolve
into quite different species or self destruct themselves or their
habitat.

Anthropomorphism:  Taking human form.  The practice of assigning
human characteristics to a nonhuman entity: to gods, animal, plant,
or material item.  For example, one might treat cars and dogs or
cats as though they were capable of human thought or feelings.  A
comparable process is to attribute inanimate status to humans
(objectification).  Both anthropomorphism and objectification strip
people of their humanity.

Apathy:  Greek: a + pathos = suffering.  Greek and Asian philosophy
held apathy to be the most desirable human state.  Now it is used
to refer to a pervasive disinterest in human life, in the moments
of praxis, or in the production of culture.  In liberal theory,
apathy is a result of ignorance, laziness, or stupidity.  The
remedy is education, chemotherapy, group therapy or
institutionalization.  In the marxian view apathy is a product of
class inequality, stratified power relations, coercion and
massified communication structures.  The solution in socialism is
common ownership, control and use of the means to produce culture,
labor intensive socialization, and systematic attention to
criticism/self-criticism,

Apology: The term is often used to demystify bourgeois theory when
one says that a 'theory" is an 'apology' [justification] for a
system than a fair description of it or an explanation of how it
works.  Often theories describe that which exists well enough but
fails to consider that there are other, better ways to organize
social life; these too are 'apologies' even if they are well done.

Apollonian:  Both Nietzsche and Margaret Mead used the word to
refer to societies which had as a central theme, the quest for
order, harmony and moderation.  Compare to Dionysian societies.
Apple, and temptation to knowledge: A symbol of forbidden things;
Adam is said to have been given 'the fruit of the tree of
knowledge,' [an apple; some say orange] and then rebelled against
his Father and Creator.  While at one level, it is a tale which
accounts for rebellion, crime and deviancy in terms of innate evil
[on the part of Eve for tempting Adam]; on another level, the tale
speaks to the responsibility one takes when one learns about one's
own self and society.  This book is the fruit of the tree of
knowledge given you in anticipation that you will take that
responsibility all the days of your life and work for social
justice.  I give you joy in the work.

Appropriation: The practice of defining some part of the wealth
produced by the social power of workers as "profit" and using it
for private purposes rather than for the common good.  Actually,
there is no such thing as profit; production always absorbs energy
and is a net drain on the larger social and natural system.  Profit
and therefore appropriation are possible only by transferring the
costs of production to the workers, to the consumers, to the
environment and/or to the future generation.

Appropriation (Mechanisms): The means by which the surplus value of
labor is appropriated directly and controlled by those who do not
produce are varied indeed.  These mechanisms include sharecropping,
tenancy, tribute, debt peonage, slavery, wage relations and
impressment into work crews.  Indirect ways to appropriate labor
power and its products include taxes, profits, interest, rents,
tithes, tolls, and fees.  Think about the social relations such
mechanisms require, and the kind of political apparatus necessary
to enforce them as well as the costs to a society to pay for these
mechanisms of appropriate of wealth.

Aquinas, St. Thomas (1225-1274):  A very important philosopher-
theologian who taught at the University of Paris.  Aquinas was
instrumental in uniting the teaching of Aristotle and Christian
theology.  In so doing, he helped create a modern theology in which
order, reason, science and logic were both part and parcel of God
as well as a pathway to prove the existence of his God.  One must
make the jump from reason to faith.  Those with more powerful
intellects can go farther with less faith in the quest of God. 
After Aquinas, the god concept became more and more like a remote
clock-maker who set the world into motion and made it operate
according to universal and rational laws.  Thus, by Newton's time,
the quest for these laws became a quest for the essence of God. 
But see Theology, pre-modern and Theology, postmodern.

Archeology:  Greek: Arche = that which was in the beginning = ology
= reason, order.  The study of primitive societies and the material
artifacts which survive in order to guess what social life was like
before written history was invented.

Archetype:  Greek: primal figures, patterns or forms.  For Plato,
archetypes were the original or true form of a thing of which real
things were more or less close copies.  Modern phenomenology is
dependent upon this assumption.  In modern psychology, Jung used
the term to refer to basic ways of being human.  He set down a
whole list which reside in every human being and pre-shape behavior
by their strength and interplay.  Jung held that different cultures
supported different archetypes and thus mental health depended upon
adjusting society to permit a diversity of being.

Aristocracy:  From the Greek: Aristos = best, cracy = rule.  Those
who 'owned' the land in feudalism.  After conquest by another
people, some of the victors remained to claim title to the best
land.  They also claimed the right to own or to rule the conquered
people.  The conquerors transformed into an aristocracy after a few
generations.  Plato called for a political from in which the 'best'
ruled...not on the basis of conquest but on merit.  For Plato,
merit meant those who had the good of the people at heart and had
four capacities to use on their behalf: wisdom, courage, temperance
and justice.  The socialist/marxist view is that these virtue are
distributed widely throughout the population and that politics
should be democratic in order to draw them out.  See government,
forms of.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE):  A Greek philosopher, student of Plato
and, later, tutor to Alexander the Great.  Aristotle was a leading
architect of what is now modern science.  He worked in the
philosophy of knowledge and what was then called natural
philosophy.  To Aristotle's credit, he set as the primary task of
science the discovery of the truth value of middle terms upon which
depended the truth value of deductions.  His view of ethics
continues to be profoundly wise; a virtuous life requires that one
do the right thing in the right way to the right person at the
right time to the right degree.  He specified the Golden Mean and
gave it a mathematical grounding.  Aristotle listed three
acceptable forms of government; monarchy, aristocracy [which see]
and polity, a sort of constitutional democracy.  Three undesirable
forms were tyranny, oligarchy and popular democracy.  Aristotle set
art to work as exploration in what was possible rather than
celebration of that which existed; this view continues to inform
emancipatory art.  Poetry has the task to conceptualize and
verbalize universal truths about life and nature while history
dealt with actual events.  His contributions to the philosophy of
law still survives in the concepts of Natural law and positive law
[which see].

     His system of syllogistic logic [see which] continues to
inform, inappropriately, the knowledge process; we know now from
Chaos/Complexity theory that the world itself is non-linear and
does not sustain logical derivations nor does it exclude
contrarieties as does aristotlean logic.

Art:  Socialist/marxist theory of art is that it should grasp the
central contradictions/problems of life; make their sources
visible; affirm and politicize workers, students, women and other
oppressed minorities.  It should be integrated into all aspects of
daily life [food, furnishings, clothing, tools, factories, and
housing] rather than confined to a museum or gallery to be viewed
once in a while.  Most capitalist, feudal or bureaucratic socialist
art tends to celebrate those in power and defuse political
critique.

Artificial Intelligence:  A term used to suggest that a machine can
be made to think in such a way that it cannot be distinguished from
human thought.  A.M. Turing gave a proof that a machine could be
built that was more complex than the sum of its parts.  Today there
is much work in artificial intelligence; some chess programs are
better than most human chess players.

Artificial Stupidity:  A term introduced by T.R. Young in a lecture
at the Fielding Institute in 1992 with which to refer to societies
which had the technical capacity to develop authentic self
knowledge but did not do so for political and economic reasons. 
Compare to naturally stupid societies which do not have the
information technology and so could not be intelligent if they
tried.  Simple societies could be, however, wise.

Asceticism:  Greek: self-denial.  Asceticism informs many religious
which hold that the pathway to knowledge is denial of the senses
and of desires.  Weber say asceticism as part of the social
psychology of religion which lead to capitalism.

Ascribed status: The standing which is assigned to a person by
other people, regardless of the wishes of or the concrete
circumstances surrounding the person.  Perhaps the most frequently
used example of an ascribed status is one's kinship, one's
ethnicity and one's sex.  In sexist or racist societies, such an
assignment is hostile to praxis and community.  In socialist
societies, ascribed status is routine.  As such, it means that one
is able to create culture by virtue of the fact that one is part of
a collective apart from merit, sex, race or other irrelevant
characteristics.  See commune.

Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety: a requirement for an ultrastable
system is that, in order to maintain match with its environment
(and thus obtain order), it is necessary to have at least one
option stored in the system for every change in the environment. 
Ashby says that only variety (change) can destroy (cope with)
variety.  Capitalism is irrational in that it produces irreversible
changes in the environment, degrades the environment and resists
change by which to transform the system. (after H. Ross Ashby).

Assimilation: A process by which one culture is destroyed and
another culture imposed on a people, usually by force.  In the
process, the young people of a status group defined as 'low' adopt
the values and norms of status groups defined as superior.  People
do not readily surrender their culture (i.e., their capacity to
create a particular form of culture).  The recent (1977) television
series, Roots documents the brutality involved in the destruction
of culture as Blacks were assimilated into American culture as
slaves.

Atheism: Greek: a = without; theos = god.   Disbelief in gods. The
tradition is informed by the work of Anaxagoras,  Heraclitus,
Feuerbach and Marx.  In humanist thought, atheism is the annulment
of God and the emergence of theoretical humanism.  In Marx, atheism
requires one to be authentically concerned with fellowship,
community, affirmation, and festivity as human activities rather
than as divinely inspired or as divine worship.  In capitalism,
atheism can be only a dull resentment of religious hypocrisy or an
intellectual doubt about supernatural beings.  It then is a
negative act rather than one affirming human relatedness as in some
forms of postmodern theology.  See Theology, postmodern, God, death
of.

Attitude: A predisposition to act based upon internalized values,
roles, rules and/or upon conditioning.  Attitudes are useful in
that they provide generalized solutions of action but may be
obstacles to judgment and self-determination if rigidly embodied. 
Some theorists seriously challenge the fact of "attitude" holding
that all behavior is situationally produced through transactions. 
This is not likely in a mass society where there is little
opportunity for transactions.

Attractor:  In nonlinear theory, an attractor is that region in
time space to which a system tends to go [seems to be attracted]. 
There are five generic attractors in Chaos theory, 1) a point
attractor so called since simple systems such as a pendulum can be
found at a given point at a given time with great precision.  2) a
limit attractor so called since a system cannot exceed the upper
and lower values for any given measure; think of a thermostat.  3)
then nonlinearity sets in; a Torus is a dough-nut shaped region in
space within which a system can be found.  We can't tell just where
inside the dough-nut the system will be found but we know that the
boundaries of the dough-nut set the limits for the movement of the
system on selected variables; think of the norms controlling
braking at a stop light; most people vary around a mean; few come
to a full stop; few dash right through.  4) a butterfly attractor
is most interesting since, when these appear, the same system
without the addition of any new parts, will suddenly move to two
[or more] outcome basins of attraction.  Instead of one and only
one outcome for a given kind of system [say a drop of water or a
gender relations], suddenly new patterns emerge.  The drop of water
may take up two regions in time-space with very uncertain paths
between these two points.  Or, in some conditions, men and women
may form 2, 4, or more marriage forms quite different from
traditional relationships.  5) then there is a region of very
unpredictable patterns which we call deep chaos.  But even in deep
chaos, there are regions of order; it is in deep chaos where one
finds qualitatively more life forms, forms of crime, forms of
religion, politics, economics or forms of marriage emerging.  The
factors driving the change to new and more complex dynamics are the
text of postmodern science.

Attractor, Strange:  The concept refers to the behavior of a
system.  In modern science, systems are supposed to behave with
enough precision such that formal, axiomatic and logical theory can
be built.  Most complex systems do not behave so predictably; they
are strange in terms of the expectations of modern scientists but
not in terms of natural occurring dynamics.

Augustine, St. (354-430):  An African theologian and architect
along with St. Aquinas of modern theology.  Augustine held that the
pathway to true happiness is self-knowledge.  The quest becomes one
for truth, beauty and goodness; this gives a theologian endorsement
for philosophy, psychology and sociology in times when such
sciences are seen to be secular and hostile to revealed truth.  It
also focus attention upon social relations in this world rather
than preparation for salvation in a second, spiritual world.  He
also gave us a Utopia; The City of God which is contrasted with the
City of Man [sic].  Each person must make a choice between the two;
the City of God is exempt from change and collapse; the City of man
is not.  In the City of God, Church law is superior to Civil law.

Author:  In postmodern discourse, any one who does physical,
natural or social science is an 'author.'  This usage derives out
of the larger notion that all science is a 'text' which is one of
many stories which could be generated out of the incredibly complex
fabric of natural and social dynamics.  See 'writerly.'

Authority:  Many societies allocate more social power to some
statuses and require those in 'lower' status comply with the
orders, commands, wishes or expectations of 'higher' authority.
     When social power is vested in an office or person, such
person has 'authority.'  Weber lists three kinds: traditional [that
of a parent or priest], legal-rational [that of a formal
organization with rules and people to enforce them] as well as
charismatic.  As Simmel noted, such "power" is always a social
product and lasts only as long as the "subordinates" continue to
reify the person/office as an "authority."  However, when authority
is naively reified, people do give up some of their autonomy and
allow others to direct their behavior.  Both human agency and
personal morality are thereby subverted.

Authoritarianism:  A form of government in which one person or a
small group controls state power; law, police, military, and other
public and semi-public institutions such as school and church.  The
private sector is usually given over to other authorities who in
turn support the government.  Patriarchy thrives in authoritarian
societies.  See Totalitarianism, Fascism, Elitism.

Authoritarian personality: A stabilized pattern of learned behavior
exhibited by a person which is characteristically intolerant, rigid
and marked by extreme reliance on formal authority.  The source of
this personality type appears to be found in unequal power systems,
beginning with the patriarchal family, in which people become
extremely sensitive and responsive to "higher" authority and
insensitive, even brutal, to those in the lower echelons. (After
David Franks).

Automation: The practice of controlling machines with machines. 
The transformation from labor intensive production to capital
intensive production.  Up until 1960, most of the time automation
replaced unskilled workers.  Now automation threatens to replace
lower level white collar workers.  IBM, Xerox and other "word
processor" are developing machines controlled by computers to
process words.  Secretaries, teachers, professors, postal workers,
and others who use words become surplus to the corporate needs as
"artificial intelligence" systems are designed.  Automation in
capitalist societies increases production and prices while
eliminating wage workers.  Without work, demand falls and the
surplus population grows.  Socialism and communism distribute on
the basis of need and merit, therefore crisis is not necessary.

Autonomy:  Greek: self-regulation.  An autonomous person has
principles which s/he uses in organizing responses to events in
everyday life.  An autonomous city or nation made its own laws and
directs its own affairs.  In marxian theory, autonomy is one of the
moments of praxis [see which] which are mediated by other important
factors.  Kohlberg set the principled individual as more moral than
one who based judgments upon utilitarian notions of reward and
punishment.

Away(s): Standard ways of avoiding involvement in a given social
occasion.  Usually such involvement is pointless, exploitative or
demeaning and yet people have cause to remain and to feign
interest.  Examples include day-dreaming, shielded mockery,
doodling, spacing-out, and boundary collusion by subsets of
persons.  [Goffman].

Axiology:  Greek; axios = value.  Theories of value.  See Value,
theory of.

Axiom:  Greek: axioun = to think worthy.  The word refers to
unprovable but necessary assumptions in a set of theoretical
propositions based on the axioms.  Agrippa refused to accept axioms
without proof and doubted that all such 'worthy' assumptions could
be grounded.  Postmodern philosophy of knowledge takes his view.

Back stage:  A term used by Goffman to make the point that in a
dramaturgical society, there is much hidden from the view of those
who are caught up in social institutions.  In conflict ridden
societies, teams rehearse performances back stage and then offer
the dramaturgical facsimile of service, quality, or honest agency
to those who are in the audience [front stage].  In markets,
politics, religion and education, such hidden routines invalidate
most of the assumptions of symbolic interaction theory about how
symbols are shared and call forth the same responses and feelings
in all parties to such interaction.

Bacon, Francis (1561-1626): Bacon was an English philosopher who
gave us an appreciation of the new science of systematic empirical
study and mathematical analysis which now is centerpoint of the
knowledge process in higher education.  He also wrote of an ideal
society made possible by wise use of science in the New Atlantis. 
He thought science would banish the 'four idols' which contaminated
human understanding; idols of the tribes [gods], idols of the cave
[see Plato], idols of the market and idols of theatre [bad theory,
see Theory]. He specified the use of operational definitions; gave
us basic research designs or 'tables.'  He ranked the sciences from
logic to metaphysics.  His goal was the Great Instauration,
installing human beings as master of the natural and social world;
as such he was very important to the Enlightenment.

Bakunin, Mikhail (1814-1876):  A Russian philosophy and leading
anarchist.  His argument is that privilege depraves both heart and
intellect; therefore all hierarchy should be dismantled.  The only
laws one needs obey is natural law; indeed one must obey them since
they are his/her 'true' nature.  Bakunin held that neither
patriotism, law religion or morality should keep one back from
destroying political and economic privilege.  One can accept the
first dictum without accepting the others.  See Acton, Lord.

Balance of Payments: The flow of wealth from one country to another
measured by dollars, francs, pounds, yen or shillings.  There are
lots of ways this occurs including trade, foreign investment,
duties on goods, loans and interests on loans by international
banks.  When a U.S. company builds a factory (invests) in Brazil,
it has to spend money in that country, hiring workers and buying
raw materials.  Once that factory is operating, money flows back to
the U.S. in the form of profits.  Military operations and foreign
"aid" also involve major dollar flows.  The difference between the
number of dollars that flow into and out of the U.S. is the balance
of payments, a major indicator of the international strength and
power of the U.S. economy.  The U.S. has a balance of payments
deficits lately (1977-) since large corporations move their
factories to the poor nations where cheap labor, cheap materials,
and new markets are found.  In order to keep workers from
organizing (and thus reduce class struggle), the U.S. uses a huge
military apparatus to stop socialist liberation movements and to
train, install, and support military dictatorships which then
guarantee law and order (labor peace).  All this increases deficits
in the balance of payments.

Balance of Trade: If you go buy a Volkswagen, you pay for it in
dollars at your local dealer.  Most of these dollars go back to the
German firm that produced the car; dollars flow from the U.S. to
Germany.  The dollar value of all U.S.-made goods sold abroad
(exports) minus the dollar value of all foreign-made goods sold in
the U.S. (imports) is the balance of trade.  This indicates how
effectively U.S. firms are competing with their foreign rivals. 
When balance of trade is positive for a nation, its factories are
busy and the surplus population small.  When negative, the surplus
population grows, welfare and other costs go up and the state has
a fiscal crises.  Too many people on welfare and too few workers
left to pay the taxes which support welfare and which help pay the
costs of production which capitalism transfers to the state.

Banditry, social:  A form of pre-theoretical rebellion in which
particular nobles or capitalists are the target of violence or
theft.  The bandit steals from, kidnaps, or murders rich and/or
famous persons and shares out the wealth to kin and friends. 
Banditry tends to disappear as social justice increases.  Robin
Hood and Pretty Boy Floyd are among the better known bandits.  Many
viewed Jesse and Frank James as social bandits since they robbed
the banks which were thought to be robbing the worker and farmer.

Barbarism: In socialist writing, the term refers to an "advanced"
society in which technology is used as an instrument of domination. 
Such a society is "barbaric" in that the masses are controlled by
external rules, rewards, and systems design which are established
by managers on behalf of some elite.  When people are stripped of
social relations (which requires mutual participation in
constructing of culture also a collective product), they are but
"barbarians."

Base: The means of production of material culture and the relations
of production is found in the economic base.  The tools, factories,
techniques, and lines of commodity production form one part of the
base.  The other part of the base consists of the way the producers
of value relate to each other and to those who do not produce
value.  In slavery, the relationship is that of slave and master;
in feudalism, of Lord and Serf; in capitalism, that of worker and
owner; in socialism, that of worker and state; in communism, that
of worker to other workers and to the unpaid but important labor
force.  In capitalism, there is a tendency to improve the means of
production and to destroy the relations of production.  See also
Superstructure.

Base Communities:  Nuns, Priests, Preachers and Ministers who
orient their ministry to Liberation Theology (c.f.) help peons,
peasants, workers and/or minorities to form strong and mutually
supportive communities in which worship extends beyond the situated
Drama of the Holy to encompass all of daily life.  The idea is to
create an approximation of the heavenly City/Community here on
earth by opposing and dismantling new and old structures of
domination.

Baseball:  A North American game adapted from the English game,
Cricket.  A functional analysis would note that baseball tends to
reproduce the social dynamics of competitive capitalism limited to
rules which make any given game fairly free from bias.  One should
note that baseball teaches young men the morality of team work
within a larger competitive structure.  It also provides a forum
and a stimulus to elegant physical activity as do sports in general
but see Sports, alienated.  See also Football and Basketball.

Bastard:  A child born out of wedlock in certain social formations. 
Bastardy arises only in those tribes or states which permit the
private holding of land, real estate or other property.  Given the
idea of private property, the question arises who is to inherit it;
at that point the paternity of the child becomes important
[maternity is usually known].  Only those born within the marriage
form are legally entitled to protection, resources and inheritance. 
In many societies, any child born to a female who herself is member
of a clan, tribe or family is, by such birth, a full member of that
group.  Children thus are never bastards; the legal system of a
political economy creates the category.

Behavior:  Old English, behabben, be = about; habban = to hold. 
The word means 'to take oneself in hand' or to 'comport oneself
with dignity' and thus refers to activity informed by conscious
reflective will.  It has come to mean all activity of all organisms
including plants.

Behaviorism:  A term in psychology which holds that the proper
study of behavior is actual behavior rather than mental tests,
opinions, drives, needs, desires or other freudian or mentalist
concepts.  J. B. Watson and the Russian Pavlov are credited with
this form of psychology.  The sociology student should note that it
eliminates socialization, roles, relationships, norms, interaction
and human will from the study of behavior.

Behavior modification: A political technique by which the
principles of psychology are used to eliminate behavior that is
embarrassing, awkward, or irritating to others.  By circumventing
the self-system and by eliminating interaction, behavioral mod can
enable a small cadre of psychologists to manage the behavior of a
mass of consumers, prisoners, students, patients, or others.  Since
authentic therapy is labor-intensive, behavioral mod is a cheap way
for the state to solve its problems of an unruly surplus population
of reluctant students, workers and abandoned children.

Belief: A mental act by which a social fact comes into being.  The
everyday use of the word does not begin to be adequate in pointing
to the utter, complete, and naive acceptance of a social fact as
really true.  Many sociologists and anthropologists treat "beliefs"
as something ignorant and superstitious folk have while civilized
and educated people are interested in "true facts." The later
position, inappropriately, assumes that social facts exist apart
from intending, wanting, hoping, believing human beings.  One's
capacity to believe and to trust is greatly exploited in monopoly
capitalism.

Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832):  Bentham is the founder of
Utilitarianism which set pleasure [rather than salvation and
spiritual purity] as the goal of life.  Pleasure for each required
the greatest good for the greatest number of persons.  There are
seven ways to measure pleasure; intensity, duration, certainty,
propinquity, fecundity, purity and the number of persons to which
it extends.  Bentham is used widely to justify accumulation of
private wealth and to locate the quest for happiness in the
marketplace rather than church, academy, polity or family.

Berkeley, George (1685-1753):  Berkeley was an Irish philosopher
and Bishop who contributed to an early postmodern philosophy of
science.  He argued, with Locke, that all ideas originate in sense
data; we have no direct evidence of such abstract categories as
space, time, color, volume or quality.  A thing exists only if it
is perceived; esse est percipi.  He went on to disagree with Locke
that one can use reason to get from specific sense data to abstract
categories without imagination and faith.  Berkeley was interested
in showing that God was necessary to ground such concepts. 
Postmodernists are not.

Birth Control:  The concept refers both to the technology with
which birth rates are increased or decreases as well as to the
larger question about the morality of these practices; especially
abortion.  The only acceptable form of birth control then becomes
abstinence from all sexual congress.  Sometimes those who advocate
birth control advocate a decrease in the number of poor children
permitted to be born while urging an increase in the number of
rich, white, male children.  One can see the sexism, racism and
class bias in this view.  The socialist position is that concern
should be with increasing the quality and quantity of life for all
people rather than trying to solve the problems of poverty and
ethnocentricism by pushing birth control on unwilling people.  See
also abortion and 'over' population; see also population theory.

Biological reductionism:  The practice of explaining all human
behavior in terms of purely biological processes; genes, instincts,
hormones, and pre-programmed brain activity.  Stratification,
sexual dominance, territoriality, acquisition and conflict are said
to be basic biological behaviors. Actually we do not know just how
much social behavior is grounded firmly in biology nor do we know
when and how biology is mediated by sociology.  The interactions
may be so complex that only loose generalizations are possible. See
reductionism.

Blanqui, Louis, (1805-1881).  A French socialist who gave Marx and
socialism several concepts: class struggle, proletarian revolution,
dictatorship of the proletariat and the idea that socialists should
form a small, secret group to engineer the overthrow of capitalism.

Blocs, Economic:  A coalition of several nation-state pursuing
common goals and setting forth common rights and obligations of
those who reside within the bloc.  There are three competing views
of how the global economy works: first there is the idea that there
are some 160 sovereign nation-states which compete freely among
themselves; then there is the view that there is a Capitalist World
Order in which the Group of Seven [see which] is at the top and
poor nations ranged in layers below that.  But recently, nations
have been joining into larger economic systems called blocs.  The
European Common Market, the North American Free Trade Association
are the most developed.  Over the new 20 to 50 years, we might well
see some 10 or 12 such blocs competing for markets, raw materials
and for rights to deep sea or outer space resources.

Bloc Formation:  There are several factors which call forth large,
multi-national blocs and which pattern their composition.  First,
in unity, there is strength to compete with the more powerful
nations; Japan, Germany and the USA are so much stronger in
economic and political terms that African, Asian and Latin American
nation-states must co-operate if they are to compete/resist them. 
Secondly, the rich capitalist nations have a common interest in
suppressing liberation movements and guaranteeing the free movement
of goods and profits around the world.  Then too there are many
factors which bind people across national boundaries; language,
religion, colonial status and such.  Blocs are likely to be the
largest, most visible and most active social units in the 21st c.

Boas, George (1891-1980): An American philosopher who helped
fashion a postmodern philosophy.  He held that 1) humans try to
impose order and logic on the world and fails since time subverts
the effort to prove basic terms.  2)  There are no universals;
humans create and impose them and, when they fail, discard them. 
3)  There are no individuals but individual persons and things are
the basic metaphors out of which we build explanations.  4)  The
idea of a cause is a metaphor built upon myths.  Mechanistic,
deterministic and teleological causal models are expanded far
beyond what is warranted.  5) some abstract terms become 'emblems'
which guide the knowledge process: nature, truth, beauty, law,
order and cosmos are human inventions treated as ontologically
prior to human thought and action.  6) Dividing history into
periods [including premodern, modern and postmodern] is to built
myths which leave residues in all thought processes.  Even those
who work in the history of ideas carry a distorting philosophy of
history.  Note: As long as we accept our own hand in such work, we
do not reify history, nature, causality or individual as something
beyond our own social and cultural work.

Boddhisattva: Sanskrit: boddhi = wisdom, sattva = existence. A
boddhisattva is, in Mahayana buddhism, one whose essence is
compassion.  A guiding symbol on both popular and learned levels,
a boddhisattva embodies basic Buddhist values of practical wisdom
(prajna) and love (karuna) and has chosen a life-vocation of
beneficial action toward all beings in order that their suffering,
whether physical or mental, be ended. A boddhisattva can be anyone,
layperson or monk, who begins to postpone individual satisfaction
in order to work for the welfare of others in the world.  Their
lives, in turn, are free for similarly attentive contributions in
their own situations.  After N. Maxson.

Bolsheviks:  This word refers to the party of Lenin and later,
Stalin.  It means, 'majority.'  Great expectations were made for
the Bolsheviks but the events of the late 1980's saw the heirs of
Bolsheviks rejected by the masses it purported to serve. 
Considerable gains were made under the Bolsheviks but severe
problems including inflexibility, corruption, elitism and the cult
of the individual discredited them.  See also, Menshevik, Vanguard.

Bourgeois democracy: A form of government in which political power
is in the hands of those who have the time and money to do
political work.  This usually means business persons, lawyers,
doctors, and the idle rich who have sufficient guaranteed income,
sufficient released time to do the basic ground work in choosing
candidates and policies.  The product of such law makers tends to
support capitalism.  Scorn and contempt is built into the term by
those on the Left.

Bourgeoisie:  Old English; burg: old French; burgeis, bourges =
dwelling; by extension, those who live in town; craftspersons,
merchants, officials and such.  Now, that sector of the population
of a society which, by one rationale or another, expropriates part
of the surplus value produced by the proletariat.  It carries
strong and often negative emotional content in the writings of the
Left.

Bourgeois revolution: A political revolution in which the rights of
the individual to pursue private goals and to accumulate property
is guaranteed.  A series of bourgeois revolutions from the English
revolution in 1688 to the American revolution in 1775 replaced
feudalism with capitalism.

Bourgeois society: One in which exchange relationships replace
social relationships; in which cultural items [sex, drugs, foods,
loyalty, sports] become commodities exchanged for profit and in
which private profit is the central test of production.

Bridgman, P.W. (1882-1963):  Bridgman is noted for his concept of
operationalism.  All concepts in science are defined by the
operations with which one uses in finding the value/measure of a
thing.  The concept of length or weight or opinion is identical
with the operations one uses to measure, weigh or elicit opinions. 
One can see the grounding of postmodern philosophy of science in
this view.  Plato and most modern scientists would hold that
length, weight or truth are natural categories existing before
measurement; measurement can only approximate real
values/attributes.

Brothel:  A place used for male or female prostitution.

Buddhism:  Enlightenment. One of the major forms of world religion
most interesting to progressive politics in that it is atheistic,
favors communal sharing, works with and on behalf of the poor,
condemns warfare and violence, forbids work in dangerous or
endangering occupations, is very pragmatic [rather than dogmatic]
and, at the same time, monks ar forbidden to accumulate wealth. 
There is no after-life, no hell, no angry sky god who punishes and
rewards, no hierarchy which claims all moral authority.  Founded by
Gautama Siddhartha 500 years before the birth of Christ, it
replaced tribal gods with an encompassing social justice; it
replaced birth as a test of status with just behavior; the four-
fold path and the eight noble truths; right faith, right  resolve,
right speech, right living, right effort, right thought and right
concentration.  Both men and women could become enlightened.  See
Boddhisattva for the social justice and compassion built into
Buddhism.  See also Liberation theology.

Buddhism, Hinayana:  The early form of buddhism stressed the
inevitability of suffering in this world.  In order to end
suffering, one must put away the 'shells of existence' and unite
with the infinite [nirvana].  Compare to Mahayana.

Buddhism, Mahayana:  A later and more popular form of buddhism in
which a boddhisattva [see which] can help bring social justice and
moderate suffering in this world.  The b. postpones his/her
approach to nirvana in order to share wisdom with others in this
life.  In M. buddhism, everyone can become a boddhisattva by
passing through ten stages; delight, purity, intelligence, leaving
behind ignorance and evil passion, grasping essences, producing
that which is needed for social justice, saintly innocence,
practical knowledge and finally embodiment of love and compassion.
This form of buddhism is companion to liberation theology [see
which] in Christianity.

Buggery:  A british term for anal intercourse with male or females. 
Said to be a sexual perversion.  See also Sodomy.

Bureaucratic socialism: A distorted form of socialism in which the
state holds title to the means of production.  Like capitalism,
part of the production is extracted by law or by force but unlike
capitalism, that surplus is invested in improving the basic health,
housing, food, transport, and military delivery systems.  A part of
the surplus is also used to provide the ruling elite with class
privileges.  The USSR was the prototype of bureaucratic socialism.

Bureaucracy:  French; bureau = writing desk and, later, drawer.  It
has come to mean any work requiring the keeping of files; later a
form of social organization in which order, rationality and
hierarchy are key elements.  In more general terms, a way of
organizing social life such that an elite can control the behavior
of a large mass of people by means of a staff (or cadre).  Lenin
said that a bureaucracy was first a military [police] apparatus and
then a judiciary apparatus; that it corrupts from above and below. 
It is also an apparatus which locates moral agency in the hands of
a few.  Marked by formal and uniform application of rules,
bureaucracies are supposed to be "rational" instruments by which
goals determined by an elite may be achieved.  Bureaucratic
organization typifies modern industrial corporations, military
organizations and a managed society.  See McDonaldization.

Buridan's Ass:  A dilemma attributed to John Buridan (1295-1356)
which involves an ass which starves unable to decide which of two
bales of hay to eat.  Think of radicals on the Right and Left who
fail their quest for social justice by an inability to see the
positivities in each other's work.

Cadre: A central core of workers who activate and direct the
activities of a larger mass.  A bureaucratic organization (school,
military, hospital, agency, business) has a paid set of workers who
process people as isolated individuals or as faceless blocs through
the routines of the system.  In elitist societies, the expectation
is that the cadre and the mass is a permanent relationship since
the point of the bureaucracy is to control workers, customers,
patients, students or prisoners and thus reproduce class, status
honor, or social power.  A socialist revolution establishes cadres
to organize the poor and the powerless.  In the latter instance the
cadre is supposed to arrange for those conditions in which cadres
become unnecessary.  See also Vanguard.

Calvin, John (1509-1564):   French theologian who laid the basis
for the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism [Weber].  His
argument is 1) God is the absolute cause of everything.  2) God
ordains all that happens to people.  3) Humans were pure but fell
from grace; even so part of God remains in each person.  What
remains is not enough for salvation.  4) Therefore Christ is
necessary to salvation.  5) There is a two-fold scheme; some are
destined to salvation; some to damnation.  6) All men [sic] are
equal before God.

     Assumption 5) above is central to the idea that great wealth
is a blessing of God since 2) God ordains all.  6) above grounds a
through-going individualism and rejection of authority other than
the Bible.

Campanella, Tomasso (1588-1639):  Campanella, following Plato, set
forth an Utopia called City of the Sun.  In it people held property
in common, a class of philosopher/guardians and state program of
eugenics.  The City of the Sun is infused by the Love of God and
rejects evil in personal and social relations.  A forerunner of
liberation theology.

Camp: A verb meaning to have fun with cultural items rather than to
celebrate them or to condemn them.  As social conditions change,
values which have been considered for a long time as very certain
and unquestionable, begin to be considered doubtful, false, or
harmful.  The strong, silent, decisive cowboy in the cinema now
looks strange.  Films like "The Midnight Cowboy" camp on the John
Wayne genre.  "Mary Hartman" camps on the American family while
"Archie Bunker" neither celebrates racism nor condemns it but
rather plays around with it.  The character of "Meathead" camps on
the mindless liberal while the character of "Edith" is a gentle
affirmation of love and innocence.

Canon/Canon law:  Canon means rule; from the Greek, kanon = rule or
rod.  In Latin it came to mean those writings which are
authoritative for a given religion.  Canon law is the most
authoritative law of the Roman Catholic church.  For centuries it
served as basis for justice and rulings about crime, property,
marriage and contracts.  Gregory XIIIth had canon law codified in
1582.  Based on Deuteronomy and other books of the old and new
testaments, it still informs legal proceedings via secular legal
codes which are based on it.

Capital: This term has two very different meanings. (1) Sometimes
capital is used to mean manufactured physical objects-machines,
equipment, buildings-which are used in the production process, or
money available to buy these objects. (2) For Marxists, capital is
more than just money or machines.  It is a relationship which gives
a near-monopoly over money and machinery by a small group of people
(capitalists), who are able to hire other people to work for them,
in order to make them more money.  Capitalism is a social
relationship; most people have to work for somebody else in order
to survive.  In the U.S., about 8% of the people are capitalists
and live off of the surplus value of labor while 52% sell their
labor power (1977).  The rest live on the wages of paid workers, go
on welfare or hustle or steal.  Capital in the first sense--
physical objects--is necessary for production in every economic
system.  However, capital in the second sense--the ability of the
owners of those physical objects to hire others to work for them is
unique to one particular system, capitalism (From URPE).  Of
capital, Marx said that it is '...dead labor that like a vampire
only lives by sucking the blood from living labor.'

Capital (Das Kapital) (1867): A three volume set in which Marx went
outside the capitalist paradigm to criticize it as an economic
system.  The basic thesis of the work is that capitalism is a
dynamic system which (a) destroys community, (b) converts praxis
into alienated labor and (c) contains internal contradictions which
tend to produce crises.  Basically, capitalism is a system of
capital accumulation for private purposes.  This feature puts it
into conflict with the human interest in production for social
purposes.  The major internal contradiction is that as capitalism
succeeds, it has less use for workers.  This means there is no one
to exploit since unemployed workers can't buy.  "Overproduction" is
created thereby even as people are hungry and in need of goods and
such a situation programs more conflict into the system.  In the
good years of capitalism, there was some doubt about the validity
of marxian analysis.  War, new technology, and Keynesian policies
keep the system growing.  Recent developments tend to confirm the
instability of capitalism as a system of production.  For the U.S.,
loss of markets to Germany, Japan, and socialist liberation
movements have produced a crisis centered now in the state sector. 
The state covers much of the costs of capitalism at present in the
U.S. As deficit spending, taxes, and other federal revenue sources
are exhausted and as welfare and military costs increase,
production overhead must be shifted back to the private sector or
political legitimacy is lost.  Either the crises is in the state
sector or the private sector.  Whatever the case, inflation and
unemployment increase and more and more sectors of the population
grow restive.  There are two likely outcomes, fascism or socialism.

Capital, Accumulation of.  The transformation of surplus value into
machines and technology to produce more goods and services with
fewer and fewer workers.  All economic systems need to accumulate
and improve capital goods; only capitalism tries, as well, to dis-
employ more and more people in the process.  Marxists, socialists,
and communists as well as liberal economists hold that part of
surplus value should be set aside for essential but low profit
services: child care, health care, teaching, elder care,
environment, and such.  Capitalists tend to argue that capital
accumulation should a) follow demand and b) be invested in the
goods and services which yield the highest profit rates.

Capital accumulation crisis: This idea refers to the problem of
securing profits as the number of workers needed in capital
intensive production declines (and markets for mass produced goods
decline).  Capitalism must either find new markets overseas or sell
the 'surplus' production to the state to give away to those who
can't find work.  The first solution requires a "warfare state" and
the second a "welfare state." Both solutions require high taxes
and/or deficit spending and thus contribute to a crisis in
political legitimacy.

Capital, constant:  This form of capital refers to machines, raw
materials, buildings, tools, fuel and other physical objects to
which labor [variable capital] is added and from which all wealth
comes.  It is called constant capital since, unlike variable
capital [labor power], its value does not change in the production
process beyond the wear and tear of producing wealth.

Capital, Organic Composition of:  This concept refers to the ratio
of workers to machines.  The more machines and fewer workers, the
higher the organic composition of capital.  Some lines of
production are capital intensive (they use very few workers); some
are labor intensive (they use few machines).  Nursing, teaching,
parenting, playing and religious activities are labor intensive. 
Mining, farming, milling, machining, transporting and accounting
are ever more capital intensive.  A good and decent society tries
to keep a balance between capital and labor such that there is full
employment in pro-social lines of production.

Capital, variable:  That part of capital used to purchase the labor
power of workers.  It is called variable capital since labor power
produces more than enough value to replace itself and more; surplus
value [see which].  Labor power also varies over time; workers get
tired, sick, angry or hurt; machines don't; the value workers can
produce thus varies much more so than that of machines.  The costs
of labor can go up or down more rapidly than the cost of capital
goods since capital goods come from other capitalists who have more
power to control prices than do workers.

Capitalism: A system which separates workers from any property
rights in the means by which they produce culture by their labor. 
The system transforms the social means of subsistence into capital
on the one hand and the immediate producers into wage laborers on
the other hand.  Most of the time, capitalism is defined as the
private ownership of the means of production but that definition
does not encompass the great harm done to humanity by the system. 
By claiming all (or most) of the means to produce culture as
private property, a small class of owners preempts material culture
to their own comfort while denying the vast majority the means to
subsistence as well as the means to produce ideological culture
when they are not working.

Capitalism, advantages of:  There are many aspects of capitalism
most congenial to the human project: it is the most productive
economic system in history, it is the most flexible, it is the most
innovative; it responds to human desire and personal preference, it
requires a honest and unflinching knowledge process, it often
requires merit while it tends...only tends...to destroy the ancient
structures of oppression when it cannot use them.

Capitalism, disadvantages of:  Marx argued that there were laws
within the everyday workings of capitalism which would create
misery and lead to its destruction.  These include: 1) the tendency
of the rate of profit to fall, 2) the tendency of large firms to
buy out or destroy small firms, 3) the tendency to transform all
goods and services into commodities, 4) the tendency to transfer
[externalize] costs of production to workers, consumers or the
environment, 5) the tendency to disemploy workers [surplus labor
force] in favor of machines and capital intensive production, 6)
the tendency to dominate the political process, 7) the tendency to
control the production of ideological culture [art, science, music,
literature and religion, 8) the tendency toward economic
imperialism, 9) the tendency to abandon low profit but essential
lines of production [the Law of Uneven Development], and 10) the
tendency toward revolution.  Compare to the three capitalist
economic laws below.

Capitalism (theory of collapse of): With astonishing insight and
genius, Marx laid out the dynamics by which capitalism will bring
on its own demise.  In brief, Marx said that capitalism brings into
being productive forces which it cannot control and which will
burst asunder the fetters placed on it by capitalism.  Capitalism
creates a huge productive apparatus at the same time it creates a
surplus population by replacing workers with machines.  It
generates demand for products at the same time it withholds
products in order to get higher prices.  It cheapens labor at the
same time it requires that one labor in order to purchase goods. 
It brings together industrial armies which then constitute a threat
to property relations.  It must create waste even as raw materials
come into short supply.  It must argue for freedom in the market
place while growing more bureaucratic in the factory and office. 
It must dis-empower its employees even as they become better edu-
cated.  And it must eliminate other capitalists and thus erode its
own power base.  All these and more create the objective conditions
by which social revolution is more likely.  Even without a
communist conspiracy or social reformers (do-gooders, bleeding-
hearts, and eggheads) capitalism outlives its usefulness.  The
problems of capitalism lay within the system not outside it.

Capitalism (fiscal costs of): It costs the U.S.A. about $150
billion to keep capitalism as a form of production in 1977. 
Corporate profits were about $110.3 billion; interest costs were
12.2 billion; excessive salaries of top executives about 10 billion
more.  Depreciation allowances came to about 87.3 billion in 1976
and part of this transferred to owners since it was not all spent
to replace worn-out capital.  URPE estimates that all together in
some combination of profits, interests, and rents the capitalist
class takes a 15% cut of national income even though it does
nothing in return. (Managers get paid to manage; brokers and money
managers get paid to invest).  In addition to these direct fiscal
costs, the worker also pays taxes to support a military apparatus
to protect the overseas markets of American capitalists and to
support the surplus population on welfare; to police the surplus
population (who steal a lot when they can't find work and otherwise
hustle the worker and each other).  All this does not count the
social costs of capitalism measured in human misery and despair
rather than dollars and profits.

Capitalism, Economics Laws of:  There are three 'laws' which
capitalist economists say are the heart of all economics: 1) the
law of supply and demand, 2) the law of marginal utility, and 3)
the law of diminishing returns.  These are all valid enough within
the logics of capitalism as such but do see Capitalism, tendential
laws of.

Capitalism, People's:  An economic system in which a large share of
the wealth is shared widely in society or is held by a democratic
state on behalf of all the people.  In this system, democratic
freedoms, market dynamics and private property are retained.  The
state does not represent the interest of the capitalist class but
rather the general interest [including future generations].  Social
Democracies try to approximate this economic form [England, France,
Germany, Sweden, Italy, Australia, Canada and New Zealand].  Many
marxists argue that the basic conflicts remain and will re-assert
themselves when times get bad [see Kondratieff Cycles].

Capitalism (reproduction of): The capitalist system must be con-
tinuously reproduced.  This is accomplished by two general means:
the reproduction of private/elitist ownership and the management of
dissent via ideological hegemony and or outright repression.  The
ideological process starts in school and college where capitalist
ideas are celebrated and socialist ideas are distorted or ignored. 
The state plays a large role in reproducing capitalism by laws
which establish the right to appropriate part of the value of labor
by non-workers and by public policy which subsidizes almost all of
the "costs" of capitalism.  What is required for the continuation
of capitalism is a legal system which permits the "free" trade of
commodities.  By "free" is meant that a necessary social good is
withheld unless a seller can make a profit.  The state also commits
many crimes against rebellious workers and political opposition in
the name of law and order.  Capitalist corporations commit many
crimes which are unpoliced, uncharged, untried, and uncounted in
order to increase profits, obtain raw materials, destroy
competition or control markets.  Many if not most military ventures
of the U.S. have no design other than to penetrate and protect
markets, provide cheap labor and guarantee access to low cost raw
materials to capitalism.

     Feminists point out that women are charged to reproduce the
labor power of their working husbands by providing unpaid domestic
service and by rearing/socializing the next generation of compliant
workers.  They also reproduce capital by 'super' exploitation; they
are paid 30, 40, 60, or 90 percent of what males get for the same
work.  Then too, women reproduce the status system while at work
via gender based norms and by sexual harassment.

Capitalism (social costs): In addition to a 15% bite out of value
of the wealth produced by the working class, capitalism also costs
much in the way of human misery.  Capitalism withholds the basic
necessities of life unless one has something to exchange (so the
capitalist can make a profit).  Capitalism also systematically
degrades work while trying to enlarge the surplus value of labor. 
And, part of the wealth produced by labor is turned into repressive
structures: law, police, prisons, psychiatry and "public
relations." But the conversion of culture and of social
relationships into commodities cheapens and destroys a society. 
Capitalist relations reproduced in the family, the school, or in
medicine and sports turns human beings themselves into commodities
to be bought and sold.

Capitalism (stages of): The periods of capitalist development
differ according to the ways in which the value of labor is
appropriated by those who own and/or control the means of
production.  The first stage was mercantile capitalism which
emerged on large-scale in Venice and Genoa in the 13th century. It
culminated in the English empire in the 19th c.  The second stage
was industrial capitalism as factory cities replaced independent
commodity production at home by artisans.  This stage began around
1730 in England with the factory system and remained dominate until
the 20th century by which time finance capitalism began to displace
industrial capitalism as the major means by which to extract
surplus value.  At present (1977), capitalism in the U.S. claims
about 15% of the GNP and, of that amount, 8% is rent or profit and
7% is interest.  Most corporations such as Sears or Wards or
Master-Charge now prefer to sell credit [finance capitalism] rather
than merchandise [industrial capitalism] since credit has lower
capital costs and higher returns.

Capital intensive production: The use of machinery to produce food,
shelter, clothing, electronics, automobiles, or other commodities. 
Workers cost a lot of money; wages, pensions, vacations, health
insurance and such; machines don't.  Workers get ill, get angry, go
on strike, criticize management and quit; machines don't.

Capital Punishment:  Execution by the state.  There are several
crimes which are 'capital' offensives; i.e., they carry the death
penalty; murder, kidnapping, treason are the most common.  The
means used by the state to kill prisoners are many: shooting and
hanging are uncommon; cyanide gas, electrocution and injection with
a lethal dose of poison are preferred.  Read The Chamber by John
Grisham for a good look at the process by which people are executed
by the state and at the legal efforts to prevent it.

Capitalist World System/Economy: Immanuel Wallerstein laid out
several helpful points about the capitalism world which is useful
to the beginning student:

     1. Capitalism is a world economy with a single global division
     of labor and a lot of differing cultures.  It funnels wealth
     from the poorer countries to the richer.

     2. World economies are unstable; they collapse or turn into
     empires of the strongest state(s).

     3. The present world economy emerged in the 19th century as
     factory production and international division of labor
     emerged, mostly in Northern Europe and North America.

     4. There are two divisions of labor to consider:
          a. Ethno-nations with 1) an owning class which makes
          investment and controls state power, 2) a middle class
          which consumes luxury goods and support the owning class,
          3) a large working class which produces wealth and 4) an
          underclass surplus to the labor market.

          b. A global division of labor which mirrors the national
          division: 1) the core industrial countries with military
          power, 2) the semi-periphery whose fate is tied to the
          core and 3) the periphery.

     5.  The state in the core is stable; both industrialists and
     commercial interests want an open market. The state in the
     semi-periphery is unstable; the industrialists want a
     protected market; the merchants want free trade so they can
     sell luxury items.

     6. There are three mechanisms which keep the world system
     stable: a) military force, b) ideological commitment by
     employees in the public and private sector whose jobs and
     life-style depends upon capitalism, c) a split in the large
     majority of non-owners between those who benefit and those who
     live at the margins.  See New World Order.

Career/Careerist: Latin: Carraria = carriage road; French; race
course.  Now used to refer to any one who is on the 'fast track' in
a job or occupation.  A careerist is one who uses a social position
for private advantage.  Usually by catering to superiors or looking
away from other's misdeeds, the careerist succeeds by protecting
his/her position.  Careerism is a large problem in bureaucratic
socialism.

Carrier's Case:  A famous legal case in which a carrier stole part
of the cargo he was carrying; the merchant sued him.  In a
classical ruling, a British court ruled that the merchant had legal
standing to come before it for redress of grievance; thus the wrong
was against the state rather than against the owner of the goods. 
It was the beginning of a legal system in which a wrong against a
capitalist became a wrong against the entire state.  The state thus
become a partisan on behalf of owners.  Workers and customers had
no such legal standing until the 20th century.  (see caveat
emptor).

Cartel: A group of firms or countries that jointly decide on prices
and output.  By coordinating actions, they can be certain not to
compete and do away each other's profits.  Cartels have existed for
well over a century.  The Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) is now using a tactic which large and powerful
firms (including the oil companies!) have used for generations. 
There are six companies in a cartel which meet regularly and
control the prices of grains and breakfast cereals.  Cartels of
nations which supply raw materials or coffee, cotton, sugar, or
cocoa are a threat to capitalist nations because they fuel
inflation and squeeze profits.  The U.S. state department spends a
lot of its time on behalf of capitalism to control cartels in
undeveloped nations.  Little effort is made to control U.S. cartels
abroad.  The business of American foreign policy is business.

Case Law: Those cases in law which serve as basis for making legal
judgments.  Opposed to statutory law which are those laws passed by
a law making body.  Usually case law embodies age old norms and
sanctions; statutory law embodies the interests of which ever elite
is in power at the time.

Caste:  A system of social differentiation and stratification in
which one set of persons are defined as inferior or superior in
some important respect.  Life chances and life courses are
determined at birth in societies organized by caste.  Capitalism
tends to replace caste systems with class systems.

Casuistry:  Latin, casus = case.  The use of biblical law, sayings
or cases to judge present questions of ethical behavior.  Now used
to reject such pathways to ethical behavior; e.g., no casuistry
will persuade me that your cruelty is a kindness which can be
justified by appeal to the teachings of Christ.

Cause: Latin, causa.  The antecedent of an effect.  Aristotle
identified four categories: efficient, material, final and formal
cause.  Hume gave it its modern sense: the constant conjunction of
events.  Kant laid the foundation for a postmodern view of cause
when he held that cause was an a priori category used uncritically
by those who sought to explain something.  Chaos theory replaces
the idea of cause with the idea of feedback of which there are
three forms, it's all right to jump ahead.  See also Algorithm.

Caveat Emptor:  Latin: let the buyer beware [of the possibility the
goods may be stolen, the components damaged or faulty, the
ingredients poisonous, or the prices fixed in conspiracy].

Central [economic] Planning:  An economic system in which the state
manages the economy through periodic plans, usually 5-year plans. 
It is used a) to change rapidly to industrial production, b) to
improve neglected lines of production, c) to re-employ the surplus
labor force, d) re-distribute wealth to housing, hospitals,
schools, roads, highways, dams, irrigation systems, electric power
plants and other 'infra-structure' needs.  While rightly claiming
many achievements in many socialist countries, still it has several
flaws: 1) too inflexible, b) promotes white collar crime as well as
a 'black market,' c) obstructs more democratic forms of production
and puts quantity before quality.

Central Executive Committees.  Almost all socialist and/or
communist parties have central committees which run things between
Congresses of the People.  Too often, the Congresses are pushed
aside and all social power remains in the hands of an elite rather
than working toward a democratic communism.

Central Intelligence Agency [C.I.A.]:  A very large branch of US
government whose operations are mostly secret.  It is concerned
with espionage, counter-espionage, and in its counter-revolutionary
activities, the safe-guarding of capitalism/free market dynamics in
third world countries.  Like the K.G.B. of the USSR, it has become
a law and a government unto itself.  It profits off the drug trade
to get funds to do things not approved and funded by the US
Congress.  Nixon and Reagan supported its very illegal operations
around the world.

Centralism, Democratic.  A fraudulent facsimile of democracy in
which a central committee makes all the relevant policy decisions
while party members are expected to carry them out in the name of
democratic centralism.  In USSR, the Central Committee of the
Communist Party had effective control of the government; the
People's Congresses were little more than rubber stamps.  See also
Vanguard, Vanguardism.

Certainty: Latin: cernere = do decide.  There are three quests for
certainty in social science; one is for logical certainty; there
are many forms of logic chief among which is syllogistic logic [see
which.  Logical certainty may have little to do with empirical
truth.  Second, there is the quest for certainty about present and
future states/behaviors of real systems; this is the task of
empirical research and statistical inference.  Third, there is a
quest for psychological certainty; what to believe and how to be
confident that what one believes is close to the truth.

Certiorari, writ of:  The name of the legal process by which
evidence is re-examined by an Appeals Court to make certain that a
judgment is supported by that evidence.  Most of the time, Appeals
Courts look only at technical questions; if new evidence is found,
such writs can be made.

Chance:  Latin, cadere = to fall.  The fall of sticks or stones
were thought to be a result of the will of the gods; chance serves
as a pathway to knowledge in many religions; one who benefits from
gambling is thought to be favored of the gods.  In modern science,
chance is reduced to the work of unknown and perhaps unknowable
variables.  Much mischief ensues when causality is attributed to
chance; there are better ways to understand unexpected outcomes,
accidents and non-linear transformations.

Charisma: The term refers to the extraordinary quality which some
people perceive in an individual.  This perception, if widely
shared, inspires others to follow her/his lead and to organize
political, religious or family life in ways impossible to predict
from previous conditions.  The person so perceived usually embodies
some cherished cultural value or promise of an ideal and thus is
revolutionary.  The term means, "gifted with grace."

Charity:  Latin: caritas = dear. Christian love and care for the
poor and oppressed (Cor. 1:13).  Capitalism creates many problems,
one of which is the broken and diseased workers it casts off. 
Charities are assigned the task of taking care of these workers;
The United Way, March of Dimes, Red Cross, as well as Cancer,
heart, lung or M.S. drives.  Such a process transfers the costs of
repairing and reproducing the labor force to a working class
already over burdened by a tax structure, a price structure, and a
wage structure which supports a capitalist elite in health and
comfort.  The word is often carries negative emotional content
since both giver and receiver lack the compassion and grace
embodied in the religious meaning.

Chaos Theory: A body of knowledge about the changing mix of order
and disorder in natural and social systems.  Modern, newtonian
science gives preference to order and stability; chaos theory tends
to support the idea that some disorder is essential to all complex,
adaptive systems and that change is continuous to the human
experience.  Chaos theory provides an elegant empirical support for
both dialectic theory and for postmodern concern with variety,
surprise, contrariety and difference.

     In Chaos theory, really existing structures have a fractal and
temporary geometry; there is a secession of dynamical states; with
each bifurcation, more complex dynamics develop, causality is
looser and prediction less possible.  One should note that all
living creatures and societies require some disorder to survive;
innovation, creativity, flexibility and revolution are everyday
words we use to make this point.  Too much order and systems die;
too much disorder and systems cannot be planned or trusted to
behave as expected.  See Science, Postmodern.  See also Nonlinear,
Fractal, and do compare with other ideas about Metaphysics.

Charisma: A Greek word meaning full of grace.  One who embodies
charismatic authority embodies the highest values and hopes of a
given culture.  Charisma is a social product; one does not have
charisma apart from a set of followers who 'believe' in her/him.
Weber lists it as one of three forms of authority; of the three,
charisma has the most potential for dramatic social change.  Jesus,
Mohammed, Hitler, Martin Luther King and the Ayatolla Khomeini were
able to arouse great loyalty and make dramatic social changes.

Chiliasm/Chiliastic:  Greek: chiliiad = thousand.  Chiliasticism is
the belief that the world will end in the year 1000, 2000 or some
multiple of the 1000th year after the birth of Christ.  See
Millennium.

Child Savers:  A social movement begun around 1850 to keep children
in school, out of adult prisons and to prevent them from competing
with adult men for jobs as the surplus population grew.  A whole
series of laws, courts and policing officers were instituted in
order to 'save' the children from the criminal justice system. 
After Tony Platt.

Chivalry hypothesis:  The idea that females are treated more kindly
than are males by police, district attorneys, judges and parole
board.  This being the case, so the argument goes, women are less
likely to be crime statistics; not because they are so much less
criminal but because they are treated with the courtesy said to be
part of knightly virtue toward women.  Feminists make the point
that any relation between gender and favorable treatment in the CJS
disappears when marital status is factored in: that police and
judges are considerate of women when they are single mothers but
not when they are single and compete with men for jobs.  Patriarchy
requires women parent children; men can be sent to prison since
they are not expected to parent.  Other feminists point out that
the CJS leaves control of women to the men in their lives.

Chomsky, Noam (1928-):  An American linguist known for his work on
language and grammar.  Chomsky holds that there are genetically
based structures in human beings which give rise and pre-shape
speech acts.  He is a very articulate critic of capitalism and the
role of the USA in serving the global interests of transnational
corporations with both military and ideological weapons.  Chomsky
works with Z Magazine, Edward Herman, Holly Sklar and many other
progressive scholars as well as with the South End Press; Z
magazine and South End Press are main-stays of radical,
transforming consciousness in the USA.

Christ, Jesus (4 BCE-29 AD):  Founder of one of the first world
religions which set belief, faith and good works as test for status
rather than birth in particular tribes.  Christianity has many
progressive moments; people are to live with purity of heart,
compassion for others, and to form supportive communities; they are
to search for peace and justice in this life in order to gain
salvation for eternity.  One is to 'turn the other cheek' to
violence and hate.  One is to forgive those who do harm [rather
than to pursue vengeance and technical punitive justice].  Christ
helped to change the angry, tribal god of the old testament into
the universal loving god of the new testament.  His teachings
ground Liberation theology, which see.  Jesus is the Greek
translation of the name, Joshua.

Chronophone:  One who see time as linear and/or a natural construct
apart from the conceptions and interests of human beings. 
Postmodernists tend to reject such a view.  After Derrida.

Church: A formal way of organizing the religious experience in
which a small cadre of professional clerics (called priests or
ministers) can regulate the life of a mass of people.  Membership
is proclaimed de facto by birth or residence and everyone is
expected to give allegiance.  See also Sect for a quite different
structure.

Civil inattention: A norm of mass market societies which requires
one carefully avoid interaction with others physically present.  If
the others are part of a social base, then civility would be
required; if others are nonpersons, then one can be uncivilly
inattentive, i.e., one can stare, push, look through, speak through
or talk about others in their presence.  Black persons are often
the subject of uncivil inattention in the North and the South as
are dwarfs, cripples, celebrities, and strangers.  This norm, when
observed, produces a mass society along with the other social
conditions which destroy social relatedness.  Sometimes privacy is
basic to the adoption of the norm of civil inattention. [Goffman].

Civilization:   Spengler distinguished between traditional
community and civilization, the later was the highest form of
social life.  The elements of civilization include a separation of
private and public life, the primacy of civil law in public
affairs, the right to privacy in business, home and personal
relationships as well as respect for difference and variety.

Civil society: A social order in which the rights of egoistic,
atomistic individuals are proclaimed.  A system (not really a
society) in which the bonds between people are those of physical
survival, safety, and preservation of private property.  This
contrasts to community wherein bonds are social.

Civilization:  French; civilis = of or belonging to the citizens. 
Cililizare: the process by which a criminal matter become a public
issue.  Now it refers to a social life world informed by the
Enlightenment and marked by formal social relations, impersonality
and rationality.  Mills and Coleridge contrasted civilization with
culture and imbued the first with positive emotional content and
the later with negative content as in savage, primitive, barbarian. 
After Raymond Williams.

Class: Class is one of five great systems of domination which
affect patterns of health, housing, self esteem, religion,
education, recreation and politics.  It is based upon one's
relationship to the means of production and distribution.

     For Marxists, a class consists of people who have the same
role in the process of production.  The two basic classes under
capitalism are the capitalist (or ruling) class called the
Bourgeoisie: those who own and control all productive processes-and
the working class called the Proletariat [see which], who because
they lack that control have to sell their labor for wages. 
Bankers, major corporate stockholders, top managers and absentee
landlords belong to the capitalist class.  Factory and construction
workers, police, secretaries, hospital workers, teachers, and many
others belong to the working class.  There are also other classes,
such as the middle class of self-employed people (farmers,
storeowners, poets, brokers, lawyers, doctors).

     The Marxist definition of class is different from that used by
many sociologists who use terms like middle-class to refer to level
of income rather than relationship to the process of production. 
Many workers do have incomes comparable to middle level
functionaries in the U.S. However, since the workers do not own the
means of production, their position in terms of wages could change
quickly.  As factories move overseas, as inflation increases, as
taxes increase, the difference in wealth between capitalists and
workers becomes more visible. (URPE)

Class Action Suit:  A legal procedure in which a number of person
harmed by a company or an agency come together to petition a court
for remedy.  This legal action is very important in controlling
corporate crime and/or unconstitutional action by a local governing
body.  Corporate conservatives try to limit eligibility for class
action status; those harmed try to expand it.

Class Collaboration:  When elements of the working class or the
intelligentsia cooperate with owners or with the state, they are
said to 'class collaborate.'  Many orthodox communists despise
class collaboration.  Liberals claim that such reform can turn into
qualitatively different and more humane economic systems.  Liberals
make a good case, however, in any capitalist economy, it is a good
idea for workers to remain independent and work for the common good
rather than cooperate with capitalists to exploit unorganized
workers, third world countries and weaker firms.

Class conflict: In class organized societies, there are several
conflicts of interest between workers and owners.  first and
foremost, some of the surplus value of labor produced by workers is
appropriated and claimed by capitalists.  Secondly, there is the
question of how the labor process is to be organized; capitalists
want workers to be excluded from management decisions over how fast
workers work, when they work; where they work and who they work
with.  Third, there is the question of what is to be produced; some
workers don't like to produce unsafe toys, foods with dangerous
additives, weapons of death, or low quality goods.  Indeed, some
religions prohibit this kind of labor.  However, as long as a lot
of workers have access to sufficient material wealth and time to
create ideological culture, and as long as the instruments of
coercion are in the hands of an elite, the conflict of interests is
contained.  However, as soon as capitalism faces an accumulation
crisis, appropriation of surplus value increases and the capacity
of people to create culture is threatened.  At this point class
conflict transforms into class struggle.  Usually the class
struggle is over wages and working conditions but success here is
short-lived.  The marxist position is that the objective of the
class struggle is to reclaim ownership of the means of producing
culture rather than an increase in wages with which to purchase
culture.  Some hold that the class struggle is to be seen in
absentee rates, turnover rates, wildcat strikes, petty sabotage,
shoddy workmanship and grievance rates, quarrels, drug and alcohol
use at work.  This is more privatized conflict than organized
struggle.  See class struggle and cultural struggle as well.

Class consciousness: An awareness of one's own class interests, a
rejection of the interests of other classes, and a readiness to use
political means to realize one's class interests (From C.W. Mills). 
Most people identify themselves as middle class even if they don't
get paid much and even if they can be fired tomorrow with no
warning.  Many people go to college and learn they are better; more
successful than are 'common laborers' and thus try to distance
themselves from their brothers and sisters who work at unskilled
jobs.  Workers, too, look down upon the underclass and thus the
'working class' is fragmented into sectors with little interest in
class struggle.

     Capitalists too have very different interests but tend to
unite in the face of class opposition.  Those who produce raw
materials have to sell them to industrial capitalists; there is
always conflict there.  Merchants have to buy from industrialists;
there is conflict there as well.  Both merchants and industrialists
need to borrow money from finance capitalists; so there are more
conflicts of interest.  Then too, all those in the same line
compete with each other.  Big business tends to destroy small
business as for example, when Walmart comes in and takes customers
away from small shops and stores; or when McDonald's comes in and
takes customers away from small restaurants.

Class Consciousness, theory of:  Marx' theory of class
consciousness is that industrialism and the factory system brings
thousands of workers together in the same place.  Being together,
they begin to realize their own social power and see more clearly
the conflict between workers and owners.  Lenin said that workers
are not truly class conscious until they respond to all cases of
tyranny, oppression, violence and abuse, no matter [who] is
affected.

Class Structure: In advanced capitalism, the three significant
strata are the capitalist class (1.5% of the adult population), the
working class (73.5%) and the surplus population (25% and growing
relative to the working class).  Allied with the capitalist class
are professionals, middle management, and bureaucrats (18.5%) who
though they have only their labor power to sell, still support
their employers politically and ideologically since they get higher
wages, higher status and often, a share in profits.  Separated from
the unskilled workers (30%) are the skilled workers (15%) and the
technical workers (10%) who are organized on occupational lines
rather than class lines.  Then there is the reserve army (composed
mostly of minorities, women and young people, 15%). The class
struggle is to forge class alliance now in order to advance
theoretically informed class conflict later.  See Underclass.

Class Struggle: A struggle over who controls the labor process; it
arises between strata in any exploitative society since each class
has different and incompatible differences.  The struggle is over
a) who owns the means of production; b) the uses to which they are
put; c) the labor process itself as well as d) how 'surplus' value
is to be divided up.  Class conflict on the part of the capitalists
involves price fixing, black listing, union busting, bribery, pre-
selection of candidates for public office, pollution, dis-
investment, and cartels.  Class struggle by workers include
strikes, sit-ins, general work stoppages, unionization and support
of political candidates and sometimes rebellion.  Sabotage, theft,
falsification of time cards and acts of petty rebellion are also
tools sometimes used..  Even consumers sometimes engage in class
warfare with boycotts, bans, pickets, shop-lifting and political
activity.  For the socialist, class struggle does not mean the
replacement of one elite by another but rather the end of class
relationships.  See also the role of the State in class struggle.

Client State:  This term refers to the case when the government of
a small country works in the interest of another country.  The USSR
and the USA both subvert the political process of independent
countries.  Latin American governments get arms, easy credit and
military advisers from the USA to help maintain oligarchy/elitism. 
The C.I.A. has many such politicians directly on its payroll. 
Noriega, President of Panama, was on its payroll as are Mexican
vice-Presidents.

Closed Shop: A factory, mill, mine, office or other place of
employment in which all workers are required by terms of a labor
contract to belong to and contribute dues to a union which then
bargains on behalf of all workers.  Such agreements can include
requirements that only union members be hired or one which requires
that newly hired persons join the union within a specified time.

Code:  In semiotics, all communication whether spoken, written, or
behavioral is conveyed through a special language form called a
code; alternately, a sign system.  Words, deeds, events are loaded
with special meaning unique to those who use such a code.  They
must be interpreted within the 'grammar' of the code if inter-
subjective understanding is to emerge between sender and received
of 'coded' messages.  Thus a student has to learn the special
'code' in sociology if they are to share the same symbolic world as
their teacher.

Coercion:  The use of social, economic, physical or moral power to
force a person to do that which s/he does not want to do.  One of
the major disadvantages of stratification systems is that it gives
some persons social and economic power to force those in 'lower'
social echelons to provide services to which they are otherwise not
entitled.  The use of social power by boss to solicit sexual favors
or bribes are cases in point.  One should note the class bias in
coercion: older rich males have money to use to coerce; young
minority males in the underclass have only physical power to
coerce.  Both are to be feared and carefully regulated in pursuit
of a praxis society.

Cogito ergo sum:  Latin: I think therefore I exist.  There are two
meanings which Descartes may have had in mind when he set forth
this proposition; the first is the well known first break-through
in epistemology; I think therefore some one such as I must exist in
order to do the thinking.  The act of thought implies a thinker. 
Then too, there is the larger task of Descartes to help map out
reliable knowledge; in this task one exists in a significant way by
thinking on his/her own rather than accepting as truth what others
say.  See Descartes.

Cognitive capacities: The capacities of perception, awareness,
imagination, reason, judgment, purpose, evaluation, and
reevaluation by which people organize their own behavior with
insight and understanding.  A "praxis" society is one in which
cognitive capacities are encouraged.  See also, I.Q.

Cohort:  A set of persons born within the same 5-year period.  One
can follow the life cycles of a given cohort and discover the
larger patterns shape and pre-shape human behavior.  Cohort
analysis is a powerful tool in macro-social psychological work.

Collective: In socialist usage, a collective is a tightly knit
group of people who produce something of social value for others,
try to be self-governing and self-supporting and mutually
supportive.  Although not related by kinship, a collective has many
of the characteristics of an extended family; intimacy, trust,
accessibility, responsibility for each other and warmth.  This
contrasts to standard usage in American sociology in which a
collective is defined as a congery of unrelated others act
spontaneously in much the same fashion; e.g., a street mob.

Collective Bargaining:  The direct negotiation between workers and
owners of a company.  This bargaining usually centers around three
key questions: share in profits, job security and the labor process
in the factory, mill or mine.  The larger needs of society are
usually not of immediate concern in collective bargaining.  Often
one set of workers do very well while unorganized groups continue
to have hard times.  See Compromise, the Great.

Collective behavior:   In conventional sociology usage, the word
refers to mass response to a "problem" in life not adequately
handled by existing solutions within the system.  Most conservative
theorists put down collective behavior as some kind of mass
hysteria, lunacy, craze, or mindless imitation.  Each instance of
collective behavior should be studied on its own terms (after
Wenger).  Rosa Luxemburg held that people usually do things that
make sense to them at the time even if theorists do not understand
why.

Comenius, John Amos (1592-1671):  A Moravian educator and pastor
who held that students should take part in their own education;
that subject matters should be connected; that language should be
taught through conversation and cooperative work; that universal
education was prelude to social reform and social justice.  See
education, radical.

Cooling out:  A term from Goffman which indicates the routines by
which unwanted persons are removed from social interaction.

Colony:  A poor or weak country which is occupied by the military
and/or police forces of a more powerful country.  England, France,
Germany, Italy and Japan all had colonies until just after WWII. 
After that time, colonialism was replaced by economic imperialism
and client states.

Commodity: The transformation of a good or service from its meaning
as a support for social relationships to a meaning of private
profit.  Food, sex, housing, medicine, transport could be used to
create and affirm social relationships (as is the case in a family)
or for profit (as is the case in capitalism).

Commodification:  The practice of converting use-value into
exchange value.  This is a very important idea; think about food. 
It has a use value but its exchange value may be set so high that
people starve when there is a lot of food.  The same is true for
any essential good or service once it has been commodified.  Then
too, as Marx noted, all that is sacred can be commodified;  sex,
friendship, child care, even religion itself can be marketed.

Common Law:  Those laws set forth by Royal Courts in the three
centuries after the Norman Conquest in 1088.  The French did not
impose French law [derived from Roman Law] on England but they did
try to centralize and regularize administration of law.  Henry II
[ruled: 1154-1189) sent judges around to the shires; slowly a body
of law developed now called Common Law, to replace multiplicities
of local laws.  In England there is a distinction between local law
and the law binding on all people...common to all.  Civil Law
(Roman law] is also common to all people including Britons when
occupied by the Romans but the codes are different in many ways. 
The USA uses law from both British Common Law, Civil [Roman] Law
and Christian law in Deuteronomy when questions of crime,
punishment and social justice are considered.

     Kings/Queens' judges took over local law; at the same time a
Royal Court of Appeals was installed in London.  These two parts
set the structure of US legal system, a set of federal district
courts and a Supreme Court of Appeals.

Common-law Marriage:  A marriage without a formal wedding.  Such
marriages are recognized as valid in law when a) two people have
been living together for a given period of time; usually six months
and b) when they announce themselves as man and wife in public. 
Such marriages have many legal consequences for property rights,
inheritance rights, pension and support rights.  Children born to
such marriages are often considered bastards, see which.

Commune:  In marxist/socialist theory a commune is the most human
and humane form of social life.  The means of production are owned
by the whole community while food, shelter, health care, education
and recreation are shared out on the basis of social status rather
than on the basis of wages/profits/dividends/rents or other non-
social grounds.  Governance is by direct participation of all adult
members.  In the former USSR, communal life was mandatory until
1931. Extensive agricultural and industrial based communes exist in
China.  In modern U.S., an attempt on the part of young people to
form an extended primary group in which middle class values of
property and commodity are avoided.  Most US communes are parasitic
on society (or partly so) in that middle class parents fund their
children and communes are exploitative of women.  Some communes try
to avoid elitist, sexist, or parasitic practices but it is
difficult in the larger context of capitalism.  The term comes from
the medieval towns in France which demanded and practiced local
self-government.  Such was the beginning of the end of feudalism
and the rise of capitalism.  In these and in the Paris Commune,
Marx saw the promise of communism.

Communication: The process by which people, through the use of
symbols, construct a shared frame of meaning, line of
understanding, or social-life world.  Communication is not merely
the use of symbols by which one person influences another as
defined in many texts, but rather a most remarkable process by
which people can get into each other's heads with amazing accuracy. 
It is a delightful discovery to find that others understand exactly
what you are saying and how you feel.  Such is the source of much
solidarity.

Communism: Latin: communis = common, universal, public.  Communism
is now chiefly understood to be an economic system set forth by
Marx and a great many other critics of capitalism.  For Marx,
communism entailed 'the appropriation of human nature through and
for people.' It was a return of people to human, i.e., social being
as well as a system which promotes and enhances the natural and
dialectical unity of individual and society.  It is a non-
alienating humane and human society not to be confused with
bureaucratic socialism in some Eastern European states.  In
advanced communism, the means of production is held in common: this
means that what is produced, who produces it and how it is produced
is a matter of collective discourse and decision; it means as well
that any surplus value [profit] is allocated to serve collective
rather than private needs.  Not to be confused with bureaucratic
socialism.

Communism (the idea):  A society without the structures of
domination which now debase and degrade so many people.  Primitive
communism is marked by production and distribution for use [rather
than for profit] and by a low-tech means of production.  Advanced
communism has both an energy efficient and effective means of
production as well as a system of distribution based mostly on need
but also on merit.  It uses surplus value in capital intensive
production to provide for labor intensive production lines of
production; child care, health care, government and policing, as
well as retirement.  Surplus value is also used for public goods:
parks, art forms, roads, bridges, environment, water, sewage and
such.
     Chinese policy is to set income in a ratio of  4 to 5; four
parts based upon need, 1 part of five based upon merit.  Compare to
advanced monopoly capital in which managers of big corporations in
the USA get 500 times as much as the average worker (in Germany the
ratio is about 350 to 1; in Japan, about 90 to 1, 1990 figures).

Communism (The Movement): A loose coalition of socialists,
marxists, and other radicals bent on the overthrow of any society
organized in such a way that the mode of production of culture
alienates people from self, from nature and from each other.  In
capitalist countries, the movement has a bad name for a number of
reasons: it puts aside national loyalty in favor of working class
unity across state boundaries; it is largely negative in its
criticism of a society; its rhetoric is sometimes strident and
contrived; it is supported by repressive socialist regimes; and
counter-intelligence operations in capitalist societies plant false
evidence whereupon members of the movement often discredit each
other.  See Vanguard/vanguardism.

Communist Manifesto: A document put out in London in 1848 by the
Communist League which links theory and revolutionary action by
providing a brief overview of the social sources of human misery
and suggesting a plan of action to eliminate those sources. It was
drafted by Marx and Engels. In brief, the Manifesto reviews the
history of oppression, lists the positive and negative aspects of
capitalism and concludes with a call for the workers of the world
to unite and throw off the economic and political chains which
reduce their humanity.  Compare to the Declaration of Independence
which attributes social evil to a single person (George II) and
grounds the reasons for action on supernatural law.  These two
documents have moved many to revolution since their writing.

Communism, Primitive/Communalism:  An economic formation in which
all persons share on the basis of kinship and/or social status but
one in which there is a very simple technology and division of
labor.  As Hobbs said, in such societies, life is ugly, brutal,
nasty and short.

Community:  In a community, all persons have social standing. 
Standing entails the right and responsibility to produce culture in
its manifold forms.  A person shares community with another when
the person cannot disengage from his social relationship with the
other.  A good test for (and consequence of) this is if a person
can ignore another person's troubles, then those two don't share
community.  In the West, community is understood in terms of geo-
graphy.  In socialist countries, community is understood in terms
of the solidarity of social relations.  "Community" is the
translation of the german word for community, "Gemeinschaft." To
say that an organization or society has community is to say that it
is non-alienating, and is somehow in tune with the conditions by
which humans create themselves as human beings.  See Society.

Community Policing: The practice of locating the police function
broadly in society rather than in a special force appointed by and
under the control of local elites.  In Cuba, the Committees for the
Defense of the Republic [CDR's] police an area a few blocks square;
participate in hearings on minor crimes and provide support for
families of victims and offenders.  They also give support to
offenders after they complete their sentence.  In the USA,
neighborhood watches embody the idea.  They are effective in
reducing crime but challenge racist, sexist and ethnic hegemony of
the police force.

Comparable worth:  A feminist demand that people who perform the
same work with the same training should receive the same wages. 
The effect is to eliminate sexist, racist and ethnic bias in
setting wages and salaries in a capitalist society.  Profits can be
increased by using ancient systems of social honor to pay lower
wages to those in the lower strata.

Competition: The process by which individuals or groups are stimu-
lated to produce more or perform better by contesting against each
other.  Competition cannot exist except within an overall framework
of cooperation in which competition is restricted to some small
margin of human endeavor.  It is often used to increase the surplus
value of labor and, thereby, profit margins.  Studies suggest that
people produce more and enjoy work more under conditions of
friendly cooperation.  However, friendly competition adds interest
and zest to work.  Such friendly competition may be just another
form of cooperation.  For Marx, competition is the process by which
small business is eliminated in capitalism by monopoly
corporations.  Cuba uses emulation rather than competition to
improve art, craft, skill and innovation.

Competitive Sector: That sector of the economic institution charac-
terized by many undercapitalized companies with low wages, poor
working conditions, transient labor, small work force, arbitrary
discipline, and little opportunity to advance.  Consisting of small
business supplied by the monopoly sector, this sector involves
about 1/3 of the work force and is market share to huge
corporations such as Walmart or McDonalds. (after O'Connor).

Compromise, The Great:  After a century of class struggle, American
workers and owners came to an uneasy labor peace in order to
exploit the world markets after the devastation of WWII.  Good
wages, safe working conditions, health care plans, good pensions,
and paid vacations were put in place for most large corporations
and many smaller ones.  This compromise was ended by a series of
decertification [which see] elections and take-backs as the USA
lost its semi-monopoly in the world capitalist system to Japan,
Germany and the 'NIC's.'  The compromise to crumble when President
Reagan attacked the Air Controllers' Union in the early 1980's.

Computer Crime:  Any violation of the rights of intellectual and
financial property owned by a firm.  It is very difficult to
control the flow of information especially when broadcast over an
mass electronic medium such as a computer network since anyone with
the right equipment can intercept the electro-magnetic waves which
carry the information.  Computer hackers are especially adept at
breaking into the data banks of universities, banks, insurance
companies and public agencies which 1) use computers, 2) use
existing phone lines and 3) use simple codes to regulate access to
the data.  With the right software, a good computer can try
millions of combinations of letters and numbers to find the access
key.  Computer crime is a growth industry; perhaps the most common
form is the use of a software program without paying the company
who owns its copyright.  How many do you have?

Competence:  A legal term regarding the ability or right of a
person to testify or to claim protection of the law.  Children are
usually held to be incompetent.  In some countries, women are
incompetent in legal terms.  Strangers, mentally defective,
emotionally disturbed and members of some political groups are held
to be incompetent in many legal proceedings.

Concentration: A measure of  the  control  firms  wield  over  a 
market; it tells what fraction of sales are controlled by the
largest firms.  The more concentrated a market, the more control a
few individual firms exert over the level of profits and prices. 
In the U.S. cigarette market, the top four firms account for 80% of
the sales.  The same is true in autos, food retail, beer, sugar,
cereals, electronics, chemicals, pharmaceutical, steel, and many,
many more.  Price, as a market control, is replaced with
advertising, bribery, credit cards, and long-term contracts. 
Between them, 200 firms controlled 67% of the U.S. market in 1975.

Condorcet, Jean (1743-1794)  Condorcet was a french philosopher who
helped turn social science and politics to quantification.  He
called for a 'social mathematics.'  He calculated that a Congress
of 300 would be wrong less than once in a billion times if they
used the 3/4 vote to pass laws. Condorcet supported the French
Revolution and died in prison for that support.

Confession:  In Common Law [English law], a voluntary statement
that one is guilty of violation of a legal specification.

Conflict Theory:  A term which includes a wide variety of analyses
to the effect that some of the structures in a society are not at
all helpful or necessary; class, racist, sexist, or other
'structures of domination' can and should be dismantled.  Compare
to Functionalism, Consensus theory.  Hegel, Marx, Darwin, Weber and
others have looked at the sweep of history and have seen systematic
efforts to exploit/degrade people on the one side and rising
opposition to such forms of domination on the other.  'History is
a slaughterbench for the happiness of people.'  Hegel. 

Conditioning: Denotes the learning process by which some stimulus
becomes linked with some behavior in such a way that the stimulus
will cause the behavior to occur.  People use it to help break bad
habits or phobias; corporations use it to control workers or
customers; states use it to control students, prisoners, patients
or those who resist and rebel.  Conditioning defeats cognitive pro-
cesses and replaces interaction with determinism as the relevant
causal model.  See Operant Conditioning.

Conflict Situations: Adam Schaff speaks of two different kinds of
conflict situations in connection to the question of human freedom. 
The first involves a choice between different systems of values (in
present times a choice between conservative and revolutionary
systems of values).  Such a choice at once restricts further
choices and fulfills a larger freedom.  The second situation of
conflict is common to all systems of values since a choice of any
kind comes into conflict with other values and no moral code can
prescribe an answer for every contingency within a system of
values.  Life is too rich and full of conflicting values, changing
conditions, and personal differences to permit of a coherent and
predictable moral code.  In this sense, every person is "doomed to
freedom," i.e., has to face the fact that (s)he must make choices. 
Such is the beginning of wisdom and the end of innocence.

Conflict methodology: A method of inquiry which serves the human
interest in change and renewal.  Conflict theory implies conflict
methodology to reduce the conflict in favor of those who are
oppressed or excluded.  That knowledge required to emancipate
humans from alienating social forms is often withheld by a class or
a bureaucratic elite.  Under such circumstance, an partisan stance
is required of a social scientist.  Participatory research, action
research, standpoint methodology and the new 'incorporative'
research of M. Wardell and A. Zajicek all take the point of those
at the bottom of social hierarchy and try to empower them and
democratize the organizations studied.  See Consensus Methodology;
see Eleventh Thesis.

Conflict theory: There are two varieties, a conservative and a
radical view of conflict.  The conservative one (after Coser) holds
that society is held together by conflict! Conflict is a safety
valve which helps solve problems in this school.  This approach
tends to reduce the hostile contrast between groups: exploitation,
oppression, enslavement, depersonalization and such to mere
differences of opinion which can be resolved by "men of good will"
in reasoned discussion.  In marxian theory, conflict arises from a
poorly designed social life world and requires social revolution to
eliminate the conflict while in Coser's view conflict is viewed to
be symptomatic of healthy and open relations between groups.

Conglomerate: Large firms which have bought up businesses making
and selling all sorts of unrelated items.  Conglomeration allows
one company to control a large part of several different markets,
which increases its ability to set whatever prices it wants.  This
is the most active process found in capitalism today.  It helps in
an accumulation crises, it helps befuddle the government lawyers
who sue a company for some crime and it helps lower corporate taxes
in a number of ways. (URPE).

Consciousness: Ways of thinking, feeling and acting usually
involving some degree of awareness and intentionality.  See also
Cognitive capacities and/or I.Q.

Consciousness Industry: The organization of information flow in
mass society in such that the human interests in praxis and
community are defeated while the content of the media is such that
capitalist and/or elitist relations are reproduced.  The
characteristics of the system includes: 1) the repressive use of
the media, 2) centrally controlled programming, 3) immobilization
of isolated individuals, 4) one transmitter, many receivers, 5)
depoliticization of content, 6) passive consumer emphasis, 7)
production by specialists, 8) control by capitalists or
bureaucrats.  These conditions obtain both in the U.S. and in the
Soviet Union.  The U.S. system is "leakier" and, hence political
legitimacy suffers. (after Entzenberger).

Consensus theory: The view that all structures in society are
useful and necessary; that most well adjusted persons in society
share values and norms; that those who do not are either deviant or
subversives in need of sanctioning.  Among the structures viewed as
'functionally necessary' are class, gender, occupational and
national [modernized nations] divisions.

Consensus methodology: A method of inquiry by which information
necessary for prediction, control and reproduction of modern
society is assumed.  Research goals are set in cooperation with
those at the top of social hierarchies in which the research
occurs.  Such a science tends to reproduce existing social forms
irrespective of alienation and coercion.  Since consensus
methodology claims to be value-free it becomes the amoral research
instrument of whomever has the power or the price.  To define a
scientific procedure as value free is a quick way to turn it into
a commodity for sale to the highest bidder.  See Conflict M.

Conservatism: An ideology which opposes change from an existing
social paradigm.  There are many things in any society worthy of
conserving; however, sometimes this ideology also insists that any
change within the social paradigm be under the direction of an
elite.  Capitalists do not oppose radical change; indeed
capitalists routinely destroy societies and cultures; they do
oppose change from the capitalist system.  Change within the
paradigm is often referred to as "the sociology of development" and
is engineered by contract research.

Consistency:  One of three attributes of formal theories.  The
other two are comprehensiveness and completeness.  Such theories
rely on a form of causality in which 'B' follows 'A' with great
precision.  Chaos/Complexity research finds that complex dynamical
systems produce a varying number of outcome 'basins' or attractors. 
When there are two or more such basins consistent findings are not
observed, comprehensive models are not appropriate and completion
of the knowledge process is not possible.

Constitutive Theory: This social psychology blends key insights
found in symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, and labelling
sociology, along with Marxism and postmodern social thought.  The
person is a subject in process-- not a passive receptacle of social
rules, norms, roles and controls. For example: education both
constitutes social relations and is constituted in turn by a
subject's use of the educational process. Determining which comes
first, individual or society becomes a nonsense goal. Both are in
a changing/changeable dialectic process of construction.

     Constitutive theory further argues that language/discourse is
a problem in that constitutive dialectic since language honors the
voice of some and represses the voice of many. Consider psychiatry;
in order to be released, psychiatric patients must employ only
those speech patterns and those coherent thought sequences
consistent with medico-legal wellness. By adopting this discourse,
mental health systems users re-legitimize and further concretize
the power of medicolegal discourse to linguistically (and therefore
socially) regulate their lives. If they resist the discourse,
patients are defined as 'mentally ill.'

Consumerism: An attempt to modify the most outrageous excesses of
commodity capitalism by guarding the consumer against fraud, shoddy
products, poisonous or otherwise dangerous foods, toys, medicines
and tools.  Led by such admirable people as Ralph Nader,
consumerism has two flaws: (1) it is merely a reform of capitalism
rather than an end to it and (2) it implicitly assumes that private
consumption is the central reason for human existence.

Contradiction: In logic, one of the three laws of thought; it holds
that the same thing cannot belong and not belong to the same class
of things; cannot be and not be at the same time.  The new sciences
of Chaos and Complexity refute the claim; an event can belong to
two quite different solitons at the same time and, with fractal
geometry, can be and not be depending upon scale of observation;
think of an atom; at one level of observation it is a solid unitary
event; at another it is a very loose assemblage of particles.

     In marxian economics, the term is used to point to the
problems which capitalism creates as a mode of production.  The
major issues (or contradictions) of capitalism include: (1) great
poverty in the midst of affluence, (2) technical rationality
without substantive reason, (3) an emphasis upon ability in an
elitist system, (4) capitalism with fewer and fewer capitalists as
wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer, (5) a
tendency to run down when there is still a lot of labor, land,
capital, as well as human need.  Crime is endemic to capitalism as
is resistance and revolution.

Control Theory:  A theory put forward by T. Hirschi which claims
that crime occurs when social controls are weak.  While a strong
and pro-social self-system is important as are rewards and
sanctions of significant others, still the theory ignores a lot of
crime which occurs within well organized, highly controlled social
groups; most political crime, most organized crime, almost all
corporate crime and a lot of street crime involves strong, certain
and direct application of reward and punishment.  This theory and
others provides ideological support for more control rather than
for more social justice as a way to reduce very real crime rates.

Consent:  Free, willing and explicit agreement to an action by a
legally competent person.  A legal term required in a number of
circumstances: the making of a contract, a marriage, or in the case
of criminal law, sexual activity between an adult and a young
person.  The age of consent varies; in rural societies it is
usually set at age 13 or 14; in industrial societies, it is usually
set at age 16 or 18, see Youth, sociology of.

Consideration:  In law an act, promise or forbearance by one party
to a contract made in order to purchase an act, promise or
forbearance from another party.  Without a consideration, such
promises are not valid in modern law.  Promises are, of course,
binding in pre-modern law:  A promise is a person's bond.

Conspiracy:  An agreement between two or more persons to do
something which is a crime.  The agreement itself is a crime even
if the planned offense does not occur.  It is a crime even if the
offense planned is impossible [i.e., to murder someone already
dead]. It is one of the very few crimes for thought or thinking.
Usually conspiracy laws are used against political opposition but
of late, they have been used against organized crime.

Constitution:  The rules and regulations by which a state is
governed.  They regulate the relationship between the state and the
individual as well as between individuals under the jurisdiction of
the state.  Modern states have written Constitutions; the most
admired of which is that of the USA.  The United Kingdom does not
have a written Constitution but, instead uses Common Law. 
Constitutions are very important but social life is so complex that
it is impossible to cover every exigency with laws conformable to
one.  Thus wisdom and judgment must inform every legal and moral
case.

Consummation [of a marriage]:  A legal term which holds that a
marriage is not valid in law unless there is a sexual act; the
sexual act is defined as penetration of the vagina by the penis. 
If one partner refuses to consummate the marriage, it can be
annulled.  In some patriarchal societies, rape is considered
consummation and the male may claim the woman as wife.

Contract:  A legally binding agreement.  The requirements for a
binding contract are: 1) and offer and acceptance, 2) a
consideration, 3) informed consent, 4) capacity to fulfill, 5)
conformity to law [agreements to commit crimes are not binding], 6)
an act on the part of one of two parties involved.  Contracts may
be oral, written, implied from conduct or implicit in a
relationship [as in common-law marriages].  Contracts may be set
aside in case of fraud, incompetency [under-age] or other good
cause.

Controlled Drugs:  Chemicals which are to be used internally and
which carry some danger to the person; there are two kinds, 1)
prescription drugs the use of which should be monitored by a
competent doctor and 2) street drugs [often the same drug].  Drugs
have always been used as psychogens; alcohol, marijuana, peyote,
hashish, tobacco, opium, cocaine and such.  They are prohibited for
three main reasons: 1) they interfere societal expectations about
roles and role performance [drunken workers, parents, ball players,
pilots].  2) They are used as pathways to the holy in forbidden
religions [peyote, marijuana, opium] but see Corruption theory of. 
And 3) and three they are in fact dangerous to the short term
health and long term health of a person [tobacco and alcohol].

Cooperation: The process by which individuals organize each other's
consciousness: ways of acting, feeling, and thinking.  Cooperation
focussed in on the production of the various forms of culture is
social power.  Neither culture or society or self as a form of
culture can be created without cooperation.

Cooperatives: A system on non-profit marketing (within a larger
system of capitalism) which aims to provide food and other goods at
low cost and within some sort of community.  Co”ps may solve the
problems of those who join them but doesn't help solve the larger
contradictions of capitalism--especially that of adequate resources
for the surplus population.  Then too, co”ps must work within a
capitalist system and thus, by buying and selling to private
corporations, help reproduce capitalist relations.  See Market
Socialism for a system which attempts to solve these problems.

Co-parenting: The socialization of child(ren) is shared by several
adults ... in socialist theory: by men and women equally.  Most
societies in history vested the parenting process in several
persons; usually aunts, older sisters, and female friends of the
mother but not always.  Sometimes boys are sequestered and the
parenting given over to older males alone or in small groups. 
Whatever the case, young children need as much loving parenting as
they can get; ideally, the whole community would help in the
parenting process.  See also Kibbutz.

Copyright:  A right of authors, playwrights, artists, publishers or
composers to benefit from a work for a period of time; 28 years is
usual.  The right is given by the state upon application and review
of the claim.  Copyright laws are enforceable when an audience is
limited or a medium is mechanical.  In an electronic age,
copyrights are difficult to police since every one with the right
equipment can intercept transmissions and copy them without paying
a fee to the holder of the copyright; software programs, television
boardcasts and music on radio are copied by millions in the USA
without payment of required fees.  Students and professors often
copy protected materials to use in class without payment. 
Generally property rights to intellectual materials is difficult to
enforce.

Core/periphery.  A term used by Wallerstein and others to refer to
the structure of imperialism; the core countries were European, the
colonial countries were called the 'periphery.'  These were the
colonies of England, France, Germany, Italy and now the USA in
Africa, latin America, Asia, and islands in the Pacific.

Core/periphery:  At home, this term refers to the division of
workers into a relatively secure core group and a much less secure
peripheral group.  There are two principal contexts for this term: 
1. In an entire economy, employees of large corporations may be
seen as part of the "core", and those of small business as the
"periphery".  This is particularly the case in discussing Japan,
where major "core" companies, with lifetime employment, rely on a
"periphery" of workers/subcontractors with much more precarious
conditions of employment.  2. In an individual company, the "core"
is composed of those workers carrying out its main function, while
the "periphery" consists of those whose work is not part of the
company's main business and can be contracted out, such as
cleaners, cooks in the factory canteen, and so on.


Corruption, theory of:  There are four general rules with which a
society maintains a social monopoly on items and behaviors used to
reproduce that society:

     1)  Some supplies and activities are defined as sacred and
     used to create dramas of the Holy in which persons, roles and
     institutions are sanctified.  Among the supplies are special
     clothing, psychogenic drugs [beer, wine, marijuana and such],
     special foods, and special tools.  Among the activities are
     sexual acts, music, gambling, pain/violence as well as eating
     and drinking.  The rule is that these are required; one must
     do these things; use these things even if unpleasant.

     2)  The non-social, purely personal use of such items and
     events is forbidden.  Pejorative terms are used to discourage
     such use; perversion, pathology, addiction, depravity etc.

     3) Those psychogens and ecstatic activities used by other
     cultures to create different dramas of the Holy are also
     forbidden and defined as deviancy, depravity and degrading.

     4). Activities which tend to subvert age, class, gender or
     other social differentiations/stratifications are also defined
     as deviant or pathological.

Corporate crime: The antisocial activity of corporations to
increase profit or reduce costs: adulteration of food, unsafe
products, bribery, avoiding taxes, subverting the political process
and so on.  There is far more corporate crime involving larger
amounts of money than petty unorganized crime (burglary, robbery,
extortion, embezzlement, and such).  The average street crime
garners about $150; the average white collar crime over $100,000
and while corporate crime runs into the millions and sometimes
hundreds of millions.  Corporate crime is seldom policed, reported
or punished.

Corporate liberalism: A strategy of management, mass media persua-
sion, and welfare benefits (subsidized by the state) as a solution
to the problems of capitalism: its surplus population, political
unrest, consumerism, inflation and unemployment.  In foreign
affairs, peaceful coexistence with the socialist states and harmony
within the capitalist states is desired in order to protect the
operations of the multinational corporation.  Sometimes identified
with eastern finance capitalism (the Yankees) in contrast with
southern/western oil/real estate/weapons industry capitalism (the
Cowboys).

Corporation: A body chartered by the state and consisting of a
formal agreement or contract among people joined in a common
purpose to hold property, make contracts and share profits.  It has
the added virtue that, as a legal entity, it enables the people who
own the stock to avoid the responsibility for any harm done to the
larger society.

Corporativism:  An economic variety of capitalism in which a weak
state helps achieve integration of workers, capitalists, farmers
and other class fragments into a 'corporate' whole.  A bit
different from fascism in that the state is not as central to the
process.  Japan is the current embodiment of corporativism in the
capitalist world.  Singapore is a high-tech version of
corporativism.

Costs (Socially Necessary): The costs of producing the material
base of a society.  It includes the cost of capital goods
(factories, railroads, etc), of reproducing a healthy labor force,
of the extraction of raw materials as well as the cost of repairing
any damage to the environment upon which all life ultimately
depends.  The concept is of interest since it enables an analyst to
subtract SNC from gross national product and get the surplus value
produced.  Once we know surplus value, we can see how it is used
(misused) and can judge that society.  In the U.S., there are many
socially unnecessary costs which restrict the use we make of
surplus.  Among these unnecessary costs are a) profits, b) selling
costs, c) legal services, d) surplus employee compensation, e)
bribes, political donations and such.(After Baran and Sweezy).

Coup d'Etat:  Literally, blow to the head.  A french phrase meaning
an attempt to take over state power by a small group.  Sometimes
called a 'palace revolution,' it does not involve the people
generally and often replaces one elite with another.

Courage: Latin, cor = heart.  One of the four cardinal virtues in
Greek social philosophy: the other three were inseparable; wisdom,
justice and temperance.

Court:  An agency of the state authorized by law to judge matters
in dispute; criminal, civil, and family disputes are the most
common.

Court Martial:  A legally constituted hearing convened within the
military to try offenses against the good order of the military. 
It consists of serving Officers [not enlisted persons] acting as
judges [there is no jury] and advised on points of law by a Judge
Advocate.  Offenses and penalties are listed in the Unified Code of
Military Justice, last revised in 1966, since which time, many
Constitutional protections have been given accused persons.

Court, Kangaroo:  An informal court constituted by those offended
who judge degree of guilt and inflict penalties on the spot.

Court of Last Resort:  Usually a Governor or a President is the
court after which no further appeal is possible.

Counter-memorializing:  A postmodern concept which denies the
underlying reality of scientific truth including social science; it
rejects impersonal and eternal foundations of standards, morals or
enquiry.  Claims of origins and endings are, likewise, questioned. 
After Ashley and Walker.

Creationism:  The belief that God creates a soul for every new
human being.  It extends to the claim that God created the whole
universe as well as each form of animal and plant life in a single
creative period usually set at seven days.  Creationism is opposed
to theories of organic evolution [which see] and to abortion. 
Abortion is a sin since it destroys a living soul precious to the
Christian God.  There is a prior story that Lucifer took some
30,000 angels with him when he was cast out of Heaven; that
Heavenly peace depends upon the return of this number of souls; to
abort a fetus is said to delay that event.

Creativity: As a moment of praxis, creativity involves thought and
action located in history, i.e., produced uniquely in the situation
at hand by insightful humans.  In contrast to behavior which is
identical to that of other persons at other times (thus producing
a social life world in which prediction-and-control are possible),
praxis requires behavior quite unpredictable and, at the same time,
delightful in its aptness and originality.  It is not restricted to
poetry, painting, or marginal cultural endeavor but is to be
central to work, religion, sports and love. (After Crocker).

Credit:  The purchase of commodities to be paid over months and
years; credit has a given rate of interest.  Credit is very
important to capitalism; it creates a mass market, it postpones
down-turns in an economic cycle, it may help a country get out of
a depression and it is very, very profitable [since there is very
little investment of capital or labor].  See Keynesianism.

Crime: From the Sanskrit, Karma, meaning that which a person is
responsible in contrast from that over which a person has no
choice.  In American criminology crime is defined as: 1) a
violation of a legal specification, 2) enacted by a competent law
making body, 3) involving both culpable intent and 4) overt action
which 5) carries a specific penalty.  This definition safely
confines the policing of behavior to that which is defined as
illegal; itself often under control of an elite.

     In socialist theory, a crime is that which tends to destroy
community or detract from human dignity.  In addition to murder and
rape, the most serious crimes in socialist theory are: elitist
ownership or control of the means to produce human culture,
appropriation of the surplus value of labor for and only for
private use, objectification of other humans, counter-revolutionary
activity.  Reductionist Theories of crime demands that the
individual change while the socialist theory of crime (q.v.)
requires radical social change, intensive socialization to
socialist consciousness, primary group (commune, brigade) control
and incorruptible policing.

Crime (Forms and Theory of):  There are five kinds of crime which
are promoted in capitalism as a system. 1 ) Street crime involves
theft, burglary, arson, robbery, murder, and kidnapping [see rape
separately].  It increases as the surplus population increases and
as welfare systems become depersonalized.  Marxian theory holds
that most street crime is the 'forcible re-unification of
production and distribution by the underclass and under-employed. 
2) Corporate crime are those acts committed in order to enlarge
market share, lower costs or increase profit rates; it involves
conspiracy to fix prices, the use of dangerous ingredients, the
sale of dangerous toys and medicines, violation of labor laws,
pollution, and tax evasion.  It increases as profits fall, demand
slackens, competition increases or public laws lower profit. 3) The
rackets (organized crime) produce and distribute sex, gaming,
alcohol, drugs and other supplies traditionally used for solidarity
purposes.  It commodifies sacred supplies. 4) White collar crime
involves betrayal in a position of trust; it increases as the
middle class attempts to build a retirement 'portfolio;' maintain
an upper middle class lifestyle and/or when employees come to
resent working conditions.  5) Political crime is that crime
committed by the state or against the state.  State crime increases
for two reasons: a) to help the capitalist class realize profits at
home or overseas and b) as legitimacy is lost and the state moves
to repress criticism and oppress critics.  Crimes against the state
increase when oppression is endemic and when institutional politics
do not work.  When migration is difficult or when underground
structures are heavily policed, direct political action increases.

Crime, female, theories of:  Women are found in courts and prisons
much less frequently than are men; Hoffman-Bustamante lists five
reasons for this: 1) differential role expectations, 2)
differential socialization and control tactics, 3) structurally
different opportunities to commit different kinds of crime, 4)
differential recruitment to deviant careers, 5) Sex differences in
defining crime categories.  Note these are common to patriarchal
gender relations.  The crimes women are likely to commit are mostly
economic crimes; shop-lifting, writing bad checks, prostitution and
embezzlement.  Looking at these from a structural point of view,
one notes the weak/missing connection to the means of production
and distribution experienced by women.  See also, Needs, false.

Crimes, male: Most crimes are committed by males; violent crimes
are predominantly male since patriarchy requires males to be
controlling and dominating; absent social power or economic power,
male often use physical power on each other or upon women in order
to command compliance.  See Macho, machismo.

Crime, social location of:  Each kind of crime is found in a
different part of society and is policed differently.  Street crime
is located mostly in the underclass, mostly poor males, white and
black; corporate crime is located mostly in the upper class, it
mostly involves white males; white collar crime is committed in the
professional and managerial classes for the most part while
organized crime in organized by white males in the middle or upper
classes while employees usually come from the underclass and
customers from every social class.  Political crime is usually
committed by the state or by small groups opposed to the state.

"Crimes without victims": Legally prohibited actions that involve
no unwilling, or complaining party: for example, drug addiction,
alcoholism, and prostitution.  Often injury occurs slowly and is
hard to link closely to the acts above.  The phrase is often used
to promote the privatized use of drugs and sex by
decriminalization.  This means that anything can be sold as a
commodity and is compatible with the principle of free enterprise.

Criminal Injury:  Any act involving the use of force against a
competent person: rape, assault, poisoning and destruction of
property endangering life including traffic offenses.  Note that it
is not a crime to kill, rape, beat or mutilate non-persons. 
Parents may beat children; husbands may beat wives; members of one
ethnic group may rape, plunder or murder another without penalty of
law.  War itself is organized injury without criminal status.

Criminal law:  A set of laws which define what is and what is not
subject to punishment and incarceration.  Criminal law is greatly
influenced by class, gender, and racism.  French radicals have a
saying: 'The law in all its majesty forbids equally the rich and
the poor from sleeping under bridges.'

Criminalization/de-criminalization:  Many acts which are not
permitted within a system of norms are defined as sin in pre-modern
sensibility.  In modern times, they have been defined as crime
rather than sin as science displaces religion in the explanation of
human behavior.  Of late, such behaviors have been re-defined as
illness rather than sinful or criminal.  Postmodern scholarship
treats both the prison and the mental institution as social control
tactics which reproduce stratified cultural formations [after
Foucault].

Criminal Justice: A state-initiated and state supported effort to
rationalize the mechanisms of social control in order to solve the
problems of advanced capitalism which include an unruly surplus
population, political dissent, monopoly and inflation.  Most
criminal justice systems are based upon pain and degradation. 
Utilitarianism teaches, incorrectly, that human beings organize
their behavior on pain and pleasure rather than upon norms and
mor‚s.  In fact, what is defined as painful and pleasurable vary
considerably across cultures.
     Begun in the Johnson administration, the Criminal Justice
program in the USA socializes the costs of solving the problems of
capitalism, but not the profits of capitalism.  The criminal
justice program strengthens the larger system which produces crime
in the first place. (After Quinney).  See Social Control, Parallel
Systems of.  Compare with Social Justice as a way to produce a low
crime society.

Crisis Theory: Marxian crisis theory has two parts: The first part
says crises are generated by the separation of creative processes
into two phases, production and consumption.  This occurs since, in
capitalism, production is not for direct use but rather for
exchange/profit.  The crisis occurs when production increases at
the same time consumption decreases.  When there is surplus
production and when people are in need without the means to buy
these 'surplus' goods, trouble comes.  The second part of the
theory holds that crisis is a rational mechanism for the
reactivation of the economy.  There are several ways to solve the
crisis involving the "forcible reunification" of production and
distribution.  This means either customers pay what is demanded or
that suppliers sell even when they cannot stay in business on these
terms. Such reunification of the two parts of economic activity is
achieved also by welfare, war, crime, or other political action. 
The looting during the 1977 blackout was such a "forcible
reunification."  Trent Schroyer generalized crisis theory to en-
compass both capitalism and bureaucratic socialism by emphasizing
a third aspect: The separation of formal rationality from human
purpose.

Critical theory: An approach to the study of society in which human
interests shape and guide the research enterprise from the
formation of analytic categories to the quest for accurate,
relevant, timely, sensible information.  Critical theory has an
overt political goal: that of a rational and decent society.  By
contrast, structural-functional theory asserts itself to be value-
free.  However, its analytic categories and research focus are
controlled by its sponsors.  The transfer of the political
responsibility for the use of science from the producer to the user
simply masks its politics and, at the same time, exculpates the
scientists from any responsibility for his product.

     Habermas identifies three kinds of knowledge necessary to
critical research: positive knowledge, hermeneutic knowledge, and
emancipatory knowledge (see which).  Critical theory is associated
with the Frankfort School (which see).  

Criticism/self-criticism: a process by which obstacles to community
and praxis are made visible by open self-reflection within a
collective and then are eliminated by collective action in a
supportive and comradely atmosphere.  It can be used to self-
correct the policies and practices of a party, of a state, of an
agency or an individual.  Developed and practiced in Communist
countries, it often became a system of elitist control but when
well done, it is most helpful to a rational and humane society.  We
all need a lot of help in being a good and decent person.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment:  Prisoners are protected from many
practices formerly used in American prisons and/or issued by
judges.  These include public whipping, hanging, branding, removal
of offending organs [hands, tongues and other appendages], drawing
and quartering as well as caging in public display.  Now if they
are to be done, they must be done in semi-private with witnesses to
ensure the warders do not go 'too far.'

Custody:  A legal term defining who may restrict the physical
movement of a person.  In family law, legal parents have custody of
a child and may forbid the child or commanding the child to do
certain things.  In criminal law, courts take custody of the
accused and, if found guilty, transfer custody to a jail or prison. 
In military law, soldiers can take custody of opposing soldiers and
hold them in ways compatible with the Geneva Convention on War
Prisoners.

Custody of a Child:  In divorce proceedings, if there is no
agreement between parents, courts have legal authority to decide
custody.  Many children suffer from custody disputes between
parents who may use the children to punish each other.  In any
event, children of broken homes have serious difficulties in
knowing who to trust and to whom to defer for guidance, council and
command.  Courts take custody of children whose health and welfare
is held to be endangered in the home.  Much harm is done to the
child in either case; remaining in the home or sent of a series of
foster homes.  As Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it, 'Hear the
Children, O my Sister, they are weeping in the playtime of others.'

Cult of the Leader:  When people invest great authority and power
in the person of a single individual, they help form such a cult. 
Often, leaders surround themselves with people who are paid one way
or another by promoting the infallibility of the leader.  This
happens in politics, religion, business and military systems.  The
needs and interests of single persons then become more important
than the collective needs of a community, congregation or company.

Cult of the self: A marxian phrase used to denote the lonely, mis-
trustful, solitary philosophy of privatized individuality which
develops in capitalism or in other elitist systems such as the
military, the bureaucracy or the nobility.

Cultural Conflict:  Often there is conflict between different
cultural groups over the essentials of life; raw materials, land,
water, governance, jobs and social status/honor.  Sometimes this
conflict is complicated by class conflict as well.  Racism explodes
into violence when times get bad in capitalist societies; when jobs
are scarce, men become angry when women demand affirmative action
to eliminate job preference for men.  When times are bad, Serbs
claim the right to jobs, land and resources from Croats or from
Bosnians.  Christians become bigoted and refuse the right to Jews
or Muslims to live in peace in the same territory...or vice versa. 
Today, the various private militias are made up of white, lower
class men who previously had many privileges [racism, patriarchy,
jobs, social honor] but who have lost them through the Civil Rights
movement, the women's movement and the flight of capital to third
world countries where wages are much, much lower.  Such men did not
develop a structural analysis to explain their troubles and are
thrown back to conspiracy theories [the government/ uppity
women/inferior Blacks/Jews or eggheads are the enemy rather than
the capitalist class].  They join with other reactionary class
fragments to support white racist and sexist agendas and
politicians such as Newton Gingrich in Georgia and Pete Wilson in
California.  [After Mort Wenger].

Cultural diffusion. The spread or dispersion of artifacts, beliefs,
or patterns of behavior from one culture aid another.  The
diffusion of political or ideological culture usually involves
coercion and violence.

Cultural lag: The difference between the appearance of a given kind
of technology and of the social institutions that arise in response
to that technology. (after Ogburn).  Cultural lag theory is often
used as a reason why people resist and rebel against 'modern' ways
of doing work, school, church or play.  As such it deflects
attention from racism, from class conflict, from gender oppression
or from ethnic struggles for independence from colonial masters. 
Sometimes it is used by liberals to condemn conservative positions
which oppose the growth of the state, transnational corporations or
intrusion into family or religious matters.  See also cultural
conflict.

Cultural relativism: The idea that a culture must be evaluated by
its own standards, and not by those of another culture. 
Historically, this is a rather new and "liberal" idea. 
Conservative societies tend to reject the idea in favor of their
own ethnocentric beliefs.  It is interesting that some humanist
philosophies (Christian, Marxist) also reject the idea of cultural
relativism in favor of the view that there are common ingredients
in all human experiences, and that it is possible to judge another
society to be oppressive or not.  Compare with ethnocentrism.

Cultural revolution: In China, an attempt to integrate technicians
and managers with the workers in order to eliminate the division of
labor into mental vs. physical labor.  The thought is that the
production of culture requires that unity, hence cultural
revolution.

Culture:  Latin: colore = to cultivate.  The word has come to mean
all the art, science, religion, social forms and values which
inform/are part of a social life world.  It has the meaning of
elitist values and standards of art, music and theatre.  In
socialism, using Mao's types, culture in the sociological sense may
be conceived as material, ideological and political products of
humans.  The active production of culture is the non sine quo of
human existence.  The view of culture as that which has been
produced by humans is a political act since it confuses between
material objects and the active labor of people who create culture
in the moment of using those material items in creative ways.  The
view of culture as upper class art, music, science, and recreation
is also political in that it tends to degrade other classes and the
culture they need to produce in order to become humans.  The
standard definition of culture is that culture is all those things
developed and used by a society but this misses the essential
meaning of culture as existing only in the act of people creatively
using material items to create a social-life world. (after Luk cs).

     The concept of culture replaced the concepts of instinct, of
gods, an of "blood" to explain why people behave as they do.  As
such it is fundamental to all humanist philosophies.

Culture (of Resistance): A term coined by Mina Caulfield to
indicate those social structures in a colonial society which
oppose, neutralize and/or destroy the efforts of colonists to
impose a capitalist culture upon occupied lands.  Such structures
also protect and ow socialist modes of production.  Caulfield
analyzed life in the West Indies, Africa, Appalachia, South America
and other colonized areas.  She identified many social structures
which resisted economic and cultural oppression.  The family
structure was central but, in addition to underground political
organization, church, "provision grounds," as well as other family-
centered structures staffed mostly by women as males left the
household to work for the colonist.

Custom:  Greek: con = with; suere = to make one's own.  Thus a
custom is that which has become a habit.  In sociology, it is a set
of institutionalized responses to everyday contingencies. 
Montesquieu used the term to refer to the role of folkways in
shaping human behavior; thus was macro-social psychology given
impetus.  Wm. Bagehot spoke of the 'cake of custom' as an obstacle
to social progress.

Cybernetics:  Greek: cybernetes = steersman.  The term was given to
the science of control and guidance in the late 1940's by Norbert
Weiner in his work on guided missiles; some apply it to the control
of societies.  A cybernetic system has three basic parts; a
monitoring system; a decision making apparatus which gauges the gap
between goal and present status and third, an effector apparatus to
change course.

Cyberspace:  The illusion of time-space created by computer
technology.  Thus those who join a network dwell in cyber-space
rather than in real time-space in really existing groups, facts or
events.  All of the 'natural' categories of time, space, weight,
quality, quantity and such disappear in cyber-space; a whole new
philosophy of being/doing is required for such space.

Darwin, Charles (1809-1882):  An English scientist generally
credited with the theory of Evolution [which see] after a trip
around the world in the Beagle, a British ship in which Darwin
collected evidence for the theory.  Darwin published his book on
Origins of Species in 1859; the Descent of Man in 1871; they remain
sources of great debate since they attribute the appearance of
human beings to natural rather than supernatural events.  In brief,
he took Malthus idea of population checks and went on to argue that
competition for food and sexual partners gave some individuals and
species a better chance at survival since there are small or large
differences in every individual and species.  Together, they make
for a natural selection rather than a divine creativity.  A.R.
Wallace made the same argument a year earlier and might well have
been credited with the theory had not Darwin published his work.

Data (sing. datum): From Latin: that which is given.  One collects
data and analyses them in order to confirm or reject a hypothesis
[which see].  The term thus refers to a set of observations from
nature (physical or social) which are independent from the
interests and cognitive processes of the scientist.  There is no
such independence in the Marxian philosophy of science nor in most
postmodern philosophies of science (see which).

Days of Grace:  A legal term setting the amount of time after
default on a debt in which payment must be made or remedy
permitted.  It varies from 3 days to 3 months.

Death of God:  A 19th century claim by Nietzsche and later, Sartre,
that belief in God is impossible by a person educated in modern
science.  Modernists thus dismiss the god concept or identify it
with natural and social laws.  Postmodern theology holds that god
is a social construct and is destroyed when believers cease to
believe and to act upon the teachings of that particular god
concept.  There is a radical American theology [Thomas Altizer, Wm.
Hamilton] which, in 1966, proposed a religious sensibility without
the god concept.  

Death Penalty:  Legal execution of persons found guilty of a
capital crime.  The modern state claims a monopoly over the use of
force, life and death.  The murder, rape or kidnapping of a person
is no longer a crime against the person or the family but rather a
crime against the state.  There is considerable controversy over
the death penalty by the state in the name of the people.

De-centering:  A postmodern objective: the result of re-examining
truth claims of, say patriarchy, stratification, or truth itself
and showing the human hand and human agenda which brought the
claim, theory or practice to the fore-front and celebrates it as
eternally valid and objectively existent.

Decertification:  A process by which the rights of a union to
represent a group of workers and to bargain for them is ended. 
This is done through formal elections usually sponsored by the
company and facilitated by the government.  Workers have a hard
choice; vote to decertify or see the company move the factory to
Southern States or to foreign countries.  Corruption by union
officials do not help the union cause.

Decideability:  One of three characteristics of a hypothesis or
theory; the other two being completeness and  consistency. 
Decideability depends upon the existence of a method of proof
available with a finite number of steps.  No method, unlimited
steps, no proof, no knowledge.  This is why Agrippa held that sure
and certain knowledge was impossible.  But see prediction,
replicability.

Deconstruction:  A postmodern method of analysis; its goal is to
undo all permanent, objective, determinative 'constructions' of
scientists.  Deconstruction tears a text apart, shows its
unexamined assumptions, reveals its contradictions and its refusal
to deal with contradictory materials.  Typically a deconstructive
critique endeavors to point out the classist, racist, sexist,
agist, and other oppressive dimensions of speech. 
Deconstructionists "unpack" the layered dimensions of speech in
order to appreciate the politics and special interests behind
words, particularly when that intent invalidates, de-legitimizes,
or otherwise, de-values specific individuals or a class of
citizens.  In affirmative postmodern work, deconstruction is
prelude to the construction of new, more participatory social
forms.  In so doing, one accepts personal responsibility for the
constructs rather than attributing such text or theory to God
(gods) or nature.  (After and beyond Derrida).

Deduction/deductive logic:  Latin: de = from; ducere = to lead, to
draw out.  In logic, a deduction is a conclusion which follows from
two or more given assumptions, which if true, make the conclusion
true.  In social science, a deduction is a conclusion from the
logical implications of a theory; thus one deducts hypothesis and
collects data in order to confirm or deny the truth of it.  But
before one gets too locked in on deductive logic, see induction.

Definition: Latin: de + finire = to limit.  In formal logic, that
which is to be defined is called the definiendum while that which
is used to define a term is called the definiens.  Lexical
definitions follow common usage.  Stipulative definitions are new
terms made up from old, stable language or mathematics. 
Definitions can be made by analogy, by example or by noting
differences between two things.  
     But note that all such definition is a poetics and a politics;
this dictionary goes beyond lexical definitions to show the poetry
and politics which informs each term.  Postmodern philosophy of
knowledge holds that all concepts and categories of nature and
society are convenient tags to put on some slice of an incredibly
complex and interconnected reality of interest at the moment.  Such
tags are helpful but tend to freeze the knowledge process and
defeat imagination and change.

Degradation routines:  Every social institution has a ritual by
which unwanted people are removed: the criminal justice system
degrades people in a court-room trial in which they are stripped of
social standing; divorce is used to remove people from a marriage;
courts martial strip officers of rank; decertification turns a
'doctor' into a non-doctor; disbarment proceedings removes the
social identity of 'lawyer' from the self system of those so
processed.  Schools expel students and some religions ex-
communicate people.  Degradation routines are the reverse of rites
of passage in which people are allocated social identities which
then are supposed to organized their behavior in spite of wants,
needs, desires, or other psychological imperatives.

de facto:  Latin: that is exists as a matter of fact rather than a
matter of legal right [see de jure].  Often defacto existence
creates de jure rights as in the case of long term residence in a
country, in employment or in a marriage form even between same sex
persons.

Defect of the lntelligensia: The phrase brings into consideration
the question of how those who produce art, science, music, drama,
literature, and religion can be pried away (defect) from support of
capitalism and/or elitist ideologies and recruited to socialist
endeavor.  Regis Debray held that acts of terrorism would
"debourgeoisify" the intelligentsia by emphasizing how precarious
is the capitalist order.  Mao insisted on close contact between
workers and the intelligentsia while Marx insisted on the unity of
physical and mental labor in the individual so that the
intelligentsia would not develop as a separate stratum to create
ideology by which to bolster capitalism.

Deficit Spending: The government spends a huge amount of money on
war, airports, dams, highways, unemployment checks, education, and
many other things.  When the government spends more than it
collects in taxes, this is called "running a deficit." Deficit
spending must be financed by borrowing.  The U.S. government
currently spends more than 10% of its budget on interest payments
on the national debt which has resulted from its past deficit
spending.  Why deficit spending? See Keynsian economics.  The
national debt is about $540 billion (1976) and growing fast.  It is
the price a nation pays to keep capitalism going.  Our national
debt could expand by four or five times before the nation would
face bankruptcy.

Definition of the situation: The first step in the construction of
social reality is to define (collectively) what kind of social
event is going to be produced: a wedding, a party, a funeral, a
meeting etc.  The definition must be shared, or at least not
challenged, by all present.  This shared definition is accomplished
by symbolic interaction.  Social reality has no facticity apart
from the collective definition and the collective performing of it. 
A pattern of observable behavior defined as a class or as a chess
move is, in the consequence, a social fact.  It is not enough
simply to define something as real, compliance to a publicly known
set of standards is also required.

Deism:  A term introduced by the socians who wanted to distance
themselves both from a-theists and from those who believed in a
personal God.  In Deism, the god concept refers to an original
Creator/creating force which set a clock-like universe in motion
and no longer intervenes in its workings.  Thus both science and
reason are pathways to knowledge rather than ecstasy, meditation
revelation and inspiration.  The later are major pathways to
knowledge in pre-modern sociology of knowledge.

de jure: Latin: that which exists as a matter of legal right
[compare with de facto].  De facto existence often confers a legal
right as in the case of common law marriage or possession and use
of property after 5, 7 or more years.

Delinquency:  The behavior of young people defined as criminal by
a law making body and ruled as such by a judge in court.  Generally
young people are not held to the same standards of responsibility
as are adults.  On the other hand, they are required to obey the
rules of home and school else be labelled 'delinquent.'  See Status
crimes.  Young people became a special category around 1850 when
both laws and social control systems were set up.  The changing
labor market required children stay in school and learn skills
appropriate to industrial capitalism, hence the legal system began
to create a new age grade; the adolescent, which see.

Democracy: Latin: demos = the people; kratein = to rule.  Rule of
the people.  Not to be confused with republican forms of governance
[which see].  Bernard Barber has set forth the elements of a strong
democracy; it includes open discussion, direct voting on
significant issues, policy formation in all realms of social life;
economics, education, religion and public life.
Democracy is a central principle in socialist thought.  However, in
socialist theory, the sphere in which the people are to rule is not
limited to political life "wherein the masses are permitted to de-
cide which of the ruling class will govern." The socialist position
is that people rule in the arenas where decisions count: in
economic and in cultural spheres as well.  For both Marx and Lenin,
parliamentary democracy was a place for talk while decisions which
shape the course of history are made in private for elites.  The
thrust of democratic socialism is to make those decisions in the
public sphere with maximum participation.  Bureaucratic socialism
is thus unmarxist.

Democratic Self-Management:  A form of work in which the workers
decide upon all the major issues of production and distribution of
profits.  In both socialist and capitalist societies, some firms
are owned and/or operated by workers.  They decide upon managerial
staff, hiring, work schedule and working conditions on the floor,
investment and dividends as well as wages, bonuses and fringe
benefits such as vacations, health care and pensions.  Compare to
Z theory.

Demagogue: One who is able to lead other people by virtue of
his/her persuasive powers.  Often a negative term applied to people
who appeal to greed, patriotism or ethnic superiority, the term is
also used by elitists to discredit democracy and those who oppose
power, privilege and inequality.

Demography:  The science which charts the characteristics of a
population in a given region.  Age, sex, gender, class, education
are considered to be demographic variables.

Demographic transition theory:  Under this theory, populations go
through three stages: a preindustrial stage, in which both the
birth rate and mortality rate are high; an early industrialization
stage, in which the birth rate is high and mortality declines
[therefore there is a 'population explosion']; and a mature
industrialization stage, in which both the birth rate and the
mortality rate are low. The theory that sees population change as
related to the process of industrialization and its concomitant
social changes.  But see 'over-population' for a fuller view.

Demonization:  The social practice of treating someone or some
people as if they were demons, monsters, devils or the source of
all bad things which happen.  Most capitalists demonized
communists; many communists demonize capitalists; most racists
demonize minority groups; some minority groups demonize Anglos;
some women demonize men while man men blame women for their own
troubles.  The marxist/socialist position is that the enemy is to
be found in alienated social relationships rather than in people as
such.  It is true enough that there are thoroughly despicable
people but most people work within social institutions with social
values to which they were socialized as children.  If there is evil
to be seen, look first at social problems; if one wishes to reduce
social problems to a minimum, first work for social justice.  See
crime, racist, sexism, patriarchy, alienation, profanation.

Deontology: Greek: deon = necessity.  The study of ethics and
theories of social obligations or duties.  See Axiology.

Dependency Theory:  A theory of colonial imperialism which informs
anti-American sentiment in Latin America and elsewhere.  The theory
correctly asserts that capitalist imperialism distorts local
economics and creates a surplus population but is often an effort
to substitute foreign exploitation with that of local capitalists. 
A country becomes dependent upon the U.S., Germany, England, or
Japan by selling cash crops or natural resources and dependent upon
the same countries for food and luxury goods.  The developed
capitalist countries set the terms which benefit multinational
corporations and banks and give "aid" subsidized by workers in
capitalist countries to repair some of the distortions, especially
those of hunger as cotton, coffee, cocoa, tea, beef or other foods
are exported to capitalist countries.  By 1976, total debt of non
OPEC nations to capitalist countries was $180 billion, up 15 fold
from 1967.  See Capitalist World System/New World Order.

Depoliticization: The process of reducing the range of questions
which are to be settled by collective and public discourse.  
Questions of foreign policy, employment policy, crime, education
and science are treated as settled or to be turned over to
technicians to manage.  Most major news networks treat public
issues as if they were spectacles to be watched rather than
problems to be solved by the public.

Dependent variable: A social fact said to be caused by some prior,
independent factor(s).  The notion of a dependent variable, like a
magician's wand, takes one's attention from the possibility that
causality may be comprised of complex, interactive feedback loops
which change continuously within the dynamics of a social system
rather than externally determined.  Then too, loose systems of
causality are pushed aside in search for tight connections between
two, three or four variables.

Depressions:  A depression is a down turn in the demand for goods;
the demand for labor power and the demand for investment capital
itself.  They are part of the ups (see expansion) and downs of
capitalism.  Of the five great economic systems in history,
capitalism is the only one with such cycles; in other economic
systems, hard times are the result of natural calamity, not the
every day working of the economy.  There are three economic cycles
which have been identified: Kondratieff curves which come in 30-50
year cycles, Kutznets curves of 15 year cycles and 2-5 year mini-
cycles.  In bad times, workers are laid off; laid off, they cannot
buy, factories close and the economic process grinds to a halt. 
Capitalists blame depressions on organized workers, on government
interference and upon "unfair" competition by "foreigners" (other
capitalists).  Workers blame depressions on the government and the
government blames the previous administration.  Actually capitalism
causes depressions since workers do not get paid 100% of the value
of goods they produce, they cannot buy all of it back.  The
'surplus' piles up, factories shut down and the depression worsens.

Dereification: The process by which social reality is dismantled.
A process by which the naive and trusting acceptance of a given
social form is brought into question.  The process by which faith
is lost, people get discouraged and turn away from existing systems
of religion, gender relations, economics or politics.  The Mormon
experience is a classic case of de-reification; whole groups of
people otherwise committed to traditional forms of marriage,
economics and religion walked away from them to found a new social
life world; first in Missouri, then in Utah.  These events tend to
support the idea of nonlinearity in social affairs as well as give
testimony to the role of human agency within larger historical
processes.

Derrida, Jacques: Architect of French deconstructionist philosophy
(see Deconstruction). Derrida's contributions to deconstructionism
include a number of important postmodern concepts:

     1) Reversal of hierarchies - any value position (e.g., man,
     good, objective) takes on its valuation in relation to some
     other oppositional value (e.g., woman, evil, subjective).
     text, however, can be read so as to reveal such power
     relations and reverse them through 'discoursing' about them. 

     2) Metaphysics of presence:- related to the reversal of
     hierarchies is Derrida's 'presence of the absence.'  What
     this means is that in every binary opposition, the value
     that is dominant/privileged is present. The value that is
     subordinate, is 'absent.' The oppositional value of
     'beauty' is 'ugly.'  The value "beauty" is dominant and
     therefore privileged. We automatically assign positive
     value to persons identified as beautiful. The
     oppositional value "ugly" is subordinant and, therefore,
     repressed.

     3) Differance: Differance (with an "a") implies both the
     activity of differing and of deferring. All hierarchies
     include words that are different from each other (e.g., male
     versus female, heterosexual versus homosexual, white versus
     black).  In addition, however, each defers to the other in the
     sense of implying the opposite term.  We cannot understand 
     what it means to be white without understanding what it means
     to black and vice versa). There is a mutual deferential
     interdependence.

     4) Trace: Hidden within each term of a hierarchy, is the trace
     of the other. The trace is what maintains the relationship
     between the two terms. In order to deconstruct the hierarchy,
     one must identify the trace which maintains the ascendancy of
     the privileged, dominant term as a presence. This is the
     activity of making visible the hidden. Revealing the hidden
     trace (women, minority, gay, poor) makes possible the de-
     centering, of the dominant term (men, WASP, straight,
     wealthy).

Descartes, Rene (1596-1650):  Descartes is one of the more
important architects of modern science.  A French philosopher and
mathematician, Descartes was both rationalist and empiricist; a
difficult combination to sustain in a world marked by non-linear
dynamics.  Descartes is well known for his formula for the
possibility of knowledge as against pure skepticism; he offered as
evidence of that possibility the saying, that cogito, ergo sum by
which he meant that there was at least one unassailable proposition
which can stand against doubt; I think, therefore there must be a
thinker who thinks, namely me.  Therefore I exist.  Descartes wrote
extensively on the god concept, the short version is that such a
Being exists and is infinite, eternal, immutable and independent of
all that He creates.  His main contribution to mathematics is
analytic geometry which charts the movement of events in time-space
in what is called cartesian space.  The new science of Chaos uses
cartesian space extensively to chart the changing mixture of order
and disorder in the behavior of complex and fractal systems.

Desire: French: desir = yearning/passion for. In postmodern
terminology, desire is always and already communicated in and
through language. All speech is saturated with certain longings,
aspirations, needs, fears, passions, and beliefs. The French
psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, argued that desire was at the core of
human being.  Lacan maintained that desire could never be fully
described. We can never completely capture in speech, in words, in
sentences, the essence of our very existence without leaving some
trace of it behind. When describing why we love someone our words
are filled with desire.  We find that we do not do 'desire'
justice, art, poetry, the laughter of children; that is, the words
themselves are inadequate to communicate how we feel. For Lacan,
desir was illusive yet polymorphous, elusive yet omnipresent.  The
dominant language of modern science greatly erodes our capacity to
desire; the needs of the capitalist system to realize profit
channels desire into owning things.  See advertizing, Realization
problem.

Deskilling:  The subdivision of labor into ever more simple tasks. 
The idea is that wages can be reduced, production increased and
quality improved with this division and sub-division of labor.  See
Z theory.

Deskilling of America:  The practice of moving high paying skilled
jobs overseas leaving US workers to take low paying service jobs. 
Owners can take advantage of both economic and status inequality by
moving jobs to countries with a large unemployed labor force.

Destutt de Tracy (1758-1836):  The founder of Ideology; the science
of what we now call propaganda.  de Tracy began his work when
Napoleon suppressed the school he was in claiming that it was
dangerous to religion.  Th. Jefferson translated his works and
published them in Philadelphia.

Determinism: The philosophical position that phenomena are best
explained in terms of the events that have immediately proceeded
them; rigid cause and effect.  This idea assumes social
significance when it is applied to the behavior of individuals.  If
a person and the brain are rigidly bound by cause and effect, how
can that person be "free" to do what (s)he "wants?" The argument
runs that what one wants, and will do are rigidly determined by
prior considerations.  It is further claimed that one's behavior
could be accurately predicted if only enough information were
available.  The logical conclusion of this idea is that a human is
merely a complicated machine.  When determinism is applied to the
realm of psychology in this manner it is called Behaviorism.  B.F.
Skinner is the foremost behaviorist in the U.S. Behaviorism is a
"dirty word" to many died-in-the-wool humanists and fundamentalist
Christians as well as most marxists.  The alternative view is that
human beings think and act with judgment and insight.  In this
mode, causally is weak or absent while reflective social
interaction produces social facts.  See also Chaos theory.

Developing Countries:  About 120 nations in the world have systems
of production and distribution based upon low-tech base and upon
strong social ties.  These are said to be under-developed.  The
phrase means that capitalists can solve three problems by
controlling the politics of the country: cheaper labor, cheaper raw
materials and expanded markets for manufactured goods.

     Such countries then begin to have problems of crime, class
inequality, juvenile delinquency and suicide, prostitution, and
drug use.  They are then said to be 'developing' by capitalist
economists.

Development/Under-development:  Theories of progress assume that a
society becomes developed when it: 1) industrializes, 2)
commodifies all goods and services and exchanges them in a market,
3) discards all traditional stratifications in favor of class
stratification and 4) replaces social status [kinship, ethnicity,
race or gender] with money as a nexus for the exchange of goods and
services.  Societies which do not accept these changes are said to
be underdeveloped.  See Modernization theory.

Deviance: Nonconformity with existing/traditional social norms. 
This nonconformity is often said to be pathological when it
challenges power and privilege; it is said to be innovation or
creativity when it is approved by the gate-keepers of morality. 
All societies in a changing environment require sufficient deviance
adequate to reduce mismatch between system and environment.  A
loaded term, deviancy is a negative asset when the environment is
stable but can be a positive asset to a society when the envi-
ronment is irreversibly changing (see Ashby's law), depending of
course on the nature of the variation.  See Corruption, theory of.

Deviance, primary:  A term used by Chas. Lemert to refer to those
deviant acts which do not redefine the self nor become a matter of
public image.  See Labelling Theory.

Deviant: 1) Someone who is noticeably different from the average
within some dimensions of social behavior.  As it applies to
behavior that is generally considered to be beyond the tolerance
limits of the community.

Dewey, John (1859-1952):  American philosopher/educator who taught
at Michigan, Chicago, Minnesota and Columbia.  Dewey is known for
his work in progressive education; he started an experimental
school in Chicago.  Dewey argued that education should have no
fixed syllabi or standard objectives but fit itself to the
different and changing needs of students.  Experimentation is
encouraged and the future is more important than the past.  In his
philosophy of knowledge, Dewey argued that research begins in
situations which are troubled, ambiguous, and full of conflict. 
One does not look for order but for solutions congenial to
democracy and empowerment.  The quest is not for truth so much as
for transformation of troubled, conflictual situations.  Dewey
contributes to both postmodern education and postmodern philosophy
of science; both of which are most congenial to emancipatory
knowledge processes and praxis.

Dialectic:  Greek: dialektos = discourse, debate.  In everyday
life, dialectics refers to a dynamic tension within a given system:
a process by which change occurs on the basis of that tension and
resultant conflict.  Fichte coined the triadic process in which a
dialectic has a 1) thesis, 2) an antithesis, and 3) a synthesis
when the dialectic has run its course.  A dialectic is said to
arise since all (A) implies (Not-A).  Schelling applied the
dialectic to nature and to history.  Marx used a more open and
progressive conceptualization taken from Hegel's Negation of the
Negation; thus a class system, possessing many 'negations' will
produce a political economy which will negate it.  [After Kevin
Anderson].

     In orthodox marxist views, dialectics is raised to science of 
the general laws of society and knowledge (after Engels).  In this
formulation, the three forms of the dialectic are: 1) struggle and
unity of opposites; 2) the transition of quantity into quality and
3) the negation of a prior negation.  An example of the first form
of a dialectic would be class struggle in which workers and owners
clash and out of which a new, more humane economic system
might/will arise.  Of the second, an example might be the
transformation water into steam with a small quantitative rise in
temperature and for the third 'law,' a good example might be when
capitalism [a negative] is destroyed by revolution [another
negation].

     The concept of the dialectic is hostile to the linearity which
is at the core of modern science; as such they are much the better
explanation of how complex systems worked.  The rise of Chaos
theory gives dramatic empirical support and much sharper focus to
the concept of the dialectic. See Feedback, forms of.

Dialectic materialism: A view espoused by Marx, Engels, and Lenin
that revolutionary change comes as a result of the contradictions
in the concretely existing modes of production rather than by 
supernatural or mystical reasons.  The idea of 'telos' or fate is
pushed aside as well.  Natural stage theory, historical cycles and
metaphysical causes are rejected in favor of human action and
activity in changing the nature of a society.  For Marx, each
economic system may have 'tendencies' which can be seen but they
should not be taken to be inevitable.

Dictatorship:  The rule of one small group over an entire society
by force.  Often, the word is used as if one person or one small
party were the 'dictatorship.'  Such a view is decidedly unmarxist;
it takes a lot of people to support dictators and reproduce
dictatorships.  If a lot of people were not direct beneficiary of
Nazi, Italian, Spanish, Argentinean or Nicaraguan dictatorships,
they would wither on the vine.  There can be no leaders without
willing followers [Simmel].  Force and ideological hegemony play a
part in dictatorships however the objective interests of a lot of
people are served by dictatorships.  See the Great Man theory of
History.

Dictatorship of the proletariat: Control over the production of
political and economic policy by a party elite in the name of the
workers.  Orthodox socialists argue for an intermediate stage in
which state control of production replaces capitalist/elitist
control.  This stands in sharp contrast to the ideas of Rosa
Luxemburg who argued for mass democracy from the beginning in
setting policy.  Centralized control, while unmarxist if permanent,
is said to be necessary until the false consciousness of workers is
repaired and until the last vestiges of bourgeois mentality are
gone.  Since the marxist position is that consciousness grows out
of concrete social relationships in the production of culture, any
such dictatorship must be short-lived and closely constrained else
socialist consciousness is aborted.  Careerism and sycophancy
develops along with self-glorification and the cult of the
individual and/or elitism.

Dictionary:  A book which defines words; a good dictionary tries to
present the more common usages of a word since, in every society,
words mean different things to people in different social
positions.  For example, rape as a concept, is used differently,
almost casually by men; women see rape in a very different way. 
All dictionaries are political in that the definitions given first
place are those which make most sense to the writer in a given
social-life world.  All dictionaries thus reproduce that world by
setting the understanding of a thing as fixed and beyond argument. 
A good dictionary is admittedly political and admits its politics.

Diff‚rance:  A way to establish an idea or truth claim by its
positive and negative references to other texts.  The meaning of a
text thus recedes in history and/or is circular.  See Derrida.

Differential Association: A "theory" of crime which holds than an
excess of definitions-to-commit-crime over definitions-to-be-law-
abiding produces crime.  It cannot be a theory of crime since it is
a good theory of all social behavior; Baptists are Baptists if and
only if they differentially associate with Baptists; Buddhists do
not become Baptists even if they do associate with them.  Nor does
the theory account for white collar crime.  It does emphasize the
learned character of antisocial behavior.

Differentiation:  A division of labor based upon race, gender,
ethnicity, merit or age.  Not to be confused with Stratification. 
There may well be some important advantages to social
differentiation by merit, age, interest, ethnicity and/or religion. 
Such variety tends to increase both skill and productivity; it
offers a reservoir of ideas and ways of life that serve well in
times of economic, climatic or social change.  The division of
labor on the basis of race, gender, religion, ethnicity also may
carry with it great harm to the overall capacity of a society.  It
is here that wisdom and judgment as well as kindness and compassion
need full range.  See Stratification.

Diminishing Returns, Law of:  A theory from Malthus which holds
that productivity decreases with the addition of more and more
workers.  If one worker can produce 10 pins a day, 10 workers might
produce 100/day but 20 workers will produce only 190 or fewer. 
This idea was used to diminish the value of workers and to point to
the problems of capitalists who hired 'too many' workers.  Marx
pointed out that improvement in technology rendered this 'law'
invalid.

Dinks:  Double income; no kids.  This acronym refers to people who
form loose unions in order to enhance their life style.  They do so
by sharing household and recreational expenses while refusing to
have kids or, if they have them, to support them.  See Yuppie, Monk
and Swinks...all are popular terms used by young people to refer to
those who avoid traditional gender relations and marriage forms.

Dionysian/Dionysus:  Dionysus was the Greek god of wine and nature. 
His name is given to a philosophy of life which set passion, joy
and rare good spirits as its center point.  Compare to Apollonian
social philosophy.

Disaster:  Premodern sensibility explained large, unexpected events
which adversely affected a society as messages from the spiritual
world, Acts of God or Divine Retribution for sin.  Modern theory
defines a disaster as a natural calamity in which large numbers of
persons are injured and/or property destroyed.  Postmodern
scholarship explains a disaster as some large scale event which
destroys people and property and which is undesirable.  Events
which destroy people and property but which are desired are not
defined as disaster; war, environmental pollution, poverty, child
abuse or such.  These are defined as personal crimes, accidents, or
are not noticed  [after M. Ephraim]. 

Discourse: A special kind of interaction in which "validity claims"
are checked out.  Most of the time, people just talk together about
the practical matters at hand.  But sometimes that which is taken-
for-granted is called into question.  Habermas identifies four
validity claims about discourse which may result in distorted
communication and, thereby need to be examined more closely.  In
postmodern work all that is written or spoken is seen as discourse;
claims of objectivity and impartiality are presumed to be political
tactics which remove truth claims [about gender, race, class, or
'reality' from discourse.
Discourse, Lacan's four: Lacan identified four ways of
thinking/talking which preshape speech and behavior.  The first
line shows the flow of speech; the second depicts the way in which
the listener experiences his/her own understanding or desire.
Discourse of the Master:
        S1 -------> S2
        $  <------- a 

The authority imposes his/her language/narrative on the other and
endeavors to convince the other of this knowledge. The underling,
receptive to the message, experiences an incompleteness, a lack of
self-valuation in the words/narrative. Despite this, the student
reproduces the very knowledge that represses. 
Discourse of the University
           
       S2 -------> a 
       S1 <------- $

The discourse of the university is a more hidden form of the
discourse of the master. Some governing elite or prevailing
paradigm (e.g., the law, a patriarchal family, medicine) infused
with its unique knowledge/truth, constitutes the other. In so
doing, however, the other experiences psychic distress in this
knowledge. That which is missing, left out, leaves desire unspoken
and unspeakable.

Discourse of the Hysteric:
       $  -------> S1
       a  <------- S2 

The despairing person, alienated from her/his own knowledge/desire,
realizes that their truth is not affirmed. Thus, the repressed
subject endeavors to communicate this suffering and angst to the
other. The other, however, interprets this suffering through only
conventional master codes of crime, mental illness, sin or
deviancy. This response only contributes to the psychic despair and
longing of the divided subject.
 
Discourse of the Analyst
       a  --------> $ 
       S2 <-------- S1 

The "revolutionary" subject begins by offering to the other that
which is left out (pas tout). The other embodies this existence and
forges new master signifiers, new awarenesses,; desires more
compatible with the despairing subject. This produces new truths or
mythic knowledge. This knowledge, in turn, contributes to and
affirms what is left out. Here, knowledge is positional and local. 
This form of discourse is found in both religious conversions,
social movements, rebellions and whole revolutions.

Discourses, Replacement: In the postmodern sociology of knowledge
the pivotal question is to identify and validate discourses more
fully affirming of social differences and ways of knowing which
reflect our society without necessarily invalidating those ways of
knowing already in existence.  Rather, the humanistic project in
creating replacement discourses is to "widen the net" for knowing,
experiencing, living, and being human. This project validates the
excluded voices of women, racial and sexual minorities, the
disabled and disenfranchised, and all of those peoples whose styles
of existence, when spoken and embodied, encounter resistance,
degradation, and de-legitimacy. See Lacan, Foucault, Constitutive
theory, feminist theory, chaos and complexity theory.  

Discursive Formations:  This is a key concept developed in the
writings of Michel Foucault. Foucault was concerned with the
manifestation of power communicated through language. Discursive
formations in law, sexuality and mental illness exercise power in
the lives of people. Foucault encouraged active resistance to all
discursive formations, alleging that they produced system-
sustaining social control, citizen alienation, and a
disciplinary/punitive society. According to Foucault, any
systematic constitution of reality possesses tremendous influence
in our lives. This influence lives in specialized knowledges which
includes no (or little) room for dissention, difference, or
alternative knowledge forms. Thus discursive formations as
power/knowledge give privilege to certain ways of knowing, certain
claims to truth, while ensuring the continued silencing of
repressed (oppositional) voices.

Discrimination:  The practice of treating a group of people as if
they were somehow inferior in some important way; usually race,
class, gender, religion or ethnic origin.  Sometimes discrimination
is confused with prejudice which refers to psychological states
rather than actual behavior.  The two are often closely connected
but it is possible to discriminate against people without conscious
prejudice.  See Racism, institutional.

Disemployment:  Capitalism is the only economic system in which
there is a systematic elimination of workers; either by replacement
by machines [to increase profits] or during a depression [in order
to control costs].  Capitalist economists say that a 5%
disemployment rate is necessary in order to keep wages down and
profits up.  If there were full employment, profits would fall,
capitalists would fail and the economy collapse...so they say.
Harrison and Bluestone estimate that over 3 million high paying
jobs have moved overseas while more than half of the new jobs pay
less than the poverty line.  See Fiscal crisis.

Disengagement theory:  The view that all connections between
persons and social role-sets/statuses are affirmed or withdrawn
within social rituals.  The more common social processes which
disengage a person from a role include: divorce from marriage;
defrocking from a ministry; disbarment from the practice of law;
decertification from medical practice; dismissal from the military
via Court Martial.  It is the final rite of passage after which one
has lost all rights to embody a social role.  Some include funerals
as disengagement routines since the person concerned is treated as
no longer a member of a social group; some societies hold funerals
for living persons to make the point.

Dividends:  That portion of expropriated surplus value [profits]
given to stockholders in permanent payment for investment.  If
dividends go to a few, there are many problems around the
concentration of wealth.  If workers can invest part of wages in
stocks, they become owners, once or twice removed.  See also rent
and interest.

Divine Right (of Kings):  The view that all authority is vested in
a king who gets that right from God.  If so, all rebellion is
sinful.  Few people seriously argue this now but the larger point
remains...if God does exist and does have a plan [Patriarchy,
Stratification, etc] or a chosen people than opposition to such
inequalities is both evil and wrong.  See Liberation theology for
a different view.
 
Division of Labor:  When different people do different things in
the production process, there is a division of labor.  Think of the
construction of a house; one person can do everything or can hire
different people to do the carpentry, plumbing, wiring, masonry or
painting.  A society constitutes itself as a human society by the
creation of culture.  Any division of labor which eliminates or re-
stricts people in the production of material, ideological, and
political culture as a complex unity subverts the human condition. 
For example, capitalism assigns manual labor to the worker, the
production of ideological culture to the manager and the production
of political culture is controlled by an elite.  In advanced
capitalism, there is also a geographical division of labor.  In the
electronics industry, the "brain" inhabits the laboratories around
Boston and San Diego while the "hands" are in Taiwan, Korea, Haiti,
El Salvador, South Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Spain.  Durkheim
held that the division of labor promotes solidarity; Marx held that
it destroys solidarity.  As a scheme to divide up tasks, the
division of labor may be useful; as a scheme to exclude people from
human agency and praxis, it is most harmful.

Dogma:  A Greek word meaning decree.  The word applies to all
policies and practices held to be beyond dispute.  When one is
absolutely sure that s/he is right and all others are wrong for all
time, one is said to be dogmatic.

Double bind: The notion of a double bind refers to a condition that
occurs during the construction of a social occasion when one party
receives inconsistent or contradictory information from the other
party(s).  The best examples involve actual contradictions, such as
when someone says one thing verbally, while indicating the opposite
with their body talk.  A person who is in a double bind has a
difficult time deciding how to act towards the source of the
contradictory information.

Dracon/Draconian:  Dracon was a Greek king who established a
unified legal code in the 7th century, B.C.E., on the peoples he
conquered.  The legal Code bearing his name did not distinguish
between degrees of severity; thus when laws are harsh for small
crimes, they are said to be 'draconian.'

Dramaturgy:  Greek: draein = to act; to do + ergein = to work.  A
term introduced by Goffman as key to understand advanced monopoly
capitalism and the wide-spread practice of using the devices from
the world of make believe in order to stage convincing and
profitable impression among unknown others.

Dramaturgical analysis: The use of the concepts and processes found
in the world of theatre and cinema to discuss how social reality is
constructed.  The political question to be raised is whether
dramaturgy is simply a helpful approach to teach people about
society (Goffman) or an ideology used by people to pursue private
goals such as profit, manipulation, and management.  The radical
perspective is that such an approach arises in a society in which
social relationships warrant it.

Dramaturgical society: A society in which the technology of theatre
is used to manage the masses via electronics media and with the aid
of the sciences of sociology and/or psychology.  The world of make-
believe enters the world of serious discourse as an alien and
dominating force.  In politics, a cadre of hired specialists now
use dramaturgy to generate a public for a candidate or issue.  Such
practice converts politics from a cultural item into a commodity to
be purchased by the highest bidder.  The same is true in sports,
medicine, religion and other activities which used to be cultural
activities. (After Young and Massey).  Dramaturgy could be used to
celebrate, illuminate or politicize rather than alienate people
from the political and economic questions which affect their lives.
See Radical Theatre.

Durkheim, Emile.  (1857-1951)  Durkheim made many contributions to
the study of society, suicide, the division of labor, solidarity
and religion.  Raised in a time of troubles in France, Durkheim
spent much of his genius justifying order and commitment to order. 
He said that the god concept was a false reification [collective
representation] of the power of groups to shape the behavior of
members; of religion as a solution to the problem of solidarity
[how to hold people together when they have conflicting interests];
that suicide increases when society falls apart [anomie] and that
there were other ways to get solidarity rather than by religion. 
He spoke of mechanical (religion) solidarity and organic solidarity
as different ways to bind people together.  Organic solidarity was
supposed to emerge out of a complex and functionally interdependent
division of labor.  The socialist response to Durkheim is to
question the ways in which the labor process is to be organized;
the degree to which order takes precedence over social justice and
alternative ways to get solidarity.

Dyad:  Greek: duas = two.  In sociology, the smallest unit of
observation and interaction.  Sociology begins with dyads rather
than with single individuals outside of a status-role.  Think of
the impossibility of studying the mother without the child or the
failings of a student without looking at faults of the professor.

D�hring, Eugen (1833-1901):  German economist who held that matter
is the sole reality; that morality is based upon compassion and
sympathy; that pain help define pleasure and that capitalism should
be modified not eliminated.  Marx and Engels attacked the latter
point.

Duty:  Latin: debere = to owe.  Our word debt comes from the same
root.  Stoicism, as a social philosophy sets duty as the center
point of ethical behavior; one is to do one's duty even if it
conflicts with notions of good or with cherished values.

Early Marx: The early writings of Marx focussed in on the creative
role of humans in producing social-life worlds.  The concepts of
praxis and alienation were central and therefore Marxist writings
were decidedly "humanistic." The later Marx is said to focus more
on larger structural factors especially on capitalist relations and
upon global analysis.  There are those 'marxists' who are in each
camp and some who are in both.  The issue seems to be whether those
who look at Marx and see his humanism are too romantic to be useful
in the hard task of making the revolution since making it requires
understanding and opposition to the structural variables by which
domination occurs.  Critics of the "structuralists" say that a
revolution which does not speak to the point of praxis and
democratic self-management is a fraud--the older Marx without the
early Marx is pointless.  The nature of marxism in some countries
was settled before some of the early writings were available and so
the structural reading was dominant and often used to justify a
dictatorship.

Echelon: An arbitrary defined level or stratum in a table of
bureaucratic organization which is held accountable to levels
defined as superior to it.  Persons in an echelon have roughly
equivalent duties, rewards, and responsibilities.  The use of
echelons is an efficient but scarcely human way to establish
control of many by few.  It is a formal form of stratification
which ignores earlier forms of privilege: racism, sexism, religious
bigotry or ethnocentricism...and claims to be modern and
progressive.  It also claims to be rational but there is room for
considerable doubt.

Eclectic/Eclecticism:  An eclectic is one who sees validities in a
lot of ideas/theories.  Contrast to Dogma/dogmatism.  There are
many who scorn eclectics as weak minded, ignorant, vacillating
and/or moral cowards.  One should be careful in using either term.

Ecology: The study of the patterned ways in which organisms dis-
tribute themselves in time and space with reference to other
organisms and to inorganic aspects of the territorially limited
environment.  Ecology is of interest to socialism in so far as
capitalism tends to destroy ecosystems by exploiting raw materials
and dumping toxins to protect profits.

Economic determinism: The view that economic events determine,
shape or influence all social forms. In marxian terms, the base
determines the superstructure.  Thus, capitalist relations shape
art, science, religion, and other forms of ideological culture.
These, in turn, tend to reflect and to reproduce capitalist
relations.  See Early Marx.

Economic Formations:  There have been five economic systems in
human history.  1) For most of that history, people lived in bands
and tribes and shared out food and labor; this is called primitive
communism since the technology and division of labor was very
simple.  2) Interspersed in such economies was a certain slavery
which used people captured in predatory warfare (which see). 
Slavery grew to be an industry in itself in the 16th, 17th and 18th
century.  3) The conquerors in predatory warfare often extracted
tribute from conquered villages; this expanded into feudalism as
some of the conquerors remained behind to collect on behalf of the
others.  Rome and Greece became imperial systems based on warfare. 
4) Settled agriculture developed about 10,000 years ago and, about
4,000 years ago, hydraulic societies developed near river systems
to irrigate crops.  The surplus food permitted a great division of
labor and, most say, very complex stratification systems.  5)
Industrial Capitalism came along in the 18th century to upset all
these economic arrangements.  Feudalism, slavery and primitive
communism were pushed aside as capitalists replaced kings and
workers replaced serfs, peasants, and slaves.  There are two other
economic systems which have had little success: bureaucratic
socialism had some limited success early on but collapsed in its
rigidity and inability to improve the means of production. 
Advanced Communism has yet to be instituted.  See also Market
Socialism.

Economic forms, Parallel.  Wage labor is the only way those who do
not own capital can 'reunite production and distribution.' However,
there are many parallel economic systems in every 'capitalist'
society, indeed most goods and services produced in the USA are
available through these other systems.  The more important economic
systems which parallel and thus moderate capitalism include:

     1)  The family system continues to be a very active economic
     system; most goods bought in the marketplace are later re-
     distributed on the basis of status within kinship systems. 
     Many goods and services are produced and distributed within
     the family system on the basis of status rather than profit.

     2)  The social welfare system of the state which re-distribute
     tax dollars to rich and poor alike.

     3) Private charity: Red Cross, Good Will, the Community Chest,
     Church stores as well as private foundations give away
     billions to rich and poor alike.

     4) Crime is a very large economic system in the USA; some say
     8%; some say 25% of the gross national product is in corporate
     crime, street crime, white collar crime and, of course,
     organized crime.

     5) A 'grey' market in which friends, neighbors and other
     people exchange labor instead of cash in order to avoid
     taxation.

Economic Imperialism: The use of state power by multinational
corporations to ensure cheap docile labor, access to natural
resources and easy entry into the markets of weaker, poorer
countries.  Japan, Germany and the U.S. are the major capitalist
nations involved in the practice while the Soviet Union [1977]
engages in a modified version with respect to socialist countries.

Economics, Demand Side:  A view that the best way to prevent
economic depressions or to get out of them is to make sure
capitalists get high enough profits such that they can invest in
new factories, outlets and products.  Compare to Economics, Supply
Side.

Economics, Supply Side:  A view that depressions are best handled
by increasing wages or decreasing taxes of ordinary citizens in
order that they may buy the products and services and thus
stimulate the economy.  See Economics, Supply Side.

Economism: A term which helps warn against the tendency to turn
social revolution into bread and butter issues as trade unions
often do.  This tendency may leave capitalist relations intact as
in American worker movements or minimize the marxian emphasis upon
worker self-management, praxis and community as in U.S.S.R. (After
Rosa Luxemburg).

Ecriture Feminine:  In French postmodern feminist theory, the
question is whether it is even possible to cultivate a 'grammar,'
a way of knowing and speaking, freed from the misogynous/sexist
trappings of masculine culture and male-speak. This is an important
enterprise. Establishing such a grammar would open the door to new
vistas of meaning, different expressions of truth, alternative ways
of knowing and empower women in their daily lives. However, some
postmodern feminists have considered whether the question itself
might not be cloaked in the logic of masculine thought. After all,
developing such a code distances women from men in an sharp,
precise way. This is how men understand social phenomena, human
relations, and feminine consciousness, according to several
postmodern feminists. Thus, on the one hand, a grammar is needed
for empowering women; but, on the other hand, the process of
producing such a code would further legitimize masculine ways of
being/thinking in the lives of women.

Ecstasy:  Greek: ex = out; histanai = to  stand.  In pre-modern
knowledge processes, ecstasy was one of the major pathways to
truth.  One put one's own concerns aside and enters into a state of
rapture in which divine truth is revealed.  In modern thinking,
ecstasy is understood as a form of madness to be treated by
psychiatry.  Many postmodern religions return to ecstasy as a valid
source of insight and enlightenment; especially feminist religions.

Education:  Latin: e = from; ducere = draw out; to draw out of
young people the knowledge which lays dormant in them.  Socrates
assumed that people were born with all the knowledge of the gods
but that birth was so traumatic that there was a forgetting.  The
role of the teacher was to draw out that knowledge.  Contrast to
inculcate which means to 'put in' or socialize.  In the USA, the
educational system has complex effect; on the one hand, it is one
of the most egalitarian and open systems in the world; on the other
hand, it still tracks people into class, racial and gender systems
of inequality.  Capitalism requires an ever-improving knowledge
system; this results in great distress from those who ground the
knowledge process upon holy books.  American education is also torn
between efforts to keep costs down and to teach each student
effectively.  The recent trend is toward larger classes, less
equality and more technicized education...but hang in there; there
is much to learn and much to teach.

Education, revolutionary: A form of education in which cognitive,
emotional and political capacities are developed and critical use
of them encouraged in the classroom and out within a framework of
community.  The line between teacher and pupil is eliminated;
cooperation rather than competition marks the progress of the
class.

Education, technical: The prevailing form of education in the U.S.
is one in which strong and well designed business and industrial
systems are the subject of lectures, workshops, and seminars rather
than self-systems, social systems or cultural systems.  One may
look at the catalog of any major "university" to observe the degree
to which the technical-rational interest is served at the expense
of the hermeneutic or critical interest.

Egalitarian [society]: Equality in social arrangements.  A society
based on the principle that all are entitled to equal treatment and
rights in the society.  The point of an egalitarian society is not
that everyone is treated exactly alike (as in a massified
bureaucratic system), but rather that everyone is accorded full
status as a human being to produce culture.  There can be very
different roles and different rewards in such societies but none
are excluded by reason of birth.

Ego:  Latin: ego = I.  Used in freudian psychology, the ego is seen
to be the mediator between the id [unconscious desire for life or
for death] and the superego.  The id is the source of the pleasure
principle [not just genital sex] while the ego embodies the reality
principle.  The superego develops from society and its demands for
sacrifice of self and 'primitive impulses' [the wish for pleasure
or for peace; the death wish].  Father is representative of society
and its demands thus become a hated object in the unconscious. 
Mother embodies the pleasure principle and thus is the object of
incestuous desire.  The aim of freudian psychiatry is to strengthen
the ego and improve its capacity to control/channel the impulses of
id and to mediate the demands of father/society while transferring
desire from mother to more mature sexual relationships.

Eidetic:  Plato used the term to refer to the 'essence of a thing.' 
Husserl used it to refer to the natural categories of thought and
perception into which human beings fit sense data.  In husserlian
phenomenology, one sets aside [brackets] all particular aspects of
a thing so that its essence will 'shine forth.'  Postmodern
phenomenology sets aside both eidos and eidetic reduction as human
devices rather than intrinsic 'essences' of a thing.

Einstein, Albert (1879-1955):  In three short years, Einstein
published four articles which changed the field of physics; his
work on light, gravity, and philosophy of science continues to find
confirmation.  He dropped the notion of absolute time/space and
thereby helped solve several problems in physics.  The new view is
that findings are valid only within a special inertial system. 
Einstein accepted the god concept as the orderly harmony found in
nature; was a pacifist who wrote President Roosevelt urging
research which lead to the atomic bomb and nuclear energy; argued
for a Jewish nation in Palestine, socialism as well as an
international political order dedicated to peace and social
justice.  Feminists point out that his wife was a mathematician [he
had failed math in school] and did the math which supported the
theory.  Einstein did not list her as co-author and left her for
another woman.  Einstein was more complex than his theories.  

Electra Complex, the:  The hidden desire, according to Freud, of a
girl to replace mother as the wife and lover of father.  Named
after Electra, a tragic figure in Greek literature who convinced
her brother Orestes to kill their mother, Clytemnestra and her
lover, Aegistthus who had after they murdered her father,
Agamemnon.  Freud used a play by Sophocles to generate this
pathology said to be peculiar to women and the source of
illegitimate children...the girl selects an undesirable boy to
father a child which she then, symbolically, offers to her father
as proof of her own desirable sexuality...weird, is it not?

Eleventh Thesis: Philosophers have only interpreted the world in
various ways; the point is to change it.  This is Marx' comment on
the role of depolicitized science, religion and politics.  Lenin
too said that one best understands social reality when one
participates in the building and rebuilding of it.

Elite:  French: ‚lire = elect.  Early on, the elect/elite referred
to those selected by God to manage on His behalf, the affairs of
the world.  Now it refers to a set of persons who control policy
and practices in a stratified system; a group privileged on the
basis of wealth, race, gender or position in a bureaucracy/formal
organization and thus carries pejorative content with those on the
Left.  See Stewardship.

Elitism: A set of complex beliefs that the masses are not fit for
the creation of political and ideological culture while they are
only too well suited for the production of material culture.  The
elite then claim a large part of the material production as their
due for producing ideological and political culture! In the U.S.,
50% of the people claim 90% of the wealth produced.  Those engaged
in the production of ideological culture (sometimes called
professionals): doctors, lawyers, sports figures, professors,
judges, actors and those engaged in the production of political
culture; managers, politicians, wardens, psychiatrists,
administrators, public relations and advertising executives claim
salaries 8, 20, 40, 100 or 1000 times greater than those who
produce material culture (unless the workers are organized and
bargain in which case, the margin declines a bit).

Emancipation: A transformation of society such that individuals are
liberated to create various forms of human culture; art, science,
music, religion, and the process of self-creation as human beings. 
Not to be confused with political emancipation in which people may
vote once in a while and, between times, assign their own social
power to the state.  The socialist vision is that there is/should
be an interactively rich and informationally rich discussion and
debate prior to direct votes on social policy questions.

Emancipation of the Senses: The beginning of the radical impulse in
Marx was his understanding that human freedom is rooted in the hu-
man sensibility: The senses do not just "receive" what is given to
them, they transform, interpret, form and discover that which
exists or may exist.  In a society based on alienated, divided
labor people perceive things as they are given by bosses and
managers; made by owners and elites; used by the existing society. 
In a repressive society, new emancipatory forms are forbidden. 
Breaking out of this prison requires breaking away from alienated
society and emancipating the senses of each and every adult person
once again to interpret, transform and discover.  See Praxis.

Emancipatory science: a system of research and critique by which
the human interests in change and renewal toward a rational and
decent society are served.  Contrast to positivism (empiricism)
which describes what is in such a way as to lead the student to
believe that what is must be.  Contrast also with "objective"
science which purports (incorrectly) to be unconnected to human
interests.  Emancipatory science is always in dialectic conflict
with existing social forms and is served by conflict methodology
(which see).

Embourgeoisiement: The thesis that workers are gradually becoming
middle class in that they earn more and live the middle class life
style.  Such views often overlook the loss of control over the
means of production and confuses between possession of consumer
goods and ownership of productive property.  One should not select
the better paid workers in the 1st world as case in point to prove
the thesis while ignoring exploitation and oppression in the 3rd
world upon which the comforts and securities of 1st World workers
so much depends.  See proletarianization, immiseration.

Emergence theory: The assumption that the whole is greater than the
sum of the parts.  Thus, the characteristics of a sugar molecule
cannot be understood in terms of a complete knowledge of the
attributes of the included atoms taken one at a time.  In social
terms, self, society, and culture are emergent in that individuals
acting alone cannot produce these items.  Social power is social in
that it emerges from the coordinated labor of many--hence it cannot
be the "property" of one except by force or fraud.

Eminent Domain:  The right of the state to take property for the
general good.  The thought is that there is a higher law of
property which gives private persons temporary use and benefits of
property for a life-time; these rights can be set aside by the
claim that land belongs [is in the domain] of the larger community.

Emotion, sociology of:  A new branch which attempts to make visible
the ways in which positive or negative feeling or thinking is
buried in words, social roles, social processes or social groups. 
The discipline assumes that most if not all emotional responses are
preshaped and given form within a socio-cultural complex; anger,
hate, jealousy, love, compassion, indifference and disgust are all,
equally encouraged, elicited, forbidden or required in social life.
Contrast to the assumption that emotions are natural responses
arising from purely physical or psychological processes.

Empathy:  Greek: empeiria = experienced with or  skilled at.  The
term refers to the capacity of one person to know and to respond to
the pain or problems of another person.

Empiricism: Greek: empeiria = experienced in; skilled at.  In
modern science, it is the philosophical position that "real
knowledge" is gained through measurement and observation."  It
takes the view that if something exists or is true, you can measure
it.  A problem arises when, in empiricism, quantity is made the
focus of attention at the expense of quality.  Empiricism tends to
freeze all of history in present findings.  Empiricism also leads
one to suppose that social relations are controlled by external and
eternal "laws" of nature made visible by statistics.  Such a view
minimizes the role of judgment, intent, and human activity in
producing society.  The radical position is that three
methodologies are necessary to a rational and decent society. 
Empiricism (also called positivism) is informed by the human
interest in prediction and control.  Marxists argue that
hermeneutics and emancipatory science are also necessary.  But see
Knowledge, Sociology of.

Enclosure acts:  In Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and
elsewhere, the land of serfs [which see] and common lands were
enclosed by the nobility in order to change to commercial farming
[sheep, wheat, sugar, tea, coffee, bananas, cocaine, wine grapes
and beef cattle.

     Serfs and peasants were forced off the land into towns and
cities where they had to sell their labor power to whomever would
hire them.  Some of their children turned to petty crime,
prostitution and domestic service.  Others migrated to the
Americas, Australia or New Zealand; there to take by force the land
from hunting and gathering peoples.  Enclosures produced new ways
of social life and a whole new set of problems never before seen in
human history.

Encoding:  The process of assigning meaning to a particular sign in
a particular sign system (see Semiotics). For example: the phrase
"the mentally ill" is a sign-phrase. It can be interpreted (i.e.,
encoded) in one of several ways. In the language of psychiatric
medicine such a person is often understood as in need of treatment,
or diseased.  In the language of religion, the person is often
defined as 'touched by God,' or 'invaded by Satan.' Depending upon
the code through which one intends to convey meaning, a particular
encoded regard for the sign "the mentally ill" will result.

Endogamy:  A marriage norm which restricts marriage partners to
those in the same ethnic group.  Most forms of intimacy occur
within the same class, race, ethnic or religious groupings.  The
trend is to more open marriage/intimacy norms.

Engels, Friedrich (1820-1895):  A wealthy German Industrialist,
friend, colleague and co-author of the Manifesto with Marx.  Born
to manufacturing wealth, Engels first entered the military but
resigned next year.  He used his wealth to help the working class
movement and, over the years, became an economic, historian,
philosopher and revolutionary.  He gave the Marx family
considerable financial help and took responsibility for the natural
child of a maid fathered by Marx.  After Marx' death, Engels
continued the struggle for social justice.  He is credited with
collaboration on The Holy Family, the German Ideology, Anti-
Duhring, and Origin of the Family among other works.

Empirical investigation: The method of acquiring primary knowledge
by direct sensory observation, experimentation in order to test
hypotheses.  The method works well with simple dynamics of physical
phenomena but has only limited utility with complex systems,
especially those founded upon meaning, intention and purpose.

End of Ideology: A thesis that all the political questions of a
good society have been worked out and all that remains is to set up
the technical means by which to handle social problems.  This view
(a)tends to freeze society in one historical moment and (b)preempts
all future history while (c)eliminating human beings from the
production of political culture.  The thesis was put forth by a
liberal theorist, Daniel Bell.  With the collapse of bureaucratic
socialism, many in the West believe that all economic history has
ended, that all that is left to do is to extend capitalism to other
parts of the world and the system is complete.  Chaos/Complexity
theory teaches us that history never ends; never repeats itself
with the precision required by 'modern' science.

Endogamous marriage: Marriage within the same social class or
ethnic, tribal, racial, religious, or national group.  Such a rule
continues existing cleavages in society while, at the same time, it
protects ethnic enclaves in a complex society.

Engels, Frederich (1821-1895): Partner, sponsor, and co-author of
important articles on political economy, Engels contributed much to
"marxian" theory including the criticism of capitalism for turning
all values into cash commodities, the view that small business
persons are thrown into the proletariat as capitalism progresses,
the view that class struggles increase in size and importance and
will lead to a revolution abolishing capitalism and bringing a
communist society. (After Struik)  Some fault Engels for an over-
emphasis on economic determinism and 'historical necessity.'

Enlightenment, the:  A period in 18th century Europe characterized
by a faith in the ability of science to 'enlighten' human beings by
discovery of all the Laws of Nature and society.  It used a slogan
from I. Kant, 'Dare to Know,' and inspired the works of John Locke,
Racine, Moli‚re, Bach and Rembrandt.  It remains the center point
of modern science knowledge process pushing aside both pre-modern
and post-modern knowledge processes [see which].  Hegel and many
others assumed that precise knowledge about nature and society was
possible; that rational, linear methodology was essential to the
discovery of such laws and that such rationality would be found in
the state guided by scientists.  The god concept was reduced to
that of a creative and indifferent watch-maker who used very
precise tools to build the cosmos but no longer interfered in it.

     The pre-modern critique is that faith, belief, trust, hope and
inspiration were foundational to the knowledge process; that a
Divine Spirit still watches, judges and intervenes to reward and to
punish.  The Postmodern critique is that rationality and linearity
are greatly over-used; that human beings pick and chose the
problems to research, the concepts to sort with, the findings to
apply and the truths to turn into public policy.  All this and more
makes the knowledge process more political than enlightening.

Epoch‚:  A Greek word meaning, to suspend judgment.  Pyrrho used
the word as a solution to the problem of knowledge; one simply
suspend judgment and found ataraxia, pleasure/tranquility.  Husserl
used it in his modernist phenomenology in order to engage in the
process of reducing understanding of a thing to its essence.  He
called this eidetic reduction.  Eidos = essence.

Entelechy: Greek; en = in, inside; telos = actuality, reality +
enchein = to have, to hold.  The word refers to the idea that
inside a thing is the tendency to realize its complete and perfect
nature.  An axiom of modern, rationalist phenomenology, it assumes
that social categories are natural and that there is a tendency for
each to change in such a direction as achieve perfection.  The idea
that there is some natural destiny toward all persons, things and
societies tend.  See Phenomenology, postmodern.

Equity: Latin; equality.  In English law, that part of law which
sought substantive justice more so than technical judgments.  It
began as an appeal to the King for justice; usually advised by a
priest, the King was to set aside rational but unfair judgments in
favor of a higher form of justice.  Equity in US law places the
responsibility for higher justice in appeals courts but juries can
refuse to follow the judge's instructions in the interest of such
justice...not often known or used, but still a point of law in
equity.

Equity, maxims of:  There are many maxims which inform the quest
for social justice; many arise in the long history of the law and
its change toward egalitarian applications.  Among the more
memorable and useful are: 1) Equity will not suffer a wrong without
a remedy, 2) Equity follows the law unless there is good reason not
to, 3) Equity looks at intent rather than form, 4)  Prior equity
takes precedent over other equities, 5) S/he who seeks equity must
do equity, 6) S/he who seeks equity must come with clean hands, 7)
equity does not assist inequity.

Erotic/Eroticism:  Greek, eros = love.  Today, any art, music or
literature which facilitates mutually rewarding and enjoyable
sexual relationships.  Erotic art is fulfilling to the human
project when it is used to affirm sensuality and sexual passion
expressed in a mutually rewarding and enjoyable relationship.
See Pornography for contrasting used of art.

Entelechy:  The ability of a form to realize itself in perfection
[after Aristotle.  Used to claim that there is a natural destiny
built into each natural and social system toward which the system
strives.  Compare to the humanist belief that human beings,
increasingly, have choices to make about how to organize family,
religious, economic and political life; it is not at all pre-
decided.

Entrepreneur:  One who seizes opportunities as they come along.  In
capitalism, an entrepreneur is one who invests capital and hires
workers to create a new product or service.

Entropy.  Disorder, random arrangement, probability, noise, or
chaos.  There are a lot of ways to refer to entropy depending upon
the phenomena studied but the term simply means that nothing has
any relationship to anything else.  In sociology, a mass society
embodies the sense of unrelatedness specified by the term.  Social
relationships are fragmented, solidarity is low and each is alone
or in small groups with his/her own problems of survival.

Epicurianism:  A school of social philosophy founded in Athens in
the year 306 BCE by Epicurus.  The school stressed atomic theory of
matter, direct empirical observation as the source of knowledge and
trust in one's senses to judge facts.  It laid the groundwork for
modern philosophies of science and social policy.  Souls and minds
are seen as swiftly moving atoms; perception is possible by
grasping the outline [eidola] of complex bodies.  Epicurus taught
that there must be a God since we are receiving 'outlines' of the
divine all the time especially in dreams.  The goal of life, he
taught was happiness as much as knowledge; happiness is 'ataraxia'
a state of pleasure enjoyed in tranquility.  Prudence is a guide
for happiness; 'we cannot live in pleasure without living wisely
and nobly and righteously.'  Epicureanism has come to mean a life
of indulgence and often carries negative content by those who do
not know the full dimensions of the philosophy.

Epiphenomena: Greek: epi = side, phainomenon = appearance.  The
idea that some features of a thing observed are accidental or
trivial aspects and can safely be ignored.  There is an
epistemological trick here which allows one to set a category or
establish a truth by conveniently ignoring that which does not fit. 
For example, in Boyle's Law, the actual behavior of billions of gas
molecules is set aside for an average value of temperature,
pressure and volume.  This allows one to derive precise predictions
while the actual behavior of such  molecules is unpredictable.

     In behaviorist psychology, the mind is said to be epiphenomena
and thus drives, motives, needs, desires, anxieties, expectations,
obligations, duties, norms, values, opinions and other mental
factors and processes are set aside in explaining human behavior.

Epistemology: The study of how reliable knowledge is possible. 
Some say that the world is fully knowable; some say that only an
intellect such as that of God can know everything; some say that
while much can be known, still there are uncertainties and
surprises which are beyond the reach of the most powerful theory or
research technology.  Chaos theory provides a grounding for the
later view.  See also Modern, Pre-modern and Postmodern views of
the knowledge process.

     The marxist position is that human knowledge is actively
created by human beings engaged in producing culture.  In such a
process, humans reify epistemological categories (categories of
thought) into ontological categories (categories of really existing
things.) Self, social relations, social institutions, and other
cultural facts are known (reliably), according to Marx, in the act
of creating them as such by intending trusting, insightful humans. 
This view differs from the position that knowledge about nature and
society is completely independent of human consciousness and
interaction.  This is one of the most interesting and challenging
parts of the politics of science.

Epistemological Category: an idea or thought category which has no
facticity or realness in and of itself.  Chaos/complexity theory
teaches us that there is a deep and often very loose connection
between all systems at all levels of system dynamics.  To mark
boundaries between these connected systems is a political act;
convenient but distorting of the reality they propose to clarify.

EPM: The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.  They
contain much of the humanist/democratic thrust of Marx' work.  They
were re-discovered and published only in 1932.  By 1932, social and
cultural factors worked to establish marxism as merely dogmatic
economic and materialist doctrine.  EPM created a revolution in
marxism which infused it with a humanism and a concern for the
individual as an active/potential creator of a decent society. 
This polemic continues to be the central point at dispute between
the "structuralists" and the "praxis" wings of marxism (1977).

Eschatology:  Greek, eschatos = last things, logos = study of. 
Jewish and early Christian theology held that God would send
another Savior at the end of a 1000 years [see millennium]. At that
time, there would be a last judgment, people would either be saved
or condemned to one of the circles of hell.  More optimistic views
of these last things include a time of peace and social justice for
all.  The year 2000 will see a lot of speculation on last things
and last days.

Estate system:  Estate = standing; social honor.  A system of
stratification in which one group owns the land and other groups
must give both labor and harvest to them.  The Feudal system had
four estates, see which.

Ethics:  Greek, ethikos, = custom or usage.  In philosophy, it is
a study of that which is right and good to do.  One can talk about
a set of rules with which to guide behavior or about the larger
human interests which guide the selection of these rules.  Pre-
modern philosophies tend to use the Word of God [as interpreted by
a priesthood] as the source of ethical behavior.  Christians tend
to argue that one should do onto others what one would have them do
unto her/him self.  Modern utilitarians argue that ethical behavior
begins with the idea that the greatest good for the greatest number
of people sets the stage for determination of ethical behavior. 
Kant argued that the Moral Imperative was that one should do that
which s/he would have as a universal law.  Nihilist postmodern
thought argues that all ethics serves special interests and cannot
be universalized; affirmative postmodern thought tends to accept
that are transcendent rules for all human behavior across all
societies but these have to be flexible and often accommodating to
contradictory lines of behavior.  This is the major question for
all good and decent people to ask and answer in their own lives.

Ethnic: 1. The word often refers to the social and cultural traits
of immigrants (and possibly their descendants) to the U.S. Think
"foreign culture." The word is often associated with lower-middle
class and upper-lower class persons who are generally Catholic
descendants of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, plus
many of Irish descent.  For example, those Italian-Americans who
are discernibly of Italian descent are an ethnic group.  2. That
cultural complex which makes a group unique in history irrespective
of biological heritage.  Often confused with "race, which see."

Ethnicity: A person's discernable ethnic background.  Not
necessarily the same as nationality.  There have been some 3 to
4000 discernible cultural/ethnic life worlds.  Today the political
question is how to honor such diversity without the hierarchy or
exploitation so often seen.  A second political question is whether
ethnicity is biologically or culturally determined.  Most marxists
hold that one's ethnic background is a cultural rather than a
biological fact.

Ethnocentrism: The belief that the values, practices, and general
social set-up of one's own native culture are superior to all
others.  Such a view tends to justify exploitation by more militant
societies.

Ethnomethodology: Literally, folk methods: the study of the folk
methods used to construct social reality.  Just as grammar deals
with the rules with which language is used to create meaning,
ethnomethodology attempts to clarify the rules of social
interaction is used to create meaning by interacting people.  After
Garfinkel.  This body of work stands in contrast to those who hold
that the regularities found in human behavior arise from genes,
instincts, physiology or purely psychological processes.

Ethos: The special character of a society.  "To be French means one
thing, to be German another and to be American means scarcely
anything at all." As a society becomes a mass society, it loses the
capacity to create culture and, thereby, loses any special
character.

Euclid/euclidean geometry:  Euclid (3rd c. BCE) was a Greek
mathematician and the founder of euclidean geometry which specified
three dimensions and clear boundaries as well as precise
mathematical relationships between these aspects of space and the
things within it.  For three centuries, euclidean algebra was
taught as the major pathway to understand the features of real
objects or systems.  It was thought that all non-euclidean
geometries were merely imaginary games.  Today, there is
considerable evidence that nature does not fit euclidean geometry. 
Mandelbrot developed his Fractal Geometry of nature and developed
a method to quantify fractal forms.  String theory in physics
suggests there may be as many as 26 dimensions in nature. 
Postmodern philosophers of science say that such dimensions are a
feature of our ways of looking at nature and society.

Evil:  Anglo-Saxon; yfel = the opposite and opponent of good.  In
many religions, evil is an equal force at war with good.  In
Buddhism, evil comes from desire; the solution to evil is to
eliminate desire for wealth, status and power.  Martin Luther King
located evil in class and racist structures as do most people in
liberation theology, which see.  The postmodern view is that evil
is a human category/label and is a product of social relations.

Evolution, (Organic):  A theory and body of facts which support the
idea that living organisms evolved from the simple to the complex
via competition, a struggle for survival, survival of the fittest
and chance changes in genetic patterns some of which made survival
more likely.  Charles Darwin is credited with the first systematic
statement and extensive research to support the theory.  There are
many skips, jumps, twists and reversals in plant, animal and human
evolution which lead some to suppose a God created each species and
continues to create new species.  A revision of Darwin called
'Punctuated Equilibrium' explains these jumps empirically rather
than theologically.  More generally, Chaos theory can be used to
explain many of such sudden, inexplicable changes; this does not
mean that all miracles and mysteries can be explained
scientifically; there is always room for doubt, wonder and poetic
genius.

Evolution, (Social): Generally, a view that society is changing for
the better as a consequence of the struggle for survival in which
the best (fittest) social forms survive.  There are many well-known
generalizations about the direction of evolution among which are;
the transition from religious to scientific societies (Comte), the
transition of social relations from status to contract (Sir Henry
Maine), the transition of human bonds from mechanical to organic
solidarity (Durkheim), from traditional to legal-rational authority
(Weber), from sacred to secular social life (Becker), from
community to society (Tonnies), from the simple to the complex
(Spencer) and from trial and error in social evolution to
scientific self-control of society (Ward).  Most such theories
celebrate what ever benefits their sponsors.  There is a little
evidence that things are getting better and certainly no assurance
that things get better all by themselves.  See social darwinism.

Exchange Rate: Every country in the world has its own kind of
money; in the U.S., it's dollars; in Japan, yen.  When companies
from different countries trade with each other, they expect to be
paid in their own country's currency.  Weyerhauser Corporation
doesn't particularly want to receive yen for the sale of its logs
in Japan.  Lumberjacks in Oregon have to be paid in dollars; yen
wouldn't do them much good.  Thus, international bankers are
constantly exchanging one country's money for another's.  The rate
at which they are traded (1976: $1 = 300 yen) is called the
exchange rate.  When the number of yen that $1 will buy falls, the
dollar is not worth as much as it once was.  This means that
imports from Japan are now more expensive while exports from the
USA are cheaper.  The U.S. used to be in a favored position in the
exchange process but other capitalist countries forced a new method
of exchange.  This added to the fiscal crisis in the U.S. since
profits fall even as production increases.

Exchange Value:  When one sets the value of one good or service in
terms of the value of another good or service, one has established
the exchange value of both [Leontiev].  Many goods and services are
given on the basis of need and/or out of pure delight in the giving
rather than in terms of some calculated return one might get.  See
also use value and do see the postmodern view of how value is set.

Exclusionary rule:  A legal term which considers the ways in which
evidence against a person was collected.  The 4th Amendment to the
US Constitution forbids illegal seizures and searches and provides
that people are to be secure in their homes from the state.

Existentialism: Founded by Kierkegaard (1813-55), existentialism
sees people in a state of profound tension always haunted by a
sense of sin and their betrayal of their God.  The outlook is
pessimistic: at best individuals can come to terms with their God
and, failing that, lose God and face le Neant, nothingness.  Modern
existentialism (after Sartre) connects human anguish to a poorly
designed social life world but retains an interest in the intense
personal struggle of (wo)man; an element structuralists often
neglect in a one-sided concentration on class and political
struggle.  Like-wise, structuralist charge existentialist with
giving too much freedom and personal responsibility for her/his
fate.

Exogamy:  Greek; exo = out, outside = gamy = mate, mating.  A
social norm which requires one marry or mate outside one's clan,
tribe or sib.  See endogamy.

Expansion: Firms only produce in order to make money.  In periods
of prosperity, when it is easy for them to do just that, the
economy expands--firms hire more workers because it's a profitable
thing to do; more people in jobs means that more is produced; if
all the increased product is sold, more income is generated. 
Expansion means that output, income, and sales are growing.  During
periods of extended expansion, the bargaining power of labor rises
because jobs are not so scarce.  But, as capital intensive
production increases, fewer workers are needed and expansion slows
down since demand drops.  Then too, workers don't get paid 100% of
the exchange value since they earn only the value of their labor
(which can be very low given an army of surplus workers).  The
state often intervenes with deficit spending to renew the expansion
cycle.  As long as capitalism can expand with new products or new
markets, it can survive but there are problems: expansion means
using up natural resources faster, polluting air and water,
fighting other capitalists for markets, squeezing out small
business, bribing buyers, getting the state To purchase goods and
to stimulate the economy.  Taxes increase and the middle classes
get angry.  See also Depression, keynesian economics and
kondratieff curves.

Exploitation: This term not only refers to the process by which the
wealth is taken from the people who produce it, but refers to the
more general process by which the capacity to produce culture is
impaired by claims of private ownership of the means to produce
both material wealth and culture.  Farm workers who don't get
enough food when working for Del Monte is an example of the first. 
The use of mass media to merchandize commodities instead of public
discourse is an example of the latter, more general form of
exploitation. (After L. Crocker)

Exploitation, super.  Wages below the level for the reproduction of
labor power.  Each set of workers needs enough to reproduce itself;
to get ready to work the next day, week and year.  The amount of
work needed to do this is called Necessary Labor [see which].

Expropriation: Socialist economic theory holds that most rich
people get rich by 'expropriating' the surplus value of the labor
of the working class.  This means they take the wealth that is
produced by one class and use it to support a very nice life style
for another class; using force and ideologies to justify it.  There
are three ways to expropriate: interest, rent and dividends [see
which].  Sometimes corporations fix prices or bribe politicians to
increase the rate of expropriation [see corporate crime].  Marx
argued that the Expropriators must be expropriated.  Cubans
expropriated the land and factories which were abandoned after the
1959 revolution; Sandinistas expropriated the farms and firms left
when the bourgeoisie fled to Brazil and Miami after the 1979
revolution there.  Sometimes liberal states expropriate wealth via
taxation.  Criminals expropriate through force or fraud.  White
collar criminals steal from the corporation using the knowledge
they have to or by taking bribes...there are lots of ways to
'recycle' wealth.  Best that the surplus value go directly to
common needs and not have all this war and crime.

Extended family: This is a type of family organization, often found
in traditional or folk societies, in which several generations and
a broad collection of blood and marriage related kin live together
in a single dwelling or close collection of dwellings.  Compare
with nuclear family.  In recent times a "family" is often a
collectivity of unrelated persons who take brother-sisterhood
seriously.  The types of family organization has exploded in the
past 50 years as capitalism erodes the ability of people to live in
extended families and as market considerations force people to
migrant to look for jobs and/or safe haven.  Commodification and
materialism also destroy social relationships in the family since
people don't want to share with children, brothers, parents or
other kin.  See Yuppies, Dinks, Swinks and Monks.

Externalization: The process by which humans attribute their essen-
tial properties to a God through worship or attribute their hopes
and dreams to another person through charisma.  At the same time,
the evils (faults) in a social system are denied by projecting them
on to a devil, witch or a scapegoat.

Fabianism: A socialist movement advocating a slow, peaceful and
parliamentary road to socialism.  It was founded in England in 1884
and gets its name from the Fabian Society [after a cautious Roman
general, Quintus Fabius].  It's most famous members are George
Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, G.D.H. Cole and H.G. Wells.
The society founded the London School of Economics and helped found
the Labour Party.  The Labour party looked beyond the immediate
wage/work process interests of workers to help institute many of
the social justice programs; free education, health care, housing
allowances and pensions for all citizens.

Factors in Production:  Land, labor and capital goods, sometimes
entrepreneurship.  In capitalist economics, each factor is entitled
to its share; rent for land, wages/salaries for workers, interest
and dividends for capital and royalties/fees for entrepreneurs.
Socialists regard labor as the sole creator of wealth; these
categories are seen to be inventions to justify expropriation. 
Capital is thus wealth created by previous workers; land is a gift
of nature which does not have Value until worked by labor.

Face rights: The right of a person to enter into the construction
of a given social occasion.  Sometimes a ticket gives face rights;
sometimes a complicated rite of passage is required.  In mass
societies, face rights are obliterated as impersonal routines are
instituted.

Facticity: The degree to which a given social event is real. 
Facticity of social phenomena (and perhaps physical events also)
varies from 0 to 1 ; from sheer phantasy to hard, palpable
thingness.  The facticity of an event depends upon a number of
factors chief among which is the adequacy of the reification
process.  Social occasions are assembled and dismantled routinely
in everyday life and so the facticity of social reality varies.

Faith: Latin  fidere = to trust.  In premodern sensibility, faith
involves a commitment to the god figure.  This concept too, is
often used to denote a particular set of beliefs, e.g., one is a
member of a 'faith.'  This second meaning is often used in modern
sensibility to dismiss the importance of spiritual and religious
sensibility which underlies all symbolic interaction and all group
behavior irrespective of other beliefs.

     Most hold that reason and faith are incompatible. Modern
philosophy of knowledge sets faith aside in favor of reason and
logic as a means for determining that which should be believed. 
Postmodern theologians and social psychologists see faith as one of
the many social psychological capacities central to the process by
which affirmative social relations and social facts are
constituted.  Faith, hope, trust, belief and suspension of doubt
are social psychological capacities necessary to such social
constructions.

Faith, social psychology of: One of the basic social psychological
capacities developed in pre-modern knowledge processes and
inculcated in early childhood.  The capacity to believe, to trust,
to cooperate and to have faith in things unseen is basic to all
self-fulfilling prophecies by which social realities are
constructed.

Fallacies [of thinking]:  Latin: fallacy = trick, deceit, fraud. 
Those  who place logic at the center of the truth process also rise
logical fallacies to the center of the falsification process: if
illogical, then wrong.  In both pre-modern and postmodern knowledge
processes, inconsistent and illogical truth claims can be valid in
so far as 1) faith, hope, belief and trust are involved in the
construction of social life (see the 'self-fulfilling prophecy,'
and in so far as 2) complex dynamical regimes produced non-linear
behavior of natural and social systems (see Chaos Theory). 
However, there remain many tricks of speech and thought used to
deceive and to defraud people, it is worth learning about these:

1)The Fallacy of Amphiboly: the use of words in such a way that
more than one interpretation is possible as in: I'll pay you soon. 
The word, soon, has many interpretations; it could mean later
today, next week or next month.

2)The Fallacy of Accent: the practice of shifting the emphasis of
a key word to render it trivial during an argument in order to win 
the argument.  I am a good teacher [Dr. Smith is a poor teacher, I
am better than he; therefore I am a good teacher].  The meaning of
'good' shifts from an absolute quality referring to all teachers to
a particular quality referring to a conveniently low standard of
teaching. 

3) The Fallacy of Equivocation: selection of a different meaning of
the same word in order to confuse an opponent: think of the word,
bad and how many different meanings it offers in a argument.

4) The Fallacy of Composition:  the practice of attributing the
property of a part to the whole as in: She got a bad grade
therefore she is a bad student.  [Some people who get bad grades
may well be poor student but one might be a very good student but
might have been ill, might have had to work during the review
session or might have been verbally abused by the teacher at some
time during the test]. 

5) The Fallacy of Division: the practice of attributing the
property of the whole to that of all its parts:  Blue people
average higher scores on I.Q. tests than Green people, I am Blue,
therefore I am smarter and more deserving than all Green people.

6) The Fallacy of Slanting: the use of positive or negative words
to win an argument as in:  Men are assertive; women are pushy.

7) The Fallacy of Reification:  The practice of treating something
variable and complex as if it were one and only one kind of
reality: all workers are lazy; all women are passive; all
politicians are crooked; all lawyers are dishonest.

8) The Fallacy of Personification:  The practice of treating an
inanimate thing or animal as if it were a human being as in: Don't
Mess with Mother Nature, or; I  My Jaguar.

9) Appeal to Force: The use of force or bribery to persuade as in:
Vote the way I say and all my top employees will donate to your
campaign fund.

10) Poisoning the Well: The use of a minor fault of flaw of a
person to discredit the argument on a different issue as in:
Detective Smith is a racist, therefore my client is innocent.

11) Appeal to Pity, Mercy, Compassion as in: He is a war hero,
therefore we should elect him Senator.

12) Appeal from Authority (Ipse Dixit): Johnny Cash drinks Folger's
coffee, therefore you should drink Folger's.

13) Appeal from Association (Post hoc, ergo Propter hoc): The use
of a false cause to justify one's action as in: the children of
teen-age mothers get welfare; therefore to prevent teen-age
pregnancy, we should deny these children welfare.

14) Stacking the Deck: The practice of putting the answer in the
question as in: When will you give up your evil ways?  It pre-
supposes that one's ways are indeed evil and by definition should
be given over.

15) Binary Logic (thinking in 'black and white'):  The practice of
giving only two alternatives to a complex question which might call
for an entirely new option as in: Either you are a communist or you
are a loyal American.

16) Argument from Ignorance: The practice of using that which is
not known to prove that something else must therefore be true as
in: God must exist since no one can prove S/he doesn't exist.

17) Hasty (over) Generalization:  The practice of making a
conclusion based upon inadequate observation:  No one has ever
climbed this mountain, therefore no one will ever climb this
mountain.

18) Argument from Analogy:  The use of the attributes on one thing
to explain the working of another thing as in:  All life is jungle
warfare; eat or be eaten, or; all life is a game; there are winners
and losers, or; a factory is a complex machine; workers are merely
exchangeable parts.

19) The Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle Term:  One changes the
first term in a logical argument to make it the middle term and
then distributes it incorrectly as in;  All dogs are mammals; all
cats are mammals, therefore all dogs are cats.  It should be all
female animals with breast milk are mammals; dog and cat females
have breast milk, therefore they are mammals.

20) The Fallacy of the Middle Term: The use of a hidden fourth term
to generate a faulty final term as in:  The end of all life is to
achieve perfection; death is the end of all life, therefore death
is the final perfection.  Notice the ambiguity of the word, end, it
was used in the first term to mean 'objective;' it was changed in
the middle term to mean 'termination.'  But you knew that.

21) The Fallacy of the Major Term: The practice of use of the first
term in such a way which goes beyond its reach as in: All good
students get good grades; no bad students get good grades, he got
a bad grade therefore he is a bad student.  See 4, above.

22) Circular Argument (vicious circle, begging the question; Catch
22, Petitio Principii):   He must be guilty since he is in prison
[being in prison is used as proof of guilt].  He must be deserving
since he has been rewarded with great wealth [being rewarded is
used as proof of merit of reward].

23) The Fallacy of the Minor Term:  the practice of relating the
last term in an argument to the first term in such a way which goes
beyond the premise of the major term as in: All fraternity men
drink too much; all fraternity men are in college, therefore all
college men drink too much.

24) The Fallacy of Denying the Antecedent:  The practice of denying
the minor term in order to deny the major term as in: when it
rains, all streets get wet; it has not rained, therefore the
streets are not wet.  You know that there are other reasons streets
could be wet; the fact that they are wet does not invalidate the
assumption in the first [major term].

25) The Fallacy of logical Thought: The practice of using logic to
judge behavior of complex systems:  all major terms may be valid
and all due respect may be given to sound reasoning but still some
minor terms might be contrary to the major term.  A small change in
tax rates may produce a big and unpredictable change in corporate
crime; a big change in poverty may produce a small change in crime. 
In nonlinear dynamics, all rational connections are contingent upon
dynamical regime and upon region in an outcome basin so logic and
rational thinking loses their ability to serve the knowledge
process.

False consciousness: The inability to identify and act on one's own
human interests.  Marx' assumption was that the class controlling
the means of production controlled the production of ideas.  The
ruling class produce ideas which justify its own existence.  Being
powerless, the subjected class readily embraces this set of false
ideas about what is and what must be.  Thus, they embrace as true
and necessary their own subjugation.

Family:  A social form in which several important human
services/needs are met; intimacy, discipline, affection, and the
reproduction of Labor Power.  In a family system of reproducing
labor power, one generation provides a new generation with all the
food, shelter, clothing, health care, socialization and recreation
required to turn them into decent human beings.  There are other
ways to reproduce labor.  Those costs could be charged off to the
firms which benefit from the production of labor power but that
would severely limit profits.  There have been some 3000 to 4000
different family forms in human history; the patriarchal nuclear
family is but one.

Family (disorganization): There are several factors in capitalism
which tend to disorganize families: (1) the capitalist philosophy
of individualism and self-interest, (2) the conversion of social
relationships into cash commodity, (3) the need for cheap labor,
(4) the use of the family as an instrument to reproduce the labor
force, (5) the use of the spouse as an unpaid worker, (6) the use
of advertizing to turn children into demanding consumers, (7) the
division of labor into paid male work and unpaid women's work, (8)
the destruction of the family as a productive unit, (9) the
conversion of the family as a productive unit to a unit of
consumption, and (10) the inability of parents to socialize
children as the state controls the educational process and converts
it from moral to technical training.  Then too, advanced (semi-)
monopoly capitalism moves workers and capital around the world to
take advantage of short-term profit opportunity.  This tends to
destroy the family system as men migrate in search of work and as
whole communities are deserted by capitalists when they move jobs
to cheap labor states and countries.

Family, extended:  A family system in which three or more
generations have intensive social rights and obligations.  Often
two or more generations work and live together.  Extended families
are disappearing; see Family, disorganization, above.

Family Violence:  In radical family theory, family violence has
several major sources; patriarchy, bureaucracy and/or capitalism;
all of which stratify power.  In Patriarchy, men are given the
moral right to beat women and children into compliance.  In
capitalism and or/bureaucratic socialism, those men who have been
socialized to patriarchy have no social realm in which to exercise
their 'masculinity' other than in the home and/or fights and brawls
in bars and sports events.  When things go badly at work, males
often resort to pretheoretical violence within the family.

Farming, modern:  Modern farming is a high-tech, capital intensive
system of food production.  Free farmers [peasants] are replaced by
hired labor...often migrants...while monoculture replaces the
biological diverse ecology of small farming.  New technologies are
replacing these giant farms; hydroponics [plants grown in a
greenhouse in a liquid bath]; genetic engineering [genes from other
plants and animals put inside the seeds and eggs of another] and
synthetic foods [foods made directly out of chemicals in a
factory].  All this eliminates the family farm, the small towns
which serve them and a way of life in which people grow their own
food.  See also Enclosure.

Fascism: Latin:  fascis = bundle.  A bundle of rods [signifying
unity of the people] was a symbol of authority of Roman
magistrates.  Now used to refer to a form of government in which
state power is used to reproduce elite privilege in class, race,
religious or ethnic inequality.  It is marked by Nationalism,
Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism and Militarism.  The fascism
state has two main activities: suppression of dissent at home
usually by force and propaganda and 2) exploitation of minorities
or other countries to ensure loyalty from the masses at home. 
Usually based in the small business strata and supported by the
underclass in its desperation, fascism gathers into its hands the
entire state apparatus, the army, the universities, schools, the
press and networks, and all workers organizations.  Although
workers, small business, and the surplus population expect to
benefit from state power and thus support fascism, the usual case
is that big business thrives by increasing its share of surplus
value and inflation runs wild as the state tries to maintain
legitimacy either by coercion or by appeals to patriotism and
nationalism.  Deficit spending has been used extensively in the
late 20th century to preserve legitimacy.

     Germany and Italy were the first modern states to try fascism. 
The best modern example is in Brazil (1977).  "Out of human dust,
fascism unites and arms the scattered masses.  It gives the petty
bourgeois the illusion of an independent force.  It begins to
imagine it will really command the state." Trotsky.  See also
Corporativism.

Fascism, techno-:  The use of computers and other electronic
devises to monitor the behavior of workers, customers, voters,
students and petty criminals.  These range from software which
count the numbers/time/topics of employees who use the computer to
electronic 'dogs' which sniff out all sorts of forbidden chemicals. 
Soon every automobile will come with a chip with which police can
monitor speed, location and fix their location via communications
satellites.  A growth industry.

Flagrante delicto:  Latin: flagrant = obvious, delicto = wrong. 
Caught in the commission of wrongful behavior.  Some persons can be
arrested only when caught committing a crime; other than that, a
warrant from a judge is necessary; the arresting office must then
show probable cause.  In sexist societies, men are/were permitted
to kill wives and lovers if caught, flagrante delicto.

Fichte, Johann (1762-1814):  German theologian/ethicist who
followed Kant but made making practical reason superior to
theoretical reason.  Fichte, not Hegel, first posited the triadic
conflict process called the dialectic and named the stages in this
theory of change; thesis, antithesis, synthesis.  Schilling later
applied the dialectic to nature and to history.  Fichte's ethical
views held that human beings have duties to each other which lead
to a world culture in which everyone has rights and freedoms within
that ethics. Fichte was dismissed from his position at Jena for his
views on freedom and revelation.  He ended his career as rector at
University of Berlin.
     
Fifth Estate [fifth column]:  A social layer which did not fit into
the three estates of feudalism; it is composed of journalists,
critics and intellectuals who do not celebrate existing social
arrangements.  In fascism Spain, the term became 'fifth column' and
was used as a term of derogation for those who sent reports to
other countries about the brutalities of the Franco regime.  See
also fourth estate, feudalism.

Football:  A game in which the object is to move a ball into the
space protected by a male solidarity.  Football began as a contest
between hostile villagers in which the head of a fallen enemy was
kicked back and forth between the villages or opposing armies.  The
Romans brought the game to England some 2000 years ago.  By the
16th c., the English had adapted it as a forum in which competing
classes and regions inflicted physical damage on one another in
controlled situations.  A proper match placed goal posts a mile or
more apart. Shrove Tuesday was a day in which most villages and
parishes had one great game before Lent; countrymen against city
dwellers; merchants against gentlemen, guilds against guilds and
workers against workers in nearby towns.  King Charles forbade the
game since it injured too many prospective soldiers.

     In the modern game in the USA, it is a star system in which
the elegance of physical grace and skill is used as an envelop into
which to insert advertisements; as such it helps solve the
'realization problem' of advanced monopoly capitalism. 

     A freudian analysis would focus upon the center as the
symbolic mother; the ball as a phallic symbol and the opposing goal
line as the hymen of a forbidden female.

     Feminists would note that it reproduces machismo and teaches
young men to compete and to dominate other young men.

Fordism:  A form of labor process with an extreme sub-division of
labor, close control of the work process by supervisors and the
pace of work determined by the speed of the Assembly Line.  Named
after the Ford automobile factory system, itself modelled after the
meat packing plants in Chicago.  Compare to Z theory, democratic
self-management.

Foucault, Michel (1926-1984): French psychologist who stopped
working within the existing systems of social control and began to
criticize them.  He made the point that knowledge is an important
form of power which can be used for or against people.  Foucault
went on to criticize the psychiatry in his book on Madness and
Civilization, Medicine in The Birth of the Clinic, and the criminal
justice system in his book, Discipline and Punish.  These all
concerned the use of language/power against those confined/treated
by such institutions.  He studied the 'games of truth' in his last
work and argued that truth-telling was a political virtue.

Fourier, Charles (1772-1837):  A socialist who held that human
beings had 'appetites' which under capitalism became anti-social
but which under socialism would become sources of happiness and
assets to society.  In his ideal society, the basic unit of social
organization was the Phalanstery [see which] in which there would
be prosperity, equality and co-operation.  A number of utopian
communities were set up in Europe and in the USA based on these
ideas; they had limited success; it is difficult to be a socialist
inside the larger capitalist economy.

Fourth Estate:  A term applied to the proletariat which did not fit
into the three estates of feudalism.  Marx thought it to be the
carrier of the general interest and the source of progressive
revolution.  Sometimes applied to journalists but see Fifth Estate.

Fractal/fractal geometry:  A structure which occupies only a part
of the space/time available to it [after Mandelbrot].  In Euclidean
geometry and newtonian physics, structures occupy 1, 2, 3 or 4
dimensions...and exhibit rational, i.e., linear behavior.  In Chaos
theory, complex natural and social systems have a different
structure and behavior.  Since nonlinear behavior is compatible to
dialectics, the socialist theorist should know of this new concept. 
Since the same set of variables can produce different sets of
fractals [outcomes], most of the assumptions of modern science are
reduced in epistemological value; that is, prediction, replication,
falsification, and tight correlations are much less helpful in the
knowledge process than had been thought.

Feedback:  In the new science of Chaos, feedback loops replace the
notion of causality.  There are three kinds of feedback loops most
important to a postmodern philosophy of science; positive feedback
which tends to expand the boundaries of a system until it is so
open than one can no longer discern boundary [think of the screech
on a sound system in which two microphones feed sound back and
forth to each other].  The second kind of feedback is negative
feedback which tend to eliminate the system [think of pain as a
feedback response for every time one makes a racist comment; sooner
or later, one stops].  Then there is nonlinear feedback; it is
important since structure can be maintained in a changing
environment [in social terms, mercy, compassion, love and
forgiveness are nonlinear feedback loops which contrast to rational
application of sanctions for violation of rules].

Federal Bureau of Investigation [F.B.I.].  The F.B.I. is a federal
police force.  It deals with crimes of high visibility and those
crimes which tend to target the rich and powerful; bank robberies,
kidnapping as well as rebellion and revolution.  In the 1960's, the
F.B.I. ran five 'Cointel' [counter-intelligence] programs; anti-
war, anti-socialist, anti-feminist, anti-civil rights and anti-
student power movements were targeted, their leaders arrested and
illegally harassed.  M.L. King was a particular target.  Under its
first and long-time Director, J. Edgar Hoover, the F.B.I. ran many
illegal operations against socialists, feminists, workers and civil
rights workers; burglary, wire-tapping, anonymous letters to family
and newspapers as well as spotting leaders for 'Red Squads' and
'Swat Teams' of local police who then used violence to 'de-
stabilize' progressive politics.  Of late, under new directors. it
is less racist, sexist and class biassed.  Recently it has hired
500 more agents to work on corporate and white collar crime.

Feedback/feedback loops.  Complex social and natural systems change
through three kinds of feedback loops; 1) positive loops in which
the behavior of a system increases in complexity until it reaches
full chaos [think of the feedback between two microphones which
turn into a high pitched shriek]; 2) a negative feedback loop in
which the behavior of a system tends to slow down until it stops
[think of an animal species slowly poisoned by DDT]; and 3)
nonlinear feedback in which feedback alternates between positive
and negative without any clear pattern.  It is surprising but,
systems with nonlinear feedback can be very stable.

Feminism:  A movement and an awareness of the cultural sources of
gender inequality.  The movement have three major components:
separatist feminism; bourgeois feminism; and socialism feminism. 
These contrast to traditional femininity/gendering patterns in
which men use four kinds of power to dominate women: social power,
moral power, economic power and, often, physical force.  Feminism
is opposed to biological interpretations of gender inequality; to
most theological justifications as well as structural-functional
views which hold that gender division of labor is essential to the
functioning of all societies.  See each form separately for a more
detailed explanation.  See also Feminist theory/socialist feminism.

Feminism, Bourgeois:  Bourgeois feminists advocate equal
opportunity and equal rights for all women.  They demand the right
to compete fairly for all jobs and professions including the top
positions in public and private life.  This stands in contrast with
traditional gendering patterns in which women are taught to defer
to men in all public and most private spheres.  It stands in
contrast to socialist feminism which argues for the elimination of
class and bureaucracy rather than for equal opportunity to compete
in what socialist call 'structures of domination.'  It also
contrasts to separatist feminist who don't want to compete with men
but to exclude them from their social life.

Feminism, Separatist:  Separatist women want to build separate
family systems, separate business, separate sports and recreational
as well as separate religious organizations from men.  Separatist
feminists argue from the data that men are irreconcilably violent,
brutal, demanding and dominating.  Some separatist feminist
reproduce role inequality in personal and public relationships;
others advocate a much more democratic set of relationships. 
Separatist feminists constitute about 2-3 percent of the population
[1995].

Feminism, Socialist:  Socialist feminist urge the elimination of
all forms of inequality; class, race and gender.  Embodied best,
perhaps by the Angela Davis, a professor of philosophy and an Afro-
America, socialist feminists argue that Bourgeois feminists and
their call for equal opportunity to compete only changes the gender
of the oppressor, not the oppression.  They point out that the
gender division of labor converts women into unpaid workers who
chief role is to reproduce each new generation of workers and to
repair the physical and psychological damage done by capitalist
relations to men by conditions at work and while dis-employed.

Feminist Theology.  See theology, feminist...sorry for your
trouble.  Saves space this way.

Feminist Methodology:  Feminist methodology has several major
differences from modern science methodology.  Feminist theory
emphasizes Standpoint epistemology; a view that each major group in
society has its own standpoint from which to understand and act
upon social life.  This contrasts to the presumption of Objectivity
in which modernists assume that the researcher can stand apart from
society and history; can make judgments and form theory without any
cultural or political bias.  Feminist methodology also values
story-telling and poetry as sources of insight and understanding
while modern science tends to use standardized questions and
statistical analysis.  Finally, feminist methodology is openly
partisan on behalf of egalitarian gender relationships and a much
wider status-role for women...and for men too.

Feminist Theory:  Feminist social theory argues that traditional
gender roles are culturally determined and unnecessarily limiting
to women.  Instead of seeing the sources of gender inequality in
biology or physiology, feminists hold that power inequalities
reproduce gender inequalities.  Feminists hold that patriarchy is
a special, historical family form; that there have been dozens of
other family forms in human history and that new family forms are
emerging all the time as social, technical and economic conditions
change.  Most feminists accept gender divisions but do not want
these extended to public office, high status jobs, middle class
professions or sports.  See Bourgeois and socialist feminism.

Femininity, Traditional:  Traditional women view their role in life
to center around the family; mother, home-maker, supportive wife
and care-giver to the handicapped and elderly in the extended
family.  About 85% of the USA population, these women accept both
biblical and 'scientific' statements that these are the natural and
indispensable roles special to women.  See other feminist thought:
bourgeois, separatist and socialist-feminist.

Feral: Means wild...it refers to a child who has grown up with
little or no social interaction (an isolate), and in particular,
one who was allegedly raised by animals.  This last condition is
seldom claimed to have occurred, and less often believed.  Most, if
not all, ferals are simply abandoned and/or grossly neglected
children.  Such experience tends to confirm the importance of
culture as the mediator of behavior.  The marxian position is that
people create themselves as human beings when they create culture
... and deprived of the right or power to create culture, people
become "feral" at any age.

Fetishism: This concept refers to any pathological interest in an
object.  People who work with a pre-modern religious sensibility
invest sacred content into trees, mountains, rivers and stars.  In
psychology, the word is used to refer to persons who invest erotic
content into physical objects rather than in human beings.  In
marxian thought fetishism refers to the worship of material objects
[cars, houses, gold, and other 'collectibles' rather than the
social life world in which these have human meaning.  Apart from
the creation of human culture and mutual aid within a solidarity,
the production and possession of material culture is a bizarre
pathology nowise different from the sexual worship of shoes or
breasts apart from human love and mutual sensuality.

Feudalism:    A social system composed of estates; each estate had
its own customs, laws and occupations based on rules of heritage. 
Feudal France had three estates; clergy, nobility and crafts-
people, merchants, serfs and servants.  Feudal Russia had four;
nobility and gentry, clergy, towns-people and serfs/peasants. 
Feudalism is a stratified system by which the surplus value of
labor of workers, servants, serfs and peasants is funneled to an
elite called 'the nobility' who in turn supported the clergy and
bought from the townspeople.  Feudalism grew out of predatory
warfare as some victors stayed behind to rule and to extract wealth
to send to the Royal Court elsewhere.  The third estate [merchants
and crafts-persons] is the origin of the capitalist class; this
strata led a series of revolutions in the 17th century which re-
placed feudalism with capitalism as the dominant system for
funneling wealth to a few.

Fiscal crises: The capitalist state buys a thin political
legitimacy by financing the costs of capitalism out of the state
treasury.  Care of the surplus population, education and insurance
of workers, supply of transport facilities, energy, police, and
research all enable an unprofitable system of production to show
(and pay) a "profit" when such costs are absorbed by the state.  At
the same time, the state declines to tax the rich and the
corporation to pay for these things. The crises comes when the
state generates additional funds by printing money (thus producing
inflation), raising taxes on the middle classes (thus immiserating
and infuriating those who receive wages and salaries which can be
taxed), or by deficit spending (thus adding to inflation and to
debt service.)  See also Kondratieff cycles.

Folk Society: A small intimate society where the society itself
provides "community".  The members regard each other as having
status by virtue of the fact of being born into the group. 
Solidarity is based upon Dramas of the Holy in which each is
sanctified as part of the group.  Most production and distribution
is shared although there are often gender, age and ethnic
differences in social honor and wealth.  Status honor continues as
long as one stays within the norms and embodies the values of the
society; this contrasts to capitalism where status depends upon
exchange for (and only for) profit.  Modernist refer to such
societies as 'primitive,' 'backward,' undeveloped' or 'savage'
societies.  They may be low tech societies however solidarity and
sharing are not lacking.

Folkway: A customary way of behaving, nonobservance of which is
punished by only minor inconvenience; a weak norm.  Folkways are
hostile to the notion that behavior is genetically based since they
are learned and vary widely between cultures.

Football, (ideology of): Football helps reproduce capitalist
ideology by the character of the sport.  Among the capitalist ideas
and relationships found in commodity football are: (1) division of
mental and physical labor; a special coaching cadre plans while the
players execute, (2) objectification of football players; they are
merely human capital to be used and discarded, bought and sold for
profit, (3) the extraction of surplus value from fans through the
market system and from players through the wage system, (4)
militarism in training and in game as well as pregame shows, (5)
emphasis in the game on possession, (6) and on destructive
competition, (7) as well as upon accumulation (of points) without
purpose, (8) as well as on the demand for respect for authority,
(9) there is also an labor elite of "stars," and (10) passive
consumption for "fans." Football is as close to political fascism
as any institution except prisons in America.  As in the larger
society, racism and sexism divides the productive workers (players)
and interferes with collective action.

     Football is used by universities to maintain the dramaturgical
image of greatness even as more socially valuable educational
programs are missing or reduced.  In the fiscal crises of
capitalism, a university like Oklahoma, Nebraska, or Notre Dame can
generate fanatic support even with third-rate academic programs.
(After Koch).

Force:  Latin: fortis = strong.  This term is exemplar of the
poetics and politics of definition; it began as a word to refer to
human effort, was adopted as metaphor into physics and from physics
made it's way into sociology.  It is so vague a concept that it can
be defined only by reference to some set of actions which push or
pull another object or person one way or another.

Force, Structural: A system of social practices which fixes as per-
manent the unequal chance to satisfy needs.  These include: racism,
sexism, class position, ethnocentricism, bureaucracy as well as
nationalism.  One cannot criticize nor change such structures
without facing a variety of formal and informal sanctions.  Apart
from a belief in the legitimacy of such norms due to childhood
socialization, structural force is based upon fear of and
submission to sanctions as well as the individual's recognition of
his/her own powerlessness as well as by lack of realistic
alternatives. (After Habermas).  The various forms of authority
(charismatic, tradition, legal-rational) validate "structural"
force.

Foundationalism:  A pejorative term applied to the effort to ground
some set of principles upon pre-given facts.  Postmodernists are
generally opposed to foundationalism; affirmative postmodernists
accept foundations as long as those who set them accept
responsibility for so doing; thus it is possible to 'ground'
morality but only as a set of behaviors special to a given social
life world constructed by humans for particular, historical
purposes.

Francis of Assisi [St. Francis] (1182-1226):  Son of a prosperous
merchant, Francis disinherited himself from his father; took vows
of chastity, poverty and obedience to the teachings of Christ to go
among the poor and give them both spiritual and material help.  He
founded the Franciscan Order of Monks which split up when some
monks found they could not follow the rules.  The Friars minor
observe the rules strictly; as do the Capuchin monks.  Friars
Conventional hold property in common and use products for the poor.
In his love of nature and animals, Francis is often shown holding
a lamb or a bird.

Frankfurt School: The Institute for Social Research founded in 1923
and located in Frankfurt, Germany; it brought back concern with
ideology, human intentionality and reflexivity into marxist theory
and into sociology.  It was marxist, freudian, weberian and neo-
hegelian all at once.  In World War I, the working class of each
country joined the capitalist class to fight other capitalists and
workers in other countries.  The founders of the Frankfurt Schule
thought that ideology was part of the answer and began work on the
social sources of fascism and authoritarian personality.  They
found it in the patriarchal family; in the racism, sexism and
fascism of art, cinema, magazines and other mass culture.  Then
too, orthodox social science tended to adopt the model of objective
'laws' which seemed to be beyond human reach.  Radical sociology
had been depoliticized by adopting a positivist style after
American, French, and British Philosophy of Science.  Led by
Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Fromm, Benjamin and others, the
marxian interest in alienated consciousness and the creative role
of humans in constructing social forms is reasserted.  Critical
theorists, especially Marcuse, made a criticism of the obstacles to
human praxis in both capitalist and "socialist" societies.  

     Also known as the School of Critical Theory or critical
sociology, it recognizes that structural marxism leaves many
questions unanswered.  Critical theory seeks to remedy this by
incorporating theory from freudianism, phenomenology, and
existentialism and lately, from feminist and from postmodern
scholarship.

Freedom: A political construct by which individuals under
capitalism can escape the obligations of reciprocity in social
relationships.  In fact, no human being qua human is independent of
others in so far as social reality is concerned.  For a person to
be a social being, (s)he must present and be understood by others
as such.  It is not freedom which is liberating but rather full
rights to participate (and material resources to do so) in the
creation of culture which is necessary to the human condition.  See
Necessity, Repression, necessary, Repression, surplus.

Free enterprise: An economic system wherein capitalists are free to
hire or fire, invest or disinvest, produce or not produce.  Social
relationships are displaced by economic goals; production is based
on profit rather than the needs of a society.  The term is thus
misleading in that it refers to a situation in which the capitalist
is free to do anything (s)he wishes to increase profit.  The "free
world" is one in which capitalists are free to make profits; to
move capital and jobs around the world.  Modern business tries to
reduce both worker and consumer freedom demand by a variety of
techniques including advertising, public relations, price fixing,
black-listing, bribery of elected officials and such.

Free Love:  This is a concept with which to refer to the transfer
of human sexuality from the bonds of marriage and of male
solidarities to become the private concern of mutually consenting
adults.  Love, sex and sensuality are not be free as in the liberal
sense of market freedom but free from the rules of patriarchy and
monogamy.  It is supported by most socialists beginning especially
with Saint-Simon and Fourier [whom see].  Those advocating free
love also condemn discrimination against 'illegitimate' children,
advocate abortion and acceptance of consensual co-habitation as a
marriage form.  Conservatives condemn it as group love or as
converting women from the property of one male to common property
of all males.

Free will: The idea that people act as will-full individuals and
need not accept slavery, patriarchy, or any social form unless they
wanted to.  Free will often signals a religious argument: if God
knows and controls everything, how can mankind said to be free?  In
a political context, it signals an argument against state control
of the market.  Whatever the case, people are socialized to a
socio-cultural world, are put into social roles and are often are
coerced to pattern their behavior in conformity to the norms and
values; still they have more freedom than sometimes they think. In
a "totalitarian" society free will is minimal.  Dialectic theory
suggests there is some changing relationship between private
intentions and public policies.  There always must be some
constraints on human behavior (for example, we must use the rules
of language if we are to construct social reality) but such
constraints can be enabling rather than defeating of the human
project.  See Praxis for a more balanced view of the dialectics of
freedom and necessity; see also Structures of Domination.

French Revolution (1889-99):  A violent overthrow of feudalism
which started out as a bourgeois revolution based upon calls for
reason [rather than faith] and a free market [rather than a system
in which merchants paid the nobility for the right to produce and
trade].  It developed into a democratic call for equality [Liberty,
equality, fraternity was the slogan] but was subverted by
Girondists and Jacobins; later Napoleon took state power and
channeled french enthusiasm into expansion of empire.

French Student Movement of 1968:  A series of anti-establishment
protests by french students based at the Sorbonne in Paris.  Joined
by workers, the French government conceded to their demands and the
movement collapsed.  It inspired student power movements in the USA
and Japan.  In the USA, the C.I.A. set up [illegally] a national
student organization, funded it and thus controlled student
activism for several years.

Froebel, Friedrich (1782-1852):  A German educator, Froebel joined
with Comenius and Pestalozzi to help ground a modern [really
postmodern] philosophy of education.  He established the
kindergarten in 1837 and taught that students must want to learn
and that it was a natural development of the human spirit rather
than a chore and a coercive process.

From each according to her/his ability; to each according to
his/her needs:  A phrase attributed to Saint-Simon which Marx took,
popularized and set as a basis ethics for socialist society.  It
means that people should do as much as talent and skill permits;
that people should get all that is necessary for a good and decent
life.  Thus the ratio-nalization of work and wages is set aside in
favor of reason and justice.

Function/functionalism:  Latin; fungi = to perform.  In math, the
notation, 'y = f(x)' means that the value of 'y' depends upon the
value of 'x.'  In so adopting such notation, one adopts the idea of
a dependent and independent variable...and directional causality,
so beware.

     In sociology, the term is used to justify existing structures
in the claim that society would not function (survive) without
those structures.  No great problem until one understands that
functional theory supports poverty, inequality, hierarchy, gender
differentiation and class divisions.  Purists also argue that
crime, vice, and pollution are necessary to make the system work. 
With a bit of imagination, one can see that it is a simple matter
to build a different society in which such structures were not
necessary to make the system work.  Fangs are functional on a lion
or a snake but not at all necessary on a lamb or a lizard.

Full Employment:  A public policy which tries to find work for any
and all who want it.  There is a full employment law on the books
put there in the Truman Administration.  Now-a-days, economists say
that 5% unemployment is best; that full employment leads to wage
inflation [supply is low; demand is high].  See Disemployment.

Freud, Sigmund:  (1856-1939).  An Austria, Freud studied psychology
under Charcot, a frenchman appalled at the treatment of mentally
ill persons.  Freud developed the ideas of stages in psycho-sexual
development, the unconscious, repression, and the geometry of the
mind.  The mind has, according to Freud, three parts: the Id
[primitive desires], the Ego [personal wants, wishes and urges],
and the Superego [the norms and values of society].  The ego
mediates between deep desires and external demands on the
individual in sort of a calculus of how much one can get away with
without being caught and punished [one can see utilitarian theory
in this view].  The Father is the source of the Superego and is
hated thus for repressing primitive desire.  Since the Mother is
uncritical and nourishing of primitive desire, she is loved.  There
are three stages every normal person must pass through: the oral
stage in which sucking and biting give pleasure; the anal stage in
which urinating and defecating give pleasure [as least to mother],
and the genital stage in which desire is transferred to an adult of
the opposite sex.  When there is a conflict between deep desire and
social demands, desire is repressed and embodied in disguised
habits [this is called neurosis].  The basic source of trouble is
found in how Mom handles movement through the three stages: she can
help the child to move through them without trauma or she can
reward too much or punish her/him too much in the oral or anal
stages.  Unable to get through these infantile stages the child
becomes fixated at one or the other and thus is condemned to
reenact, in compulsive fashion such childish desires [smoking is an
oral fixation; a cigarette is a phallic symbol].  

     The role of Freudian psychology is to make these hidden and
forbidden desires visible to the patient so they can be handled in
a mature way by the patient.  Freudian psychology is thus
emancipatory since it frees people from childhood fears and
anxieties.  However, in 1937, a book entitled Depth Psychology. 
Advertizing people jumped on it to create ads which take advantage
of neurotic compulsions by tying a product to one or more.  Thus in
a beer ad, beer become 'Dickie Pee-Pee' and gives a false maturity
to the drinker.  Virginia Slims cigarettes are false resolutions of
penis envy on the part of girls.  We won't discuss station wagons
and their psycho-sexual meaning for incest with mother.  Critical
theory and the Frankfurt school tried to retrieve the emancipatory
aspect of freudian theory.  See Marcuse.

Freudian revisionism: The use of the principles of psychology to
manage consciousness on behalf of an elite rather than to liberate
humans from their inability to communicate with themselves and
others honestly and openly.  Undistorted communication is a central
concern of Freud as was the ability to love and to affirm the
"instincts of life."  However, his 'vision' was subverted by the
use of sociology and psychology to sell commodities on television
in a particularly despicable form of freudian revisionism.  Sexual
insecurities thus are exploited to sell autos or beer rather than
to resolved in order to invest sexuality in mature forms of love. 
See Freud and/or Marcuse.

Friendship: A social form in which affection, mutual support, and
association for its own sake is present.  Much the same sharing is
found in friendships as in families, collectives and authentic
neighborhoods.  Friendship is a parallel economic form in which
goods and services are freely given; as such it helps moderate the
excesses of capitalism.  See Economic forms; parallel.

Functionalism [structural f.]:  A social philosophy cum sociology
which holds that each social unit found in a society performs a
function necessary to the whole.  This includes organized crime,
prostitution, police, church and all other units which are a
permanent part of a society.  It originates with the
anthropologists, B. Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown; T. Parsons
picked upon on it.  It is promoted as a way to legitimize the fact
that people accept class stratification, patriarchy, poverty,
racism and other such social structures.  See Conflict Theory,
Feminist Theory and Marxist theory for a different reading of
social organization.

Functional interchange: A process by which different institutions
in a society produce and exchange in such a way as to complete and
complement each other to make the whole system work.  In the human
body, the lungs, heart, stomach and liver do different things and
make possible a whole organism.  Similarly, the market, the banks,
the factories, the state, the church, the police/army, the schools
and the family are the major institutions in modern society.  Such
a complex division of labor is said to be more rational than one in
which one institution, say the family performs all these functions. 
The trouble arises when people claim that class, race, gender and
authority hierarchies are 'functionally necessary.'  Long teeth,
heavy muscles and sharp claws may be functional for a tiger but not
for a bird.  Functionalism is often used to justify whatever kinds
of social forms exist since they are the product of social
evolution.  See Social Darwinism for a more complete justification
of such institutions.  See also Durkheim generally credited with
the idea.

Functionary: A worker in a bureaucracy who is given a position and
narrow range of rules to be applied to all cases which come to
hand.  They do what they are told to do and are held accountable
for competent service.  Functionaries are separated from their
coworkers and from the larger society by rules which make them
accountable to the "top" echelon in the bureau.

Galileo, Gallilei (1564-1642):  An Italian astronomer and natural
philosopher and one of the central architects of modern science. 
In his Two Chief World Systems, he set forth the idea that the sun
was the center of the universe, rather than the earth.  Forced to
recant and forbidden to teach or talk about his views, Galileo is
said to have muttered in the stillness of his room, 'Still it
turns' in reference to the rotation of the earth around the sun. 
Galileo decentered the earth and by extension all theology which
holds that the earth and creatures upon it were a special act of
creation.

Gambling:  Now, playing a game for money when winning depends more
on luck than skill.  In religious usage, gambling was/is a pathway
to the holy; the thought is that gods or spirits affect the outcome
of the fall of dice or cards and thus communication favor or
disfavor upon the one who throws the dice or holds the cards.  Many
gambling laws forbid the activity in order to prevent profanation
of the divine.  See Corruption, theory of.  Gambling used to be a
very profitable business for organized crime.  Now the state runs
most legal gambling operates and profits greatly since the payoff
is 20% or more.  In the later case, it is a form of voluntary but
regressive taxation since poor people are much more likely to spend
gamble and spend a greater portion of income than do wealthy
persons.

Game stage:  One of two stages in social development of children
set forth by G.H. Mead.  In the play stage, children take the role
of significant others but are very inventive.  In the game stage,
understanding and compliance with rules becomes important.  Both
kinds of activity are prelude to adult social performance.

Gandhi, Mohandas K. ( 1869-1949).  An indian lawyer trained in
London who became central to the liberation of India from the
British Empire.  Gandhi, call Mahatma [great soul], advocated
passive resistance to British tyranny and economic exploitation. 
Carrying on from Thoreau and Tolstoy, Gandhi organized and
politicized great numbers of Hindus.  After India became
autonomous, Gandhi called for acceptance of the untouchables and
respect for muslims in India.  More militant hindus objected;
Gandhi was assassinated in 1949 but continues to be a symbol of
peace, forgiveness, equality and social justice.  Martin Luther
King adopted many of Gandhi's views and tactics in his effort to
organize, politicize and resist racism in the USA.

Gemeinschaft: A german word translated as "community" and whose
central concept is attributed to Tonnies.  See Community.  It con-
trasts to mass society wherein social relations are weak or
missing.  Compare to Gesellschaft.

Gender:  Gender refers to the psycho-social division of labor in a
society; not to the biological and physiological differences
between men and women.  Gendering varies dramatically across
cultures; biology and physiology vary but little.  One uses the
words, male/female to refer to biology; one use the words,
men/women to refer to the product of social gendering work.  Most
societies socialize to two and only two genders but some societies
provide for three or more.   Physiology differences permits the
specification of a great many genders.  Gendering patterns begin
early to develop some skills, beliefs and attitudes in young males
and females.  By age three, most young people begin to embody a
gender division of labor in household, play, school and
friendships.  In such societies, boys and girls form separate
groups before puberty and begin to embody traditional patriarchal
role relationships soon after puberty.  In more egalitarian
societies, childhood is much less differentiated by gender while
adult relationships are much less stratified.

Gene:  A term introduced in 1910 by W. Johannsen which refers to a
hypothetical packet of information thought to govern the
inheritance of a single trait in a plant or animal.  All such
traits are determined in part by genetic material and in part by
nutrients and other environmental conditions.  Most human traits
are set by a great deal of separated genetic material working in
sequence as well as environmental conditions working in parallel
sequence.  Thus the mechanical connection between genes and, say,
I.Q. cannot be supported.

Geneology:  The practice of looking at history in order to re-claim
forms of knowledge and being which have been omitted, excluded,
disqualified or local.  Geneology dismisses any history which is
presented as an accurate and complete account of 'that which
happened,' or 'ideas about what constitutes a science.'  After
Foucault.

Generalized other: Our overall impression of what we believe others
will think about and how they will respond to our behavior.  On the
basis of that understanding, we modify our behavior--sometimes in
compliance sometimes in deception depending upon the quality of the
relationship.  The ability of people to generalize over a wide
variety of particular incidents is most remarkable human capacities
and the basis of much "self" government.  See Looking Glass
process.

Genome, the human:  The nature and variable structure of the human
genome is most important to any theory of human behavior based upon
either genes, physiology or psychology.  There are 2.9 x 109 base
pairs in the human genome.  They come in 23 chromosomes.  An
individual inherits two sets of each.  Each individual also
inherits the clusterings of base pairs which are uncountable since
300 billion base pairs can produce many quadrillions of clusters. 
There is basic research ongoing which, one day, might identify
significant clusters of base pairs and link them to specific social
behaviors.  Until that time, all is speculation, ideology and very
often coercion to define 'racial' traits or 'innate' ability.  See
Race, Racism, Ramsey theory.

Gestalt:  German; form, shape, figure.  A school in psychology
founded by Wertheimer and others which held that sense perceptions
were not simple impressions which mirrored nature but rather
psychological constructs interpreted by human beings within a 
a whole/context.  Thus an event or an aspect of nature and/or
society is not registered unless it is significant to the beholder
in terms of some cultural theme or practice.  The concept of gender
is a case in point; most of us 'see' only two gender; in terms of
the physiology and chemistry of actually existing human beings, any
number of gender could be perceived/named.  Such a view of the
knowledge process is one of the many beginnings of postmodern
sensibility.

Glossary:  The word, gloss, means tongue and by extension, speech
or language.  One gives a 'gloss of meaning' to unusual words or
unusual usages of words.  In this case, a glossary is a book which
defines/explains terms from several points of view not usually
included in standard dictionaries; marxist, socialist, feminist,
critical theory has its own meanings for words not honored in
capitalist, racist, or sexist societies.

Gnosticism:  A religious philosophy marked by its binary categories
of good/evil; lightness/darkness;spiritualism/materialism which
still pre-structures the knowledge process.

Gobineau, Arthur (1816-1882):  Gobineau was a French nobleman,
diplomat and philosopher best known for his views on Aryan
supremacy.  Aryans are said to possess higher capacities to
appreciate beauty in art, music and politics.  'Racial' mixtures
dilute aryan superiority and is to be avoided.  This view became
part of the social philosophy of Nazism and lead to the death of
millions of people who did not conform to the ideal type of the
Aryan.  Eugenics devolved out of the same views.

God:  A supernatural being(s) with various powers to intervene in
the social and natural world.  For most believers today, the god
concept has several components: 1) creator of all, 2) a plan for
social life, 3) a monitoring/judging role, 4) a capacity to revise
or suspend the laws of nature or society.  Marx held the god
concept was the projection of social power unto fictional beings;
Durkheim held that the god concept was society assembled in some
drama of the holy, he called this social fact, the super-organic
from Spencer.  Postmodern theology suggests that the god concept
and the sanctification/profanation processes are distinctly human
processes which change as social circumstances change.  See theism,
atheism, Liberation Theology.

God (Death of):  A 19th century claim by Mainl„nder, Nietzsche and
Sartre that belief in God is disappearing; for some, modern science
killed off such beliefs since natural explanations account for most
of that attributed to Divine Agency.  For others, God dies when
people fail to live up the Plan attributed to that God.  Marx
argued that capitalism, the market system and commodification
destroys all that is holy, all that is sacred.  If God is dead,
then there seems to be two choices: nihilism and license to do
whatever one can do on the one hand or a congenial and well
tempered social philosophy invented by and adopted by human beings
in collective public discourse.

Golden Mean:  A term from Aristotle and his theory of value
[axiology].  Aristotle held that happiness is the goal of human
beings and is best achieved by embodying the Golden Mean.  The Mean
lays between having/doing too much and not enough.  That seems
vague but Aristotle set a specific mathematical solution to it that
informs some ideas even today.

Golden Rule:  A guide to ethical behavior from Christ: Do unto
others as you would have done unto yourself.  It existed in reverse
form for ages before Christ: What you do not want done to yourself,
do not do to others [Hillel; Confucius].  There is a problem in
that, if one wants others to compete, be cruel or engage in war it
justifies such behavior even if they don't want it.  See also the
Kantian Imperative, the Code of Hammurabi and Utilitarianism.  See
also the marxist concept of Praxis.

Government, forms of:  There are several forms of government every
student should know: anarchy [no rulers], aristocracy [rule of the
best], monarchy [rule of a king], oligarchy [rule of the few],
democracy [rule of all adult persons via public discourse],
totalitarianism [close control of all aspects of public policy by
a dictator or a junta], fascism [close control of economics,
politics and the media by state officials], neo-fascism [the use of
high technology to control thought and behavior more so than the
use of police, prisons, and military].  Socialism comes in several
forms; bureaucratic socialism [similar to fascism], democratic
socialism [same as democracy but extends beyond politics to
economics], communism [worker control of production; distribution
on the basis of need and/or merit].  Patriarchy refers to a form of
social life organized around a large family, band or clan in which
the senior male rules.  Matriarchy refers to a set of sisters and
their children in which the senior female rules.  Seniority is
based upon several factors; age, experience, wisdom, strength [for
men], number of children and personal style.
  See each entry separately.

G.N.P. (Gross National-Product): The total dollar value of all the
goods and services produced for sale by U.S. firms.  GNP is the
total output of U.S. firms both at home and abroad.  However, it is
not a measure of the useful and necessary things people do; the
unpaid work that women do in the household is not included in the
calculation, while many forms of useless production are.  It is a
measure of quantity, not quality of life in a state.  Since
capitalism depends on expansion, growth in GNP is closely watched.

Gesellschaft.  A german word meaning business but used to refer to
a society in which there is complex division of labor, anonymity,
contractual relationships as well as hierarchical bureaucratic
relationships.  The very opposite of community.  The concept is
attributed to Tonnies.  In society (or civilization), human beings
are left to their own devices in survival; in community, goods and
services are produced to meet collective needs.

Gilligan, Carol:  An American social scientist who noted that the
voices of women were excluded by L. Kohlberg in his work on the
stages of moral development.  Gilligan tells us that, if these
voices had been included, moral development would have put people
and supportive social relations as prior to the use of abstract
principles as the bases for assigning moral standing to those who
take such tests.

God (The Death of): In anthropological terms, the concept of God or
gods embraces all that is valued in a given society-especially the
common heritage and solidarity which mark an authentic community. 
In such a community there is a unity above and beyond the narrow
self-interests of the individuals who compose the society.  When
this unity is destroyed by capitalism or by other forms of elitism,
over-much emphasis on material possessions, it is said that God is
dead.  As the technical-rational displaces the social-magical
processes of creating culture, much of the mystery and awe at what
subjectively acting humans can create is lost and the world becomes
more profane and less sacred.  One need not counterpoise the super-
natural and the natural in this analysis of the death of God since,
in it, God is also a human product, a remarkable product but a
human one.

Grace: Latin: gratus = beloved, agreeable.  The term entered
religion and theology from the three graces: fate, providence and
fortune.  Grace now refers to a special spiritual quality in which
a person turns from evil to pro-social behavior.  Grace became a
center piece in Christian theology; on the one side, it calls forth
a shining commitment to the teachings of the Christian God; belief
in the Grace of God can convert the most violent and villainous
thug or empower the weakest and most vulnerable person.  On the
other it is used to ground a view that all judgments have already
been made by that God and people are either blessed or condemned. 
Luther took the later view as did Calvin.  Grace, in the later
sense, is used as an apology and a powerful legitimating idea for
great wealth and power among Christians who accept Luther and
Calvin's interpretations.

Gramsci, Antonio:  (1891-1937).  Founder of the Italian Communist
Party and author of Prison Notebooks in which he added much to the
role of intellectuals in helping or obstructing human emancipation. 
His concept of 'organic' intellectuals emphasized the connection
between social location and political understanding of
intellectuals.

Great Man Theory [of history:  Thomas Carlyle [1795-1881], argued
that all of history is driven by the genius [or madness] of a Hero. 
For Carlyle, the hope of humankind lay in the hero who offers a
solution in which lesser people can find a place. 
Marxian/socialist theory argues that history is driven by conflict
between groups; lord and peasant, master and slave, owner and
worker.  One has several choices about how history works...see
Historiography.  See Heroic.

Green Movement, the:  An environmental movement in Europe [now in
the USA] which embodies several progressive elements including
protection of the environment, social justice and democratic
participation.

Gregory I, Pope (540-604): Pope Gregory sent the first missionaries
to Britain; he is said to have specified the seven deadly sins and
encouraged the plainsong chants which bear his name.  Gregory is
important to the history and sociology of religion in the USA in
that his efforts to spread Christianity greatly affected both
social norms, law and justice which still shape everyday life in
the USA and the English speaking world.

Grotius, Hugo (1583-1645):  Dutch author and a founder of
International Law.  He set forth the concept of the oceans as free
to all nations in his work on the law of Booty.  He began work on
the rules of war and peace.  His work on a theory of law still
resonates in all sociology of law arguments; Grotius held that
human beings were savages with the capacity to reason.  To
reasoning beings, the need for law is self-evident.  This capacity
leads to a social contract set forth in writing or in customs.  The
contract differs in all societies but is binding upon all in that
society.  Natural law takes precedence over civil law, custom and
even divine law.

Group: A set of status-roles (not persons per se) which require
intersubjective understanding, cooperation, intimacy and a sense of
'we-ness' in order to achieve a purpose within a social framework. 
A family or a ball team is a group but a row of workers on an
assembly line or a set of slaves or prisoners working at a task is
not a group.  In colleges, sororities and fraternities are
organized as groups while classes are often impersonal and
interactively barren.
Group dynamics:  Group dynamics are complex and ever-changing but
there are some patterns one can see; there are engagement
activities [Goffman calls these 'clearance moves'], there is socio-
emotional activity to deal with conflicts and there is task-
oriented behavior.  Central to all group activity is symbolic
interaction in which intersubjective understanding emerges.  Groups
often have status hierarchy which also pre-shape behavior of
members.  Then there are 'dis-engagement' activities in which
people recognize that the claims each has on the other are to be
set aside until the next time the 'group' meets.  Bales has shown
that there are patterns of interaction in which some few persons
come to dominate symbolic interaction...at least in the groups he
studied.

Group of Seven:  There are seven nations which meet regularly to
co-ordinate economic and political policy in the global economy. 
These are: the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Canada
and Japan.  They use a variety of tools to maintain a false peace
in which food and profits flow from the poorest, hungriest
countries in the world to the richest.  In the global
stratification system, these seven are joined by some 20 or so
societies with advanced industrial capacity which extract wealth
and food from some 120 or so 'under-developed' countries.  Then
there are a hand-full of socialist countries outside of this
stratification system; China, Cuba, Yemen, Vietnam and others.

Groupthink:  A put-down term used to ridicule the ability of people
to affect ways of thinking, feeling and acting of each other within
a group setting.  George Orwell [Eric Blair] coined the term to
refer to the effects of coercion and authority on independent
thought but it is used to scoff at the opinions of ordinary people
which differ from that of Right-wing and Left-wing intellectuals.

Guilt:  A judgment on the part of others that one has done
something legally prohibited or something morally reprehensible. 
The word carries much negative emotional content which prepares
both the accused and the judge for severe punitive action.

Gurus, Management: Influential authors; successful managers or
business school academics, whose ideas receive wide acceptance
among managers.  Some have got things spectacularly wrong: such as
praising businessmen whose money-saving, profit-making empires have
subsequently collapsed.  For a lively and irreverent discussion,
see Andrzej Huczynski: Management gurus: What makes them and how to
become one, London, Routledge.  Huczynski sees a "succession of
management fads".  A similar view of "waves" of management ideas is
expounded by another British author, Mick Marchington, in New
Developments in Employee Involvement, published by the British
Department of Employment in association with the Manchester School
of Management.

Hammurabi, Code of:  A set of 282 laws dating some 4000 years ago
which is similar to the Mosaic Code [see Moses].  The Code was said
to be given to King Hammurabi by the god Shamash, for the governing
of the people.  Many elements of the Code still inform Roman and
English law.  It is reduced in most criminology books to a
statement; An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.  The Code is
used, incorrectly to justify cruelty to people who have offended
one or has been found guilty of a crime. See Golden Rule, Kantian
Imperative, Utilitarianism but do think yourself of how to ground
ethical conduct in a complex world.

Hand, invisible:  An idea, attributed to Adam Smith, that behind
the seeming anarchy of capitalist production and distribution there
was an 'invisible hand' that brought order and long-term progress
to a free market economy.  The law of supply and demand was the
means by which this 'hand' worked.  If owners set the price of
goods too high, competitors were free to provide the goods at a
lower price.  If they set wages too low, workers were free to go to
other, higher paying jobs.  This 'law' ignores several facts of
economic life; if it takes millions to enter a market, then the
freedom to compete is seriously reduced. If there is already a
surplus labor force, then the freedom to take another job is
seriously limited.  If six firms produce most beer, breakfast
cereals or automobiles, they are free to fix prices and market
share; they can have a price war and drive out any small firm which
tries to lower prices or increase wages.  Price fixing,
conspiracies to divide up markets, black-listing and bribery of
elected and appointed state officers are thus fingers on an
'invisible' hand but are not mentioned in most books.

Health Maintenance Organizations: HMO's collect a flat fee per year
from you.  In return they agree to provide whatever medical care
you may require free or at nominal charge.  By contrast, under the
familiar fee-for-service system, the physician and the hospital
submit bills for what they did.  You or your insurance company must
then pay the bills.  The selling point of HMO's is their ability to
do away with apparently unnecessary treatment.  The HMO makes more
money the fewer procedures its doctors prescribe--the opposite of
the fee-for-service system.  Studies consistently show that persons
with ordinary health insurance submit to twice as much surgery as
comparable persons enrolled in HMO-type plans.  There are two major
problems with HMOs, (1) since profit is concerned, HMO's may scrimp
on service; (2) the system does not deliver health and medical
services to those in the surplus population. (URPE).

Hedonism:  Greek; hedon = delight, pleasure.  Epicureans held
pleasure to be central to happiness but it carried spiritual values
of prudence and restraint.  The term now carries negative emotional
content and refers to those who define happiness in terms of wealth
and luxurious living.  In capitalism, hedonism is grounded by J.
Bentham and utilitarianism which see.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770-1831): A german philosopher
whose work and its criticism advanced self-understanding of human
beings.  From Hegel, Marx took much; the notion of alienation, the
role of labor in creating human consciousness, the idea of a
continuing 'negation of the negation' [see which] and other less
tangible contributions such as Hegel's great confidence in sweeping
analysis and personal insight.  To Hegel, Marx gave more.  He took
an abstract Hegel and brought him into the world of loving,
struggling, bone-weary workers growing daily more miserable in
capitalist societies and created the theoretical basis for
democratic self-government, community and praxis with his critique
of Hegel.  Hegel is used by some to justify fascism since he held
that the state embodied 'objective spirit' [i.e., that what small
rationality was possible in human affairs was to be found in the
state].

     Hegel charted some 272 natural categories which are the
grounding of modern phenomenology.  See Phenomenology, postmodern
for a different view of analytic categories used in the sciences.

Heisenberg, Werner (1901-):  Heisenberg is a German physicist who
is credited with the uncertainty principle which says that one can
know both position and momentum of a particle but not both at the
same time.  The view is now extended to call into question the
entire knowledge process; the thought is that one changes a field
by studying it.  With the advent of Chaos theory, there is
empirical grounding for the wider view but, at the same time, one
can know with fair precision just what mixture of order and
disorder exist in any given dynamical regime.

Hegelian dialectic: A view offered by Hegel that all "A" implies
"Not A;" that "Not-A" tends to negate "A"; and that a new "A"
emerges out of the conflict between "A" and "Not-A".  Hegel was
concerned to show that one approached absolute knowledge by such a
process.  Marx' critique was that knowledge was a product of
creative human beings, not an absolute to be approached through a
dialectic.  Marx did, however, accept the principle of the
dialectic to account for class conflict and social change.

Hegelian Left:  A student movement in  Germany which extracted the
liberal elements of Hegel's work and used it as a base for social
philosophy.  In particular, they took Hegel's idea of historical
trend to self-knowledge to locate progressive politics in education
and the knowledge process.  Marx was a member but abandoned H. Left
it since it lacked class analysis and gave too much credit to ideas
and not enough to action; he located the general interest in
workers and democracy more so than the state and science.

Hegemony, Ideological:  The use of law, religion, art, science,
cinema or literature to celebrate and legitimate one way of doing
things to the discredit of alternative ways.  It is often used in
preference to direct force.  Marx put it succinctly, 'In every
epoch, the ruling ideas have been the ideas of the ruling class.' 
Law, religion, art and literature has been and is still being used
to justify racism, sexism, class privilege, religious bigotry and 
ethno-centricism.

Heidegger, Martin (1884-1976):  Heidegger is a founder of
existentialism and important to postmodern theology and morality. 
He begins with the concept of dasein, a german word meaning 'being
there.'  Human beings, once hurled, geworfen, into the world
[werfen = to throw], the question is how one is to comport oneself. 
The answer is, for Heidegger, bases upon Sorge, the capacity to
care.  This capacity leads to authenticity and a genuine
understanding of one's own self and the world in which one lives. 
The quest for authenticity is driven by angst [anxiety].  Angst, in
turn, arise from das nichts, the nothingness that besets human
beings without authenticity and concern for others.  Das nichts is
a positive category because it gives us a freedom and a motive for
thought, action and poetry.  If there were something upon which all
could agree, then freedom would be just that much foreclosed.  All
this together leads each and all together toward ek-sistenz, the
things and patterns of being that are.  Thought and poetry
complement each other; the thinker explains being and essence; the
poet identifies the holy and the profane.

     Of late, Heidegger has come into criticism for his personal
life and his political views but his philosophy remains to push the
quest for a good and decent life.

Heresy/heretic:  Greek: hairesis = a taking for oneself.  In
religion, science and philosophy, a heretic is one who doubts that
which is given as revealed truth [of God].

Hermeneutics:  Greek: hermeneutikos = interpretation.  In religion,
hermeneutics is the study of the meaning of holy writings.  In
literary study, it is the search for the 'true' meaning of a text
but see postmodern view on the text.  In Critical theory, it is the
study of how intersubjective understanding is possible and how it
emerges through symbolic interaction.  Habermas held that a good
and decent society requires three forms of knowledge; positive
knowledge, hermeneutical and emancipatory knowledge, which see.

Hierarch: Greek, hier = sacred, arch = ruler; a high priest or
pope.  We get the sociological term, hierarchy for the word to
refer to layers in a formal organization.  The assumption is that
the top layers are better than the bottom as in the practice of
calling Deans and Chairs, higher administration when it is the
students and teachers which are the heart and soul of a college.

Hermeneutics: The science of inter-subjective understanding.  A
study of how humans mutually organize each other's consciousness. 
The study of interpersonal (shared) understandings.  An inquiry
into how human beings can create social life worlds which are
sensible to them and shared by them.  Ordinarily we think that we
think all by ourselves.  Yet we recognize that others understand us
and we understand them.  Such intersubjective understanding
probably means that we work together to create meaning.  Symbolic
interactional theory, ethnomethodology, phenomenology, and
dramaturgical analysis all focus in on how social reality is
constructed by intending, insightful, cooperative humans. (Greek:
hermeneuein; to interpret).

Heroic:  Modern and pre-modern historians focus upon one person
and/or one event with which to account for qualitative changes in
a historical narration.  Postmodernists tend to reject such
practice as celebratory, excluding and or self-limiting.  Such
events as the prophet, the discovery or the incidence, when raised
to singular causal efficacy is rejected by postmodern sensibility;
Jesus, Columbus, Hitler and other such figures are reduced to one
of many possible representatives of a time or point of view.

Highlander:  A radical, critical school in Tennessee in which
workers, women, Afro-Americans and others meet to learn how to
organize and to change the structures of domination which reduce
the human spirit and harm the social process.  Rosa Parks, the
woman who sparked the Montgomery bus boycott in 1954, had just
returned from such a gathering.  Many union, civil rights and anti-
war people have attended and still attend Highlander's programs.

Hinduism:  The complex polytheistic native religious system of
India.  In brief, Hinduism holds that there are cycles and stages
of life, each of which is to be mastered in turn.  If one fails in
a stage, one may be reborn at a previous stage.  If one succeeds,
one is reborn into a higher, more demanding stage.  For each male
human being [Hinduism is a male centered religion], there are four
stages; householder/worker, a period of retreat, a life of a hermit
which leads to renunciation and the highest human stage.  Hinduism
supports a caste system into which each person is born and must
work all the days of his/her life; the highest is the Brahmana, a
priestly caste; the Kshatriya, kings and warriors; the Vaisya,
person who are merchants and professionals; and the Sudra, farmers
and workers.  Then too, there is an undercaste of Untouchables who
are to do the most degrading work.  As in Christianity, there are
three pathways to grace, salvation and higher forms of being: 1)
the way of Karma = good work; the way of Jnana, meditation and
knowledge; and the way of bhakti, devotion and faith.  Buddhism,
which see, arose out of Hinduism as a way to accept the spiritual
qualities but reject the caste system.

Historical Materialism:  The use of the mode of production to
explain all existing relationships and all changes in these
relationships.  According to this view, all analysis of state
policy, ideology (including religion, political ideas philosophy,
art, and science), the military, and all other social institutions
must be firmly based in the state of, and contradictions in, the
mode of production of the society in which they occur.  Qualitative
changes in these social institutions must similarly be explained by
changes in the mode of production, or contradictions between
various elements of the superstructure and the mode of production.
(After Al Syzmanski) With this concept, Marx wanted to reject
abstract idealism as a force which shaped human affairs.  Any
system of explanation must, according to Marx, be concerned with
concretely existing factors and be sensitive to the special history
of each process which produces human activity.  One cannot explain
human events in terms of God, chance, destiny, history, fate, or
probability.  One must explain a society, a car, an individual, an
act by the process and means which produces it and only that
process.  Historical materialism does not reject the role of ideas
in the productive process as often assumed.  For Marx, human labor
involved conscious shaping of nature after an idea.  It is this
ability to purpose and to act on that purpose which distinguishes
"The worse architect from the best of bees."

Historicism:  A pejorative term used to reject the belief that
there is pattern in history and that the future is determined by
the past.  The term was introduced by Mannheim and adopted by
Troelsch to place more responsibility on humans and to open up the
future to alternative, well considered futures.  See Pre-history.

Historicity: The particular combination of concretely existing
social factors, the interactive effect of which produces a unique
event.  Since humans create meaning through intention, the
causality of an event thus can have a variable pattern.  That
varying pattern is what we call "history."  This contrasts to
Ahistoricism in which one seeks unchanging, universal laws with
which to explain events.  See also stage theory.

Historiography: One's approach to history and to its study is said
to be a historiography.  There are several theories about how to
understand the sweep and patterns in history.  There is marxist
thought and dialectical materialism as a theory of history; there
is the Great Man theory; there is a theological view accepted by
most people on earth in which a God or gods exist; have a plan for
social life and make changes now and again for good reason.  There
is technological determinism which says that great inventions
create turning points in history; fire, the wheel, the alphabet,
irrigated farming, metal working, the steam engine, automobiles,
radio, television and now, computers are given great emphasis in
explaining the twists and turns in history.

     The marxist perspective is that "man makes history and that
history has no independent causal power ... thus "historical
necessity" and "History decides" are mystifications nowise
different from attributing such reified and deified powers to gods,
nature, the "absolute" or such.  "History does nothing, it fights
no battles, owns no riches, and does not use men for its purposes;
it is nothing but the activity of men pursuing his ends." Real
people do set conditions in concert with other real people which do
limit the freedom of choice of other people.  If the price of bread
or milk is set by an agreement by suppliers and distributors or if
only one version of history is permitted, then there are
"historical" conditions which "determine" behavior but this does
not mean that history determines human affairs as some (including
some marxists) would have it.  The better view is that there are
degrees of freedom for human agency within differing historical
contexts.

History:  Greek: historia = information, inquiry.  That which deals
with the unique, the private, the  nonrecurring.  To be contrasted
with modernistic theory, that which deals with the external, the
universal, the unchanging patterns of nature and society.  In Chaos
theory, these distinctions are lost since real systems display a
mix of order and disorder; of pattern and variation, of change and
renewal.

Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1697)/Hobbesian problem of order, the:  Thomas
Hobbes (1588-1679) held that there was a war of each against all;
that self-interest was a universal law of social psychology and
that in the natural state, life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short, a phrase  which  directs  attention  to the question of
the source of social organization.  Some say instinct (for
gregariousness), some say power, some say consensus on values
(produced by socialization), some say contract (among freely nego-
tiating parties), some say it is God's will.  Hobbes argued for a
'civil order;' one in which the best solution to the problem of
order is a social contract which puts all power in a Monarch [or a
Leviathan].  The marxist position is that social order in feudal
and capitalist societies or in elitist societies generally, is
produced by coercion and control.  On the other hand, social order
should emerge from social justice.

     Chaos theory suggests that order is not the central goal of a
wise government but rather some mix of certainty and uncertainty
best fits suits natural and social dynamics.

Homosexuality:  Love of same sex persons; used to refer to males
who engage in sexual behavior with other males.  Homosexuality is
forbidden in many societies and institutionalized in others.  In
recent times, homosexuality has been converted from a criminal act
requiring punishment to a pathological act requiring treatment.  In
very recent times, it has been de-criminalized and de-medicalized. 
There is a Gay Movement which advocates and demands recognition of
homosexuality and homosexual partners.  Many companies and states
now specify that living partners are eligible for benefits when
before benefits were restricted to married couples of opposite sex. 
See also lesbian(ism).

Hope:  One of several social psychological capacities developed in
pre-modern knowledge processes which ground the construction of all
distinctly social realities.  Faith, belief, trust and cooperation
being other such capacities.  Modern science holds that, since
these cannot be measured, they have no ontological existence and
thus are not the subject matter of investigation in modernist
social psychology.

Hostile contrast: A phrase used to refer to the conflict between
classes and elites/masses when one group enforces an exploitative
set of rules on another.

Humanism: An ideology in which human dignity and the collective
good is emphasized.  Humanism usually uses science and logic to ad-
dress problems rather than supernatural or mystical approaches. 
Freedom of the intellect, of criticism and of association are
highly valued as well.  As such humanism often opposes institutions
which are coercive and/or exploitative.  Sometimes humanists are
criticized by marxists as lacking a sociology, i.e., as not
understanding the roots of oppression in the class struggle.

Humanism, Abstract: The view that men and women are the measure of
all things; that people should be the master of their own destiny
and engineer their own social life world through free and open
political discussion.  It was to this abstract humanism (of
Feuerbach) which Marx objected.  In Marx, human nature is a product
of social conditions: it is historically determined by concretely
existing social relationships rather than existing in a pure form
distorted by historical conditions.

Humanism, Socialist: The starting point of socialist/marxist
humanism is a militant struggle against "those conditions in which
mankind is abased, enslaved, abandoned or rendered contemptible."
This militancy goes beyond mere rhetoric to action for two reasons:
(1) in struggle one transforms reality and thus satisfies the
marxian requirement that humanism must be real and (2) satisfies
the marxian requirement that " man [sic] makes history," i.e., that
the only hope of emancipation comes from the people themselves. 
This point emphasizes the value of autonomy in marxian humanism. 
Socialist humanism also is integral in the sense that it seeks the
human fulfillment of the whole of mankind rather than the isolated
individual or a single class although Marx does invest hope in
class struggle as the engine of progressive humanism.  The goal of
any marxist humanism worthy of the name is to affirm the dignity
and to support the promise of human beings. (After Schaff).  See
Postmodern theology.

Human Nature: In Marx, the mode of producing culture determines the
being of people.  "Production (in capitalism) does not merely
produce man as a commodity, it produces him as a mentally and
physically dehumanized being." The larger point is that human
beings, unlike animals, have the rare gift and ability to create
themselves in their full humanity if they act upon this radical
anthropology.  Marx's vision of human nature was that it became
human in the process of creating culture (in the labor process). 
Here culture implies an ongoing process of intending humans joined
in creating a rational mode of production.  Just as language
implies joined activity, the creation of all culture is collective
activity.  Art, science, medicine, knowledge, self and society are
collective productions which comprise the nature of those who
produce them.

Human Rights:  A set of rights which include: freedom of worship,
of assembly, of association, of speech, travel and migration as
well as democratic self government.  The United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights includes these elements but also
stresses cultural diversity and respect for national borders.  Many
critics argue that there are Human Obligations which parallel these
rights.  Other claim the idea of human rights go against human
nature [see Hobbes] and/or that in any case, they are hopelessly
utopian without great change in social institutions.

Hume, David (1711-1776):  Hume was a very important architect of
modernist philosophy of knowledge which locates the knowledge
process in human senses and human thought--in contrast to those
which argue that the source of ideas and knowledge is through
prayer, meditation, inspiration or divine revelation.  Hume's ideas
on causality are distinctly postmodern; he holds that we learn to
connect two events in time and space in causal terms.  His view on
self identity too, is postmodern; one's sense of self depends upon
memory but memory falters, changes, fails and creates new self
images.  This is in contrast to the pre-modern view that self is
part of God and lives on before and after life in this world.  It
is different from modern notions of self which assumes that the
social self is developed in infancy; unfolds naturally; can be
known by various tests and shapes one's behavior coherently and
independently of others or of the larger social context.

Huss, John (1369-1415):  Huss was an architect of that Protestant
Ethic which Max Weber would use to ground the Spirit of Capitalism. 
Huss taught that there was a 'predestinate;' those who were pre-
chosen by God to replace the angels in heaven who fled with
Lucifer.  This view did not sit well with those in the Catholic
church selling salvation to kings and merchants.  Huss was burned
at stake for discrediting the sale of these indulgences.

Husserl, Edmund (1859-1938):  Husserl is noted for his work on
modernist phenomenology.  He developed a method for identifying the
basic concepts with which people worked...it is called eidetic
reduction.  The process of discovering the eidos [essence] begin
with a bracketing of all its non-essential elements.  Space, form,
weight, and time for example have an essence apart from what
occupies the space; what takes the form; what gives the weight or
what happens in the time.  The process of finding essence is called
the epoch‚.  Noesis is the process of intending to do, say, feel,
make something; noema is the object intended; phenomena is the
thing, act or thought from the point of view of an outside party
trying to understand internal psychological workings.

     Postmodern phenomenology takes the view that space, form, time
and such exist only in the particular case; there is no pre-
existing ontology which answers to the concept.  Without something
having a form, there is no form.  The concept of the cube is all
abstract idealism with no concrete reality since, in nature, there
is no perfect cube.

Hutterites:  A religious community living in the Dakotas and
Canadian Prairie Provinces. Inspired by their religion, Hutterites
continue an agrarian way of life.  They share land and work; they
limit the size of the community to a 1000; they save money and buy
land to help set up new communities.  There is little crime, no
poverty, no divorce, no drug abuse and little gender violence. They
have one of the highest birth rates and lowest infant mortality
rates any where in the USA.  They reject most 'modern' ideas.

Hyper-reality: A concept coined by the French postmodernist, Jean
Baudrillard. Baudrillard argues that objects (commodities) have
more control over us then we do of them. The term used to make the
claim that whatever reality exists has been replaced by image,
illusion or 'simulacrum.'  This occurs in late monopoly capitalism
[Jameson] and is made possible by mass electronic media
[Baudrillard] harnessed to the profit needs of commodity capitalism
or the managerial needs of the capitalist state [Marcuse]. In a
consumer-driven society, we buy things for the signs and statements
they make rather than for their utility.  The hyper-real is a copy
of a copy of a copy ad infinitum such that no original can be
found.  Thus LB Johnson tries to present himself as a fictionalized
FD Roosevelt or a Ronald Reagan tries to act like a president
rather than an actor portraying a president.

Hyper-space:  This term refers to the difficulty of locating firm
and indisputable boundaries on both social groups, nations,
peoples, races, genders, universities or even physical objects [see
fractal].  The allied concept of cyber-space eliminates the concept
of geographical space altogether.

Hypothesis: Greek; Hypo = below; tithenai = to put; place.  That
which lays underneath and grounds natural and social dynamics.  For
Plato, a hypothesis was the third rung in his ladder of truth.  In
modern science, it has come to refer to a tentative statement which
predicts a fairly stable relationship between two or more
variables.  The choice and investigation of an hypothesis always
derives from human interests in prediction and control of the
physical world and not a detached quest for scientific truth. 
There are two kinds of hypotheses for which one searches: 1) H1 =
a positive statement of that which one expects to find in a data
set; 2) H0; a negative statement about that which one expects to
find in a data set.  See Null Hypothesis.

Hypotheses non fingo.  Hypotheses do not make themselves.  A quote
from Newton to the effect that natural laws exist; we only discover
them.  This assumption grounds all modern science and informs the
method of successive approximation.  The postmodern view is that
nature and society are so complex and human imagination so creative
that any number of 'valid' hypotheses are possible...all with
varying truth value of varying duration.

"I" (The): According to Mead, there are three levels of human be-
havior: (1) the level of impulse, (2) the level of socio-cultural
conditioning (learned behavior) and (3) the level of reflexive
intelligence.  For Mead, the "me" embodies the second level and
represents the social self in which one internalizes and acts on
the expectations of others.  The "I" in Mead's model of the self
embodies the capacity for critical thought and of creative
activity.  Contemporary sociology, in its conservative orientation,
emphasizes the "Me" and tends to equate the "I" with selfish
impulse and thus reduces Mead to an apologist for the Status quo.
(After Valerie Malhotra-Bentz)

Idea/Idealism:  Greek: eidos = vision, thought, form, shape.  For
Plato, an idea came from the essential structure/nature/form of a
thing.  One can see Husserlian phenomenology in the this usage. 
Leibniz used the term idealism to contrast with materialism.
Idealism now refers to an emphasis upon the role of ideas, gods,
reason or human will in the history of the world.  Premodern
thought usually took a view that there is a split between a) the
ideal world and b) the rough approximation of it in "real" life, 
In everyday usage, idealism is a sustained effort to practice one's
principles in problematic situations.  The marxian critique of
idealism is that it is too often a romantic gesture more than an
informed analysis; if one wants substantive progress toward social
justice, one must change concretely existing social relationships:
racism, sexism, class privilege and the many forms of ethnic and
religious domination.

Identity, social: The socially determined answer to the question,
"Who am i?"  One's social identity and self system is comprized of
all of the roles (and associated social identities) which a person
occupies and enacts in the course of a given stage in life.  In
mass societies, roles are so brief, superficial, and manipulative
that an identity does not emerge as a stable, discernible pattern. 
Without social identity, behavior is often unstable, antisocial,
and/or self indulgent.  In Logic, identity denotes the absolute
equality of one thing and another.

Identification: The process by which a young person internalizes a
social identity into one's self system.  One "identifies" when one
models one's behavior after another person.  Identification always
involves at least two parties; one who presents and identity and
one who honors that presentation.  In folk societies,
identification is a complex rite and preempts the self system for
life.  In mass society, it may involve only a ticket or a badge. 
In the latter case, identity is like a paper plate to be used and
discarded.

Ideology:  A generalized blueprint by which a given social life
world is created.  That which given meaning and purpose to life. 
Art, music, poetry, prose, science, myths, jokes, and song. 
Religion is an especially important part of an ideology.  Sometimes
ideology becomes reified into dogma and comes to be more than a
general guide to the construction of social reality but rather a
superorganic thing beyond the control of humans.

     As a term, it is used to put down any social philosophy with
which one disagrees.  The term began as 'the study of ideas' by
Destutt de Tracy (1775-1836) in opposition to the ideological
hegemony of Napoleon.  All social life requires a set of fairly
comprehensive [but not necessarily compatible] ideas as the
beginning point for the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' in the
construction of a social life world.  The only interesting
questions are: which set of ideas, how are they to be transmitted
to young people and how much criticism is to be allowed?  Marx held
1) ideology varies with the kind of political economy at hand, 2)
it varies with position with class, race, gender and ethnicity, 3)
it is necessary for solidarity purposes, and 4) it can be
progressive or oppressive depending on which ideas are valued most
highly.

Ideological Hegemony: The attempt on the part of all ruling classes
to universalize their own beliefs, values, morality, and opinions
as part of the "natural order of things." Control of schools, law,
churches, the media, as well as the political process aids in
consolidating hegemony. (Gramsci)

Idol:  Greek: eidos = form, shape.  In his foundational book about
the new body of knowledge [de Novum Organum], Sir Francis Bacon
took the view that science would chase four idols from the
knowledge process; idols of the marketplace [foria]; idols of the
cave [specus]; idols of the theatre [theatri] and idols of the
tribe [tribus].  Postmodern critique holds that all research
findings and theories are both a poetics and a politics.  The
interesting question then becomes, which 'idols' are we to use or
create in scientific investigation.

Idiographic: Occurring uniquely from an unpredictable set of pre-
conditions.  Human behavior lends itself to idiographic processes
while physical objects behave nomothetically. (see nomothetic). 
Can you imagine a situation in which (a, b, c, d, e,) sometimes
produces (f); sometimes produces (z), and sometimes does nothing?
Think about five children at play or five scientists in a meeting. 
See Nomothetic.

Imagination, sociological:  A term coined by C.W. Mills to refer to
the insights and empowerments produced by the study of social
relations and social groups.  With such an imagination, one can
begin to understand how the larger structures in society shape and
pre-shape our own thoughts, feelings, and behavior; racism, class
position, ethnicity and religious affiliations all exist prior to
the birth of any given person.  Socialization and social role
expectations often lead us to do things which, alone, we might not
do.  The social sources of both helpful and harmful behavior yield
to the sociological imagination.

Immiseration: A process by which poverty and misery are produced by
the ordinary operation of a social system.  Marx held that the
working class would be immiserated by the ordinary workings of
capitalist since it tended to disemploy workers and to concentrate
wealth and political power in the hands of a few; then too,
capitalism tends to cycles of boom and bust which periodically
immiserates both workers and owners.  Many say that capitalism
tends to eliminate the lower and upper classes and points to the
great improvement of workers in Europe and N. America [see
Embourgeoisement thesis.  However, when one looks at the whole
world instead of the more prosperous nations, there is support for
the thesis.  Compare to the view that poverty and misery arise from
biology, psychology or faulty socialization by mothers.

Imperialism/Empire:  A set of nations, countries, peoples all
controlled by a central nation which benefits from empire. 
Imperialism includes: 1) expansion of production and distribution
outside national borders, 2) central control of money supply and
finance, 3) export of finished goods to client nations, 3) division
of labor; manual labor in the colonies, intellectual labor in the
core country, 4) restriction of human/civil rights in the
periphery.  Often direct military control is used until a
'friendly' government can be installed.  Both capitalist countries,
monarchies, dictatorships and Soviet socialism established empires.

Imperialism: Marxist-Leninist theory of:  Marx and later Lenin
argued that the capitalist class must demand that the state help
them obtain overseas markets and a dependable supply of cheap raw
materials in those countries which have them.  Overseas markets are
necessary since the workers at home do not get paid 100% of the
value of the goods they produce; therefore they cannot buy it all
back; in order to 'realize profits,' markets in other countries are
necessary.  Since capitalists in other countries want the same
thing, the capitalist state has to go to war and or bribe
government officers in the target country.  Cheap supply of raw
materials are also necessary to keep production going and to keep
profits up.  The USA is the chief architect of capitalist
imperialism today with over 286 military bases and the C.I.A. to
provide 'friendly' countries for some 500 US Corporations which buy
and sell around the world.  The Group of Seven rich capitalist
countries cooperate to manage this capitalist world order.

Imperialism (Economic): A whole network of methods of control
(economic, political, military, cultural) which the dominant groups
in one country use to subjugate and exploit people in other
countries.  The power of U.S., Japanese, and West European
governments and corporations in numerous areas of the world has
been and still is the major cause of underdevelopment.  Most of the
time, imperialism by the U.S. is called "aid" or economic
development.  Imperialism does aid many in dominated countries;
usually large land owners, cooperative politicians; and small
business temporarily.  But as capital intensive production replaces
labor intensive production, a surplus population grows, community
lost, prices increase, crime increases and the whole process moves
toward fascism to bring law and order.  Imperialism has three major
sources in Marx; The search for markets to realize surplus value;
the export of surplus capital to other countries where interest and
profits are higher; and the search for cheaper labor as workers in
the advanced nations make gains in wages and working conditions.
(After Marx).

Impression management:  A term introduced by Goffman which points
to the efforts of individuals in a mass society to create
dramaturgical images acceptable to bosses, fans, students,
professors or others who have social or economic power.  The
concept directly challenges assumptions in symbolic interaction
about the shared-ness of symbols and the effort of people to work
together for intersubjective understanding.  See Dramaturgy.

Inconsistency:  Modern science holds that a 'good' theory is
complete, consistent and comprehensive.  If inconsistent findings
or inconsistent reasoning occurs, those in the modern science holds
the knowledge process is corrupted somehow.  Research in
Chaos/Complexity reports the existence of inconsistency; denies the
possibility of completion and argues for local and temporary
outcome basins in any dynamical field.

Induction:  Latin: in + ducere = to lead in.  A knowledge process
by which one goes from observed data/facts to propositions and
theories rather than from theories to hypothesis; this latter is
called deduction.  Empiricism relies on induction.  Rationality
relies on deduction.  There continues to be a tension between the
two in all scientific endeavor.  Theories can never grasp the
incredible complexity and ever changing outcomes in natural and
social reality but are convenient maps; facts by themselves give
one no sense of the larger sweep of history nor the probable
futures one faces in trying to survive, thrive and control one's
own destiny.  Pierce argued for abduction, a continuous going back
and forth between data and theory.

Inplode/implosion:  The tendency of phenomenon in postmodern times
to turn inward thus destroying themselves and/or the assumptions
which ground them.  Thus, meaning implodes when special micro-
languages are used in medicine, computer science or religious
sects.  After Baudrillard.

Incest:  Forbidden sexual behavior within close degrees of kinship. 
Incest usually involves sexual relations between fathers, uncles
and brothers with daughters, nieces and sisters over age 16 [under
that age, sexual activity is generally defined as child abuse]. 
Step-fathers are more likely to be involved; mothers and aunts, far
less likely.  Incest rules forbids such sexuality for three
reasons: 1) it subverts the parental, socialization process by
putting the child in an adult status before he or she has been
given such social status in a rite of passage [see which], 2) the
adult misuses the social power inherent in the parental status for
personal purpose; 3) it distorts all authority relations within a
family.  There is, as a consequence of shame and guilt, long term
psychological damage to those involved.

Index Crimes:  Crime used by the F.B.I. to measure how crime rates
increase or decrease.  They include all Part I crimes: murder,
negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault,
burglary, larceny and auto theft.  They do not include all those
killed or robbed by corporate crime, political crime or white
collar crime; these later are called accidents or profits.

Individual: A unit of social existence whose boundaries are
restricted to a single person.  Social roles and social discourse
suggest that the single individual is fiction.  If mind, self, and
society are aspects of the same thing, then we are bound to others
to the extent we are social.  Usually patterns of information flow
mark the boundaries of the social entity.  If people talk freely
among themselves, then they comprise a group rather than a set of
individuals.  See the 'I,' Individual, theory of, Individualism.

Individual, Theory of: The marxian theory of the individual (some-
times called the Philosophy of Man (Woman)) has three fundamental
assumptions: (a) that the individual is a part of nature and not
apart from it, (b) that the individual exists as a function of
social relations and (c) the individual is a product of self-
creation-of his or her own labor within social relations.

Individualism:  A social philosophy which sets the single person as
the measure and repository of all judgment, wisdom, sin, folly and
morality.  Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Herbert
Spencer provided the arguments for individualism.  It is part of
the Protestant ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism since it
justifies private interests above collective/public interests.  It
is progressive in that it opposed monarchy, church hierarchy,
deadening collectivism and suppression of human rights.  See Praxis
for a more balanced social philosophy.

Individualism (Possessive): There are several assumptions which are
used to justify the private accumulation of wealth among which are:
(1)  to be human means to be free from dependence on the will of
others. (2) The individual is free from any relations into which
(s)he does not voluntarily enter with a view of pursuing his/her
own interests. (3) The individual is essentially the proprietor of
his/her own person and capacities, for which (s)he owes nothing to
society. (4) In a market society, one can sell one's capacities in
exchange for fair remuneration.  While each assumption could be
criticized on a number of counts, the main points of rebuttal are
in order:
     1.   To be human involves the capacity to create culture.

     2.   Culture, by its nature cannot be produced apart from
          social relations.

     3.   A person learns to produce culture as a consequence of a
          labor intensive process called socialization.  One cannot
          socialize one oneself.

     4.   In a market economy, one may sell one's labor power only
          if some of the value of one's labor is appropriated as
          profit by one who purchases it.

Individual (and Socialism): According to Schaff, what matters most
in socialism is the principle that the welfare of the human
individual is the supreme good.  "Socialism is by definition a
system in which every individual is entitled to genuine, full
development." Enmeshed in society, the real, concrete individual is
the concern of revolution and is the maker of history.  According
to Schaff and the humanist marxism he embodies, social revolution
is the protest of real humans against their isolation from
community and it is this which makes marxism sensible.  Without
concern for the fate of the individual, all struggle loses its
point.  This view opposes the focus on class, class conflict and
class struggle apart from the goal of relieving alienation and
ensuring the possibility of praxis.  An emphasis on the single
individual has problems: it may encourage possessive individualism,
it may deflect attention from social relationships and it may
endanger social revolution to the extent that privatized
individuals find comfort and benefits from stratified societies. 
"Man is an animal which can develop into an individual only in
society." (Marx)

Inference:  Latin: in + ferre = to carry something in.  In
aristotlean logic, the thought process by which one goes to a
conclusion from two or more premises/assumptions.  See
Quantification theory for the use of statistics to infer the truth
value of a hypothesis.

Inflation: the increase in the cost of a good or service without
comparable increase in value (see monopoly).  Capitalists like to
blame workers (high wages) and government spending (for welfare and
warfare) for inflation.  Actually any factor which increases demand
drives up prices while anything which keeps prices up adds to
inflation.  The entry into the market by unproductive consumers
(welfare clients, owners, lawyers, advertising people, criminals,
middlemen, etc.) with large amounts of money drives up prices while
monopolies, subsidies, fair trade laws and such keep them up.

Information: Generally, the exchange of partly ordered structure
between two systems.  Anything which reduces mismatch between two
systems (system and environment).  In contrast, that which is
completely known to both systems has no new content and thus is
not, technically, information.  Information must have some disorder
(unknown data) as well as a set of rules by which to decode the new
content.  If there is too much disorder or if the signal cannot be
decoded, there is no information.  All social systems require
accurate, timely, decidable, relevant information about new and
strange ways to do things if they are to be self-correcting and
self-healing.  Propaganda on the one side and secrecy are both
obstacles to the ready flow of information are inimical to
democracy.

Infrastructure: The material base of a society; its method of pro-
ducing goods and services.  Roads, bridges, dams, power stations,
sewage and water purification systems as well as all those lines
leading into and out from offices, homes and factories.  Capitalism
systems externalized the costs of production by transferring the
costs of the infra-structure to the state which, in turn, uses
taxes on workers to pay for these essential tools.

Inquisition:  Latin: in + quirere = to investigate.  The word
usually refers to an agency of the Catholic Church, still
operating, which looks into charges of heresy of individuals and
suitability of books and ideas.  In the late middle ages, thousands
of people were burned, tortured, mutilated and imprisoned.  The
Spanish Inquisition was the very worse and lasted four hundred
years [until 1834].  Giordano Bruno was burned at stake and Galileo
forced to recant his view that the earth was not the center of the
universe.  The agency is now called the Congregation of the
Doctrine of the Faith and publishes a list of prohibited books,
movies and theories.

Instinct: A form of behavior programmed by genetic codes.  Many
people believe that some (or all) human behavior is preprogrammed
as a result of countless generations of evolution during which
maladaptive behavior was eliminated in the struggle for survival. 
Most research suggests that culture and socialization can supplant
and override any such predispositions to act.  War, male dominance,
stratification, mothering, and many other behavior patterns are
often said to be instinctual.  The concept of culture is used to
emphasize the learned nature of these behaviors.  See McDougall.

Institutes, The:  The elements of Roman Law codified in the reign
of Justinian [see whom].  They set forth 'the law of Nature [God's
law], the people and the state.  They say who is a citizen, who is
and is not free, how family law and which children are under
control of parents [children, grand- and great-grand children].  It
regulates marriage [only sexually mature people; only competent
people; only those not related by within three degrees of kin;
monogamy and property rights].  It also regulates thus permits and
requires wills, fiduciary obligations, rights of passage and right
of way, usufruct [usury which see], weights and measures,
inheritance, gifts, real estate sales, rights of slaves and
animals, hiring and wage labor, partnerships, contracts, mandates,
delicts [wrong-doing], contempt, security for claims until
adjudicated, types and qualifications for pleas, interdicts [what
can be forbidden or required], penalties and powers of judges.  One
can see that such topics are central to any legal system.

Institutional racism: Those accepted practices which permit certain
racially identified population categories to be excluded from the
production of culture, usually political culture, and relegated to
menial work.  Since institutional racism involves rules, policies,
precedents, it often occurs that people who are not racists
continue the exclusion of people from access to housing, medicine,
law, politics and education by following ordinary procedures and
recruiting from within kinship, friendship and ethnic affiliations.

Institutional sexism:  Practices in everyday life which presume
women are less capable than are men.  In law, religion, moral
development theory as in business, women are treated as if they did
not have full adult standing.  In the classroom, men are called
before women; women are touched more frequently; diminitives are
used to refer to women [Jeannie instead of Jean; Susie instead of
Susan; Elizabeth becomes Betsy] while men are called by their adult
names [James instead of Jimmy; Robert instead of Bobby].  Then too
professors often respond to a comment made by a male while passing
over comments made by women.

Institution: A division within the larger social order which
carries out a series of related tasks.  An institution is composed
of roles, actors, rules, objectives and communication facilities. 
A given concrete instance of an institution is called an
establishment.  All institutions together should provide the
resources (goods and services) by which a society can survive and
persons realize their human potential.  Examples include:
education, religion, government, economic and family.  Unless
institutions are coordinated with each other, there is a danger of
imbalance occurring.  The military is particularly dangerous in
this regard since it has the force by which to assert its demands. 

Instrumental rationality: A system of organizing capital and labor
to achieve a specific end with maximized efficiency.  The political
question is to what ends is rational employed? (See substantive
rationality).

Insurgent Sociologist: [Now, Critical Sociology] A journal
published by the Socialist sociology collective at the University
of Oregon in 1971.  The journal is dedicated to the liberation of
sociology from bourgeois ideological hegemony; to the
transformation of capitalism and to the building of socialism.

Intentionality:  Latin; in = intendere = to stretch out; to give. 
In philosophy of science, intentionality refers to objects which
really exist prior and apart from human thought.  Husserl [whom
see] used the concept to ground his phenomenology.

     In social psychology, intentionality is a mental act by which
one participates in the organization of one's own behavior.  While
the behavior of physical objects is "caused" i.e., they react to
outside influence, it is a special capacity of humans that they can
act with judgment and insight and, thereby, act differently from
what is "normal" or predictable.  See Praxis; Act, philosophy of. 

Interest:  The price paid for the loan of money.  Interest comes
from surplus value [which see].  Sometimes interest is a fair
return on investment.  Sometimes it comes from super exploitation
[which see].  One should be careful here; Biblical law provided for
usury; a fair charge for the wear and tear of equipment lent to
someone, and for a small payment for the loan of money.  However
interest rates of 10, 20, 50 and 100 percent per year were defined
as violation of God's law.  In addition, debts were forgiven
entirely every seven years [that's where we get the word,
sabbatical].  In capitalist societies, interest rates are supposed
to be set by the free market.  There are two practices which ignore
free market ideology; first banks get together and fix interests
rates.  Second, the state sets interest rates up or down in order
to stimulate or discourage consumption and investment [see
corporate crime for the first; keynesian economics for the second]. 
See also rents and dividends; Usury.

Internal Colonialism: A theory of poverty in which (1) one ethnic
group dominates another in a given country; (2) there is
territorial separation of subordinate ethnic groups into
"homelands," "reservations," or "Native reserves," (3) a special
government created by the dominant group to rule the subordinate
group.  The laws to be applied differ from those of the dominate
group but are fashioned by them and (4) the systematic
appropriation of the surplus value of the labor of the subordinate
group by the dominate.  As Walls points out, the concept is applied
in the U.S. where it doesn't fit too well.  Walls insists that
poverty in Appalachia and other areas is due to the normal workings
of capitalism while the term is safer to use than that of class
conflict and socialism as a cause and solution to poverty. (After
Walls).

Internalization: The incorporation of social norms into the self or
the personality, so that violations of norms will produce a sense
of guilt.  To the extent this happens, the notion that self and
society are twinborn makes sense.

International, First:  (1864-1876).  An organization founded in
London to co-ordinate the working class movement around the world. 
The organizing committee included G. Odger, W.R. Cremer and Karl
Marx.  It had modest success, always limited by nationalism,
conservative religion, racism and gender privilege.

International Court of Justice:  A court at The Hague consisting of
15 judges elected for 9 year terms which has the power to determine
disputes relating to International Law.  All members of the United
Nations are automatically members of the court and subject to their
rulings.  However nations may reject its jurisdiction in selected
cases; then too, the Court may issue advisory rather than binding
rulings.  Many liberals on Right and Left reject both the Court and
International law as intrusions into private matters.

Internationalism:  The term refers to worker solidarity which
reaches beyond national borders.  One of the factors which divide
workers and get them engaged in destructive competition for jobs is
nationalism.  This is called alienation of patriotism.  In the
Manifesto it is clear that the proletariat have no homeland. 
Internationalism is an inseparable part of communism.  The auto,
textile or computer industry in the U.S. can move to south Korea,
India or Mexico and play those workers off against those in this
country.  By paying low wages in one country (S. Korea: $.22 per
hour, Hong Kong: $.57 per hour; U.S.:  $2.99 per hour), wages can
be depressed and the "surplus" value extracted from workers
increased.  The workers of the world must unite to prevent this
competition.  Given historically existing antagonisms, this is
indeed difficult.

International Law:  A body of laws negotiated and signed by some
set of nations.  Such laws reduce the sovereignty of nations such
that powerful nations often ignore them in pursuit of national
interests.  International law deals with such matters as the
formation of new nations, acquisition of more territory from other
nations, human rights, warfare, the law of the sea and of space, as
well as treaties, treatment of aliens and refugees and disputes
between countries.  The League of Nations and later, the United
Nations were formed to deal with such problems and emerging issues.

International law, private:  Most states have a set of laws about
how their citizens should behave or do business overseas; this is
not binding on other or all nations but is binding in courts within
the jurisdiction of the courts of the nation concerned.

International Monetary Fund:  The financial agency used by rich
countries to force debtor nations to institute state policy in
order to return both principle and interest to the banks which loan
money to them.  Higher taxes, fewer programs of social justice, and
greater share of the gross national income in poor nations ensue as
a result of the work of the IMF.  The USA is a dominant power in
the governing of the USA.  It is one of three power tools used to
force poor countries to bend to the USA and the Group of Seven
which the IMF serves.  The other two are the C.I.A. and the US
Military; usually Military Advisor Groups which provide weapons and
training to armies serving local, friendly elites.

International, Socialist.  There have been four.  The first was
organized by Marx and the International Workingmen's Association;
it met in 1864.  The Second was organized in 1889 but collapsed
when German, English and French workers opted for national
interests rather than international class struggle.  The Third
International, called Comintern, was organized by Stalin and died
when he died.  The Fourth was organized in opposition to Stalin by
Trotsky in 1938 as an alternative to Stalinism.  It continues but
without mass, transnational support.  Ernst Mandel is its best
known leader.

Interpellation: The process by which one enters into and is
understood through a special language system [la langue]. All
persons, in order to convey intended meaning, situate themselves
and/or are inserted within the language system in use. For example:
in order for a jailhouse lawyer to represent a fellow inmate's case
during a trial, the jailhouse lawyer must situate him/herself into
and be inserted within the language of law. Indeed, within the
stated illustration, this is understood to be "good" lawyering. 
The interpellated subject, then, is, knowingly or not, an agent for
the continued legitimacy of the language in operation.

Interrogatory: A term in civil law which involves a formal written
question submitted by one party in a dispute to another and
required by a judge to be answered.  It is a powerful legal weapon
but must be directly relevant to the case at hand.

Intertextual:  Infinitely complex interconnections between stories
about nature, society or history which do not permit of clear and
identifiable beginnings, boundaries, endings or binary oppositions.
Absolute intertextuality presumes everything is connected. After
Bauman.

Invisible Hand, the:  A concept from Adam Smith which held that
there was a stabilizing and equalizing tendency built into
capitalism and the free market.  Smith used it to argue for
individual freedom and a market based ethics since, he argued, in
the long run, all wrong decisions will fail; the market is a self-
correcting system.  This view assumes that competition will provide
the most goods at the lowest prices for the greatest number of
people if the state or cartels do not intrude into the market
system.  It assumes that no one person or firm alone can control
prices, wages, interest, the stock market or any other factor.  It
always takes the long view, however, as J. M. Keynes said, people
do not live in the long term, they live and die in the short term.

Intimacy:  A form of social relatedness in which the boundaries
between self and other are not clear and definite.  In intimate
relationships, one can tell another person secret things and can
trust people not to use the information against one.  Intimate
persons share freely and give each other emotional support when
needed.  In stratified relationships, intimacy can work against a
person as a great many women have discovered when they depend too
much on males for economic support and emotional comfort.

Intuition:  Latin: in + tueri = to look at.  It is used to refer to
the idea that one can come to the truth of a thing by reflection
and meditation.  Socrates held that one was part of the spirit
world before one was born and thus 'knew' everything.  The shock of
birth suppressed the memories of ultimate truth but, in quiet
moments, these can come back in revelations.  More likely, such
intuitions are the result of the human brain organizing a lot of
diverse data and putting them together in a new and insightful
pattern.  Remarkable thing, your brain, if you let it work.

I.Q.:  Intelligence Quotient.  The ability to learn, remember, sort
out and apply information to problems given on a pencil and paper
test.  There is a lot of controversy about I.Q.; the main one is
whether I.Q. is shaped more by genetics or more by environment.  If
genetics, then one can claim some superiority of those who score
highest on such tests.  Racism and sexism are both justified by
pointing to I.Q. scores.  But if such tests are biassed in favor of
things white men are likely to do or know about, then that argument
loses force.  More to the point, there are any number of unscaled
information flow systems in the human body; I.Q. tests measure only
cognitive abilities.  Muscle memory, blood chemistry, hormones and
enzymes as well as various tissues all gather data; store it,
retrieve it and apply it to survival problems not easily encoded in
paper tests.  Then too, human beings live in a symbolic social life
world which may be very stupid or very intelligent apart from the
ability of the person.  The US Navy is said to be a system designed
by geniuses to be run by morons; the point is the intelligence is
not just something located in the brain case of individuals: to sit
this ability as the final test of human merit is a political act
rather than a scientific one. 

Irrationality: a mode of thinking in which a complete knowledge of
all prior events and their interactions are inadequate to account
for the final product.  Behavior cannot be predicted since
imagination and ingenuity create completely unique and
unpredictable behavior.  The human interest in change and renewal
is served by irrational thinking while the human interest in
prediction and control is served by rational thinking. (after
Habermas).

Irreversibility: A situation which a system is able to survive by
transferring order from its environment.  Since society depends
upon its population base for order, all societies must see to the
health of the population upon which they depend.  The same is true
of the physical base upon which both depend.

Irreversible socio-dynamics Theory: A set of principles which
indicate how a social system may maintain itself as an stable
"irreversible" entity: irreversible in spite of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics which says that every system tends to disorder.  The
major points of the Theory is that the system must be organized to
maintain its own boundaries, seek quality variety, use it to adapt
to new conditions, and maintain the integrity of the environment
from which it draws its order. Since a human population is the most
important environment of a Social system, human societies must
first look to the well-being of The people.  Chaos/Complexity
theory expands this body of knowledge to include the importance of
non-linear feedback in producing self-similar structures.

Issue: A conflict situation in which there is no accepted solution
for dealing with an exigency.  Often two (or more) publics take
differing positions on how to reduce mismatch between system and
environment; wisdom and judgment are required to resolve issues. 
A problem, on the other hand, is a situation in which there is
consensus on how to deal with the mismatch; only technical reason
is necessary to solve a problem.  Problems have solutions; issues
require a political process in order for a solution be generated.

Jacobins: A left-wing group in the French evolution.  Jacobins
embodied a radical democracy and absolute equality.  The Jacobins
had the misfortune of attacking the wrong enemy; the last remnants
of the feudal system and the clergy more so than the new enemy;
commercial capitalism.  RobbespiŠrre lead it; Diderot gave it its
slogan: Justice will come only when the last king is strung up with
the guts of the last priest.  They held power in France from May,
1793 to July 1794; during the time of the terror in which many
opponents of the revolution were guillotined.  Composed of small
business, core militant workers as well as elements of the Lumpen-
proletariat, the Jacobins were ruthless in destroying their
opposition.  So named after St. Jacques convent where they met.

Japanization: The introduction into countries other than Japan of
industrial relations systems and methods of production generally
considered to be typical of Japanese-owned companies. Supporters
claim that Japanese management techniques make for greater
productivity and less conflictual industrial relations.  Critics
say that such methods intensify work; in effect, "working smarter"
also means working harder for the same pay; and that it reduces
workers' control over how they do their jobs.  Japanese companies
themselves use different methods in different countries.  For
example, a Japanese company may have a company union in Japan, a
tame union chosen in a "beauty contest" in Britain, and a non-union
plant in the United States.  Japanese companies outside Japan also
omit some of the more desirable features of employment by a large
corporation in Japan, most notably "lifetime employment". See also:
kaizen, lean production, quality circles (QC), team working, total
quality management (TQM).  For a good general introduction to the
debate, see Global Japanization? The transnational transformation
of the labour process, edited by Tony Eiger and Chris Smith, London
and New York, Routiedge.

Jesuits: A militant Catholic organization of monks founded by
Ignatius Loyola in 1534.  They consider themselves to be special
troops dedicated any task that serves 'the greater glory of God.' 
Jesuits worked against the Protestant Reformation after Luther and
against the Enlightenment after Newton.  They became the most
militant pro-Catholic establishment in Europe and European
colonies; doing so, they earned a reputation for cruelty and
unprincipled politics.  In recent times, many Jesuits have moved to
a more tempered position and work for social justice in the many
colleges and universities they have established around the world.

Jim Crow: A series of laws by which Blacks were denied social,
political and economic status in the South (and North) after the
Civil War of 1860-65 in the United States.

John.  A term of contempt in prison for anyone who does not enter
to a criminal subculture.  A (potential) customer for commodity
sex.  Anyone who is square in some respects but is willing to
reproduce exploitative relations in dealing with others.

John Birch Society:  A right-wing group founded by John Welch, a
candy manufacturer, named after an American soldier killed in the
Communist advance in China in 1945.  Welch accused Roosevelt,
Truman and Eisenhower as being communist agents since they
supported state intervention in the economy and state ownership of
the Post Office, highways and social services.  It declined in the
late 60's but has new members in recent times.

Jouissance:  A notion of profound significance in French postmodern
theory. As developed by Jacques Lacan, jouissance (delight, hope,
bliss) refers to that enjoyment which is beyond; that excess or
fulfillment which is beyond. Its application to postmodern theory
signals how, through discourse, we try and fail to convey our
needs, hopes, despairs, longings, aspirations; in short, our
desire. However, words and phrases (whether spoken or written) are
incomplete. They do not ensure us of our jouissance. We struggle to
ensure that our desire finds embodiment in discourse, through
intersubjective communication and through the language of our
behavior and life cycles.  We seek and search; sometimes in pro-
social ways; sometimes in purely private ways; sometimes in ways
which exploit and oppress others.  See Desire, Discourse, four.

Judge: One who has the legal right to decide on guilt, innocence or
the applicability of law.

Judgment:  A ruling by a judge which can be enforced by the power
of the state.  These include fines, imprisonments, garnishments,
divorces, committals to asylums, custody of children, commands to
stay away or to do a specific act.  Judges have a lot of social
power which, in democratic societies, flows from the people to the
state then to the judge.  In elitist societies, legal power loses
its social character and becomes an alien force to be resisted.

Judaism:  The religion of the Jewish people and the foundation of
both Islam and Christianity.  It began, the story goes, as a
compact between God and Abraham and the chosen people.  The  terms
of the compact [covenant] are lain out in Deuteronomy  [one should
take time to read it since it informs a lot of modern law and legal
theory today].  The first five books of the 'old' testament [Torah]
comprise the heart of Judaism; they are supplemented by the Talmud,
which contains oral laws dating from the 5th century BCE.

Junta: A ruling committee (often military) which controls all
policy a totalitarian or fascist state.

Jurisdiction: 1) The legal right of a court to hear a case in law
and to make a judgment.  2) Territory covered by a state or court.

Jus:  Latin: ius = right, law.  There are four kinds of law those
in the sociology of law should study closely; jus civile or civil
law; jus divinum = divine or eternal law; jus gentium = the law of
nations or international law; and jus naturale, natural law.  One
must be careful here, Natural law usually means the same thing as
jus divinum while natural law means those regularities in nature
[and maybe society] which can be teased out by the scientific
method.  Jus civile and jus gentium are clearly made by humans;
there is considerable argument between premodern thinkers and
modern thinkers about the reach, if any, of Natural law. 
Postmodernist tend to see all such laws as human work.

Justice:  Latin: ius = right; law: That which is right and proper
in terms of a given set of principles or traditions.  One must
distinguish between justice stemming from the technical, rational
application of a set of formally established rules, laws, or
standards on the one side and that justice which comes from social
status, mercy, compassion, love and reason which transcend
technical rationality.  Often technical justice is used to defeat
efforts to obtain more substantive justice in housing, jobs, health
care, education and social standing.

Justice, Distributive:  Those judgments which attempt to restore
and repair the damage done by a criminal act.  The idea is that
justice and the general good is better served if a criminal is made
to restore the original conditions of, if impossible, make some
restitution to the victim.  In the case of wrongful death, the
person responsible might have to provide for the family of the
person who died.  Roman law is much more oriented toward
distributive justice than is Common [English] Law.  Compare to
Retributive Law, below.

Justice, Retributive:  Those judgements which effect revenge upon
the convicted criminal; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or
a life for a life.  In retributive systems of justice, the idea is
that pain and punishment have healing qualities for both the victim
and the perpetrator.  The victim [of family of] gains a
satisfaction from knowing that the perpetrator has experienced the
same pain, shame or loss as has s/he; the perpetrator is said to
benefit since s/he learns to avoid such behavior in the future.

Justice, Technical.  A ruling or justification of an act from a set
of established laws, rules, norms or values.  The problem is that
the rules, norms and laws are often biased in favor of one group or
another so that when justice done, it may be irrational in terms of
human rights or humane reason.

Justice, Substantive.  A form of ideological culture in which some
set of principles are used to ground the judgment of right and
wrong, guilt or innocence, reward or punishment in a society.  A
society cannot be called a 'just' society until such principles
honor and sustain dignity and productivity for every human being.

Justify/justification: To show a lawful reason why an act may be
done.  Here law means both a universally valid principle as well as
the tight logical rationality used to derive a judgment.  The
question arises about the larger justice of the 'lawful reason.'

Just-in-time production:  Just-in-time (JIT) production entails
having the parts delivered as they are needed, avoiding costs for
buying, storing and protecting from theft.  Debate often centers on
how far this can go, and it often pointed out that Toyota, the
company which had gone furthest along the road of JIT, has now
reintroduced warehouses because of the traffic jams around the
factory caused by trucks making just-in-time deliveries.  An
advantage of JIT for workers is that it gives remarkable scope for
a quick and effective strike.  If the gearbox assembly plant goes
on strike at a multinational like Ford, it can stop production
across Europe in a couple of days.

Justinian:  Emperor of Constantinople in 537 who 'took on the cares
of the people that they might live without care.'  Working through
a committee he appointed, Justinian had Roman Law codified and
simplified.  His Institutes [three great books] is the basis of
Civil Law in modern Europe and the USA.  Civil law is extended to
all citizens [civis] and replaces common law and church law.  The
idea that one is a citizen and thus has legal rights is fundamental
to contemporary law.  Before, one had to be born into a tribe in
order to qualify for both justice and protection of the law.  Roman
citizenship gave such protections to all conquered lands and thus
began the process of universalizing both criminal and social
justice.
     The Institutes [legal elements] of Justinian began with the
sentence: Justice is an unswerving and perpetual determination to
acknowledge the rights of all men [sic].  They are the basis for
legal proceedings in every colony of old Rome and modern Italy.

Juvenile:  Latin: young person; one will less than full adult
status.  In law, persons 14 to 17 who are tried in a special court. 
The court is instructed to work toward distributive, restorative
justice rather than punitive, retributive justice.  See Youth,
Sociology of, and Age Grades.  Juveniles are subject to juvenile
law which include status offenses  [see which] not binding on
adults.

Juvenile Delinquency:  Any act involving a person 14 to 17 years of
age which violates a legal specification.  Juveniles are processed
by the juvenile justice system rather than the criminal justice
system; distributive justice informs this system while retributive
justice informs the criminal justice system in the USA and other
countries which adopt legal systems from England and northern
Europe.  Juveniles commit about 1/3 of all serious crime [1995];
there is much opinion to treat young persons as adults and subject
them to pain and punishment.

Juvenile Justice System:  A complex and growing institution which
handles the crimes and delicts of young persons.  There are few
Constitutional protections on the other hand the system is informed
more by restitutive justice and restorative therapy than punishment
and incarceration.  The system emerged to do two things essential
to capitalism; keep children in school in order to have a more
highly trained labor force and, 2) to prevent children from
competing with adult men for scarce jobs.  See Status crimes. 
After Tony Platt.

Kant, Immanual (1724-1804):  One of the more important contributors
to the philosophy of science and a basic source for postmodern
sensibility, Kant worked and wrote at the U. of Konigsburg.  Kant
arose at five; studied two hours; gave two hours of lecture and
returned to study until 1 p.m.  He then worked on his next lectures
and ended the day by light reading...every day for his entire life. 
He is best known for his work on analytic v. synthesis reasoning;
a priori/a posteriori reasoning.  The philosophy student and those
in the philosophy of science and phenomenology must study him
closely.  In his Critique of Pure Reason, he made the postmodern
point that all knowledge is a combination of how nature appears and
the nature of the observer.  His Imperative for Ethical behavior
and his formula for Perpetual Peace bears serious consideration. 
Compare to the Golden Rule and to Utilitarianism.

Kaizen: Japanese: continual improvement.  A philosophy which
encourages workers constantly to look for "better" ways of doing
the job.  This may involve, for instance, re-arranging the
workplace so that tools and parts are more readily accessible; it
may equally involve ways of doing the job more quickly or with
fewer workers, and therefore contribute to the intensification of
work.  Quality circles (see which) may form part of the kaizen
process.

Kantian Imperative:  A grounding for human behavior absent Gods or
Natural Laws for so doing: Act as if the maxim of thy act were to
become by thy will, a universal law of Nature.  Add to this
imperative, his book on Perpetual Peace in which Kant called for a
human political form in which each person were a full participant
and for a 'universal union of states' and 'a permanent congress of
nations.'  One would do well to read and reflect on this admirable
scholar.

Katyn:  A small village in USSR where 8,000 Polish Army Officers
were murdered by the Soviet Army in 1940.

Kerala:  A small state in India controlled by communists since
1957.  The first and most successful communist government elected
in a free and open election.  It held was rejected by voters in
1959 and returned to power in 1967.  It has one of the highest
literacy rates, lowest death rates, lowest crime rates and the
highest employment rates in India.  [After M. Zarariah].

Keynes, John Maynard (1883-1946):  British economist who wrote a
book in 1937, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,
which has become the key text for saving capitalism from its cycles
of boom and bust.  He also did work on probability which continues
to be used in mathematics.  See below and see Kondratieff curves.

Keynesian economics:  The ups and downs of capitalism can be
eliminated or at least moderated in the short term by the fiscal
policy of the capitalist state.  When times are bad, the state
stimulates demand with grants, low interest rates, subsidies, money
supply, tax incentives or by buying the 'surplus' production and
giving it away to needy people.  When times get better, the state
is supposed to increase taxes to pay for all the things it did
during a depression.  President Roosevelt first used keynesian
economics in the great depression of 1930; President Nixon said,
'We are all keynesians.'  President Reagan used the fiscal policy
of the state to buy political legitimacy and left a huge national
debt for the current generation to pay off.  About 9 of 10 dollars
used by the state to stimulate growth go to the rich.  Named for
John Maynard Keynes, British Economist who made the case in a book
written in 1930; General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

     Keynesian economics will work best if and only if the credit
is used wisely and is paid back by taxes when times are good.
Depressions will be less serious and shorter but, again, the long
term tendency of capitalism is to destroy itself by disemployment,
concentration of wealth and subversion of the political process. 
Keynesian economics can postpone or moderate these tendencies but
not eliminate them. In the USA, state credit is used but, since
President Reagan, the taxes have not been collected to pay back the
debt.

Kibbutz:  Agricultural communes in Israel in which workers share in
planning of work, parenting, health care, education and recreation. 
It takes the slogan: From each according to ability; to each
according to need.  Kibbutzim were founded by Jewish socialists
from Europe after the founding of the Israeli state in 1949.  One
of the more successful in Israel is Maagan Michael on the Coast of
the Mediterrean; it produces fish, fruits, drip irrigation
technology and some market vegetables.  Housing is assigned free on
the basis of seniority and need.  It has its own collective nursery
but children go home at night; it has a senior center where elderly
folk may work for wages or not.  It provides free health care, free
education up to high school and pays for college tuition.  Young
men and women live in separate houses after age 16 and generally
run their own lives.  People may eat in the cafeteria free or they
may buy their own food and prepare it at home.  There is a theatre
which shows movies, plays and concerts.  It is one of 300; not all
of which are as successful since they exist in a larger capitalist
economy. 

King, Martin Luther:  A very effective Afro-American Civil Rights
leader, M.L. King helped organize boycotts, sit-ins, and marches on
behalf of black Americans.  King was assassinated in Memphis in
1968; he had become much more a threat to the powers elite since he
was there to support black workers in Memphis and had begun to
oppose the war in Vietnam.  King referred to the welfare system as
an 'evil system' which corrupts people and called for more sweeping
reforms.  The F.B.I. engaged in secret and illegal efforts to
discredit King.  There is now a national holiday and a great many
public honors given him.

Kondratieff Cycles:  Capitalism tends to exhibit regular cycles of
boom and bust; there are three kinds.  Long cycles with 30 to 50
year waves are called K. cycles after the Russian economist who
identified them in 1910.  There have been several going back to
1740 then 1790, 1840, 1873, 1890, 1930 and now, perhaps the USA is
on the downturn of such a wave.  They come about since capitalism
does not share out profits enough for all the wealth produced to be
bought in the marketplace.  Workers do not get paid 100% of the
value they produce; owners cannot use all the remainder.  A surplus
accumulates, workers are laid off, factories close and the whole
system tends to slow down.

     Then after companies go bankrupt, products wear out, and
prices fall, new demand is generated and there is an upswing. 
There are several 'solutions' to these cycles chief among which are
keynesian economics, wars, crime, welfare, and the inflow of
foreign capital; all renew demand and supply.  Unemployment is said
to prevent inflation and these economic cycles.  There is much
debate whether they really exist; in recent work, Brian Berry
reports K. cycles are non-linear so they may well exist although
not in the regular, predictable form required by modern science.

Koran:  Arabic: Qur'an from qara'a = to read.  The Holy book of
Islam.  The book contains the teachings of Mohammed and date from
about 622 A.D.  They are organized into 'suras' or chapters. 
Together they provide the ceremonial, civil and criminal laws of
all of Islam.  They teach faith, virtue, compassion, social justice
and battle for the faith.  They contain condemnations of Jews, the
delights of Heaven and the punishments to be expected in Hell. 
Some 800 millions or more muslims take them very seriously and, as
a result, result in a very low crime society with mechanisms for
redistribution of wealth to the poor, widows and children.

Knowledge:  Greek: gignoskein = to decide upon, determine or
decree.  Now it means sure and certain understanding of how nature
and society works.  There are many pathways to knowledge; in
premodern times, one meditated or used psychogens to connect with
the infinite.  Inspiration and revelation are also part of pre-
modern knowledge processes.  In modern science, there are two major
pathways; rational, logical deduction from formal theories on the
one side and statistical inference from data sets collected by
observation and/or questionnaires.  Plato contrasted opinion [doxa]
with episteme [authentic knowledge].  The highest form of
knowledge, according to Plato, is sophia, a knowledge of first
principles from which all truth can be deducted.  Postmodern views
are that all knowledge sets are constructed within and for a given
social life world.  Each culture uses different concepts to slice
up the extraordinary complexity of nature to serve its own
purposes; each society creates social knowledge in the act of
constructing the various social roles and relationships which
comprise social institutions and social-life worlds.

Knowledge, democratization of: Socialist theory requires a system
of production and distribution of knowledge involving those who are
the subject of knowledge and the user of knowledge.  Thus the sub-
division of knowledge into experts and clients who pay experts for
their knowledge is replaced by a system which makes all knowledge
free to all persons based upon need and interests.  Computer based
internets which charge a modest user fee could serve to democratize
medical, political, religious, sexual and economic knowledge.

Knowledge, Sociology of/Processes of:  There have been three major
pathways to human knowledge; the first is pre-modern and goes back
to the earliest human beings.  The second is modern science and is
crystallized by the success of Newton to find very precise patterns
of behavior in physics.  The third epoch is the postmodern and
began in earnest in the 1960's.  The first knowledge process gives
the human knowledge process the capacities to believe, to trust, to
have faith and to trust their own inspiration as a pathway to
knowledge.  The second emphasizes measurement, prediction and
observation as a way to ground truth claims.  It has given us a
much better agriculture, communications, transportation, health
technologies as well as many other gifts.  The third pathway uses
history, cross-cultural comparisons, class or cultural interests to
understand how truth claims are made and adopted.  The view of the
present author is that all three are essential to the human
project.

Kondratieff Curves/Cycles:  Capitalism is subject to ups and downs
which come along about every 30 to 50 years.  In the USA, there was
a depression in 1740, 1790, 1830, 1870, 1890, 1930 and, perhaps, we
are on the downside of a Kondratieff curve now which began in 1970. 
The cycle is triggered by changes in demand; when workers don't get
paid 100% of the value of what they produce, they can't buy it all
back; the 'surplus' grows, workers are laid off, factories shut
down and demand is further reduced.  Demand is renewed when the
surplus runs out, factories reopen, workers are hired and then can
buy more and thus add to demand.  There are two other such cycles;
Kutznets and mini-waves [which see].  See also Keynesian theory.

Kropotkin, Peter Alekseievich, Prince ( 1842-1921):  Kropotkin was
a Russian Army office, naturalist and politician best known for his
seminal work on anarchy.  Imprisoned for his efforts to aid farmers
and workers, K. escaped to Western Europe to write on mutual aid
and anarchy.  Left alone, K. said, humans were naturally
cooperative and could get along fine without a state to run things. 
He put forward a communal form of anarchy in which he combined the
absolute freedom of the individual with common ownership of the
means of survival.  He thought that, out of this social form,
independent production units would form to respond to basic human
needs.  Compare to Social Darwin which places competition and
struggle as the best chance of survival.

Kuhn, Thomas (1922-):  American philosopher on the sociology of
science.  In his 1962 book, On the Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, Kuhn showed the politics which infuse officially
accepted theories and world-views.  Science is a social product
produced by a community of scientists.  This community determines
what shall be accepted as scientific orthodoxy and what shall be
called 'unscientific.'  Kuhn made the point that world-views in a
discipline, called a paradigm, is validated and taught as 'the
truth' until further research creates an intellectual revolution
and new paradigms emerge to be treated as scientific orthodoxy.  In
a recent interview in Scientific American, Kuhn said that he
thought that it is possible to come to a final, comprehensive
paradigm which would end the dialectics of knowledge.  Postmodern
sensibility holds that nature and society are so complex that any
number of paradigms are possible, indeed, they dwell side by side
in most disciplines.  A final, encompassing paradigm is not
possible; all such paradigms have limited, human usefulness; this
include premodern world-views based upon trust, faith, hope,
compassion and belief.

Kutznets Cycles.  These cycles in capitalism are said to come along
about every 15 years; there is considerable controversy about them. 
See Kondratieff curves for a general explanation of such cycles.

Labelling Theory:   A term introduced by Howard Becker to denote
the feedback effects of formal control systems which polices,
judges, incarcerates and supervises people.  There is a complex
feedback loop in which criminalized social identities become part
of the self system as one is processed through those social control
systems.  Labelling theory cannot be a theory of crime since
labelling and the gradual incorporation of social identity into
self system occurs in a wide variety of socialization processes;
doctors, lawyers, Catholics and Japanese all result from labelling
processes.  The theory is useful to counter theories which locate
criminal behavior in and only in the psychology of it all.

Labor: The concept of labor is very important to marxist/socialist
theory.  It refers to the process by which people create themselves
as social entities by "appropriation of nature."  Labor, thus, is
not merely working but rather forming social relationships in which
and in which material culture is produced to the end of creating
collective life.  "In labor, (wo)man as a species-being creates all
his/her human characteristics." Marx.  Some theorists (e.g.
Markovic) prefer to use the concept "praxis" for unalienated labor
and the term "work" as a neutral term for productive activity. 
"Toil" is a more pejorative term for alienated labor.

Labor, alienated:  Labor is alienated when it occurs within
exploitative relationships: slavery, feudality, colonialism or
capitalism.  The solution to alienation in this framework is social
change rather than psychological counselling.

Labor, contradictions in.     Marx was quick to note that
capitalism made the production of wealth relatively independent of
labor power but still insists on using labor time as a measure for
the giant social forces thus liberated.  Capitalism sets the price
of commodities in terms of the wages of those who produce them;
thus a dollar, mark or yen is a call upon a given amount of labor
power of a given worker.  Yet industrial capitalism tends to
disemploy people and thus reduce their ability to offer the labor
power essential to get money.  This at once creates inflation and
at the same time makes it difficult for those made surplus by
capitalism to have such bills with which to exchange for necessary
goods and services: food, shelter, education, health care,
communications and transport.  The State steps in to reconcile this
contradiction and is made enemy to both worker and capitalist.

Labor discipline: A policy in which workers are "disciplined" such
that the cost of their labor is competitive with the cheaper labor
of workers in other countries.  Opposition to unions and high
wages, safe working conditions and other benefits in America stems
from the need to compete with workers in S. Korea who are paid 23
cents per hour and less.  Capitalists operating out of military
dictatorships capture markets from American industry and, thus,
force American capitalists to discipline their workers.

Labor, estranged: When labor is sold as a commodity, one's labor is
no longer an affirmation of one's own essential being but the
property of someone else.  The worker feels free only when not
working and work ceases to be an end but a means to an end.  Its
alien character is revealed in the fact that work is shunned like
the plague if possible.  As a result, the worker feels alive only
in the exercise of his/her animal functions-eating, drinking and
procreating. (EPM)

Labor, International Division of:  A global economic system in
which most countries produce raw materials, food and provide cheap
manual labor while rich, industrialized countries produce high
profit goods to sell abroad.  Globalization of the economy began in
the middle ages with trade of clothing, ornaments and small goods
in exchange for spices, slaves, sugar, coffee and precious metals. 
Now, in the modern global economy, rich and powerful countries sell
cars, armaments, movies, knowledge and luxury goods to non-
industrial countries in exchange for raw materials, tourist
facilities [including prostitution], foods, blood and transplant
organs, and an uncertain partnership.

Labor power:  The capacity to produce wealth from raw materials as
well as the capacity to use the material wealth thus produced and
to produce ideological culture: science, law, religion, art, music,
drama and all forms of family, intimacy, and friendship not to
mention police, prisons, warfare, patriarchy or genocide.  Marx
said, 'Take the land and tools away from producers and all they
have left is labor power.'  In capitalism, most people have to sell
labor power to survive...however there are several parallel
economic systems which work within capitalism to provide goods and
services [see Economic forms, parallel].

Labor power, re-production of:  All humans beings have fundamental
needs, material and spiritual; all societies have a set of common
needs, an infra-structure as well as culture [art, science, music,
drama, religion and recreation.  Together these constitute the
minimal requirements for the re-production of labor power.  Any
wealth produced above and beyond the satisfaction of these needs
constitutes Surplus Value [which see].  See false needs, profits.

Labor market, segmented:  The USA has a labor market with three
main parts: the primary or monopoly sector employs about 1/3 of the
workers in the USA, provides good wages and benefits as well as
decent working conditions.  The secondary sector is composed of
those who work for small firms which compete with each other for
the trade of big business; wages are much lower, far less job
security, few prospects for advancement and few benefits; about 40%
of the workers work for these firms.  The State sector is a good
place to work although wages are a bit lower, job security is
higher and often other benefits as well.  (After Gordon, Edwards,
Reich and O'Connor).

Labor, surplus:  the extra labor power used to produce more wealth
than is required for the reproduction of labor power.  The standard
of living varies widely and the amount of wealth allocated to the
families of workers varies greatly but there is an irreducible
minimum standard of living below which family life and community
life dies out.  See Exploitation, super.

Labor intensive production.  A system of production in which the
capacities of human beings is used to produce.  Indispensable in
creating ideological and political culture.

Labor theory of value: A theory which says the value of an item is
set by the labor-time required to produce that item.  This implied
for Marx and socialists that workers should receive the value added
to nature by their labor; that the appropriate of some of that
added value by capitalists is exploitation.  Marx took the concept
from classical economics; neo-classic economics used the concept of
marginal utility and diminishing returns  [which see] to set the
source of value thus moving it from the workers who produce it to
the consumers who buy goods and services.

Lacan, Jacques (1901-1981): The architect of postmodern
psychoanalytic semiotics,  He combined Freud, Saussure, Levi-
Strauss and Kojeve.  Lacan maintained that the unconscious was
structured much like a language, thus it was essential to identify
the inner workings of that discourse located within the
unconscious. The unconscious was the repository of knowledge,
power, agency, and desire. In brief, however, Lacan argued that the
speaking subject was not in control of what s/he said; rather, the
structure of language pre-shaped thought and desire. This is what
Lacan meant when he claimed the subject was divided ($) or
decentered. For Lacan. the subject could not be so purposive, in
control, self-aware, because the discourse of the unconscious was
the crucial arbiter of all experience, knowing, and living.  This
was a direct assault on the rational, logocentrism implied in
Descartes' maxim "I think therefore I am."   See Desire.

Laissez-faire:  French: let it be, let it alone.  A slogan of those
who believe there are economic laws which regulate industry, trade
and banking which, if let completely alone, will drive the economy
to better and better forms.  First as a reaction to control of
commerce and trade by kings and guilds, it later became used
against state welfare and, of course, the central planning of
socialist states.  See Physiocrats, Social darwinism,
Utilitarianism.

Lange, Oskar (1904-65):  A Polish economist in the Left Wing of the
Socialist Party who moved first to England then to the USA and
Professor of Economics at U/Chicago.  Returned to Warsaw and worked
on market socialism in order to retain the advantages while working
out ways to share out surplus value to benefit direct producers and
serve community needs.  Lange made the case that market socialism
fit within marxist theory and practice.

Language:  Latin: lingua = tongue.  In the sociology of knowledge,
there is a question of the relationship of words to things.  Most
people assume words are verbal mirrors of that which 'really'
exists.  Herder held that words were imitations of nature. 
Humboldt held that each language was a human invention containing
a separate world view.  de Saussure also held that words were a
result of creative human activity.  Franz Boaz found held that each
language has a special grammatical structure.  Sapir held that
language is poetic, metaphoric in nature and help people grasp some
part of the realties around them.  Carnap began the practice of
inventing artificial languages using rules of logic; most computer
languages follow his lead.  Chomsky argues that humans have an
innate or deep structures which pre-shape the use of words. 
Wittgenstein expanded language theory to treat it as having a great
many purposes [language games] which vary from picturing natural
facts to doing philosophy.  There are 'family' resemblances to such
games but each 'game' has to be understood on it own terms.
Postmodern views usually hold that all languages are both a poetics
and a politics; this includes scientific and sociological concepts,
works, vocabularies.  It also includes this dictionary.  There is
much to learn before the role of language in shaping and pre-
shaping human behavior and human societies is fully known. 

Language as productive labor:  Most theories of exploitation and
oppression focus upon the ways material wealth is funneled from
those who produce it to those who 'own' it.  Critical theory and
postmodern critique views language as a productive process in which
both society and ideology are created.  Such a view leads one to
analyze 'language games' in science, religion, politics and
economics for their role in exploitation or emancipation.  The new
industries of advertizing, management science, computer languages
and 'cyber-space' created by those who control information and the
rules of meaning gave rise to postmodern terms as the 'text,'
'simulacrum,' 'voices,' 'stories,' 'narratif' and such.

Language, sexist/racist:  The everyday use of terms which degrade
women and other minorities.  Sexist language makes it appear that
men are the only interesting part of the human species and that
only they make history.  Racist language makes it appear that one
group is genetically superior to another group.  Socialist feminist
protocols offer non-sexist terms to be used in writing and speech; 
'person' for 'man,' 'woman' for 'lady' or 'girl.'

Large-scale organization: A formal organization controlled by a
managerial cadre whose tasks (and rewards) are pointed toward the
continuation of the L.S.O.  Superimposed over the class system is
another system of stratification in which L.S.0's are the dominant
stratum of social organization and the mass base the inferior
stratum.  This view suggests that orthodox class analysis is not
enough to gauge the extent of human oppression and the target for
social revolution: one must go beyond the stratification of owners
and workers to that of organizations, nations, and blocs of nations
in order to see the full picture.

Law: Old English, lag = to lay down.  1) Any body of rules made by
an authoritative body and enforced by a state.  2) a particular
rule passed by a duly authorized body.  3) Tight connections
between cause and effect which can be stated in precise
mathematical terms; Newton's law of gravity is accurate to one part
in 10 to the 27th power.  Celsus defined law, 1) above, [ius] as
'ars boni et aequi,' the art of promoting that which is good and
equitable.  The idea of statutory law replaced both tribal norms,
holy books and commands of kings sometime around the 5th century,
B.C.E.  Both Cicero and Julian wrote that the law must be made with
the consent of those governed by it; Cicero claimed that no one was
above the law; not kings nor rich nor powerful people.  Both Greek
law and Roman law provided for due process as did the Mosaic Code.

     As a result, we now think of law as a statute enacted by a
competent law-making body forbidding/requiring a certain act and
carrying a penalty for violation.  The socialist critique of law in
this sense is that such legislation usually embodies the interests
and aims of those in power.  Reproduction of class, racist or
sexist inequality requires the use of the monopoly of force claimed
by the state; most existing law helps do this; 'The Law in all its
majesty forbids equally the rich and the poor from sleeping under
a bridge.'

Law, Natural: A set of commandments given by one's God which
supersedes laws made by human beings.  For those in the Judeo-
Christian-Islamic tradition, the laws set forth in Deuteronomy
comprise the core of natural law; each religion also has a set of
interpretations and explanations which accompany the laws in the
Old Testament.  See Aquinas.

Law, natural:  When spelled with a lower case 'n,' natural law
refers to those laws detected by scientists which describe regular
and recurring patterns in physics, chemistry, physiology, biology,
psychology and sociology as well as economics.  The new sciences of
Chaos and Complexity teach us that 1) close connections between
variables loosen as bifurcations increase in a dynamical regime and
2) that feedback loops displace the notion of causality.

Law, Sociology of: The systematic study of the social origins of
law, the social context in which law operates, and the social
results of a given legal system.  Law is a form of social control
which arose in Persia, Rome, Britain and France by which the
behavior of the population was regulated by an elite; customs were
set aside in favor of new rules about property, family, religion,
work and politics.  There is reason to believe that formal law is
found only in conflict situations.

Law, Bourgeois:  Capitalist law provides for the private ownership
of the means to produce essential goods and services.  Bourgeois
law allows a fictitious entity, a corporation, to take blame for
the crimes committed by the owners/stock holders.  It also gives
the state the legal authority to enforce the rights of owners,
landlords and banks over the rights of workers, people who rent
homes and people who borrow money.  Before capitalist law came into
effect in the famous Carrier's Case [See which], if someone did
something that a capitalist didn't like, the capitalist would have
to turn to civil law or to church law.

Law, Formal:  With settled agriculture, new social forms arose
including empires.  In Persia, the laws of diverse peoples were
encoded into a formal set of state laws called the Code of
Hammurabi.  As new empires formed, new legal codes were developed. 
The most important are: Roman law [Justinian Code] which grounds
the legal system in much of Europe and in its colonies in S.
America; Napoleonic law which grounds the present legal system in
France and french colonies; the Constitution of the USA which
grounds law here and in a number of newly independent nations
around the world.  All provide for capitalism but also provide for
equality before the law and for free elections which moderate the
worse excesses of capitalism.

Law, Socialist:  Socialist law guarantees equality before the law;
eliminates the right of private persons to own the means of
production of essential goods and services, guarantees access to
health care, education, housing, jobs, and provides for retirement
with dignity.

Law, religious:  For most of human history, law came from the
various holy books of a people.  Deuteronomy gave hundreds of laws,
some of which protected the poor and the stranger.  It served as
the legal base for Jews, Christians and Muslims [the first five
books of the Torah are shared by all three religions].

League of the Just:  A secret socialist society in Belgium, Britain
and France active in the 1840's.  Marx and Engels joined its
Brussels branch in 1847, reorganized and renamed it as the
Communist League.  Meeting in London that year, Marx and Engels
were asked to draft the Communist Manifesto.

Lean production: Production with as few people employed as
possible, and by seeking to reduce inventory by just-in-time
methods (q.v.). There is a widespread view that lean production has
gone as far as possible, but this has been denied by Prof. 
Masayoshi Ikeda in a recent paper (delivered in Berlin), in which
he says that the Japanese car and electronics industries "have just
set their feet on the starting line in the competition of the lean
production system in its true meaning".  He instanced an exhaust
factory in which one man was doing the work of eight.  In the USA,
the term is related to 'down-sizing,' the reduction of the
workforce by 20% or more.  Sears, ATT, GM, and many other firms
around the country have thrown millions of blue collar and white
collar workers on the labor market.  These then compete
aggressively with employed workers.  Wages and fringe benefits drop
as does job security, safe working conditions and other labor gains
in the past century.

Left:  A noun and adjective which denotes those who hold liberal or
radical political views.  It was coined in 1789 after King Louis
XVIII convened the Estates General to try to stop workers
rebellions.  The Third Estate [mostly business men] were put on the
left of the King, the Second Estate [the nobility] on the right. 
The idea was to identify those who opposed the King with that which
was sinister [Latin: left].  Today the term refers to those who
advocate reforms in politics, economics and religion.

Left-wing Marxism: That wing of marxism which emphasizes human
intersubjectivity, dialectic change, alienation, and historicism. 
It is criticized as being too idealistic (rather than materialism),
too subjective (rather than concerned with objective relations in
capitalist societies) and, in the rejection of the "right-wing," an
obstacle to the development of marxist science.  Left-wing marxism
raises important questions about the role of philosophy, about
method and about the necessity of cultural and ideological
revolution as part of the total social revolution.

Legal aid:  A program in which poor persons are provided legal
services paid for by public funds.  In criminal cases, attorneys
are provided; in civil cases, advice and assistance is provided. 
Usually the court will decide eligibility for such legal aid but
the US Congress provides for legal aid clinics in rural and poor
areas; these have been dismantled and or underfunded by recent
conservative interests.  The rationale for such aid comes from the
US Constitution which provides for equal protection under the law,
due process and other rights.

Legal fiction:  An assumption in law that something which does not
exist or is false may be taken to be true by judge and jury if both
parties agree to it.  It is widely used in divorce cases and
sometimes in criminal cases.  There is too, the legal fiction that
a corporation is a 'real person;' thus stockholders and officials
are not responsible for corporate crime even though they select the
corporate officers who then engineer the crime.  Both directly
benefit from the profits from the many crimes committed by this
legal fiction; the corporation is fined but never imprisoned
however many people are dead or however great the theft.  See
corporate crime.

Legal-Rational Authority: In Max Weber, legal-rational authority
refers to the authority of people who occupy offices in a
bureaucracy.  The authority is in the office not the person [a
boss, a police officer or a professor].  It is said to be rational
since goals are achieved by enforcement of rules.  A variety of
personal wants, desires and goals are pushed aside in favor of the
goals of the formal organization.  Habermas denies that legal-
rational authority is rational since it may not be oriented to
human values.  This failure sooner or later creates a legitimacy
crises since a belief in legality for its own sake creates a world
without meaning.  In principle, a formal rule is hostile to praxis
and to historicity since the law exists prior to and apart from the
situation in which human action is called forth. In everyday
practice, law is interpreted and, thus, regains some historicity. 
In addition laws are often disobeyed with impunity and/or
rescinded.  See McDonaldization.

Legitimation Crises: As the economic crises of capitalism grow (in-
flation, unemployment, obsolescence, loss of markets), the admi-
nistrative branch of government expands into the realm of things
usually handled by public discourse.  The role of history and of
traditions shrinks and, in reaction, public opinion politicizes
settled items like the right to tax, the right to welfare, the
right of the state to govern.

Lenin, Vladimir llyich (1870-1924): A Russian revolutionary who
guided the first great socialist revolution, founded the Russian
Communist party and the Comintern [3rd International].  Lenin made
many contributions to socialist theory.  Perhaps the two more
important of which is his principles of organization to make the
revolution and his strategy to prevent counter revolution after
taking state power.  Syzmanski has summarized Leninism as an
organizational vanguard to make the revolution: (1) recruitment of
energetic, hard working respected and militant people into the
vanguard party, (2) commitment and enthusiastic execution of party
policy, (3) a thorough knowledge of existing social conditions in
which the party must work and the internal situation at all levels
of the party, (4) coordination of all activities of all members,
(5) full democracy within the party, (6) flexibility in strategy
and tactics in advancing the revolution, (7) the proper mix of
openness and secrecy and (8) an appreciation of the role of
leadership.  Marxists-leninists parties are to be disciplined,
dedicated and determined.  After the seizure of state power, the
major role of the socialist state is suppression of the former
ruling strata, control over demoralized workers, over the petite
bourgeois, the peasantry and the lumpenproletariat.  Lenin's theory
of imperialism and the conditions of colonial exploitation makes
leninism widely accepted in third-world liberation movements today
(1977).

Lesbian/lesbianism:  Sexual activity between women.  From the
Island, Lesbos, upon which resided women who felt no great need for
male company and intimacy.  Sappho was a strong woman and poetess
who lived on Lesbos and gave the name to any woman who refused to
be dominated, sexually or otherwise, by males.

Levi-Strauss, Claude (1908-)  French anthropologist who held that
social structures are objective entities which exist independently
of human consciousness.  As such, human behavior is pre-shaped and
the individual human subject fades into an effect of structural
dynamics.  Human beings engage in activities designed to hide the
difference between the actual reality and their ideal image of it. 
Myths hold together the image and the ideal.  Marriage and kinship
systems function as 'languages' which permit the exchange of
information.  As women marry outside a kin grouping, they take with
them much latent information which can be used if necessary to cope
with changes.  All structures can be seen as 'grammars' in this
view and all can be studied as such.

Lewin, Kurt (1890-1947):  German psychologist who came to the USA
to teach social psychology at U/Iowa and elsewhere.  Lewin is one
of the architects of postmodern social psychology.  He argued that
the totality of a 'life-space' shaped human behavior.  He argued
that the single case was a better pathway to knowledge than were
statistics from large research projects.  His work on democratic
interaction is very important; in studying authoritarian and
democratic youth groups, boy scouts in this case, Lewin reported
that democratic is more dis-orderly at first but more productive in
the end than are authoritarian forms.  He is also noted for his
work on attitude change through informationally rich and
interactionally rich group dynamics; in a classic experiment, he
showed that women who talked openly and freely were more likely to
adopt dietary practices helpful to the food shortage in WWII.

Lex domicilii:  The law of the land in which an offense occurs; in
international law, lex domicilii  holds unless there are diplomatic
or other reason to put it aside.  American soldiers who are
stationed in Japan and Germany are not subject to lex domicilii,
they may not be tried for rape, theft, murder or assault in local
courts; they may be Court Martialled, see which.

Lex loci contractus:  According to international law, contract law
is governed by the place where the contract is made; but contracts
made in Mexico which are illegal in the USA can be set aside. 
Contracts made in Mexico which have no counterpart in the USA can
be enforced via international law.

Lex talionis:  The law of the club and fist [claw]; more broadly,
the law of conflict and war which gives the right to define the law
and conditions of life to the victor.  This legal code still holds
in warfare; victors are seldom punished for the many crimes they
do; nor are they usually required to return property and or land
taken in warfare.  This is changing as American Indians turn to the
courts for return of lands taken by the US Army in violation of
treaties.  There is some effort to do the same for lands and
property taken in warfare in other places.  England has been
returning goods taken in colonial warfare.

Liberal:  Latin: free person.  Liberal is now one of the most
confusing words in social discourse; it was used in English to
refer to those who had skills and trades which made them
independent and gave them some status.  The underlying meaning of
'free' gradually worked into politics to refer to liberty from all
forms of oppression including state oppression.  Now it is often
used against workers and customers by corporate liberals who
advocate a market unrestricted by law.  It is used against women
and minorities by those who believe in stratified social relations
and demand freedom from state intervention on behalf of social
justice.  Shakespeare warned against 'liberall villaine' as 'vile
encounters.'  Such liberalism is set against all that is defined as
sacred; child pornography, incest, rape and other forms of
exploitation.  Watch carefully the context before you take the
meaning. After R. Williams.

Liberalism: There are two uses of the term, very different; first
it refers to an ideology which supports progressive and humane
change within the rules set for a given social paradigm.  They
stand for freedom of association, speech, religion and residence. 
They use the state to moderate the worse inequalities/injustices in
capitalism.  These Liberals often defeat their purposes of a humane
and just society by following the rules by which a stratified and
exploitative society is created.

     Second usage refers to those who want absolute freedom in the
marketplace; the unrestricted right to own, use, abuse or sell; the
right to turn anything into a commodity if there is a demand; the
right to move capital and jobs anywhere in the world where profits
are higher or costs lower.  See Laissez-faire.

Liebknecht, Karl (1826-1919):  A German lawyer who helped found the
Social-Democratic Party in Germany; the Socialist Youth
International, and proclaimed the first German Socialist Republic
in 1918.  Along with Rosa Luxemburg, he inspired a whole generation
of Germans to overthrow German capitalism; along with Rosa, he was
murdered by a police death squad, the Freicorps.  A bridge in
Berlin bears his name adjacent to Karl Marx Platz (1995).

Liebniz, Gottfried (1746-1716):  German philosopher who took a
degree in law at Altdorf.  Liebniz invented a machine which could
extract square roots and argued with Newton who invented calculus
first.  His philosophy included the concept of the monad, a basic
unit of reality which now seems strange.  He argued that if God
existed, He would create the best possible of all worlds...a very
conservative view.  

Lifetime employment:  Major Japanese firms take care of the worker
from the time s/he finishes school until the time s/he dies. A
misnomer, since workers actually retire in major Japanese companies
at age 60, it could more accurately be called "long-term" or
"continual" employment.  Commentators have pointed out that the
situation is not entirely rosy: lifetime employment has only ever
applied to male employees of large companies, never to women or to
employees of smaller firms.  On occasions, lifetime employment
could also mean lifetime punishment, when a worker was never sacked
but never promoted, so that a fifty-five-year-old postboy remains
as an example to encourage the others.  Lifetime employment is now
under attack in a more difficult economic environment, and some
Japanese companies are pursuing practices such as "loaning"
employees to subsidiaries on worse pay and conditions than in the
parent company.

Linear/Linearity:  This concept refers to the case when a change
produces an effect in perfect ratio to its effect.  Thus a one
pound push may move your car two foot; a two pound push may move it
four foot; a three pound push may move it eight foot and so on. 
All modern predictive science relies upon linearity to yield the
precision of predictions which is said to ground the highest, best
theory.  Chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics [see which] challenge
these ideas; most systems have turning points at which small change
produce large, unpredictable changes.  See Chaos Theory.

Linguistic Coordinate Systems:  In postmodern semiotics, acceptable
communication is dependent on the language in use.  Precise sense
making cannot occur from outside the signifying sphere (la langue)
in operation.  To illustrate, in order to explain baseball's
"infield fly rule" it is essential to rely upon baseball
terminology. Without knowledge of the language of the sport, it is
not possible to explain the infield fly rule.  Linguistic
coordinate systems assume several forms:
     1) dominant linguistic coordinate systems: those which promote
     and sustain capitalism, bureaucratic practices, and status quo
     power relations. These would include, among others, medicine,
     law, finance, and engineering. In their very construction,
     dominant linguistic coordinate systems deny access to those
     who are not specifically trained in the privileged discourse
     in use. All dominant LCS's oppress/regulate those who fail to
     conform to the dominant code.
     2) oppositional linguistic coordinate systems are those which
     resist, ignore, and/or work against the prevailing speech-
     thought-behavior patterns in use. Oppositional or insurgent
     codes would include the language of prison inmates, gangs, and
     the mentally disabled.
     3) pluralistic linguistic coordinate systems refer to those
     discourses which are accessible to all citizens regardless of
     training or indoctrination. These would include the language
     of sports, popular culture, and media generated commercialism.
     This dictionary tries to facilitate PLCS's.

Locke, John (1632-1704):  The author of a famous work on human
understanding and precursor of all modernist social psychologists. 
Locke held that the mind was a 'tabla rasa' or blank slate upon
which was written what we would now call software programs used to
deal with sense data as they came in.  The brain is the hardware
and comes from biology and physiology.  The mind is the software
and comes from socialization and experience.  Experience is made up
of sensation and reflection.  Complex relations are created in the
mind through reflection on simple ideas derived from sense data. 
Universal ideas/concepts are thus constructed by human beings; a
distinctly postmodern view.

     In his work on politics, Locke posits certain inalienable
rights given by God...that the state existed to guarantee these
rights; one can see how Locke shaped our own legal system with this
idea.  Among these rights are life, liberty and property [not
happiness].  Locke's views on property was built on the idea that
there existed a benevolent God who gave humans the good earth as a
source of wealth.  The state embodies the pursuit of human rights
but if it fails, it can be and should be overthrown.  Again, part
of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. 
Natural law [which see] underwrites these rights; human law must
conform to Natural [divine] law.  Yet Locke urged toleration of
both religious differences [again seen in the U.S. Constitution]
except to atheists who 'dissolves all' when they dismiss God. 
Locke also gave us direction for a philosophy of education: it
should develop character, judgment, respect for evidence and the
value of work.  Custom, tradition, despair, and indolence were
enemy to this effort.

Logic: Greek: logos = reason, word, discourse or ratio.  In
everyday usage it refers to the role of formal reasoning in the
knowledge process.  Logic is the branch of philosophy which deals
with rational thinking.  Aristotle argued that formal logic was the
bedrock of scientific knowledge and set forth the rules of valid
inference.  Aristotle set forth syllogistic reasoning in an 'if-
then' model; If all men are mortal, 2) if Plato is a man, 3) then
Plato is mortal.  The truth value of 3) depends upon the truth
value of 1), if all men are, in fact mortal and 2) if Plato is,
indeed, a man [human being], then there is no escaping the fact
that sometime Plato will die.  This seems to be a fine pathway to
truth but note that it says nothing about the degree to which 1)
and 2) are, in fact, true.  Bacon, in his work De Novum Organum
(1620), set forth the rules of scientific enquiry upon which
statements about the truth of 1) and 2) can be made.  Marx referred
to it as the lower mathematics of reasoning and set Dialectics
[which see] as the higher mathematics of reasoning.  See Scientific
Method; see also Science, postmodern for differing views.  Compare
to Dialectics.

Logic, Syllogistic:  There are three parts to syllogistic logic; a
major term in which something is posited as true, a middle term in
which a another case is posited as true and a minor term generated
by a very careful and rational combination of the first two terms. 
See Fallacies for some misuses of syllogistic logic.

Logic, Fuzzy:  A term with which to refer to a form of computer
programming or decision making in which the boundaries of the sets
[algorithms] used to guide decisions are permitted to change,
sometime in unpredictable ways.  Compare to the rationality of
syllogistic logic.

Logical Empiricism/Positivism: A school, founded in Vienna, which
holds that all proper science is grounded upon both empirical
observation and the use of formal logic with which to generate
propositions and to determine their status as valid laws of nature
and society.  Chaos theory and new findings about non-linear
dynamics de-center logical positivism.

Logocentric:  A term describing systems of thought which claim
legitimacy by reference to external, universally valid
propositions.  Postmodernists are opposed to logocentricism and say
such systems are grounded upon circular logic.  After Derrida.

Looking Glass Process:  Charles Horton Cooley set forth this idea
about how human behavior is organized.  It stands in opposition to
the idea that behavior is grounded on instincts or in-born urges. 
It says, in brief, that we observe how others respond to our
behavior and, being pleased or embarrassed by their reaction, we
modify our own behavior.  A rather simple way to refer to the fact
that one's self is the product of many people working together. 
This principle is of limited validity in a stratified system since
those at the top do not worry about guilt, shame or embarrassment. 
See Generalized Other.

Love: A very important social psychological capacity founded in
part upon physical bonding in infancy and childhood as well as
physical intimacy in adulthood.  This capacity has several forms:
in Latin, amour refers to physical and psychological intimacy while
caritas refers to a more general sense of charity and good will
toward other human beings.  In Greek, there are several related
terms: Philia means friendly affection; eros refers to physical
desire and close personal pleasure; agape is the sort of selfless
good will denoted by caritas above.  One can see that the many
forms of love are essential to the human project and serve well to
bind people together.  Contrast to other theories of solidarity
which focus upon the division of labor or shared interests.

Lukaţs, Georg (1885-1971):  Hungarian marxist theorist. He is noted
for his work on the concepts of reification, totality and the
dialectics of subject and object.  He added much to a more human
and humane socialism.  See these concepts.

Luddite: (also Neo-luddite) A loose organization of workers in
Leicester, Yorkshire and Nottingham opposed to the introduction of
textile machines since workers were disemployed and dispossessed by
them.  They destroyed machines in the early 18th century.  The name
comes from Ned Ludd, an idiot in Leicestershire and was assigned as
a term of opprobrium.  Nowadays, it refers to those who try to
solve the problem of over-production, dis-employment and the
formation of a surplus population by opposing automation instead of
capitalism.  They reason that machinery takes their jobs away so
the solution is to resist.  Socialist economics accept both
automation and increased productivity; the solution to
disemployment is to appropriate some of the value of the increased
products and to use it to support labor intensive jobs; health
care, child care, education as well as art, music, literature and
drama.

Lumpen-proletariat: The refuse of all classes.  The unemployed and
casually employed, discharged soldiers and discharged prisoners,
vagabonds, swindlers, paupers, beggars, bandits, and hustlers of
all sorts, brothel-keepers, servants and hangers-on, beggars and
pimps, petty thieves and those who live off of them, the
unemployed, male and female prostitutes, sons and daughters of the
bourgeoisie too proud to work and those surplus capitalists still
dreaming of success.  It does not include the dependent children,
the discarded aged, the lame, the halt or those who accept welfare
passively.  Marxists tend to view the L. with contempt since they
are too quick to steal or to sell themselves to those who have
money.  But see the play, Les Miserabl‚s for a more progressive
view of the potential of the Lumpenprols.  L's support themselves
by various scams, hustles, and angles.  Movies such as "Midnight
Cowboy," "The Sting," New Jack City," and "Cabaret" give us a feel
for such life.  Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Jane Fonda, Woody
Allen, and Dustin Hoffman routinely play (and glamorize) the young
hustler too proud to work at boring or menial tasks and with too
much talent to resign from life.

Luther, Martin (1438-1546):  Martin Luther is very important in the
sociology of religion.  Luther taught theology at Wittenberg; he
came to oppose the selling of indulgences by the Catholic Church. 
This lead to a more general critique of formal religious
organization and lead to more individualist involvement in both
religion and theology.  In November, 1517, Luther posted 95 theses
on the church door which made four points: 1) one cannot buy
forgiveness from sin, 2) those in sin must pray for forgiveness, 3)
the power of the Pope to forgive is restricted to transgressions
against the church and its penalties in this life.  4) Christ
requires true penance and cessation of sin; truly repentant sinners
have already been forgiven and need not buy such.  Now Luther
stands for a spiritual priesthood of all believers; one does not
need the services of a priestly hierarchy to approach God.  Luther
translated the New Testament into German so people could read it
themselves.  Weber points out that, in doing so, he made a most
important error.  He translated  'calling,' into berufen, 'labor'
rather than 'invitation from God'; thus work became a prime pathway
to grace and salvation.  Before the reversal, faith and meditation
were the prime pathways to divine grace with work being a poor
third.  The emphasis on hard work, thrift, and asceticism became,
according to Weber, the spiritual basis for capitalism.  Luther
opposed the idea of free will which also grounds capitalist market
dynamics but the wealth from free market dynamics becomes, in other
protestant theology, proof demonstrative of the 'grace of God.' 
Many Princes took up the Protestant cause since a great deal of
church property came their way during the Reformation.  Lutheran
doxology accepts God as Sovereign, Christ as Mediator, salvation by
work, justification by faith as well as rejection of mass, penance,
saints, and relics as well as the Pope as regent for God on earth.

Luxemburg, Rosa (1870-1919): Born in Poland, the youngest child of
a cultured Jewish family, Rosa Luxemburg grew up under the
oppression of Czarist Russia.  At 18, she was forced to flee to
Switzerland because of her work with the Proletarian Party.  Taking
a doctorate in 1898, she wrote over 600 books, articles, letters,
pamphlets, and essays.  Luxemburg is best known for her case
against Leninist centralism and against anarchist opposition to
organization.  Her position is that organization depends upon
existing conditions of class struggle rather than a predetermined
formula.  She did original work on the role of military spending on
domestic economy.  Luxemburg worked actively as an organizer for
revolutionary opposition to capitalism in Germany.  On January 15,
1919 she was arrested and then murdered, her skull smashed in under
a soldier's rifle-butt (Looker).  She had been urging young men not
to enlist in WWI and kill other young men on behalf of German
capitalists.

Macho/Machismo:  A set of values and behaviors the net effect of
which is to elicit respect and response to requests and commands by
and for males.  Some cultures require males to be controlling and
competitive; such requirements result in male behavior said to be
'macho.'  Males fight with each other in order to define hierarchy;
men beat women in order to elicit compliance to male demands; see
Abuse, spousal.

Machiavelli, Niccolo (1469-1527):  Author of The Prince, a text
book in how to get power and keep it.  Often mis-represented,
Machiavelli argued that popular government is the most stable since
it has the least problems of legitimacy; he suggested that princes,
nobles and the people each have enough power to keep the other two
in check and prevent tyranny.  The U.S. Senate, Congress and
Presidency is modelled after that suggestion.  M. held that liberty
is important to the survival of a state and that the people were
wiser than most princes [Contrast this idea to Plato and to Comte].
M. did argue that, when corruption is widespread, a strong king is
useful.  To keep power, the wise Prince will respond to the people
in good and gracious wise.  But he will keep faith with the people
only when it enables him to stay in power.  The clever Prince will
use both love and fear to gain loyalty from the people.  If force
and terror are necessary, it is done ruthlessly and quickly in
order to prevent opposition.  Propaganda and religion are to be
used to retain power; thus may order, stability and obedience to
state law be guaranteed.  Modern states and political leaders read
Machiavelli differently; some focus on responsivity to the people;
some on the use of guile and force.  The latter works in the short
term; the former is more lasting.

Macro-economics:  A field of study which looks at the larger sweep
of history and the role played by different economic systems in
history.  The contributions of Adam Smith, T.R. Malthus, Karl Marx,
Max Weber, David Ricardo, James O'Connor and Milton Friedman, are
important to the ability of a student to participate in discussion
of history, economics, sociology, politics and to an extent greater
than many believe, psychology.

     There have been five great economic systems in human history;
1) hunting/gathering, 2) agrarian in two stages; first settled
agriculture which gave rise to the idea of property and to
patriarchy and second, hydraulic agriculture which gave rise to
hierarchy, division of labor, and stratification.  These include
the extensive irrigated farmlands in Persia, Egypt, India, China
and Mexico.  3) Slavery is a third mode of production often
superimposed upon others but existing with its own dynamics.  4)
Feudalism and Colonialism are twinned systems in which one tribe or
ethnic group uses force to extract wealth from another short of
outright slavery.  5) Elements of commodity capitalism is found in
all prior formations but began to displace others in the 1700's
with the appearance of industrial capitalism.

     Socialism and Communism are alternative economic systems which
have yet to be instituted with any great success, non-the-less,
they are very important as they carry the hopes for both enlivening
social justice and for adequate material resources.

Macro-social psychology:  A large body of work which holds that
much of the ways of thinking, feeling and acting arise within the
larger social formation into which one is born.  This contrasts to
biological theories of behavior; micro-analytic theories of
behavior which focus upon face to face interaction and to theories
of deviancy which locate hurtful behavior to self and others within
the isolated personality dynamics of the single individual.  As yet
we do not have the research findings to judge the truth value of
contending claims.  It is likely that there are changing and
nonlinear inter-connections between physiology, psychology, micro-
and macro-sociological dynamics.  Quite a challenge for your
generation.

Macro theory: An attempt to describe how large systems work--the
international capitalist system, a whole society, long-range
patterns of social change and the like.  It is the most difficult,
challenging, exciting, and frustrating part of sociology and other
social sciences.  Often gifted essayists are better at macro-theory
than are professional sociologists.  But see narrative, meta-
narrative.

Malcolm X:  Black Muslim leader who first argued for black
separatism.  Malcolm X defined Whites as the class enemy and Jews
as the ruling elite but, as he gained knowledge and experience,
came to be more accommodating to other ethnic and racial groupings. 
Malcom X brought much to the Black community; pride, dignity,
organization for domestic peace and community organization as well
as courage to oppose racism in constructive ways.  Malcolm X was
assassinated, probably by other Black Muslims who objected to his
turn toward cooperation with progressive white groups.  His legacy
remains a powerful call to social honor and social action.

Man:  A sexist term for humankind.  See Human; humanity. 

Mandamus, writ:  Latin: manu = hand over; it now means we demand. 
A legal writ/order issued by a judge which demands that a person or
property be handed over to a person named in the writ.

Manslaughter:  Homicide which is less than deliberate murder but
more than mere accident.  Negligent homicide includes the death of
a person in traffic when a driver is under the influence of alcohol
or drugs.

Maritain, Jacques (1882-1973):  Maritain makes several points
worthy of consideration by affirmative postmodern science and
theology: first, that there are many kinds of knowledge and one
should not exclude others in favor of one [such as modern science]. 
Second, that poetic insight takes place in concrete situations and
represents a flash of insight about that concrete reality. 
Maritain grounds this insight upon the eternal beauty of God and
His wisdom but this is not essential to either postmodern science
or theology.  Third, Maritain adds to Locke's political philosophy
by adding obligations to the inalienable rights [given by God]. 
Fourth, he recommends an 'ordered' democracy to balance between the
possessive individualism of Locke and the totalitarian excesses of
Fascism, Stalinist Socialism and bureaucratic capitalism.  To
Aquinas five arguments for the existence of God, he adds a sixth
for those who need reason for faith; the insight that one's own
active 'I' is not located in time/space...and thus must be
connected to infinite Being.

Markovi‡, Svetozar (1846-1875):  Serbian socialist who held that
simple societies could go directly to socialism [instead of first,
capitalism as most marxists hold].  He argued for a leading role by
intellectuals [rather than the working class as Marx held].

Markoviţ, Mihailo:  Yugoslavia socialist philosopher and founder of
the Praxis School there along with Stovanovich, Schaff and others. 
The school was repressed for years but continued non the less.  It
tries/tried to develop a socialism which united both material and
spiritual values; balanced individual and societal needs; included
both cooperation with others with personal autonomy.  See Praxis.

Marriage: In most family law, a union of two opposite-sex persons
over the age of 16 carrying legal obligations for children,
property, security and support of each other.  There are many forms
of intimacy other than marriage as legally defined; new forms are
emerging all the time as economic and social conditions render them
attractive to people.  See Family, for some of these conditions. 
See Common Law, M.

Majority:  The age at which a person is, in law, an adult--usually
at age 18 but majority can be awarded at an earlier age by a court.
The age of majority has varied greatly with the mode of production:
see age grade, Youth, sociology of.

Managers: A special class between capitalists and workers which
preempts mental labor on behalf of the capitalist.  Under
socialism, managers as a stratum would disappear since mental labor
would be reunited with physical labor.  In some "socialist"
countries, managers are in the service of a party elite who preempt
mental labor to advance their careers.

Managed Society: A society in which social unrest due to capitalism
or bureaucratic socialism is brought under control by technical
(rather than coercive) means.  Control of commercial media,
electronic surveillance, counselling and chemotherapy techniques as
well as infiltration of radical (right-wing and left-wing) groups
all are technical measures by which an elite can control dissent
with technicians and professionals instead of police.

Management, Democratic self: In democratic self management, workers
own and operate the means of production.  Management is spread
broadly over the employees; those who represent the plant, shop,
farm, factory, mill or mine are elected for a term and can be
recalled for incompetence or abuse of office.   There are many
worker owned and operated firms around the world.  They have
limited success since they have to operate in a larger, globalized
capitalist economy and thus are often unsuccessful or indifferent
to collective needs.

Management science: a set of principles and a set of practices by
which the consciousness (ways of thinking, ways of feeling, ways of
acting) of workers is controlled by a small group of functionaries
who specialize in learning as much as possible about psychology and
sociology in order to reproduce capitalist relationships.  A humane
effort to replace coercion with persuasion and manipulation in the
factories, offices, and schools, also a net effect is to sustain
elitism and to defeat praxis and community.  Also a technology by
which prediction of and control of human behavior is perfected. 
This science is rational in that the behavior of workers is
identical to the intention of managers.  Compare to praxis,
intentionality, and free will.

Mao Tse-Tung: (1893-1976):  A founder of the People's Republic of
China and its first Premier.  Mao lead the People's Liberation Army
which took state power in China in 1949.  Mao was one of 13
founding members of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921.    He was
a son of a middle peasant [land owner] who had little formal
education but learned about marxism in 1919 from a well educated
professor of literature.  Mao's major contributions to socialist
theory include, a) the possibility of peasant revolution [rather
than industrial workers, b) the advantages guerrilla warfare [over
formal military organizations, c) the superiority of low tech
warfare [over high tech weaponry] when soldiers are well trained,
well educated and well motivated to win, d) the primacy of practice
over theory, e) great leaps forward (over the idea that socialism
must go through stages as in England, France or Germany), f) self-
criticism [which see], g) opposition to the sub-division of labor
as too divisive and too undemocratic, h) institution of the primacy
of manual labor over intellectual labor [intellectuals had to do
manual labor periodically in order to know first hand what they are
talking about], j) the primacy of politics over economics [see
economic determinism], k) self-reliance from foreign powers in both
military and economic struggles, l) rejection of 'peaceful co-
existence with capitalist powers and m) the cultural revolution in
which young people were encouraged to criticize bureaucrats,
'capital-roaders,' and the cult of the individual.  Do read his
biographies; his life and accomplishments are remarkable.

Malthus, Thomas (1726-1834):  A population theorist who argued that
food production increases arithmetically [1, 2, 3, 4] while
population increases geometrically [1, 2, 4, 8, 16].  This means
that war, starvation, and disease were natural checks on population
growth and should not be treated as social problems unless one
wanted to risk 'over-population'  which see.  Malthus is famous for
the law of Diminishing Returns [see which].  Together, these ideas
are used to blame the poor for their own poverty and thus exculpate
politics and economics.  He called for birth control for the
masses: late marriages, chastity, birth control.  He opposed Wm.
Godwin who blamed capitalism and the concentration of wealth for
poverty.  Marx pointed out that improvement in technology and in
the technical division of labor could increase productivity to
match and exceed population growth; that capitalism need a better
means of distribution to match its great improvement in the means
of production.  Marx called Malthus, a 'libel on the human race.'

Marasmus: A wasting away of children who are without love and human
stimulation.  "Babies who are not loved don't live." Human beings
without community become anxious, apprehensive, withdrawn and self-
centered.

Marcuse, Herbert (1898-1979):  Marcuse was part of the early
Frankfurt School; he came to the USA when the Nazis took over
Germany and taught at Columbia University, Harvard then the
University of California at San Diego.  Marcuse made many
contributions to emancipatory knowledge beginning with his views on
art [most of it squelched rebellion since it was too beautiful or
too remote from everyday life] and ending with his views on
sexuality in Eros and Civilization.  In brief, he made the case
that there was some justification for sexual repression [in order
to invest creative love in art, science, music and politics]; but
there was also 'surplus' repression [the denial of love and
compassion in class, racist or sexist societies].  Marcuse also
rejected the 'heroic' theory of history [see Carlyle] in his work
on Prometheus.  But Marcuse agreed with Prometheus--and Marx--who
said that he hated '...the entire pack of gods' since they rob
humans of freedom and agency.  [Prometheus was chained to a rock by
Zeus after he gave fire to people in spite of a command by Zeus not
to do so].  From this came a student slogan of the 60's, The Great
Refusal.  One should say No! to sexual repression; No! to the
investment of genius and craft in war; Yes! to the investment of
joy, delight and love in prosocial work; Yes! to erotic joy in
friendships, marriage and play.  In One Dimensional Man, Marcuse
spoke of 'repressive toleration' in which the most contradictory
works are found side by side in a false peace and mind-numbing
harmony.  While Marx located the revolutionary leadership in the
working class, Marcuse located it in marginalized groups in rich
societies, liberation movements in poor countries and free
intellectuals everywhere.
     Marcuse took funds from what came to be the C.I.A. since he
criticized Stalinism and bureaucratic socialism in the USSR.  His
Great Refusal requires blind fate and a leap into liberation and
whatever it brings.  Along with Mao and Marx, Marcuse inspired the
New Left [which see].

Marginal Cost:  This is a theory of price: it says that price goes
down as production goes up...it costs less to produce the 10,000
shoe than the first 10, 100, or 1000 shoes because the machinery
and labor is in place and has to be paid for whether they are
working or not.  It is an argument for big factories and against
small business since small firms cannot produce the 10,000 shoes a
day/week/month/year.  This law tends to support the concentration
of wealth and the reduction of the middle class of inefficient
producers.  It also supports the exploitation and super-
exploitation of labor power.  There is yet no good solution to the
issues raised by the law: we do want to lower costs to machines,
workers, environment and the general public; we don't want to see
too much inequality and worker exploitation.

Marginal Utility, theory of:  This is a theory of use value based
upon consumption rather than labor.  It says that as one gets more
of a certain good or service, the value of a good steadily
declines.  The first pair of shoes is very valuable to the
consumer, the second pair still valuable but as each new pair is
bought, the margin between use value declines until the last pair
of shoes has little value at all.  Marx discussed it in Das
Kapital; Jevons, Menger and Walras wrote also.  The central task of
advertizing is to defeat the law of marginal utility by assigning
status value, sexual value or other cherished values to shoes,
cigarettes, beer or any other good for which the law holds. 
Progressive economics has the task of figuring out how to match
production and demand in order to distribute workers, raw
materials, and capital goods in such a way as to meet legitimate
needs and yet protect the environment and the general welfare.

Market: a network of buying and selling usually based upon use
value, supply and demand.  Capitalists say a free market works best
in the long run; most socialists/marxists hold that it should be
replaced by collective planning such that production and
distribution is based on needs rather than profit.  Some market
socialists [see which] say the market plays a vital role in any
economy since it brings flexibility, creativity, and motivation to
the economy.  Your generation will have to figure it out; we can't.

Market Socialism:  A form of marketing [developed by O. Lange]
which tries to retain the many advantages of a market system in
which buyers and sellers negotiate prices on quality, supply, and
use value.  Scarcity values are set by the market but the state
intervenes when scarcity [of housing, health care, education,
infra-structure, etc] is not meet.  Prices are set by the market
and by marginal cost.

Marx, Karl (1818-1883): Marx was a humanist, moreover a socialist
humanist and marxism is socialist humanism if nothing else.  Marx'
humanism was tied to a critique of the forms of domination by which
humans were alienated from their human potential.  In the present
epoch, capitalism and the class system are the major obstacles to
human dignity, fellowship, and mutual aid.  The class struggle is
the means to overcome alienation while communism is the social form
in which one's full humanity is possible.(After Struik).  Marx was
born of a German-Jewish family converted to Christianity.  As a
student at Bonn, Germany he came under the influence of Hegel but
came to reject idealist philosophy in preference to historical
materialism.  He related the problems in a society to the means of
production and urged armed revolution by the proletariat in order
to regain control over the means of production of culture without
which human life (Species being) is impossible.  Marx took a
doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Jena and went right
to work in the sociology of law to explain why one set of laws
replace another [to serve elite interests].  In 1848, Marx and
Engels wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party.  In 1849, Marx
went to England as a refugee from political oppression.  Marx and
his family lived in poverty while Marx spent years of research on
Capital, the first volume published in 1847.  Marx helped organize,
agitate, and analyze for social revolution.  His sympathy lay with
the oppressed; his animosity was directed at the oppressive social
form.  Marx came to the conclusion that genuine human emancipation
requires a radical transformation of capitalist (civil) society
such that a human labor is possible wherein people create
themselves and each other as social entities.  Marx held that this
kind of human labor is possible only in a communist society since
other forms of society: capitalism and feudalism, alienate people
in the ordinary operation of society.  Marxian theory rests upon
the work of many predecessors, collaborators, and critics.  There
is much left to do to perfect both the theory and practice of human
emancipation.  One should not sanctify Marx nor ignore him.  The
marxian response to Marx is to transcend the limitations of his
analysis and retain what is worthy of human emancipation as one
base upon which to build.  Marx died in 1883.

Marxism: A theory and a method by which community is thought to be
created or lost, The theory holds that collective production of
culture creates community while the loss of community arises from
treating cultural products as commodities to be exchanged for
private profit.  The method of marxism requires the "relentless
criticism of everything existent" in terms of how praxis and
community are affected.  Marxism also makes some important
assumptions about how the acting subject participates in the
creation of social facts and the interpretation of physical facts. 
Central to marxist analysis in the present era are the concepts of
class, class conflict, surplus value, surplus population, class
interests, global capitalism and social revolution.  Marx' critique
of capitalism [which see] remains an anchor point for progressive
politics.  Marxist feminists and Black marxists insist, rightly,
that racism and sexism combine with mode of production to challenge
both progressive scholars and activists.

Marxist-Leninism: A view that there are five basic principles upon
which all marxists worthy of the name agree:
     a)   the theory of surplus value
     b)   dialectic materialism
     c)   the class struggle
     d)   imperialism and
     e)   the dictatorship of the proletariat. (after Szymanski)
Serious challenges to Dialectic Materialism and the last two
principles underlay much of the discussion of marxist meetings
today.  Then too, there is question about the role of the working
class as sole repository for progressive politics.

Marxist methodology: Those practices by which science and philoso-
phy are united with politics in the struggle for revolutionary
change.  Generally, any research effort which makes visible to
workers the social sources of oppression as well as an effort to
make visible a world which might be conducive to praxis and
community.  Marxist research must enlighten, inspire and
politicize.  It must be integrated into progressive social action
oriented to Praxis [which see].  As Marx said, the point is not to
study the world but to change it.  See Conflict methodology,
Standpoint Epistemology.  Contrast with Consensus methodology.

Masculinity Crisis: In a society in which sexual activity is
sublimated into aggressive competition, channeled into a narrow
genital mode, or converted into a commodity to be sold only to
those with discretionary income, one's essential sexuality is in
crises.  For the male, working conditions further desexualize self
and role: the division of labor strips the male worker of power and
autonomy while it makes work machine-like in its practice.  In such
a society, sexual panic can be exploited to sell macho cars,
cigars, sports, flicks, magazines, and cosmetics.  Sexual panic can
be harnessed to moral outrage at the new, gentle pan-sexism of
young people.  Sexual panic can and is used to sell fascism and
other political packages which emphasize strength, discipline,
domination, and brutal enforcement of the normative structure.

Maslow's hierarchy: Maslow held that a pyramid of human needs
exists.  At the base are body needs; then the need for safety and
security; then the need for love and self-esteem and at the
pinnacle is the need for "self-actualization" or fulfillment. 
While this analysis is useful, it does not necessarily follow that
good society emerges when all such needs are filled for a part or
most of the population.

Mass/masses: Latin: massa = a body of material which can be shaped
or molded as in kneading bread dough.  In sociology it means a
collection of individuals with few if any social relationships:
atomized individuals whose behavior is not mediated by roles,
norms, values or community.  It is often used by elitists as a term
of open contempt for the common people who are thought to be too
ignorant, lazy, selfish, unstable and easily lead for democracy.

Mass Action: According to Luxemburg, the objective roots of mass
strikes and demonstrations are to be found in the soil of
capitalist class relationships.  She demanded that socialists treat
the mass action of the working class as the central focus of all
revolutionary activity.  This view tended to place leninist theory
of revolutionary organization in the context of class struggle. 
For Luxemburg, leninism emphasized the political sphere at the
expense of the total social process.  A revolutionary party
structure takes its form and tactics from the larger social
struggle not from the writings of Lenin about what must be done in
Russia in 1917.

Mass base: A set of unrelated individuals who may, temporarily, be
part of a public but not part of a solidarity.  They have exchange
power but not social power.  Mass societies are composed of large
bureaucracies in which most people work, go to school, get medical
treatment, worship or watch sports.  Bureaucracies have three
parts; an elite which sets policy; a cadre/staff which enforces the
rules and a mass which is required to conform to the rules.  See
each of the other two terms as well as Praxis and Moral Agency.

Mass communication: A system of organizing the flow of information
such that it is unilaterally reproduced as mass cult rather than
produced collectively as culture.  Print, electronics, and cinema
could be organized to provide for collective production (as is the
case with CB radio, home movies, and typed correspondence). 
Electronics media need not be organized to exclude communication-
only where there is an interest in the unilateral control of
consciousness or in the use of information sets as commodity does
such a system exist.

Mass cult: a cultural item produced with capital intensive means
and sold as a commodity.  Ordinarily, the production of culture
requires intention and social interaction.  Machine production
eliminates both.  Mass vaccination, mass produced sermons, mass
produced editorials, and mass education are mass cult in that the
particular and concretely existing historical conditions of
situated individuals and groups are not considered in the act of
production.  Culture stripped of its social matrix and distributed
as a commodity for private profit, power, or status.

Mass media: Any information flow system (radio, newsprint,
television, journals, magazines) in which an elite transmits
information to a large audience of unknown others.  Such use
destroys social relations (and produces a mass society) in that
there is no collective sharing in the construction of the
information sets in question.  Often a set of specialists is hired
to tailor the information set in such a way as to manage the
consciousness of a population without the use of force, law, or
face-to-face conflict.  Compare to the personal media available to
humans to construct social reality in face-to-face situations: See
Symbol Sets.

Mass medicine: The practice of medicine without regard to social
relationships or to individual differences in health, medication,
age, or other significant factors.  Mass medicine is cheap and
thereby more profitable (or less costly to the state) than
individually focused forms of therapy.

Mass Movements:  Political, religious and economic protests
involving large numbers of people who work outside of institutional
politics...largely because governments and political parties work
against their interests and/or refuse to respond to collective
needs and concerns.

Masspol: The transformation of political culture (usually votes)
into a commodity.  Public relations firms, using dramaturgical
technology, package and sell candidate and policies in the same way
cereals and colas are sold.  See also massmed, masscult. 
Advertising firms now deliver so many votes at so much cost per
million (cpm) just as they deliver viewers for other commodities.

Mass society: A society of unrelated individuals passively
consuming mass produced culture (masscult).  There are several
factors at work to destroy social relationships since the end
(1688-1789) of the feudal system.  Capitalism destroys social
relationships by producing for profit rather than for community. 
If one has nothing to exchange, then there is no relationship in
the various delivery systems of the society.  Bureaucracy destroys
social relationships by treating all clients as objects to be
processed in accordance to uniformity applied rules.  The factory
system removes fathers, children and mothers from the home for 8-10
hours per day.  The structure of mass, impersonal education takes
children from both the family nexus and the peer group nexus and
assigns them to groups convenient to administrative needs.  The
division of labor also progressively divides a population into a
small elite which produced culture (for profit) and a large mass
which consumes items as more or less fragmented others.  This is
progressively true in medicine, sports, politics, religion as well
as drama and literature.  C.Wright Mills viewed American society to
be two-fold: an elite and a mass.  The power and wealth is
stratified and maintained using as its technology, modern mass
media.

Mathematical Sociology:  An effort to transform all social
relationships and all social change into precise mathematical
formulae.  Such effort ignores the qualitative transformations in
politics, religion, speech, sports and other human activities in
which non-linear transformations occur.  It ignores the qualitative
nature of the self-fulling prophecy in which people believe, trust,
hope and act on the expectation that social reality will emerge. 
See also Positivism, Quantification; compare to non-linear
dynamics. 

Matriarchy:  Literally, rule of mothers.  This concept refers to a
form of governance in which a set of sisters and their children
live together.  They occupy all the essential roles and perform a
wide variety of labor.  Authority resides in the most senior female
usually based upon age, experience, energy, personality, number of
children and older daughters as well as status of her mother.  Men
are usually absent or occasionally in residence when not engaged in
hunting, warfare, male religious solidarity rituals or other
special activity.  Matriarchy is thought to be the original form of
governance of a primitive communism.  For the radical, critical,
feminist or liberal scholar, matriarchy is of interest since it
speaks to the question of the gender division of labor held in such
esteem in patriarchy.

     Matriarchy was displaced by patriarchy with settled
agriculture around 4000 B.C.E.; women became subordinated and
property of men.  (After Engels, Origin of the Family).

Materialism: A view that all knowledge comes from the senses; from
careful observation and objective reporting of the dynamics of
nature and society.  Also a philosophy which explains thought from
being; mind from matter and spirit from social organization and not
the other way around as in classical philosophy.  Material
philosophy appeared early on in India about 7th century BCE. 
Leucippus and Democritus argued for materialist explanations of
nature and society.  Thomas Hobbes revived materialism and applied
it to language and knowledge processes.  La Mettrie tried to
explain psychology from physiology.  Lange and Haeckel used it
extensively while Engels took it into what would become Marxist
epistemology, politics and social psychology.  

     Many folk theories and formal theories held that spirit tries
to express itself in material form and the natural (imperfect)
world results.  Thus God (pure spirit) creates the world. 
Feuerbach and Marx reversed the relationship and argued that
concretely existing social relationships determine thought, ideas,
philosophy and consciousness generally.  This approach is known as
the sociology of knowledge.

     Logical positivism and quantification are inherently
materialist philosophies of science since they posit that all
logical statements must be tested; that measurement is basic to the
knowledge process.  Australian materialist physiological
psychologists [Smart, Armstrong, Place and others] argue that pain,
thoughts and all concepts are merely states of the central nervous
system.

Mathematics:  A set of numbering systems and a series of rules to
use in the manipulation of numbers.  The numbers are said to be
valid ways to measure quantity; that qualities have no form or
substance thus are epiphenomena to quantity.  Math began in Akkad
in what is now Iran about 5000 years ago.  Its modern form comes
from the early work in Greece in the years 600 BCE to 300 BCE.  For
the most part it was used in construction and surveying but
gradually came to be understood as an aspect of a Universal and
Omnipresent God.  Astronomers sought portents and revelations in
the mathematical precision of the stars.  This quest gradually
developed numbering systems and rules which came to ground modern
science and to pre-empt all competing pathways to knowledge. 
Today, in the new physics and nonlinear dynamics of complex
systems, a sort of 'rubber' math is emerging which provides
information on qualitative changes.  Morris Kline has a wonderful
three volume set on Mathematical Thought from ancient to modern
times.  Roger Penrose, in the Emperor's New Mind, lays out some of
the postmodern math.  Both are very readable in that one can skip
over the formal proofs to catch the larger ideas.

McCarthyism: (1950-60) A form of political oppression in which only
conservatives are held to be worthy of creating political or ideo-
logical culture.  Any association with causes of anticapitalism,
anticolonialism, socialist liberation movements, civil rights
organizations, or antiracist organizations subjected one to
personal jeopardy.  Senator Joseph McCarthy represented an era in
American society and was not a single malevolent individual acting
against the times.

McDonaldization of Society.  George Ritzer coined the term to refer
to the effort to control all aspects of the production and
distribution of goods via a highly organized set of rules.  It
embodies the bureaucracy of which Weber called an 'iron cage.'  All
employees must wear the clothing specified, use the words
rehearsed, work the hours set and make the hamburgers exactly the
same way in Moscow, London, Peoria and Hong Kong.  This
routinization of the labor process tends to destroy both variety
and human agency.  Not to worry, the hamburgers are very different
in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Vienna and San Francisco...even
McDonald's cannot do away with culture, human creativity or
variety.

McDougall, William (1871-1938):   English psychologist who taught
at Harvard and Duke.  He posited 86 instincts which account for
human behavior and social forms; war, hierarchy, competition and
such.  By the 1950's, these 86 instincts were reduced to four: the
impulse toward sociability, new experience, security and self
realization.  By the 60's, there was only one instinct; the sucking
instinct.  Now instincts are seldom used to explain human behavior.

Mead, George Herbert (1863-1931):  An architect of postmodern
social psychology, Mead contributed much to a constructionist view
of social life [as against both divine and natural sources of
social life].  He suggested that language arose in the gesture;
that gestures are signs which point to existing objects/behaviors
but speech is much more conventional and instrumental in the
creation of social life forms; this serves as grounding for
symbolic interaction theory.  Mead posited the 'I' and the 'Me' as
components of the self which mediated behavior [which see].  Shared
meaning can arise if/when people take the perspective of others.

Me (The): In the model of self laid out by George Herbert Mead
(1934), the "Me" and the "I" exist in dialectic tension.  The "Me"
represents society-as-it-exists and as it involves a given
individual.  All of the social identities which key off of social
roles comprise the "Me." The response of the individual to symbolic
interaction in which others shape behavior also is part of "me."
Thus "self" is a joint product of other persons past, present, and
perhaps future.  In this context it makes sense to say that self
and society are twinborn.  The notion of the private, isolated
autonomous self is a fiction admirably suited for competitive
capitalism.  There could be no Me without the social labor of
thousands of others.  Privatism and individual "freedom" thus tends
to destroy both self and society. (See I, The)

Mechanical solidarity: The feeling of oneness which accrues when
people create culture together by feasting, drinking, singing,
playing or doing drugs, or worshipping together.

Media, mass:  See Mass media.

Medicalization:  The practice of treating a forbidden behavior as
an illness rather than a crime or a sin.  Many forbidden activities
have been desanctified and criminalized in the past 400 years. 
Currently there is a trend to decriminalize these activities and to
medicalize them.  Such acts include alcoholism, drug addiction,
homosexuality, gambling and such.  But see Corruption, theory of,
for another point of view on such forbidden activity.

Meritocracy:  Stratification systems based upon skill, knowledge,
wisdom, effort or personal genius.  It stands against inequality by
accident of birth, race, wealth, use of force or other less
pertinent factor.  In Western society, it is used to justify
stratification by profession, bureaucratic echelon or ownership. 
The socialist critique is that before merit comes class, gender and
ethnicity which together form a social network to give those at the
top a head start.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1908-1961):  A French social psychologist
who insisted that being include physical and emotional as well as
cognitive functionings.  Along with Foucault and Lacan, Merleau-
Ponty expanded the Cartesian notion of being [I think, therefore I
am] to include feeling, touching, smelling, tasting and any other
bodily sense which implied there is a sensing person there and that
there is something out there to be touched, tasted, smelled or
seen.  I caress, and am caressed; I smell and am smelled; I taste
and am tasted; I love and am loved, therefore I am.  Merleau-Ponty
accepted the importance of language, speech and symbolic
interaction as foundations of human behavior [against instincts
and/or theological sources] but discussed desire and body pleasure
in additions to roles, norms, sanctions and other interactive
dynamics as important to social life.  Initially drawn to marxism,
M-P later took the position that there were many sources of human
alienation and many avenues for progressive politics; but whatever
one did, one must reach out to justice and sociality.

Metaphysics: Beyond Physics.  A branch of formal philosophy having
to do with the ultimate nature of reality.  It deals with the
question of that which really exists [ontology] rather than that
which seems to exist; that which we would like to exist; that which
exists for but the moment.  Those in pre-modern modalities tend to
argue that there is another, invisible world which takes precedence
in human affairs to this world.  Modern scientists tend to argue
that there is only one reality and it has clear and sharp
categories which can be measured, and can be known through the
scientific method.  Postmodernists, in their more pessimistic
moments argue that one can never be sure of anything; more
affirmative postmodernists argue that some limited truths can be
asserted.  See Chaos theory for a special view of the nature of
reality [fractal] and dynamics [nonlinear].

Methodology, Theory of: In general, a methodology is a set of prin-
ciples by which valid knowledge is obtained.  Methodology is a
subset of a larger domain having to do with the generation of
information sets.  Since all information sets are, technically,
noise until translated into a concrete pattern of behavior by an
insightful human, all information sets are part of a social-life
world ... hence political.  No methodology, scientific or folk
method for the generation of valid knowledge is outside the sphere
of ideology.  Scientific methodology is a special case of
methodology in general and, where used, affects the social life
world under construction.  Methodology thus is never value free. 
There are several different kinds of scientific methodology, each
useful in producing a different kind of knowledge (see critical
theory).

Mens rea:  Latin: mens = mind, rea = competent.  In law, it must be
proven that a defendant had a 'guilty mind.'  In law, the accused
must be able to understand both the charges and the actions which
lead to the charges or is non compos mentis.  An ancient maxim
still voiced is: mens rea in corporo sana.  Can you figure it out?

Mental Disorder:  There are hundreds of forms of behavior which are
interpreted as mental disorders; generally, they are behaviors
which are outside the traditional norms and values of a society;
much bizarre behavior is treated as quite normal when it conforms
to normative expectations, especially those in various religions. 
In law, when a person is adjudged by two or more competent
physicians to be 'suffering' from a mental disorder, adult status
can be removed by a competent judge.  Treatment, involuntary
detention/hospitalization and invasion of privacy is then
permitted.

Methodism:  A religious movement began by Charles and John Wesley
and others at Oxford in 1727.  Charles and John travelled to the
U.S. in 1736 where a methodist society was founded.  The great
growth came at Bristol in 1738 where the Wesleys preached to the
poor about empowerment, free will and the quest for social justice
in this world through human action.  It is now the largest group in
Protestantism but has become a social center for middle class
members more so than pastor to the poor and oppressed.  Some in the
sociology of religion argue that this transformation [from
emancipatory theology to safe and conservative religion] is typical
of all successful sects.

Micro-theory: Any generalization based upon the observations of
small-scale social phenomena; usually that which a given social
scientist can grasp by his/her own direct experiences.  Studies of
group interaction, social occasions, asylums, churches and the like
are very important but often the larger content in which a given
social phenomenon occurs is neglected and the total meaning is
lost.  For example, labelling theory can be seen to make sense on
a micro-analytic level, but crime cannot be understood apart from
the operation of the whole society.

Middle classes: The stratum in society which takes de facto control
over the productive and reproductive process on behalf of the
owners of capital for a salary, fee, commission, or royalty. 
Comprised of managers, administrators, professionals, and
technicians, the middle classes grow as the need for close control
of the work force and the surplus population grows.  Also the term
includes those functionaries on salary or commission who administer
to the needs of the bourgeoisie: lawyers, state bureaucrats,
politicians, professors, salespersons, retailers, middlemen, public
relation and advertising specialists.  These classes contribute to
inflation in that they are unproductive yet enter into the demand
structure with higher incomes than useful workers.  Thus a typist
or a printer has to pay higher prices for food and shelter since
each must compete with higher paid functionaries and the
capitalists for scarce goods.

Middle Class, shrinking:  The middle class in the USA has been
shrinking since 1970 as job opportunities disappear, wages decline
and programs of social justice are dismantled.  Until 1970, the
middle class was increasing and capitalism looked like it was
fulfilling its promise to enrich all.  As other capitalist
countries took larger share of markets and as more restraints were
put on corporate crime at home, US capitalists began to cut costs,
automate and to disinvest in the USA.  The middle class has
declined by about 15% in the past 30 years; some 4% are richer and
have more economic security; some 11% have experienced downward
mobility and loss of social power and self esteem.

Migration:  One of many solutions to alienated social relations. 
One packs up one's cherished belongings and moves to another, less
hostile country.  Other such solutions include formation of
underground structures, social revolution and social movements and
direct political action when institutional politics fail.

Military-Industrial Complex:  A phrase in a speech by President
Eisenhower in which he warns against the expanding influence of
military in federal spending.  Congress-persons and Senators try to
bring military bases and weapons industry to their states in order
to solve the problem of under-employment.  A coalition builds up in
which they exchange support; the same Congress-persons and Senators
are hired by large corporations after they leave office.  This
results in an Arms Race which, in turn, justifies military
solutions to foreign problems.

Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873):  A British philosopher noted for his
contributions to a theory of free speech, women's liberation and a
well accepted system of logic.  His work on utilitarianism had
liberal impulses in that he asserted that the greatest good
[utility] was the greatest happiness of the greatest number of
people.  See Utilitarianism for a critique of this later point.

Mini-cycles.  Some economists hold there are economic cycles of
from 3-5 years in duration.  See Kondratieff cycles for an
explanation of why these cycles come along.

Milgram, Stanley:  A social psychologist who, in 1974, conducted a
very important experiment in which he showed the role of authority
in producing harmful behavior.  Milgram set up a phoney electro-
shock apparatus and collected data about the degree to which people
would follow instructions even though they 'knew' they were
endangering the 'subjects.'  People were told that they would use
electric shock to teach 'learners.'  Learners pretended to be not
very bright and gave wrong answers.  'Teachers' were then told to
give them stronger and stronger shocks.  They did.  65% of those
told to, gave the maximum 450 volts.  Many objected; some cried but
still they complied to the authority of the scientist.  Think about
this when you try to understand war, crime and punishment.  Think
about this when you hear people talk about human nature or the
'true self.'  Milgram has been much criticized and such experiments
are now forbidden in most universities.  See Zimbardo's work.

Millennium/Millinarianism:  Latin: mill = thousand.  A term in
religion which refers to a prophecy in the Christian Bible and
belief that there will appear a savior one thousand years from the
time of the last such savior, Christ.  Prior to the year, 1000
A.D., many believed in the 'coming of the end of days' and prepared
by seeking spiritual comfort and guidance.  As we approach the
second millennium, one can expect wide spread belief and
preparation for the advent of another savior who, then, it is
believed, will bring peace and justice to earth in a great
upheaval.

Mind:  Premodern understanding are/were that the mind was that part
of the body that was separate and existed before and after birth;
as such, it held all the knowledge of the universe and could be
released by meditation or contemplation.  Modern science generally
held that the brain was a 'black box' impossible to know; only
behavior was observable/knowable.  Postmodern understanding accepts
there is a mind; that it is the software while the brain is the
hardware of human knowledge, feeling and activity.  Some of the
software is pre-programmed by genetic inheritance; Chomsky says
that language abilities are pre-programmed.  Others say that
aggression, territoriality, domination and acquisition are genetic. 
The truth is we don't know yet and may never reach certainty.

Mind, as a social product:  In sociology, mind is a product of two
or more persons in interaction.  One's ways of thinking, feeling
and acting are, in Symbolic Interactional Theory, constituted in
part by one's culture, by one's status-role(s) and by role-others
in a given definition of the situation.  Mind is not something
confined to the brain-case of a single person nor is it a stable,
measurable entity; it is a fluid, emergent collective product.  See
Mens rea, Mental disorder.

Minimum Wage:  In law, the lowest hourly payment an employer can
pay to a worker.  As with welfare payments, minimum wages are
always far below the cost of the reproduction of labor power;
therefore others must subsidize employees who pay only minimum
wages; usually it is the family of the worker [by giving free
lodging, transport, clothing, food and health care].  In 1995, the
minimum wage is $4.25 an hour; this amounts to $8,840/year for a 40
hour week/52 weeks a year.  The poverty line in 1995 is $18,000 for
a family of four; this means that at least three persons in the
family must work to attain wages above the poverty line.

Miracle:  Latin: mirari = to wonder.  The term refers to that which
cannot be easily explained by formal theories and rational
explanations.  For most people, miracles are proof presumptive and
proof demonstrative of the essential of gods and/or spirits.  With
the advent of non-linear sciences, miracles do not necessarily
imply divine interventions; nor do non-linear dynamics exclude
divine intervention.  Still these new sciences of Chaos and
Complexity render most such interpretations unnecessary.

Miranda warning:  A Supreme Court ruling that persons must be
warned when they come under suspicion of a crime.  The warning
includes the right to remain silent and to have legal advice.  It
is necessary in order to protect the larger principle of due
process and informed consent.  Named after a 1966 case in Arizona
in which the police obtained information from Mr. Miranda without
telling him he was suspected of a given crime.

Minor/Minority:  In law, one who is not yet an adult.  Minority
ends and majority begins at 18 unless a court rules differently.
See Youth, sociology of.

Miscarriage of Justice:  A failure in law to achieve equity.  Often
the technical pursuit of law leads to a greater inequity than that
meant to be discouraged by law.  When that happens, judge, jury,
appeals court and the court of last resort may set aside the
technicalities of law in order to prevent miscarriage of justice.

Mixed Economy:  A basically capitalist market in which problems in
the means of distribution are solved by welfare spending.  Low
profit lines of production are nationalized while long term costs
of production are socialized; pollution and occupational diseases
among others.  There is some central planning, subsidies, grants,
wage/price controls and periodic intervention in the economy
through tax, interest or money supply.  See Keynsian economics.

Mobility, downward:  When one loses status, one is said to be
downwardly mobile.  There are lots of reasons why people lose
social standing; capitalism tends to disemploy people, it moves
high paying jobs to low wage countries and it tends to weaken
ancient systems of status honor.  Then too, there are degradation
routines which push people into low status situations; for women,
divorce is very harmful; all institutions have routines to dis-
engage people.  See Degradation routines.

Mobility, social: A movement from one class status to another. 
Most mobility is a result of collective effort rather than
individual as implied in other definitions.  The difference in
social status of physicians in the U.S. now compared to 1900 is
better explained by the power of The American Medical Association
than by the increased success of private medicine in the U.S. Most
of the gain in longevity is the result of public health measures
(sewage treatment, vaccination and such) rather than visits to a
physician.

Mobility, Intergenerational: The upward or downward occupational
movement of a son [or set of men born in the same period] compared
to the occupational status of his father.  See also intra-
generational mobility.  Notice the sexist bias in this definition;
women are assumed to take the status of father, husband or son.

Mobility, Intra-generational: The upward or downward occupational
movement of a single individual over his/her lifetime.  See also
intergenerational mobility.

Modern, modernism, modern science.  Latin: modus, modo = recent,
current practices.  The word is now used to refer to the kind of
science and approach to solving problems modelled after Newton's
[1687] most successful tracking of the movement of stars and
falling objects.  Modern science and modernity have given us a
great many benefits; better communication, better transportation,
better roads, buildings, bridges, sewer systems and better housing. 
It continues to improve the means of production of food, shelter,
clothing, and medicine.  Yet, it has many problems in that it
dismisses complexity; dismisses mystery; objects to surprize and is
hostile to the emotions which expand the endpoints of human
endeavor.  It is an magician's apprentice which may well be misused
with applications to war, to exploitation of people and environment
as well as to the reproduction of its own lifeless, soulless,
amoral approach to human knowledge and human frailty.  See
postmodern.

Modernization Theory:  An economic theory in which science,
technology, art, and all essential goods and services must be mass
produced and mass marketed in order to maximize social well being. 
Much mischief is done in 'under-developed' countries by displacing
community and agrarian/craft work with capitalist markets which
displace people from land and kin to become the surplus labor in
large ghettos, barrios, favelas and cities around the world. 
Dispossessed from land and family, young people must find work at
low wages or turn to beggary, prostitution, theft or worse.  The
USA, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are the
chief architects of modernization in the 3rd world.

Mohammed (570-632):  Founder of the Islamic religion.  Mohammed
began to receive divine revelations at age 40; these are collected
in the Koran [Qu'ran, which see].  He taught there was but one God
and Allah was his name.  After failing to overthrow the idols at
Mecca, he fled in what is now called the 'great Hejira' which sets
the beginning of the Islamic calendar.  In Medina, he built a
mosque and an army.  Using the army, he brought Mecca into the
Islamic fold and spread out from there to all Arabia.  Over the
centuries, Islam sweep into Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and
across to Indonesian.  Some 800+ millions organize their lives
according to the teachings of Mohammed: worship five times daily,
productive labor, care for the poor, and militant defense of Islam. 
Islamic societies are low-crime societies as a result of their
concern with both spiritual and material needs of believers more so
than the form of justice [certain, cruel and public] emphasized in
US criminology texts.

Monarchy:  Rule by one person.  Plato argued that monarchy was one
of three acceptable forms of government; Hobbes held that a strong
monarch was essential to social peace; Montesquieu argued for a
limited or Constitutional monarchy.  Few survive since, as Lord
Acton put it, power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Money:  Any commonly accepted medium of exchange [gold, letters of
credit, government bills or currency or shells, gems, silver and
such.  The socialist (nominalist) theory of money is that the value
of money is always set by the amount of labor time that a monetary
unit [dollar, mark, yen, pound or peso] can call forth from
workers.  Money thus has no intrinsic value; without the labor of
others, money is only a name we give to metal, paper or plastic. 
Those who hold large amounts of money try to increase the labor
power it purchases; those who have labor power try to decrease the
amount of work represented in money.  Marx was critical of money
citing Shakespeare's poem, 'Yellow glittering precious gold...gives
title, knee and approbation to the scoundrel, forces the wappened
widow to wed again (and) refreshes the hoar leper to the April
Day.'  Socialist try to reduce/subordinate the role of money to
common needs in determining who and what is bought and sold.

Molestation:  Generally used in law to refer to the act of an adult
which harms a child either physically as in the case of child abuse
or mentally as in the case of sexual harassment.  Often a polite
term for rape and sexual abuse of a child.

Monks:  An acronym for a form of social intimacy: Men Only; No
Kids.  Two or more single men living together to enhance life-style
and/or sexual pleasure.  No kids and often no women are allowed to
be part of this form of intimacy.  There was a T.V. series about
such men called the Odd Couple.  See also Dinks, Swinks, and
Yuppies.  All these are popular terms for those who avoid
traditional family and gender relations.

Monopoly: A monopoly is control of the terms of production and/or
distribution by one or a few large firms.  It is a means by which
costs can be lowered or prices can be increased without increasing
the value of the goods or services produced. Sometimes monopolies
(oligopolies) are effective when only a small portion of the market
is controlled if a few large firms holds the line.  If small firms
increase wages or lower prices, big firms can use a wage/price war
to eliminate them or, simply buy them up.  In the U.S., 200 large
corporations control 67% of the market (1975) when, in 1967, 500
firms controlled the same portion.  Eitzen and Baca-Zinn list many
in food retail, in sugar, in coffee, in cereals, in automobiles, in
many other key goods.  Anything which eliminates competition
between suppliers creates an effective monopoly: trade agreements,
division of markets, mergers, union-busting, black-listing,
political bribery as well as fair trade laws, conspiracies, bribes,
subsidies, import duties, are but a few of the devices by which
monopolies are secured.

Monopoly capitalism: A system of highly concentrated production and
mass, unorganized consumers.  Many isolated buyers compete against
each other to purchase from a few large suppliers.  A later stage
of capitalism, monopoly capitalism creates serious problems of
political legitimacy for capitalism by squeezing small capitalist
out of the class and thus, eroding its own political base. 
Monopoly capitalism also undermines legitimacy by its inflationary
practices and by corrupting the political process.  Liberals think
that the problem is monopoly while marxists think that capitalism,
as a form, leads to bigger monopolies.

Monopoly, international:  There several lines of production which
are controlled by a few firms which get together to fix prices and
divide up the world market.  Among these are: automobiles, oil
products, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, breakfast cereals, nuclear
energy systems, military goods, electronics, banking, light bulbs,
sugar/sweeteners, coffee, plastics, book publishing, advertizing
and communications including news services and entertainment.  Coca
Cola gets China; Pepsi Cola gets Russia.

Monopoly sector: That part of the economic institution comprised of
big business with budgets up to several billions, a work force up
to 300,000 and more, high wages, price agreements, employment
stability, job security, good working conditions, pension plans,
opportunity for advancement and collective bargaining.  About one
third of the work force (in 1975), the monopoly sector is growing
at the expense of the competitive sector.

Montaigne, Michel (1533-1592):  Catholic essayist who argued that
civilization corrupted human beings; that modern men and women
neither value truth nor morality.  M. called for two solutions: 1)
a return to the natural innocence of pre-modern life together with
trust in divine grace of God for salvation and 2) a thorough-going
modesty about what we can know.  We should give up the pretence
that human reason can produce truth and universal knowledge.  This
view stands against the Enlightenment and resonates with nihilistic
postmodern views on knowledge and morality.

Montesquieu, Charles (1689-1775):  An essayist who first used
mockery and make-believe to critique the pretensions of the French
that their society was superior to all others.  In his later work,
he reflected on the sources of solidarity and social change; he
held that societies were shaped by a variety of factors: climate,
religion, law, commerce and customs.  He held that the rise of
complex civilizations brought great inequality into social life and
that social justice existed before formal, positive law came into
being.  He argued for a division in government between legislature,
executive and judicial branches.  M. said that political virtue
requires one submerge private interests to public interest.

Moral Agency:  The right to set policy and enforce rules.  In
authentically democratic societies, moral agency is widely
dispersed among workers in school, medicine, religion, government,
business, sports and the arts.  In bureaucratic/elitist societies,
moral agency is vested in a few people, firms or state offices. 
Moral agency is always a social product; one cannot be moral all by
oneself even if most tests and measures of moral development make
it appear so.  Even dictators can't lead if no one follows.  Still
the politics of a society create very different models of morality.

Moral Entrepreneurs:  A term used to heap scorn on those who wish
to outlaw pornography, sexual/sexist lyrics in rock or rap music,
gambling, drug use, abortion, homosexuality, prostitution or other
efforts to control morals.  As a pejorative term, it excludes open
discussion.

Moral Panic:  A term referring to the great distress one shows when
faced with norms and values which are different and/or challenging
to one's own.  Moral panic usually occurs in times of great
political or economic upheaval.  It takes the form of racism,
witch-hunting, genocide, fear (unfounded) of crime on the part of
minorities, suicide, depression and, arguably, drug use and abuse.

Morality:  A term referring to the degree to which the norms, laws,
values, customs and mor‚s of a society are embodied in the everyday
life of a person.  People of high moral standing take care to live
in conformity to the normative structure.  Two things to think
about: 1) how do these norms and customs speak to exploitation,
inequality and oppression, 2) what is the social location of the
norm/rule/law making process.  When moral agency resides in an
elite in stratified societies, individual morality becomes
difficult.  All forms of government and business which rely upon
bureaucracy thus defeat morality.  In socialist theory, moral
agency is to be distributed broadly throughout the population and
is to work in all domains of life.

Morality, social location of: Central to all social theories of
morality is concern about the degree to which stratification and
hierarchy places moral agency in the hands of the rich and the
powerful.  Doing so, takes moral agency out of the hands of those
at the middle and lower echelons of bureaucracy and/or hierarchy. 
The call for social democracy is a call for broadly based moral
agency.

Moral Development:  The process by which the norms of a society are
internalized into the self-system of the individual.  Lawrence
Kohlberg posited six stages of moral development; the first
involves grudging obedience to the norms in fear of pain; the last
is oriented to transcendent principles of ethical behavior.  This
sounds progressive but there are problems.  Carol Gilligan pointed
out that women tend to put people before principles; then too,
blind enforcement of principles tend to do great harm to both
inter-personal relationships as to situated judgment informed more
by wisdom than by rational calculation.  One should always consider
the effects of principled behavior.  Then too, focus upon
individual moral development tends to ignore the large social
inequalities in moral agency.  See Praxis.

Moral order: A system of human obligation, rights and relationships
which calls forth/patterns a system of interaction a human system. 
That which is 'good' and 'bad' is defined by the moral order.  Many
organizations involving people have no moral order other than
narrow self-interest and thus cannot be said to be truly "social"
organizations.  Banks, supermarkets, factories etc. have little in
the way of a moral order; they are economic not social systems;
good and bad are not of interest; profit, efficiency and
productivity drive the system.  See Praxis, Moral Agency and Moral
Development.

Moral Panic: A form of pre-theoretical response to bad times in
which some group is demonized and treated as if it were the source
of one or more social problems.  Teen-age crime, teen-age
pregnancy, witchcraft and UFO's [unidentified flying objects] are
among the more common 'panics' in which people and the media create
the dramaturgical facsimile of immorality in order to explain why
things go wrong.

More, Thomas (1478-1535):  Best known for his book, Utopia [Greek:
U = no, none, topia = place.  More designed a perfect society in
which the tempered pursuit of pleasure in a platonic communism. 
One should seek real pleasures instead of striving for power,
status and wealth.  A simple life in this world leads to eternal
life through divine grace of God.  More stimulated a whole series
of works on the ideal society and still remains a source of serious
reflection about how one can best be designed and made to work. 
Note that More died before Newton published Principia Mathematica,
his great contribution to science.  Since Newton, the role of
science in the quest for a good and decent society has been added
to such books.

Mores: (singular: mos).  Those rules of behavior which have the
character of "must" rather than "should".  Shame and repentance
follow the failure to observe the mores of a society if an
individual has internalized the rules.  A form of ideological
culture, an elite can tap into this form of social control by
passing laws which bring shame and regret upon their violation.

Morris, Wm. (1834-1896):  An English writer and poet who argued for
Guild Socialism.  His book, Useful Work and Useless Toil called for
a return to medieval craftsmanship and collective ownership of
factories, plants, shops and other means of production.

Moses:  A Hebrew said to be born in Egypt.  Moses may be composite
of several people: there is a story of Sargon who was hidden in an
ark amid bulrushes to protect him [the word, Moses means 'son' or
'boy' in Egyptian; it means something like 'one who brings out in
Hebrew.'  Whatever the case, the Mosaic Code which bears the name
is the prime source of ethical and moral behavior for billions
around the world: based on the Code of Hammurabi, the Mosaic Code
is better known as Deuteronomy [the second giving of the God's
Law].  The first giving of the Law is the ten Commandments which
grounds both family and community behavior.  Moses is known as the
herald of Monotheism and for his requirement that the laws in
Deuteronomy be read aloud in public every seven years.  See Mosaic
Code.

Mosaic Code:  A set of laws regulating family, community and inter-
tribal conduct.  Generally it sets a contract between the Hebrew
God, Jehovah/Elihu and the Jewish people.  The sense of the Code is
that, if Hebrews follow these laws, they will be rewarded in this
life by the lands, herds and slaves of several neighboring tribes. 
The Laws themselves are patterned after the 282 laws of Hammurabi,
a Persian king who established a unified legal code to replace a
myriad of tribal codes in order to better govern his empire.  The
twelve Commandments, said to be received directly from God by Moses
are patterned after 10 confessions set forth in the Book of the
Dead in ancient Egypt.

     Mosaic Law had many provisions for social and criminal justice
which appeal to the poor and the oppressed in a time of troubles. 
It was adopted by  during the early years of the Roman Empire and
after merging with Roman Law became the source of ethical behavior
in those lands conquered by Rome.  Since the Torah of the Jewish
people and the first five books of the older part of the Christian
Bible contain the Mosaic Code, it is now a central social
philosophy for billions of people.

Mortgage:  Literally, death earnings.  A french term which referred
to a loan on an estate which would be paid when an heir came into
property upon death of his father.  Now refers to any financial
interest in a property created as security for a loan.  The law
provides that a lender may retake a property when payments are not
made on time; even if all but the last payment has been made.  Thus
bourgeois law always favors the landlord by protecting his/her
interest and by ignoring past payments, usurious interest rates,
improvements to property or inflation when judgments are made.

Motivation: A process by which human behavior is linked to certain
conditions.  There are many ways to establish such links.  Money is
only one and by far the least desirable.  Status, values, and
social relationships have motivated people to organize their
behavior in social ways for millennia.  However, one should note
that much behavior is not motivated but rather mutually produced
through symbolic interaction with significant others.  As a result,
people do things they might not want to do or think of doing.  The
notion of a motive is linked to the problem of controlling behavior
by external means apart from socialization, moral agency, or social
interaction.  See motive.

Motive: Imperatives for behavior.  Habermas, Mead, Durkheim and
Freud agree that most motives are shaped through the socialization
process and represent norms and values as well as the general
expectations of others (society, significant others, mother/father,
the peer group and so on).  Contrast with the concept of an order,
command, or rule which is external to the self system and which may
bear no relationship to social values.  Modern psychology and much
social analysis tries to explain human behavior in terms of motives
when, in the empirical case, the concept of the rule, order or
command is a better analytic device.  Since the division of labor
in bureaucracies give "higher" authority a monopoly over decisions,
neither motives or normative discourse are helpful seeking the
sources of behavior.  See moral agency.

Multinational Corporation (MNC): A firm which has no home base and
many factories, offices, and outlets in a number of companies. 
MNC's can buy labor cheap one place, sell dear another, avoid taxes
everywhere, escape criminal action by selling off or closing down
in countries with an "unfavorable business climate" and generally
play one government against another for favors.  MNC's are the
hottest thing on the market.  Read the Global Reach by Barnet and
Mueller if you want to know how the MNC harms a society.

Mutual Funds:  A very interesting form of ownership in which people
join together to buy stocks and bonds.  More and more of these are
owned by collectives of differing size.  The California Teachers'
Union, for example owns several billions of dollars of stock and
bonds as do many other pension plans; AARP, TIAA-CREF, Chrysler
Workers and so on.  At some point, such collective ownership will
affect both investment decisions and government policy.
     The development of Global Equity Mutual Funds is also of
interest to political economists; too early to have much impact,
still there are many interesting potentials to consider.

Mysticism:   Belief in the power of supernatural beings and the
possibility of communication with them.  The fact is that physical
and social phenomena do not always behave with the precision and
regularity assumed/required by modern science.  The question is how
to explain disorder, sudden transformations in people, social life
and nature, very unusual events and such.  Many people accept that
invisible beings bring these changes about to reward or to punish
those who fail to live up to the norms and values of a society. 
See Chaos Theory for a more ordinary explanation.

Mystification: A process of information control by which a person
or class cannot identify self-interests.  The. marxian position is
that whoever controls the means of production controls the means to
produce ideological culture: art, literature, drama, religion and
will use this control to mystify its opposition.  Also the process
by which false consciousness is created.  Usually coercion or
repression underwrite false consciousness but sometimes, in the
U.S. especially, the authority of respected persons can mystify
voters, customers, students, children and others by asserting that
as true which does not correspond to one's experience in a concrete
situation. (See also the sociology of fraud and false
consciousness).

Myth: Greek: mythos = legend.  A narrative set forth about an event
or a person, the truth value of which is not known/knowable.  The
rise of math, philosophy and much later, modern science slowly
displace myths as true accounts of the history of the world, of
human origin and/or human society.  Myths continue to be of value
to humans in that they warn and give answer to the most fundamental
questions of life: where do we come from?  How do we relate to each
other? How do we cope with the tragedies which are inevitable and
to what do we aspire as individuals and as a society??

NACLA: The North American Congress on Latin America publishes a
continuing analysis of the impact of the U.S. capitalism on South
America.  Full of hard data and devoid of the strident, overdone
rhetoric of many socialist publications, NACLA is a valuable
resource for anyone interested in the next arena in which
capitalism and U.S. interests combine to produce violence and
liberation movements.

Name:  The name given a person is very important to his/her
position in the social order; in the USA, usually one is given a
family name of the biological father.  However, naming is both a
religious and legal act which may not occur or which, if given, may
be removed either by deed or by law.  In which latter case, one
loses all family rights and obligations.  Women especially should
take care in which name they take, use and discard; much is at
stake sociological, financially and emotionally.

Narrative [narritif]:  A postmodern term which conveys doubt about
the value of grand theories, universal truths, global explanations,
'totalizing' practices or master-codes with which to explain and
understand every thing.  Mini-narratives, micro-histories, local
codes and traditional myths make fewer such claims and thus are
more acceptable in postmodern sensibility.  [After Rosenau].

Nationalism:  Loyalty to one's own nation and the practice of
putting the interests of that nation above all other nations.  One
of the many sources of war, injustice and exploitation.  Nation-
states have been around for some 300 years; they are just now
beginning to merge into Blocs [which see], or dissolve into ethnic
or regional segments.  See State, theory of.

National Insurance:  A program administered by the state in which
illness, age, unemployment and physical or emotional handicaps are
provided for out of public funds.  These programs provide a subsidy
to the capitalist class since they cover the unpaid costs of labor
and bodily injury done in pursuit of profits.  The tax process
which provides the funds is of considerable interest in this
respect; if they are regressive to the working class or to the
middle class, then the subsidies are higher, the profits greater.

Nationalization: A process by which ownership and control of
specific firms is transferred from private ownership to a national
government.  The motive to produce may become service and or
quality rather than profit.  The performance of nationalized firms
depends upon the quality of the government which runs the firm. 
Most nationalization occurs when capitalism abandons a given line
of production as unprofitable and the state is forced to supply the
good or service.  This is called lemon socialism since only the
lemons are nationalized.  The capitalists keep title to the
profitable lines of production.  Great Britain is in great
difficulty because it nationalized very expensive labor intensive
sorts of production while letting private corporations retain title
to high profit capital-intensive lines of production.

National Security Managers: Those who control opposition to capi-
talism at home and abroad.  They include the secretaries of state,
defense, H.E.W., heads of the three armed services, head of the
F.B.I., Director of the C.I.A., and chairman of the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.  Barnet holds that the owners and top
executives of business and industry along with the national
security managers make up the " ruling class", the real decision
makers in the U.S.  See also, Group of Seven.

Nature: Latin: natura = birth, change, growth.  Early use of the
term in Plato and Aristotle referred to that which changed in
contrast to the eternal and unchanging laws of the gods.  From this
we get the idea that there is a 'nature' of a thing toward which it
grows or strives as in the nature of a plant or animal.  Aquinas
gave the distinction between natural and supernatural; nature being
patterned by the supernatural.  Rousseau and Montaigne spoke of a
'state of nature' presumably simpler and more humane than
civilization.  Hume gave us the modern sense of nature as that
which lay outside our mind and from which we received sense data. 

Nature (Liberation of): In "Nature and Revolution," Marcuse notes
that the liberation of nature is an important, related part of the
liberation of society.  Commercialized nature, polluted nature,
militarized nature reduce the life environment of society as well
as preventing humans to find themselves in nature.  The liberation
of nature requires 1 ) treating nature as subject, b) treating
nature as life (rather than as material), c) to develop new
categories by which the natural world is experienced, d) to support
the ecological movement and e) an emancipation of the senses to
appreciate nature.

Natural child:  A child born out of wedlock or one to whom a family
name is refused.  Such children bear much onus which, properly,
should go to parents for discarding them or society for so
categorizing them.  See Bastard.

Natural Law: Those laws said to be permanent, necessary and
unchanging behaviors of nature and/or society.  In ancient Greece,
legal theory and social philosophy held that each human being
possessed a right to perfect justice.  This right usually came from
God or the gods and/or from nature.  It stands in contrast to
positive law [which see] which is the body of law imposed by the
state, usually to give preference to an elite.  Postmodern
sensibility holds that such 'laws' are arbitrary depictions which
are used to hide political agendas.  For example, when Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed, there was interest
whether he put Constitutional Law first or Natural Law first.  In
this context, it meant supporting laws which forbid abortion,
homosexuality, rights for women and affirmative action for those
groups harmed by racism and bigotry.  See Stoics.

Necessary labor:  That amount of work needed to reproduce labor-
power; the power to live, to learn, to work with skill as well as
the capacity to think beyond the immediate job or problem.  Any
labor beyond this is 'surplus labor.'  The question then becomes,
how is the value produced by surplus labor to be shared out.  See
entries in both Capitalism, Communism and Socialism for different
plans about how to use surplus value.  See also Exploitation,
super.

Necessity:  A legal defense referring to the circumstances which
compel one to commit a crime.  Examples given as precedent include
prisoners who escape from a burning jail; sailors who discard cargo
belonging to others in order to save a ship, a parent who kills an
attacker to save a chile and, in a sexist society, the right of a
male to murder wife and lover if caught in the act.

Necessity, the realm of:  This term refers to the eternal and
unvarying laws of God or nature to which all good, wise and
sensible persons should bend.  Heavily politicized in favor of some
one of 3000 or more different socio-cultural formations, the realm
of necessity is supported by both science, medicine and a wide
variety of social control systems.  Postmodern sensibility greatly
expands the realm of necessary; some postmodernists reject it
altogether.  Chaos/Complexity theory instructs us that there is an
elegant changing ratio between necessity and uncertainty.

Needs, False:  Those needs above and beyond that which is required
to construct a good and decent social life world.  Marcuse said
that capitalism must generate layer after layer of false needs in
order to realize profit.  Since most workers don't get paid enough
to buy 100% of the goods they produce, it is necessary to convince
others to buy more than they need.  Advertizing is used to create
these needs and to realize the last 5, 10 or 15% of profits on that
which is produced but now laying unwanted and unused in warehouses. 
For those in the underclass who have little economic power from
wages, profits or rents, crime is one means to 'reunite' production
and distribution and thus satisfy both real and false needs. See
also the Realization problem.

Negation: Latin: nego = I deny.  In logic, negation is a rule by
which truth values are derived.  In philosophy, it is a method of
analysis (and expansion of understanding) in which new ideas were
derived from existing ideas by exploring their limitations and
contradictions, "negating" every idea until a more adequate one is
reached.  Developed by Hegel, the "negation" is part of a dialectic
in which 'A' includes and is negated by 'Not-A' and out of that
negation comes clearer comprehension of 'A.' Hegel's own example is
not very helpful: "Out of being and nothing is the unity of the
two, and this unity is becoming."  More simply, it is hard to
understand something all by itself.  Thus the concept of
'bourgeoisie' is made more understandable by the concept of the
'proletariat.'  When we consider both concepts together, we have an
insight which helps move us toward sensible action.

Negation (of the Negation):  A term introduced by Hegel with which
to refer to a change in which the old quality is canceled out and
a new quality emerges; think of the addition of an acid to a base
which produces a salt [in chemistry] or the theft from a bank which
has been exploiting workers and/or customers.  In Marx, the central
negation is the negation of human dignity, community, and praxis. 
In these times, an important sphere of negation lies in the liberal
assumption that the essential freedom of men and women is to be
found in the realm of mind, reason, consciousness, or pure thought. 
And for liberal theorists, the negation of that negation was
freedom of thought, speech, and consciousness.  Soul and mind were
thought to be sacred.  Such a position negates the marxist view
that human dignity lies in the realm of production of human
culture, not solely in the realm of thought and speech.  Modern
modes of production require an invasion into the sanctity of pure
thought.  Management science preempts thought in the work process
while advertising and Public Relations attempt to manage needs and
understanding.  These professions negate the last realm of liberal
freedom.  Critical theory and socialist revolution aims to negate
this negation by restoring human control over the means of
production-i.e., activity as well as thought (After Marcuse).

Negentropy: Order, structure, predictability.  The opposite of en-
tropy: chaos, chance, random contact.  In systems theory, systems
solve the problem of order by transferring order from the
environment.  In sociology, A society must solve its problems of
order or change.  Some societies use force and coercion, especially
economic and legal coercion to produce order.  Others use collec-
tive interaction and socialization to solve the problem of order. 
The production of negentropy is a fundamental question for the
survival of all systems. (See systems theory).

Neglect: A legal term referring to the failure of a parent or
guardian to provide for the emotional, physical and developmental
needs of a child.  Also used to refer to some act a prudent person
would have taken in order to prevent the death or injury of another
person.  Neglect is the basis for charging the crime of negligence. 
Most definitions of crime focus upon overt acts; this term points
the criminologists to failure to act as a source of harm; it is
most often useful in white collar, corporate crime or political
crime; where ever there is trust implicit in a social relationship.

Neocolonialism: After African and Asian nations won political inde-
pendence, they found that they were still dependent upon inter-
national capitalism in terms of what is produced and who benefits. 
In addition, they found that their government either cooperates
with, or is subverted by developed capitalist states.  Domestic
ruling classes replace colonial administrators and a police
capacity is used to provide cheap labor to capitalist firms.

Neo-marxism: An attempt to renew marxism with the spirit and focus
of his early writings, some of which were not available to marxist
revolutionaries until after the nature of marxism was settled.  The
first wave of new marxist economics came with O. Lange, P. Sweezy
and Joan Robinson [see whom].  More recent concern of neomarxists
is with alienation, praxis, democratic self-management and the role
of subjectively creating humans in producing culture and, in the
same moment, themselves as human beings.  Neo-marxists also
incorporate the best of recent scholarship and theory into their
own work but the social philosophy remains grounded in marxism.

New Class:  A term used by M. Djilas with which to refer to a layer
of party bureaucrats, managers, and top professionals in state
socialism who were using their position for personal advantage. 
Together they 'froze' the revolution in USSR and elsewhere which,
in turn, lead to the collapse of bureaucratic socialism in the late
1980's.

New Left: A mixture of students, prisoners, blacks, women, older
people as well as neomarxists which emerged partly in response to
repression at home; partly in rejection of right-wing marxism and
economism and partly in response to Vietnam in the mid 60's. 
Mostly without a coherent marxian analysis of the U.S., this force
never the less moved against capitalist military venture.  Of the
marxists, many trace their roots to Marcuse, Habermas, Luk cs,
Korsch, and Horkheimer.

New World Order:  The polite term for the capitalist world system. 
This phrase refers to a model of global economy in which some 1000
huge multi-national firms produce and distribute goods across
national borders.  When one looks more closely, one can see a
hierarchy of nations; a core in which most of these firms are
located; at the top is the Group of Seven [which see]; then there
is a layer of NICs [newly industrial states: Korea, Taiwan, Hong
Kong, Singapore, Malaysia]; below them are semi-feudal states
including most of the Islamic nations and the more industrial
African, Latin American and Asian nations.  At the bottom are the
'basket cases,' some 20 or so nations which are very, very poor and
which cannot compete on the world market. See Capitalist world
system/economy.

News: Information about change.  Some communication act must
contain some new, strange, or unexpected information bit else one
does not learn from it.  All systems must have the capacity to read
out, store, and retrieve information about change in the
environment or change in the internal structure if the system is
going to be able to survive (maintain irreversibility). The greater
part of the information load the mass media is not news but rather
social opinion [which see].

Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892-1971):  Neibuhr taught theology at Union
Seminary in New York for years; his lectures were, at first,
informed by socialism; later he stressed social justice imperatives
in the old and new testament.  Many of his students went on to work
to end racism, class privilege and, lately, sexism.  The Highlander
School for community action was founded by one of his students.

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844-1900):  A brilliant student in Germany
who was appointed professor before he finished his degree; a very
rare occurrence in German universities.  He held, in The Birth of
Tragedy, that both apollonian calm and Dionysian passion were
important to the art and to life.  In Beyond Good and Evil,
Nietzsche reduced all moral systems to those which favored master
morality or those which promoted slave morality.  Master morality
is superior and is based in social rules but society needs both
moralities.  N. held that the 'will to power' lay behind all human
action and that slave mortality was a disease which infected both
democracy and Christianity.  N. held that one should philosophize
'with a hammer' breaking up old superstitions.  Modern science had
resulted in the Death of God and that, out of that death could and
should arise a superman [sic]; a person of high integrity, without
prejudice, intellectual, proud of his/her reason and responsibility
and with a 'greatness of soul.'  N. is seen as a progenitor of
postmodern sensibility.

Nihilism:  Latin: no thing.  In common usage, the term refers to
the view that there is nothing upon which moral behavior can be
grounded; all such moral grounding is a matter of personal desire
or cultural tradition.  Since there have been some 3-4000 different
cultures in human history, such groundings are variable and
arbitrary.  Compare to Theism and Humanism which hold that
grounding of moral behavior is possible and necessary.

Nirvana:  A Buddhist term from the Sanskrit term meaning 'blown
out.'  It denotes a state of release from all worldly desires. 
Such idea informs many religions; they have in common a giving up
of progressive change in this world; acceptance of one's fate and
hope for a better life after death.  In Mayahana Buddhism, it
refers to a state of bliss; in Hinayana Buddhism, it means
extinction.  Both Hindus and Buddhists work toward Nirvana by
seeking perfection in whatever incarnation into which they are
born.  Being a perfect carpenter or scholar means doing that and
only that to the best one's ability and not striving for the other
status.  See Boddhisatva.

Noesis/noema:  Greek terms meaning thought and that which is
thought.  Kant altered the meaning to set modern usage; noumena;
that which exists prior to thought; and phenomena; that which we
think exists.

Nominalism:  Latin: nomen = name, naming.  An idea from philosophy
that the names we give objects in nature and society are mere
convenience.  The question is whether objects exist in and of
themselves or are merely names we give to some vague and slippery
aspect of reality.  For example, can we speak of a forest or only
of individual trees.  Postmodern philosophy of science holds 1)
such collectives become real when they begin to affect the behavior
of other systems in the environment, 2) that there is a reality-
creating process in which the name of a thing calls it forth [e.g.,
as when we name someone a 'friend,''wife,' or 'son.']  3) in
fractal geometry, systems occupy only part of the space available
and thus have fractal facticity; naming then begins to be a poetic
and a political act. 

Nomothetic: Greek: nomos = order, law.  A nomothetic system is one
in which the relationships are stable and a set of principles
(theory) can be derived to describe how the system works.  The term
is of interest to the person who is interested in how societies
work since people often argue that society is by nature nomothetic. 
Some people say that a society could be (and maybe should be)
organized as a nomothetic system but the "normal" state is one of
instability and unpredictability in human affairs.  The answer to
these questions determine the kind of science one must use.  See
also idiographic.

Nonlinear Dynamics:  A form of dynamics in which a small change in
a key variable has a large effect on the behavior of a system;
think of the straw that broke the camel's back.  Then too, large
changes can be absorbed without changing the behavior of a system
[think of Itzhak Perlman; he suffered polio as a child but still
became a world class violinist.  Lots of such cases.  In Chaos
theory, there are some five dynamical states; simple systems can
display both 'linear' and nonlinear dynamics; complex systems
display usually nonlinearity.  Given nonlinear dynamics, the modern
science search for stable, universal and eternal laws with tight
causality is not possible.  This opens space for human agency and
qualitative change about what causes what.

Nonperson: An individual who is defined as having no status (stand-
ing) in the social occasion under construction even when (s)he is
physically present.  Racist, sexist, authority and ageist rules
define given persons as sociologically nonexistent.

Non Sequitur:  Latin: it does not follow [from what has been said
or proven so far].  See also Fallacies [of thinking].

Non-Zero Sum Game:  A game in which all players can win something
more than they risk.  As used in economics, it means a form of
production and distribution in which a division of labor enriches
all without irreparable harm to the environment.  Contrast to a
zero-sum game.
  
Norm: 1. A rule in a society which specifies appropriate and
desirable behavior.  Much human behavior is mediated by various
norms learned in socialization and emergent in everyday life. 
Compare to theories which ground human behavior in genes,
instincts, personal desires or the single individual.  2. A
statistical description of what people actually do in a situation. 
Much mischief accrues when statistical norms are held to be
necessary social norms as in the Bell Curve.  Empiricism holds that
all such curves must come from the actual behavior of persons;
those who believe that these forms are natural insist that all
rational persons must conform to the curve.

Normative Order:   Patterns of human activity created by
intersubjective understanding.  In contrast, a purposive-rational
order generates behavior via external stimuli involving direct
application of sanctions or indirect control of mass media. (After
Habermas).

Noumena:  Greek: noema = thought.  In modern philosophy, there is
a question of whether thought can grasp that which really exists. 
The term, noumena, as used by Kant refers to that which exists and
can be known. Phenomena refers to that which we only think exists,
or if existent, cannot be known or, more commonly, that which seems
to exist to our limited senses.

Nulla poena sine lege:  No punishment without a law.  A Legal
phrase in Latin which means that the state cannot punish one unless
there is a law which forbids or demands an action.

Nullum crimen sine lege:  No crime exists without a law passed by
a competent law-making body.  This principle of law tends to
replace Natural law [which see] with positive enactments.  It is
necessary as a principle of law since those in authority can make
up the laws as they go along and thus usurp the concept of justice
to their own whims.

Null Hypothesis:  A statement that a given relationship between two
or more variables does not exist.  One always tries to confirm a
null hypothesis so one won't be tempted to confirm an hypothesis
that one thinks is or should be true.  See Hypothesis.

Object:  Latin: ob = over, against + jacere = to throw.  The word
used to mean, 'the thing thought' rather than the thing itself.  It
now means 'that which exists in its own right apart from human
thought.'  The word, subject, carried the latter meaning until
Kant.  In a curious reversal of meaning and usage, the word now is
used to refer to 'objective' reality.  See Noumena, Objectivity.

Objectification:  The process of turning a subject into an object.
Any process which tends to reduce intentionality and self-
determination. People are objectified when they are treated as a
means to an end.  Power objectifies by forcing people to do things
they judge to be inappropriate.  People are also objectified when
they are turned into commodities (football players, prostitutes,
slaves, and so on) in a market.

Objectivity: A stance of impartiality and disinterest in the 
search for truth.  This stance assumes, erroneously, that there is
a truth about society and nature which exists apart from the
subjective activity of intending human beings.  See Phenomenology,
Postmodern.

Obscene:  Any deed or word that degrades or corrupts that which is
held to be sacred in a society.  As used in everyday life, it
refers to deeds and publications which tend to promote sexual
behavior outside the norms of a given society.  It carries
considerable emotional content and itself degrades and demotes.

Oedipal Complex:  A freudian idea which holds that boys are jealous
of their father and wish to destroy him.  In the theory, father
represents authority and the son, incestuous desire for the
forbidden.  Oedipus was son of a Greek king who had been warned his
son would kill him.  The father ordered a servant to take the boy
and murder him.  Instead the servant hid the boy with a farm
couple; they raised him.  He became a warrior and on meeting his
father, unknown, killed him.  As spoils of war, Oedipus wed, still
unknowing, the king's wife, his mother, and had two daughters by
her.  Presumably, social revolution is informed by such a desire
buried deep in the psyche rather than exploitation, injustice or
other good cause.  There is a companion theory which tries to
explain why girls do such things; see Electra complex, the.

Offense:  A term in criminology used to refer to the behavior
observed in violation of a law; crime is the everyday word.  In
criminology there are different kinds of offense: 1) offenses
against the person; assault, rape, murder; 2) offenses against
property rights [not property]; theft, conversion, fraud, arson,
forgery, burglary, robbery, blackmail, the latter contain elements
of offenses against the body of persons; 3) offenses against the
public order; obstruction of right of way, loud or offensive talk
or rough behavior, vagrancy, homelessness, begging, sleeping in
parks and other behavior unseemly to the middle classes.  Then
there are 4) violations of international law: piracy, hi-jacking,
war crimes, genocide, and apartheid.

Office: A position in a table of organization which carries duties
and authority.  The notion of an "office" is an invention by which
humans can be separated from a status without too much trouble. 
Only when it is desirable to treat people as interchangeable is the
notion of an office useful.

Oligarchy, Iron Law of:  The word, Oligarchy means rule of the few. 
Michel's Iron Law of Oligarchy says that those in power use that
power to retain control of people, wealth and nations.  The term is
used to condemn union leaders, socialist bureaucrats and government
bureaucrats who put their own office and staff above the programs
and policies they are charged to administer.

Ombudsman:  A scandinavian term referring to a person who accepts
complaints against public officials and enquires into them on
behalf of the injured party; the Ombudsman then attempts to work
for equity in the case at hand.  Most universities have such
officers who protect students and staff against professors and
administrators who practice sexist, racist practices and/or
religious bigotry.

One dimensional society: A society in which intersubjective under-
standing is impaired and critical analysis is crippled.  This
leaves only merely technical work to be done.

Ontology: Greek: ontos: being.  The study of that which exists in
the natural world and which has facticity apart from human thought
and study.  Pre-modernists believe that external reality is a poor
imitation of abstract forms [Plato] and/or of God's Plan. 
Modernists think reality exist as objects apart from human desire
and can be known through good research design.  Postmodernists hold
that there is a complex interaction between reality and human
action [including thought] which cannot be sorted out by good
research.  In brief, objectivity is impossible since humans use
imagination and action to call forth both social facts and natural
facts.

Onus:  Guilt, responsibility, burden.  In law, one who has the onus
of proof has the burden to prove a charge or accusation.  In
everyday usage, the word carries a negative emotional charge which
denotes shameful behavior.

Operant-conditioning: A system of socialization in which behavior
is modified by linking specific stimuli (controlled by another per-
son) to given behavior patterns.  A form of freudian revisionism,
operant-conditioning defeats reflection, judgment, and inter-sub-
jective discourse and establishes unilateral control of behavior
via the use of appropriate principles of psychology.  Sometimes
this process is called "Behavior Modification" and is used on
prisoners, students, alcoholics, and others who do not respond to
existing norms.

Operationalism:  A term introduced by P.W. Bridgman to the effect
that the only way to define a concept is by the steps [operations]
used to measure the concept.  Thus, public opinion is nothing more
than what researchers get when they frame, ask questions and write
down answers.  This challenges the idea that there are natural
concepts which mirror reality.  Bridgman puts the actions and
interests of researchers up front in his methodology.

Oppression: The practice of crushing those who criticize or
advocate a different social-life world.  Oppression varies from
withholding rewards to beatings, jailings, assassinations, as well
as the use of chemotherapy and psychological technology.  Control
over the means of violence by an elite is the major approach in
oppression.

Order:  Arrangement of objects and variables in a very precise
regularity.  According to pre-modernists, God brought order out of
Chaos.  Modernists believe that order underlies all natural and
social dynamics.  Chaos theory reveals that there is a changing mix
of order and disorder; that variety and uncertainty are essential
to life and language; that preference for order is a political
desire rather than the normal behavior of atoms, molecules, plants,
animals and societies.

Order(s): An imperative directing organized human behavior.  In
Weber's view an order derives its legitimacy from traditional or
legal (rational) authority.  Because the reproduction of class
societies is based upon the continued appropriation of social
wealth inequitably, all such societies must solve the problem of
legitimacy for orders to work, to obey, to desist, and to keep the
peace.  They do so by structural force.  All "orders" neutralize
motives and impair the normative process.

Organic [Theory of Social Organization]:  A model of social
organization which holds that, much as a plant or animal, all
societies have parts which are essential to the whole organism. 
The idea is attributed to Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and developed
by A. Schaefle and F. Nietzsche.  The theory holds that there are
three 'organs' in society; workers, traders and capitalists which
perform the functions of feeding, distributing and digesting. 
Consequently capitalism is a natural, valued, essential mode of
production [see which for other modes].  Just as some animals are
simple and complex; so are some societies.  The theory becomes very
political when it is claimed that complex societies are superior to
simple ones since the division of labor [Durkheim] is very great. 
It is curiously fitting that Spencer's grave is very near Marx'
grave in Highgate Cemetery, London.

Organic  solidarity:  The  dependence  of  people  on  each  other 
which arises from the division of labor such  that  each 
occupation,  exchanging with other occupations, can satisfy needs. 
The problem arises when some sectors (or institutions) evade
reciprocity, when some social subsystems are strong and others weak
and when superfluous structures are maintained (the leisure class,
the state, welfare institutions and the military are held by some
to be superfluous).  And then there is the marxian view that
culture must be produced collectively rather than divided up to the
exclusion of some.  These criticisms suggests the concept of
organic solidarity is an elitist apology for a system devoid of
human solidarity.

Organization Theory: A set of sociological principles by which
human beings can be managed in factories, offices, and schools. 
The terms refers to the theory used to make complex organizations
work better rather than how to construct a decent and rational
community.  Weber, Taylor, Parsons, Argyris and others are the
major figures in this form of commodity science.

Orwell, George [Eric Blair] (1903-1950):  The author of many works
on radical politics, Orwell wrote scathing critiques of both
capitalism and bureaucratic/statist socialism.  The Road to Wigan
Pier discussed worker issues while Homage to Catalonia examined the
issues in the Spanish Civil War.  His two critiques of socialism
are famous: Animal Farm, a satire on Stalin and the cult of the
hero in USSR; 1984, a bitter and horrifying fictional account of
the role of the state in controlling both thought and action.  We
owe Orwell for several popular phrases: Big Brother is Watching
You, Some animals are more equal than others and groupthink.  Eric
Blair [George Orwell] was a bureaucrat in the English government
and saw too well the effort of the state to manage public opinion.

Over-socialized model of Self: Dennis Wrong, in reaction to the
view of the individual as a passive occupant of social roles and
rules, criticized structural sociology.  He noted, rightly, that
people are very creative in taking and making the roles in which
they find themselves; that they can dis-engage and take other, more
fulfilling social roles.  Yet the overpsychologized model of being
is also a political trap.  Our ability to transcend our culture and
act upon our own will is greatly limited in coercive, in
bureaucratic, and in managed societies.  Within the same society,
power and circumstance produce widely varying degrees of self-
determination.

Over-Population.  The idea from Malthus [see whom] that population
growth outruns the capacity to grow food.  Natural checks [disease,
famine, war and infanticide] are desirable and not to be removed
lightly.  This is, in the long run, true enough.  What is of
interest is how many people could be supported in different
political economies; there are now about 6 billions on earth.  Most
say the world is now over-populated and people should have fewer or
no children.  The marxian position is that, with a good means of
production and a good means of distribution of food, shelter,
clothing, education, jobs and health care, the good earth could
support between 20 and 100 billion people; 20 billion with American
standards of food and energy consumption; 100 billion with Asian
patterns of food usage and energy consumption.  Population theory
thus needs to be set in the context of the political economy in
question.  See Demographic Transition Theory for a depoliticized
explanation of over-population.

Owen, Robert (1771-1858):  A Welsh Industrialist and philanthropist
who helped put together utopian communities.  He adopted communist
ideas, reduced the work day in his own textile mills from 14 to 10
hours a day; established day care centre and a model school for his
workers and reduced his share to 5% profit; Jeremy Bentham was a
partner; think about that!  In 1825, Owen established a model
community at New Harmony, Ohio which failed.  He also tried to
establish a Union of All Classes and All Nations.  While Owen was
opposed to religion, today only the Hutterites embody the ideals to
which he subscribed.

Pacifism: A social movement opposed to war to settle problems
between nations.  Both militant marxists and expansionist
capitalists oppose pacifism albeit for very different reasons. 
Marxists claim that pacifism often freezes the false peace of
oppression.  Sometimes war is necessary in order to negate a
greater negation.  Expansionists argue that evolution is driven by
conflict--in the end, inferior societies will be eliminated and
superior societies survive as warfare for markets, raw materials
and between modes of production works its way through history.

Paganism:  A form of religion in which people believe that all of
nature is sacred.  Rivers, clouds, mountains, each animal species
and all major natural events [thunder, lightening, fire, frost,
earthquakes, tornados and the seasons; Winter, Summer, Spring and
Fall as well as the four winds all are moved by spirits within
them.  Believing all of nature to be sacred, pagans are careful to
use only that which they need to survive and to pray to the spirit
of the animal or plant which they use.  See Profanation/Pantheism.

Pantheism: From the Greek; Pan = all, thea = god.  The belief that
God is in everything...not a supreme being apart or prior to the
world.  Sometimes confused with paganism which see.

Paradigm:  Greek: paradeigma = pattern, model, plan.  In the
philosophy of science, the word refers to the general framework
within which one works.  Th. Kuhn argued that there is progressive
evolution of paradigms in physics and society; each more
encompassing than those coming before.  Postmodern philosophy of
science holds that, rather than one final encompassing paradigm,
there can be any number of 'paradigms of knowledge' depending upon
the human interests which inform each.  Both nature and society are
so complex and so interconnected while humans are so creative, any
number of paradigms, each with some truth value, can be
constructed.  In sociology, a "social paradigm" refers to the kind
of society under construction.  Again, there can be many.  There
have been between 3000 and 4000 cultures in human history;
Capitalism is one such paradigm and socialism quite a different
one.

Paralogic:  A term used to emphasize how very little we know about
so much.  That which is unknown, admittedly false, admittedly a
fictionalized account of history, persons, or events.  It points to
how very much we claim as true but is really linguistic or
arbitrary conventions.  After Lyotard.

Parens patriae:  A legal term meaning literally the state is the
father of all children.  The term emerged as the law making system
began to replace the family as the agent in control of the fate of
children.  This shift served the labor needs of industrial
capitalism.  See Delinquency, Child savers, Status crimes.

Pareto, Vilfredo (1848-1923):  Italian sociologist who studied
elites.  Pareto said that all societies are ruled by elites.  There
are two kinds; risk-takers who force change and conservatives which
resist change.  He argued that they tend to take turns in
controlling the destiny of a society; a circulation of elites.  But
see C.W. Mills and Interest group theory.

Parliamentarianism:  A political system in which the largest party
determines social policy; members of Parliament are elected, hold
office for a term [variable], and selects the government which is
responsible to Parliament.  Marx was critical of P. since, he held,
it represents capitalism and selects only those policies which
reproduce class privilege.  Social democrats support it as a 'road
to socialism' which can be used on behalf of workers and the
population made surplus by capitalism labor policy.

Parlor marxism: The practice of talking about exploitation, sexism,
and praxis but doing little to change the world (in disregard of
the 11th thesis).  See also Utopianism.

Paris Commune:  For three months in 1871, the workers in Paris took
power, held elections and formed the city into a workers' commune. 
It was the first such social experiment in history.  The Commune
established a Dictatorship of the Proletariat and set up ten
ministries.  The French army, with the aid of German troops,
attacked and defeated the Communards.

Parole: Literally speech.  The conditional release of a prisoner
upon his/her promise to avoid the actions and/or persons involved
in the offense for which s/he was sentenced.  Parole usually runs
for the duration of the original sentence to prison.

Parson, Talcott (1902-1979):  American functionalist born in
Colorado but educated in Germany and England.  A conservative who
argued in very tedious language that sociology is the study of 'the
institutionalization of patterns of value-orientation in the social
system.'  He gave us the LIGA scheme [latency, integration, goal
attainment, adaptation] for analyzing all social forms.  He
emphasized the importance of 'boundary' maintenance thus the
importance of social control and the state.  Alvin Gouldner helped
dethrone him in American Sociology with his book, The Coming
Crisis, 1970 [which read].

Part I Offenses:  Major crimes: rape, murder, negligent
manslaughter, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, larceny and
auto theft.

Part II Offenses: All crimes other than Part I, above.

Participation theory: A set of principles which supports collective
sharing in the creation of culture.  The thought is that culture
and society do not exist apart from the collective activity of
intending humans.

Participatory sociology: A form of sociology which incorporates
action into the research methodology and theory in response to the
needs of the surplus population (after Colfax).

Parsimony: Latin: parsimonia = thrifty. A canon of modern science,
after Ockham, which holds that one should prefer the simpler of two
theories/explanations.  The new sciences of complexity/chaos argues
that the quest for both order and simplicity are based upon human
desire to control and to manage the incredible complexity of life.

Pastiche: A postmodern term referring to a collage of ideas; a
'crazy-quilt' of views; a hodge-podge or patchwork in which
contradictory claims, stories and views are put together.  The use
of pastiche denies the usefulness of logic, symmetry, compatibility
or logic.  It glorifies confusion and contradictions in music, art,
architecture, explanation and social life itself.  After Rosenau.

Patent: A grant by a state of an exclusive right to benefit from an
invention for a period of time; 17 years is usual.  The idea is
that the person who invents a useful tool or device should benefit
from it.  Employees in shops, factories or universities who invent
things usually do not benefit; the owner of the shop, factory or
school benefits.  It is always difficult to draw a line between the
person who invents something and all those who made the invention
possible by prior discovery, skill or participation.  See
copyright.

Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662):  Pascal was a world class mathematician
in France who had a mystical conversion in mid-life.  He represents
the tension between faith in rationality and faith in mystery. He
argued there were two pathways to knowledge; l'esprit geom‚trique
[reason] and l'esprit de finesse [inspiration]. His dictum, the
heart has its reasons of which reason knows not, captures the
tension between these two pathways.  Pascal was, thus, torn between
pre-modern sensibility and the promises of modern science.  One
wonders what he would do with postmodern philosophy of science. 
You would do well to consider that tension rather than commit to
either and discard the other.

Passion:  Greek: pathos = passivity.  Another word which, in the
hands of fallible humans with political agenda, became the opposite
of its original.  It is used by Aristotle to refer to the
accidental rather than the essence of a thing.  Descartes, opposed
to accidentals and looking for an underlying elegant order in
nature and society, treated those things not amenable to his
analytic geometry as emotional dispositions.  Now passion is
treated as a source of bias in science; it is treated as a source
of energy in religion.  If well directed, passion is valuable to
emancipatory science.

Patriarchy: Latin: Pater = father.  A system in which gender
relations are highly stratified; males are given a monopoly over
economic power, social power, moral power and the use of physical
force.  Women are held to be inferior in intellect and in moral
capacities; thus in need of control and guidance by putatively
superior males.  The patriarchal family emerged after settled
agriculture developed (10,000 B.C.E.).  In order to hold property
[land, herds, tools, buildings], it is necessary to have a rule for
transferring them from one generation to another; in P., transfer
is to the eldest son.  P. is the source of much mischief, much
violence and much pre-theoretical rebellion by men, women and
children alike.  Anthropologists tell us that gender relations are
highly variable across cultures and thus, subvert the claims above.

     Capitalism tends to destroy patriarchal privilege since women
can be hired at lower wages and since markets can be expanded by
selling women goods and services formerly restricted to males;
tobacco, sex, clothing, real estate and such.

Party/Party Discipline:  A political structure representing a
class, ethnic group or religious faction in a society.  It requires
a most liberal political form if each party is to play a part in
social policy.  Many marxists value the Communist Party as the
vehicle for the general interest of society and of social
revolution.  Party discipline varies; the more hierarchal and
elitist, the stricter the discipline and the greater the
onus/penalty for failing to follow the party line.  Elitist party
organization has not served workers well.

Pauper/pauperism:  A person and a state caused by labor and market
practices in and only in capitalism.  Capitalism is the only
economic system which tends to disemploy people; it is the only
economic system which withholds food, shelter and clothing for
profits.  See Surplus population, underclass.

Peasant:  A farmer on a small piece of land.  Peasants occupy an
ambivalent position in a market economy; on the one hand, peasants
are 'free' and own property but they often must pay taxes to the
Nobility or buy equipment, fertilizer and seeds from merchants;
they often borrow money to do so.  They usually have to sell to
merchants at prices below the costs of production.  Peasants often
organize into co”ps but still have many problems. In the USA,
Congress gives small farmers many subsidies which enable them to
survive; the present call to end farming subsidies threatens the
last few million family farms still found.  See Farming, modern,
Peonage.  Sometimes used to refer to Serfs, see which.

Pedagogy: Greek: paidos = child. The art and science of teaching.

Pedagogue: One who teaches.  As Chaucer put it in the Clerk's Tale,
'Gladly wold he lerne and gladly teche.'  Your assignment for life.

Pedophilia/pedophil:  Literally, the love of/for children.  In
practice it refers to those who prefer sex with children.  Feminist
theory holds that, as with rape, sex with children bespeaks a
deficit in self esteem and doubt about one's essential capacity to
enter mature, supportive, loving relationships.

Peer: One who has the same position in society as another.  In a
stratified, differentiated society marked by cleavages in racial,
ethnic, sexist, religious, occupational and educational
involvements, the number of similarly situated persons in close
enough contact to get organized is very small.

Peer group: A set of similarly situated persons who use each other
and the norms of the group as a basis for organizing one's own
behavior.  If there are no cross-generational ties, the resultant
behavior can be quite anti-social.

Pentateuch:  Greek: penta = five; teuchos = book.  The first five
books of the Hebrew and Christian bible.  They contain the laws
which shape and pre-shape so many legal codes today.  Do read
Deuteronomy at least and compare it to modern legal codes if you
are interested in the sociology of law.

Peonage:  A form of labor servitude in which a 'free' farmer/worker
works for a land-owner until a debt is paid off.  Used mostly in
Mexico to refer to those who rent land and work on shares for large
land-holders.  Many farmers in the USA are, in effect, peons; L.
Frank Baum made mock of such debt farmers in the Wizard of Oz by
using the Scarecrow to represent those in debt bond to capitalist
[the crows which ate his corn]; Baum had the Scarecrow go to the
Emerald City to get some brains so he would vote for progressive
politicians; in this case, Wm. Jennings Bryan.

Peirce, Charles (1839-1914): American scholar who taught logic at
Johns Hopkins.  Pierce introduced the term, pragmatism, as a theory
of knowledge which held that the truth value of a theory lay in its
practical consequences.  Troubled by those such as William James
who turned it into an apology for capitalism and materialism,
Pierce changed the name to Pragmaticism.  Pierce also added the
concept of abduction to the knowledge process to cover the
interactive feedback between theory and fact not found in either
induction and deduction.  In so doing, Pierce helps create a
postmodern philosophy of knowledge.

Performativity:  A postmodern term referring to the use of
successful performance as a test of truth, value, validity or
outcome.  It centers around 'capacity, efficiency, control'
[Benhabib].  Postmodernists tend to reject it as a modernist effort
to reject diversity, flexibility, openness or autonomy.  Lyotard
views it to rely too much on logic and reason.

Perjury:  Giving of false testimony or faking evidence in a legal
proceeding.  Punishable by imprisonment and/or fine if and only if
the person in question was/is under oath to tell the truth.

Person: Greek: Latin: persona from Gk, prosopon = Mask.  The term
first refers to the mask worn to depict some standard character in
morality plays in ancient greece.  It went into Roman law, to refer
to an individual who has legal standing and may claim protection or
judgments from a court.  John Locke identified it with self-
awareness and memory. In sociology, anyone who has social status
and has the right to social power within specified status-role
sets.  The notion of the person disappears in some postmodern
social psychology.  See Subject, Non-person, Competency.

Personality: An unique, presumably natural, attribute of a person. 
In his critique of Locke and Hegel, Marx insisted that the
personality did not exist apart from the individual: thus it did
not have a separation from the everyday, concrete behavior of
people.  Theories of personality today which treat personality as
a stable, transsituational entity apart from behavior is a
mystification much like having a theory of the shadow which is
disassociated from the individual and given causal power in the
dynamics of behavior.

     For Marx, personality derived from social relations.  Social
relations embody existing modes of production.  Modes of production
thus are the foundations of personality. It is thus that Marx
grounds a macro-social psychology which ties self to the social
position one occupies and social position to the larger political
economy.  If we don't like the antisocial behavior of people in our
society, the solution is found more in changing the mode of
production than in "changing the personality" through
psychotherapy, drugs or other means. (After Schaff)

Personal Property: The property one claims control and use of which
as a result of one's share of labor.  Personal property includes
clothing, housing, tools, furniture and appliances to be used in
the day to day Reproduction of Labor Power.  Not to be confused
with private property, a concept which involves the notion that one
person can claim ownership of socially produced wealth; ownership
of social relationships; social organizations, of the arts, skill,
craft, service or person or of another human being.  Marxist theory
rejects as invalid claims to private property but accepts qualified
claims to personal property.  In general, material culture is to be
used to help generate ideological culture.  The concept of culture
implies collective endeavor hence collective use of material items. 
One cannot produce art, science, language, or community by oneself.

Perversion:  Each society appropriates the sexuality, desire and
pleasure of its members to help reproduce social relationships; the
private, non-social use of one's own sexuality for and only for
personal pleasure is said to be corrupt, perverted, sinful or
pathological.  Among the more common acts defined as perverted are:
homosexuality, masturbation, lesbianism, sodomy [oral or anal sex],
whipping [for pleasure], fetishism [of say, feet or clothing],
eating unpleasant things and such.  In general, the profanation of
things sanctified by tradition and practice.  See Corruption.

Pestalozzi, J.H. (1746-1827):  Swiss education who argued for
developmental education [in contrast to the teaching of skills and
ethnocentricism only].  His pedagogy was distinctly postmodern in
that it called for each child to achieve their own 'truth.' 
Socratic education presumed that the truth was absolute and resided
within the child before birth but was 'forgotten' by the birth
trauma.  Thus, for Socrates, it could be 'drawn out;' e-ducted. 
Pestalozzi gave the person much greater freedom and agency in his
pedagogy.  See Piaget.

Petty bourgeoisie: A strata of small business persons who own the
means of production and also actively work with them to extract
surplus value both by paying low wages and charging high prices.
(Grocers, dentists, carpenters, restaurant owners, bar owners,
small farmers, barbers, electricians, independent truckers as well
as franchise owners in hardware, fast foods, television,
automobiles and other products); these are the lower middle
classes.  The petty bourgeoisie often expresses hostility toward
big business but, in the end, joins to preserve capitalism even as
every small business is squeezed out by "modern business theory".

Petty bourgeois science: A view that sociologists, historians, psy-
chologists and economists have most of the objective
characteristics of small business persons: control over labor, over
tools of production, income, privileges, ability to create ideas,
and control over others (especially students).  These conditions
make social scientists a natural ally to the bourgeoisie.  On the
other hand, social scientists usually sell their labor power and
are restricted in the ideas which they may produce to those which
sell.  Control over work conditions is being lost as "professional"
administration slowly usurps traditional functions of academics. 
The question is "Whose side will they join" in a crisis.  Most
scientists, physical and social are conservative.  Those who aren't
may over-estimate their role in social revolution and talk too
much.

Phalanstery, Phalanx Socialism:  A unit of an ideal society
imagined by Fourier [whom see].  It was about a square mile in
area, shared farm buildings and machinery with other plalansteries
on its borders and had communal dining halls, schools, nurseries
and recreation buildings.  It provided for private dwellings for
about 1800 people--enough to provide all essential needs and
amenities to the community.  The phalanx was sub-divided into 10
Series; each Series consisted of 14-30 groups; each group was seven
or more.  The aim to be obtain a balance between individual freedom
and social solidarity.  Marx and Engels dismissed them as
hopelessly utopian.  Some Israeli kibbutzim incorporate some
features [which see].

Phallogocentrism: A term used by postmodern feminists which
critiques/rejects privileged speech-thought-behavior patterns in
Western society which esteem the male-centered, control-oriented
logic of modern, western science.  Postmodern feminists claim that
such styles of interaction inadequately represents the ways of
knowing for women and for peoples/cultures around the world who
think and act in nonlinear ways not captured/privileged by the
assumptions/goals of modern science.


Phenomenology:  Greek: phainomenon = appearance + ology = study of. 
A theory of knowledge which stresses the primacy of consciousness
and subjective meaning in that action which produces social facts
(phenomena).  Classic philosophy (Lambert, Kant, Hegel)
distinguished between "noumena", that which exists and "phenomena",
that which humans perceive to exist.  The thought was that people
look at nature and distort it since they are imperfect creatures.
The modern expression is in Husserl [whom see] who held that human
thought [phenomena] was structured by pre-existing categories and
could be studied by 'bracketing' what really existed until one
could establish the essence [eidos] of a category of thought.  See
entelechy.  See postmodern phenomenology, below.

Phenomenology, postmodern:  The postmodern position is that humans
create scientific categories and social facts.  Social facts are
created by first proclaiming the existence of some social form
(phenomena) and then, through their own efforts, creating that
reality (noumena).  The result is a facticity which varies greatly
according to time and place but still has come commonalities; our
notion of family is a case in point; families do not exist apart
from the ideas and activities of the members; no two families are
ever precisely identical; over time, a given family unit has
variable facticity.  Interesting, isn't it??
     Scientific categories, also, are established by human beings. 
We select just that part of incredibly complex and interconnected
natural and social events which fits/creates the category and then
treating all other events/elements as observer error, faulty
research design, chance or poor reasoning.  There are no noumena or
objective categories of nature or society apart from or beyond the
act of creating.  There is no built-in tendency [teleology] for a
thing to move in any given direction while the concept of
perfection is, again, a political historical way to legitimate
whatever exists or one thinks should exist.  In postmodern
philosophy of science, forms of reality may have a very fragile
fractal and changing mix of order and disorder.

Philosophical Anthropology: A set of assumptions about how human
nature arises.  Some say it is built into genes; others say it is
formed in infancy and childhood; others say it is a social
construct which can be very variable [labile].  Marxism assumes
that humans create themselves as species being in the process of
forming social relationships and, within those social
relationships, create culture.  See Macro-social psychology.

Philosophy:  From the Greek, philos = love + osophy, = wisdom. 
Philosophy began as theology and evolved to a 'science about
science.'  It provides to those who follow its ways, many rewards
in the way of love, joy, delight and zest and moments of insight
which comes with thinking, knowing and understanding the world
about one.  Anyone who thinks beyond the moment or beyond one's own
immediate self interest is a philosopher.  I give you joy in your
effort.  See entries below.

Philosophy [of life]: 1) A coherent set of principles which guide
the construction of a social life world. 2. The study of human
knowledge. 3. A style of response to the problems of life which
interferes with action and change.  All societies need a philosophy
to imbue its members with purpose, hope, faith, and fellowship. 
Whether societies benefit from formal knowledge of how they operate
is an open question.  Some say not.  The Bible says the "knowledge
maketh a man's face to shine" and that wisdom is good.  But the
scientific and formal theories which have replaced folk theories
have not offered surcease from pain nor added to human dignity or
to fellowship.  It appears that whatever knowledge is produced in
an oppressive society is filtered through the oppressive
relationships and reinforces that oppression.  Emancipatory
knowledge and conflict methodology attempt to break through the
rule that knowledge in an exploitative society is exploitative
knowledge.

Philosophy [the discipline]:  There are five branches to the formal
study of human knowledge: 1) epistemology which deals with the
question, How do we know something and how do we know it to be
true. 2) Metaphysics, ideas about the nature of reality, 3)
aesthetics, ideas about that which is beautiful, 4) ethics, that
which is good and 5) logic, the study of the forms and laws of
rational thinking.  See each entry separately.

Philosophy, Materialist:  The belief that doing and being is
primary while thinking and feeling are derived from the first.  The
controversy in philosophy is between materialists, who believe that
ideas, values, art, science, religion and philosophy itself are
derivative while others hold that ideas, values, a spiritual life
and aesthetics are the source, the end and the point of being and
doing.  This conflict may be a spurious one arising out of belief
in and skepticism about gods and other supernatural beings.
Affirmative Postmodern theology and social philosophy re-unite
material and spiritual aspects of authentically human life.

Phonocentric:  The view [Derrida] that modern science relies too
much on the spoken word in creating truth claims.  Instead, trust
should be centered in written texts.  After Rosenau.

Physiocrats/Physiocracy:  A french political economy which held
that all value begins with land and agriculture.  They urged a
doctrine of laissez faire, by which they meant that commerce and
industry should be free from fees and royalties paid to kings and
princes.  At the time, peasants in France paid taxes amounting to
50% of their crops.  The French Revolution arose, in part, from
such constraints on the economy.  Physiocracy was founded by
Quesnay (1694-1774); Turgot (1727-1781) attempted to institute it
when he was Comptroller of France in 1774.  Physiocrats posited
three class: 1) the productive class--farmers, 2) the appropriating
class--landlords, royalty, clergy, and officials engaged in
unproductive labor, and 3) the sterile class--those in industry who
depended upon the surplus generated by farmers.

Piaget, Jean (1896-1980):   A Swiss psychologist, Piaget traced the
development of concepts in a child: shape, size, space, time,
causality, chance, velocity and such.  This work provides a basis
for a postmodern phenomenology in which all such concepts are the
work of human beings and do not exist as such prior to and apart
from human thought and human interests in controlling nature.

Picketing:  The effort by employees, citizens, students or
customers to protest against exploitation or repression via signs
and slow walks at or near a place of work, store, public agency or
office of a professor said to be unfair or sexually harassing of
students.  The US Constitution gives people the right of 'peaceful
assembly in protest of grievance.'  Secondary picketing includes
other shops, stores or class related to the one against which there
is grievance.

Plato (428-348 BCE):  Plato was a Greek philosopher who founded a
famous academy which lasted for centuries until it was destroyed in
war.  There are two parts of Plato's work which the student should
commit to memory: his Doctrine of Ideas uses the analogy of the
cave in which humans dwell and can know only the shadows casts on
its walls; they then take these shadows to be close approximations
of external reality; one can see the roots of postmodern philosophy
of science and knowledge in this part.  Plato did accept the idea
of objective knowledge assuming humans could divide knowledge using
his famous two lines; one line separated  reason and math from
belief and imagination; the other line separated first principles
from universal forms.  The scholar had to cross both lines in order
to attain complete knowledge.

     Then too, Plato wrote about the Republic, an ideal form of
society and governance which still informs many ideas including
those of elitists everywhere.  He begins with the claim that the
object of government is the good of the people [rather than
embodiment of the laws of God or Nature].  This Good of the People
requires a just social order.  So far so good.  However justice
requires that every person does the work for which s/he is fitted;
Plato holds that good law thus orders everything according to
'their' natures.  There are three generic 'natures' into which to
fit men and women: a) artisans, b) soldiers, and c) rulers.
Soldiers requires more education than artisans; rulers must master
all the sciences and serve an apprenticeship of 15 years.  At age
50, wise men and women become philosopher kings and rule society. 
They embody the four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance
and justice.  Plato provides for communism but does not make it
clear whether it encompasses the whole society or the two upper
classes [who own the means of production and distribute on the
basis of need and merit].  Artisans would then be landless and
propertyless producers.  Art is to be controlled by the rulers
since they have knowledge of first principles and universal truths. 
     Much in the way of elitist social systems, state regulation of
all social life and the sub-division of knowledge into experts and
clients resonates with Plato's ideas and is often justified by
them.  See Knowledge, democratization of.

Plea:  A formal statement by a defendant to a court attesting to or
denying guilt to a formal charge or accusation.  Such pleas
include: guilty, not guilty, nolo contendre [I do not dispute the
charge but at the same time do not admit guilt].

Plea bargaining:  A process by which an agreement between the
prosecutor of a case and a defendant is negotiated.  Usually the
defendant agrees to plea guilty to a lesser, sometimes very
different crime in exchange for a more lenient sentence.  Such
bargains have to be approved by a judge.  In high crime societies,
plea bargaining is pushed in order to reduce legal costs and
dispose of cases rapidly or to avoid building more prisons.

Plebe/Plebeian:  Latin: Plebs = the common people.  Used as a
pejorative term by elites to refer to the masses as common or
vulgar.

Plebiscite:  Latin: Plebs + scitum, decree.  A referendum held to
find out what people think or want by a vote.

Plea Bargaining:  A quick way to dispose of all the cases which
pile up in a high crime society.  Generally a felon is permitted to
plea to a lesser charge in exchange for a guilty plea.  For
example, a rapist is allowed to plea guilty to assault and go free
on probation; a child molester is allowed to plea to a charge of
contributing to the delinquency of a minor and so forth.

Plekanov, George (1856-1918): An early collaborator with Lenin whom
he influenced.  Plekanov accepted dialectic materialism [Engels]
but took a postmodern view of material categories; they were
'hieroglyphs' rather than mirror images of material reality.  He
also accepts the dominance of mode of production, but with Marx,
argued that Reason, science and rationality could loosen the
determinacy of economics.

Pluralism: The postmodern view that all human cultures are to be
honored and respected; that no one culture [or society] is superior
to all others; that each culture has much to contribute to the
human process.  In fact, there are an infinite set of adequate
cultures.  The Human Areas Files at Yale counts between 3 and 4000
cultures in human history.  Sometimes, pluralism is a claim that
there is no inequality in power or social honor for different
populations within the same society.

Pluralist Thesis: In conservative political science, the thesis
that social, economic or political power is dispersed among a
variety of roughly equal groups in a society.  A corollary is that
any group could solve its own problems, if there were sufficient
interest, by forming a power bloc to pressure Congress or to elect
its own candidates.  This view ignores all those who do not have
resources to form an effective lobby in state or nation: children,
the poor, migrants and others who are defined as less than a full
adult.

PMS:  Pre-menstrual Syndrome [menstrual = monthly].  A
physiological theory of female violence which points to the
changing chemistry of women before and during menses.  Feminists
note that, since women are pre-menstrual, menstrual or
postmenstrual half of the time, it is easy to find a connection. 
Feminists also note that women are brutally attacked by the males
in their lives regularly; when they fight back, they are
'unfeminine' and must have some reason other than righteous anger
for doing so.  Crime, female, theories of.

Poincar‚, Henri (1854-1912):  Poincar‚ is of interest to those in
postmodern philosophy/sociology of science for two reasons: first,
he set forth the definitional view of math and science which holds
that all principles of science are Conventional, that is, they are
true by definition rather than empirically true.  Second, Poincar‚
gave the mathematical proof that it was impossible to solve the
'three body' problem; this sets nonlinear dynamics as a basic
feature of natural systems and, later, is used to give an elegant
mathematical grounding for postmodern philosophy of science if one
needs such grounding.

Politburo:  One of three parts of the Central Committee of the
former USSR.  It pre-decided all policy which then was approved by
the People's Congress who were, after a fashion, elected.  Lenin
planned it to be a temporary structure acting on behalf of the
whole working class until socialist consciousness could be
instituted, at which time, the state was to 'wither away.'  Stalin
reduced government to the Central Committee dominated by himself
and a few advisors thus was the emancipatory impulse in communism
reduced to a dictatorship.  Marx and Lenin were correct in an odd
way, bureaucratic socialism did wither away; what is left remains
to be seen.  One should watch the former socialist countries
closely over the next 20 years or so to see what evolves in the way
of repressive or progressive economics.

Police:  A set of persons appointed by the state and given the
power to enforce laws, observe behavior, arrest persons, collect
evidence and testify as to guilt or innocence.

Police State:  A country in which the state uses police to prevent
change in governing officials, in government systems or to prevent
resistance to privileged classes, races, genders or ethnic groups. 
In capitalist societies, the underclass is most heavily policed;
the upper classes seldom policed.  See fascism, Neo-fascism,
Authoritarianism.

Policing:  The process by which citizens, students, customers and
dissidents are watched in order to collect evidence to be used in
a court of law or for private systems of justice.

Political Economy:  A generic name for a socio-political complex
which uses a given economic form as a basis for production and
distribution of goods and services.  There have been five major
political economies in human history: primitive communism [hunting-
gathering], hydraulic agrarian, slavery, feudalism and capitalism
Socialism of a sort has been instituted with some limited success. 
Communism is a sixth yet to be instituted in any great degree. 
Marx held that each political economy had its own relations and its
own laws [tendencies].

Politics: the art and science of government.  There are many
political forms studied by political scientists and sociologists;
anarchy, aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy, authoritarianism,
dictatorships, theocracies and many more.

Political Philosophy:  See Plato, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes,
Locke, Hegel, Marx, and Maritain.  Each has made important
contributions to political philosophy and helps to shape/legitimate
existing forms of government.

Positive Law:  That body of law enacted by a law-making body and
enforced by a state.  It contrasts to Natural law, which see.

Positivism:  A philosophy of science which holds the view that, if
it exists, it can be measured; if it can be measured, it can be
modelled and predicted.  Thus, all human behavior can be recorded
in 'facts.'  Nothing else of interest to science exists but these
facts.  Saint-Simon introduced the concept; Comte made it an
article of faith in his sociology.  The concern of Positivism with
measurement and prediction lends itself excellently well to social
control and management science, thus it is suspect for those in the
emancipatory sciences.

     The major criticism of positivism is that it freezes the
moment into all of history since it deals with that which is rather
than that which could be.  Emancipatory knowledge processes are
concerned with change from what is to what could be in terms of
praxis and human dignity.

     A second criticism is that from the hermeneutical sciences
which notes that human imagination and human interpretation are
important parts of the social process not recorded nor recordable
in number systems.  See Quantification, Postmodern.

Political culture: Policies, programs, solutions with which to
serve or defeat the human interest in change and renewal.  If the
masses are excluded from the process of creating political culture,
then they are "surplus", i.e., that part of the population surplus
to such creation.  Such exclusion strips people of their status as
Species being.  Usually exclusion is forcibly made.

Political economy: A branch of social science which studies the
economic foundation of political decisions.  Usually involving
marxists, political economy stands in opposition to bourgeois
economics (which tries to make capitalism work better) and in
opposition to bourgeois political science (which attempts to
resolve the incompatibility between capitalism and a managed
society within the assumptions of democratic theory.) See also
U.R.P.E.

Political Emancipation: In "On the Jewish Question" Marx distin-
guished between the narrow range of political rights; freedom of
speech, secret ballots, freedom of movement, universal suffrage and
representation in government on the one hand and general human
emancipation.  These rights are fundamental but there are others
essential to the human project: the right to pro-social jobs,
preventative and therapeutic health care, critical education,
civility and dignity as one ages.  See emancipation.

Political Sphere:  Political sociology distinguishes between the
public sphere and the private, civil, sphere.  In his critique of
political rights and of political democracy (apart from social
rights and social democracy), Marx held that people lead a double
life; one a fictitious life of community in the political sphere
and a second, private life in the civil sphere.  The point about
communism requiring the end of the political state does not mean
the end of political activity and political culture but the unifi-
cation of political spheres with the entire social life world in
which real people experience life and its problems.

Politicization: The process of returning questions of public
interest to collective discourse.  Sexism, racism, foreign policy
and science (via abortion and euthanasia) have recently been
politicized where formerly they were the taken-for-granted aspects
of human life.

Polls, Surveys, Samples (theory of): Any social system, after it
exceeds a certain critical size cannot be known or controlled
directly by a central authority but must be researched and
controlled by statistical means.  Consensus sociology provides the
surveys, polls and samples to the state or to those who can afford
commodity science.  These samples yield indices which are used by
an elite to form policy (After Entzenberger).  Monitoring of all
social life in the USA, for example, would require a system larger
than the system itself.

Polygamy: Marriage involving multiple spouses.  A generic term that
includes the forms known as polygyny (many wives) and polyandry
(many husbands).  There are a few societies which practice some
form of polygamy; many which practice serial polygamy; one mate at
a time but several in a series.

Polyandry: A marriage pattern in which women have two or more
husbands.  A way to get more labor out of fewer women in very poor
societies in patriarchal but impoverished societies.
Polygyny: A marriage pattern in which men have two or more wives. 
The practice extracts the surplus value of several women to support
each male in a male solidarity.

Population base: All of the people who come under the control of a
given society.  Many people are in the population base but not in
the social base: e.g., children, prisoners, some minority groups,
the aged, patients in mental asylums, soldiers and various kinds of
"non persons." The population base is a biological concept while
the social base is a cultural concept.

Population theory: There are two major theories about "over popula-
tion", sometimes called population theory.  Reverend Malthus theo-
rized that overpopulation occurred since the poor were prone to
irrational overbreeding.  The marxian rebuttal was that a portion
of the population is rendered "surplus" as feudal lords became
agricultural capitalists and forced the peasantry off the land. 
The land was then used to grow cash crops (wool, cotton, beef, tea,
sugar, cocoa, coffee, etc.) rather than grains and vegetables for
food. (After Cereseto).

Population, Over: See Over-population and surplus population for
some interesting political views on birth control and genocide.

Postmodern:  A loose body of thought/criticism which holds that all
knowledge processes are richly informed by personal aims and
cultural world-views.  All knowledge processes, including modern
scientific theories, are constructed in and for a given socio-
cultural life world; thus social theory may best be seen as a
subjective narrative or text which legitimates existing or desired
social relationships.  Modern science talk privileges objectivity,
rationality, power, control, inequality and hierarchy.  Postmodern
sociologists deconstruct each theory and each social practice by
locating it in its larger socio-historical context in order to
reveal the human hand and the group interests which shape the
course of self-understanding of women, minorities and others.  The
political point of postmodernism is to enable women and others now
excluded from such truth-claims to make and assert truth-claims
which empower and honor different, more uncertain social-life
worlds.

Postmodern, Affirmative:  Many see postmodern sensibility as
liberating.  Old standards of truth and certainty are called into
question.  Traditional models of masculinity, femininity and gender
relations are re-examined for their alienating effects.  Old claims
of social development [and underdevelopment] deconstructed to show
their biases.  Old models of governance and economics are given new
life and more democracy by challenging the modernist tendency to
control and to manage everything in a factory, school, office or
church.  See Pauline Vaillancourt-Rosenau's fine book on
Postmodernism for the Social Sciences for both affirmative and
nihilistic forms.  Thus postmodern sensibility offers human beings
considerably more scope for understanding and human agency than
found in either pre-modern or modern world views.  Pre-modern views
tend to locate agency and full capacities to know in Gods or
abstract realms of nature.  Modern science retains the view that
valid knowledge is buried in the dynamics of nature and that human
beings must bend to natural laws if they are to be rational.

Postmodern, Nihilistic:  The view that the knowledge process is
hopelessly contaminated by subjective desires and political
objectives; that there can be no basis for objective standards of
truth, beauty, ethics, or philosophies of life.  Universal and
comprehensive theories of nature or society are impossible since,
a) they do not exist and b) even if they did, one searches for them
through the lens of one's own limited cultural concepts and values. 
Some more nihilistic postmodernists take the view a step further
and claim that since there is no objective bases for ethics, all is
permitted; all is possible if one has the will and resources to
impose that will on others.

Postmodernity:  A term which refers to that epistemological and
historical break from the Enlightenment world of modernity in which
truth claims about a retrievable, reducible, knowable, certifiable
world were rejected. The postmodern historical period reflects a
disenchantment with the limitations of the modernist agenda (e.g.,
the oppression of groups via capitalist market dynamics, the
suffering and exploitation of those whose thinking departed from
the presumed superiority of rational logic). Postmodernity marks
the birth of a new aesthetics; one devoid of absolutistic,
positivistic, essentialistic notions of justice, peace, community,
society, culture and such. The postmodern historical period is much
more attune to the incommensurable complexity of life in a social
order and being human; that is, the non-linear dimensions of
existence, e.g., its ironies, absurdities, inconsistencies,
contradictions).

Postmodern Philosophy of Science.  Postmodern philosophy of science
accepts variety, contrariety, difference, loose causal connections
as well as sudden reverses in causality in its discourse about
natural and social dynamics.  While modern philosophy of science
favors the search for order and for tight correlations between two
or more variables, postmodern scientists hold that causality is
first of all a political construct which favors control and
stratification of power.   Affirmative postmodern philosophy of
science holds that valid statements can be made which are limited
but truth values change with changing dynamical regimes.  Marx held
that each social formation had its own laws or tendencies; that
which produced crime in one society might not in another.  Pre-
modern philosophies tend to be more closely aligned with
postmodern.  Lots of fun to sort these things out.

Postmodernity, Sources of:  There are several sources, often
independent of each other, in which critique of modern knowledge
and its tendency to totalize, simplify and depoliticize the
knowledge process are made.  Women object to the tendency of modern
science to adopt euro-centered masculine values of power, control,
order and hierarchy.  Third world people criticize modern science
tendency to set European standards for excellence/perfection in
art, music, literature and poetry.  Religious people criticize
modern science for removing the mystery and magic of human life
from its knowledge products.  Homosexuals and lesbians criticize
the confinement of human sexuality to Patriarchal values and social
forms.  Deconstructionists [after Derrida] put all this together to
locate the knowledge process in the larger socio-cultural context
in which they arise and tend to reproduce.  Together, they reveal
the partisan nature of all knowledge claims.

     Postmodern scientists, informed by the new sciences of Chaos
and Complexity, have objected to its concern and preference with
order, prediction,  and discrete categorization.  Postmodernist
scientists see dis-order and connectedness in most really existing
systems.  Such sciences provide an elegant empirical grounding for
variety, difference, contrariety and change.

Post-structuralism:  Post-structuralists maintain that no eternal
truths or laws governing the social order; that knowledge of
institutions and other systems depends on language. Post-
structuralists argue that speaking/discoursing about social and
natural reality is utterly dependent on language, and since the act
of naming, describing, interpreting, understanding varies widely
across cultures, then it follows that the assigning of meaning to
institutions and systems of a culture/society is an arbitrary
(subjective) process of selection; that is, it depends on people
sharing similar meanings.  Since people interact and communicate
through many language systems, no precise, final, objective truths
can ever be discovered; no 'deep structures' can ever be found.  At
best, there can only be approximations to the incredibly complex,
variable and constantly changing patterns of social life and
natural events. These approximations are themselves subject to
divergent interpretations, dependent on the multiple codes through
which individuals interpret and understand social phenomena.  See
also Fractals, Strange Attractors, and postmodern philosophy of
science, Nonlinear.

Pornoviolence: The use of sex and/or violence as a means to gene-
rate a public for a commodity on television or other mass media.

Poverty: People are poor when they do not have the material basis
for sustaining social life and for the production of culture.  The
conservative position is that poverty is a result of the personal
failings or weaknesses of individuals and groups.  The liberal
position is that special help can repair or compensate for those
failings.  The radical position is that poverty is a feature of the
system of production, nor a characteristic of individuals or
groups.  Mercantile capitalism produced poverty by displacing
people from the land to make way for cash exports: coffee, wool,
cotton, tea, cocoa and such.  Industrial capitalism produces
poverty by wage and labor policy while financial capitalism diverts
surplus value from social use to the use of a leisure class and to
the corporation itself.

Poverty, Subculture of: A view of poverty in which a group of
people hand down poverty from one generation to the next.  People
in a culture of poverty are characterized by feelings of
marginality, helplessness, dependency and inferiority.  Oscar Lewis
identifies some 70 traits of those in the culture of poverty.  The
problem with this idea about how poverty (and wealth) develops is
that it ignores the class system by which unequal distribution of
wealth is a consequence of the appropriation of social wealth
rather than the later resultant harm it does to the human spirit or
to a sense of community.  Instead it focuses upon the (alleged)
differences in hopes and aspirations of individuals (After Walls).

Power: The capacity to control another's (others) behavior while
escaping reciprocal influence.  Stratified systems of power, by
nature, interferes with the collective creation of culture.  Power
is said to be traditional [parents], legal-rational
[bureaucracies], and charismatic [saints, prophets] (after Weber). 
One should also note that power is often brutally coercive.  See
also social, economic and physical forms of power; see also
authority and influence. 

Power, Alienation of: The practice of claiming and exercising
social power by some class, party, or ethnic group.  If social
power emerges only through the cooperative efforts of all
participants (including those who raise issues and criticize
practices), then a claim by a small subset of those participants to
make decisions excludes those who should be included and transforms
them into objects rather than subjects as is required by Marxian
principles.

Power of Attorney:  The power given by one person to another to act
on behalf of the first person.  Usually by written letter and
usually confined to a specific act or situation.

Power, forms of:  There are four major forms of power used to
reproduce inequality: social power, moral power, economic power and
physical violence or threat of violence.  Add to that all the norms
and values which legitimate inequality as well as all the
established practices in everyday life which require compliance to
inequality.  Direct use of power is seldom necessary in 'well
socialized' persons or in 'well organized' societies.

     1.  Social Power: this form of power comes from social
     relationships, social roles, and social institutions.  When
     ever one is in a role, one must respond to role-others or
     sanctions/re-socialization ensues.  Social life cannot go on
     unless there is response to the requests and needs of others
     in a role-set; parent-child, teacher-student, husband-wife,
     doctor-patient or boss-worker.  The question then becomes just
     how much equality is necessary in such relationships.

     2.  Moral Power: this form of power comes from shared values
     and religious teachings.  Even without role relationships, one
     is expected to respond to the needs of unknown others who are
     defined as persons in law and have social status in a group. 
     Conversely, one can rob, maim, murder or ignore those who do
     not have social status in one's own religion or group.

     3.  Economic Power is the power of money:  In societies which
     use money as the primary medium for the transfer of goods
     [rather than social status], money comes to have great power. 
     As Shakespeare said, 'Yellow, precious glittering gold gives
     title, knee and approbation to the thief, plucks the pillow
     from beneath the head and refreshes the hoar leper to the
     April Day.'  When one has no other economic system within
     which to get the necessities and the desires of life, one must
     get money.  In capitalism, the only legitimate way is to sell
     one's labor power.  When one cannot or will not sell it, one
     can turn to family, to charity, to crime or to state welfare.

     4.  Physical power: Physical power comes from the fist, club,
     gun or threat of force.  It does not always depend upon size
     or skill in arms but often upon status; small men have the
     moral right to beat women; women do not have the moral right
     to beat large men or small children.  States claim a monopoly
     over physical power; racist, sexist and class organized states
     often allow men, whites, the wealthy or ethnic groups the
     right to use physical force.  See Underground structures.

Power-elite thesis: A view advanced by C. Wright Mills, G. William
Domhoff and others to the effect that power in the United States is
concentrated in a relatively cohesive and cooperating elite.  Big
business, big government and big military are held to constitute a
power bloc wherein the basic political and economic decisions are
made.  Fiscal policy such as taxes, interest rates, money supply,
unemployment, deficit spending as well as foreign policy, housing
starts, energy policy, welfare policy, research policy, and much
more are said to be set by the interests of the power elite.  Many
would add big unions and a technological elite to the power elite.

Pragmatism: A theory of knowledge which holds that the truth value
of an idea is to be found in its practical application in everyday
life.   P. rejects the idea of universal and eternally valid laws
which explain all behavior and rejects the notion of objectivity as
a correct unbiased image (or copy) of nature (after Chas Pierce,
(1839-1914).  Pragmatism holds that only through our interests and
actions do we know the world since we construct it pragmatically as
we act on those interests. (After Franks).  Pragmatism often
reduces itself to a cheerful notion that one can do anything at all
if it works; it has been used to justify aggression, imperialism
and the expediencies of the moment still there is much of value.

Praxis/Practice: A complex activity by which individuals, in
collectivities, create culture, society, and create themselves as
"species beings", i.e., as human beings.  The moments of praxis
include self-determination (in contrast to coercion),
intentionality (in contrast to reaction), sociality (in contrast to
privatism), creativity (in contrast to sameness) and rationality
(in contrast to blind chance) (after M. Markovic).

Praxis, Christian: The practical way which the liberation theology
(c.f.) took in "announcing the Gospel" calls for three kinds of
action: 1) apprizing the poor of their exploited condition, 2)
denouncing the injustices of capitalism and international
imperialism and, 3) publicizing the facts of oppression and
exploitation. (After Dodson) The worker-priests in the movement
also give political education and organization to the working class
poor as well as lead protests, confrontations, and demonstrations. 
Some priests engaged in Christian praxis have been beaten,
imprisoned, deported and some have been def rocked.  See Base
Communities.

Precedent:  In law, a ruling in an earlier court case which serves
as a guide to judgment in a present case.  Usually such precedents
are recorded in law books and are referenced in court so a judge
and parties concerned can study them and decide on applicability. 
Precedent as a way to make judgments is set against both technical
law and substantive justice in that precedents are recipes for
settling cases regardless of many differences found in all cases.

Prediction: Latin: pre = before + diction, to speak.  To proclaim
or affirm the behavior of a variable or system before evidence is
collected.  One of several non-logical ways to build social theory. 
One should note that Chaos theory restricts predictability to
simple systems but even simple systems composed of a variable and
a constant are unpredictable over time.  Chaos/Complexity theory
restricts predictability to small regions in an outcome basin and
to short runs on a bifurcation map.

Prehistory:  In Marx, human beings pass through three stages if
there is good theory and good politics.  The first is prehistory in
which humans are at the mercy of the blind forces of nature; the
second is history in which science and theory begins to offer human
beings some control over their future and then, post-history in
which knowledge and politics come together in democratic forms to
allow human beings to build the social institutions which are
supportive of praxis and species Being [which see].

Premodern:  An era in which human thought was oriented around the
idea that there were two worlds; one in which people lived in the
present and a second spiritual world in which people lived in the
past and will live again in future.  This second world is peopled
variously by gods, saints, devils, angels, and other invisible
spirits.  Modern science tends to dismiss these ideas and, at the
same time, dismiss much that is valuable and indispensable to the
human project.  See Social Psychology, premodern.

Prestige: The honor attributed to a social position irrespective of
the merits of the person who occupies it.  Mr. Nixon occupied the
presidency which is defined as a highly prestigious office when he
himself was held in low esteem as a person.  Prestige, as a social
invention, is a technique by which the behavior of others is
controlled apart from their intentionality.  It is a way to
legitimate an information set which may heave little merit on its
own from the point of view of the lower classes or others who honor
the prestige of office.

Presumption of Innocence:  The legal point that every person is
innocent of a crime unless proven guilty in a court of law.  The
burden of proof is on the accuser and the rules of evidence control
what is admissible to judge the case at hand.

Price:  The cost in money of a good or service.  In a perfectly
free competitive economy, price would be set by the interactive
play of supply and demand.  Socialist theory holds that price
should be set by the amount of labor power necessary to
produce/provide the good or service.  The question then becomes,
how is skill, talent, craft or aesthetics registered in measuring
labor time.  Functionalist note, rightly, that some workers make
sacrifice of time, money and energy to learn a trade, craft or
profession.
We'll leave it to your generation to sort out but see Value, theory
of.

Prima facie: Latin; first appearance.  A body of evidence which, on
the face of it, makes it reasonable to assume a crime has been
committed and that a specific person is responsible...or innocent. 
Prima facie evidence is suggestive but not compelling.

Primary group: A set of people with strong social relationships,
characterized by face-to-face interaction between known and valued
others.  Behavior is organized collectively within primary groups. 
Identity and purpose arises out of such groups.

Primogeniture:  First born.  A rule in patriarchal family law which
transmits land, title and property to the first born male.

Primitive capitalism: A system of small scale production for
private profit.  Many small suppliers dealing with many small
consumers.  A first stage in capitalism, primitive capitalism led
to industrial capitalism which led to finance capitalism which lead
to monopoly capitalism, the current state of capitalism.

Private Enterprise: A system of production in which decisions are
made privately.  The thought is that supply, demand, quality, and
inventiveness go up while costs and waste go down if private
initiative is encouraged.  There is much merit (at least there was)
to these claims.  However, there are problems which are not
mentioned.  Loss of community, increase in the surplus population,
increase in crime, imbalance in growth, ecological disaster, shoddy
practices and other problems accrue from private decisions about
production.  The marxist position is that democratic and collective
decisions are better than private decisions.  In the U.S., food
coops, credit unions, and public utilities are well run and
generally produce at a lower cost than private enterprise.  In
private enterprise, the costs of production are often socialized
while "profits" are privately used.

Private Property:  That which is owned, used, and/or abused by a
single individual.  In most socialist philosophy, private property
comes in two forms; the means of production which is to be owned in
common or at least regulated in the common good; and personal
property which is to be owned and used by individuals, families or
private groups.  Many 'simple' cultures view the notion of private
property an absurd notion when it is applied to land, lakes,
rivers, oceans or to forms of life.

Private Sector:  In some political economic theory, there are two
sectors, a private and a public sector.  Each produces goods and
services; the private sector is capitalist and produces for profit;
the public sector is funded by taxes and distributes on the basis
of need.  James O'Connor divides the US economy into three sectors
which produce and/or distribute goods and services; the monopoly
sector, the public sector and the competitive sector.  One should
note that the family, the church, and many forms of crime are
parallel economic forms outside the logic of either private
capitalism or public sector.

Privilege/privileged: A postmodern term which rejects the practice
of assigning great importance to an argument, a principle, a
person, an event or explanations cum texts.

Privileged Communication:  Some social relationships are so
intimate that what is said within them is protected by law; those
in such relationships cannot be made to tell what was said.  Such
relationships include wife/husband, communicant/priest,
patient/doctor, client/lawyer.  Thus a wife may testify against a
husband but may not be forced to testify by a court.  Child/parent,
student/teacher, reporter/source are other relationships partly
protected by law and custom.  Researchers often promise anonymity
to people interviewed but the confidentiality of such
communications is in dispute.  The assumption is that the social
relationship is most sacred than law, justice, or the crime at
hand.

Probability:  Latin: probare = to prove, to approve; tr. from the
Greek, eulogon = reasonable, sensible.  Probability has two uses in
the methodology of sociology; first is to give a numerical estimate
of the degree to which one has approached certainty.  Second
involves surrender of the assumption that there is a precise law
buried in the data and that estimates of the degree of uncertainty
is the best we can do in the knowledge process.  Probability was
first addressed in  Plato's Academy which took the latter view. 
Pascal laid down two rules of probability: 1) that the probability
of two independent events happening at the same time is the product
[multiply them] of their separate probabilities.  2) the
probability of one or the other [but not both] independent events
happening is the sum [add them] of their probabilities.  DeMorgan
elevated probability to a test of truth value which we now use in
his statement that probability sets the degree to which a
reasonable person might consider a statement to be true [notice
this presumes precise true can be approached].  Carnap called this,
Confirmation Probability.  Chaos/complexity theory reveals that
most natural and social systems display non-linear dynamics which
changes the epistemological utility of probability from a quest for
absolute truth to a quest for the changing probabilities of an
event landing in one of several outcome basins as bifurcations
unfold.

Problem: Technically, a problem is a contingency for which a
solution does exist.  An "issue" on the other hand is a breakdown
(exigency/breakdown) in the system for which there is no agreed-
upon solution.  Issues are often defined as "problems" in order to
avoid the search for a resolution.  Both problems and issues
assumes a mechanical model of society in which control and
prediction are possible and desirable.  A society could be
organized such that "errors" in the system were tolerated.

Procedural law:  Those legal rules which define the ways in which
courts must act when hearing a criminal or civil case.  They deal
with obtaining warrants to arrest, collecting evidence, introducing
evidence, use of force, sentencing and appeals.  Substantive law
defines what is legal and illegal; procedural law deals with how
substantive law is enforced.

Product Liability:  The responsibility borne by the manufacturer of
defective or dangerous goods and/or seller of deficient services. 
A fairly new body of law which protects consumers and environment.

Progress: Latin: pro = forward + gradi = step, go.  There are many
social theories which push the idea of progress.  It became a canon
of social change with the Encyclopedists who argued that modern
science gave the means to solve all social and physical problems. 
Hegel and Marx held that progress took the form of a series of
steps brought about by conflict between opposites.  Comte plotted
progress in three stages; positivism [modern science] being the
last.  Darwin used conflict to explain the evolution to organisms
ever better adapted to their environment.  This view keep the idea
of progress and direction but set the notion of 'better' in terms
of concretely existing environmental conditions: weather, food,
population size and such.  Empedocles argued for cycles of change;
some better, some worse.  This corresponds most closely to the view
on change in Chaos/complexity theory that there is no final stage
toward which all organisms and all societies tend to move.  Stephen
Jay Gould has been an advocate of this view in his work on
punctuated evolution in biological dynamics; cockroaches or sharks
may be the 'best' suited rather than hominids and Homo sapiens.

Production (Social Relations of): This concept sensitizes one to
the forms of ownership and control of the means of production,
administration, political control and violence, the forms of
exchange, distribution, patterns of consumption of the social
product, the division and control of labor power, authority
relations, and institutionalized social relations as well as law
and the state.  The emerging dialectic between social relations and
the forces of production marks the basic contradiction in society
which produces change in marxian theory.  For example, the factory
system contains both forces of production and social relations
which tend to produce insightful critique on the part of workers
and new social relations by which to deal with those
contradictions. (After Heydebroud)

Productive labor: The unity of mental and physical labor.  The idea
here is that workers, forbidden to participate in mental labor
become merely physical objects, i.e., the laws of the physical
sciences apply to an understanding of their behavior.  But, in
order to be human, one must be productive, i.e., produce culture
and this requires mental labor.  Mental labor does not lend itself
to analysis by physical science but by hermeneutics; the science of
understanding and knowing.

Profanation:  The process by which some people or some part of
nature is treated as if they/it were objects to be used or abused
without thought.  Sociologists/anthropologists divide up society
and nature into the sacred and the profane; the sacred is
respected, cherished and preserved; the profane is used or ignored.

Profit: A claim, usually backed by force of arms or force of law,
that some part of the value of labor power belongs exclusively to
one person who may or may not have played a constructive role in
creating that social wealth.  In modern times, sufficient surplus
value is accumulated to pay non-active "owners" a profit by
transferring some of the costs of production to the State, to the
workers or to the environment.  Research and development, water and
sewage treatment, protection, training workers, worker insurance,
guaranteed profits, collecting bills, and so forth exemplify a few
of the costs transferred to the state by legislators who come from
business or serve business.  The marxist view is that all social
wealth is produced by a set of cooperating workers and that it is
unsocial to use force to appropriate wealth.  Moreover, the point
of producing wealth is to insure that the people create themselves
as Species being through community and through praxis, rather than
the private use of material resources.

Profit:  One of three ways by which surplus value is distributed;
rents and dividends being the other two.  Capitalist economists
claim that profit is a return on investment and the skill/fore-
sight or sacrifice involved in investment.  Socialist economists
tend to view profit as a form of crime in which surplus value is
appropriated from those who produce it.  In their view, the skill,
fore-sight and sacrifice made in investment is a form of labor and
has a specific value which varies.  This should be distributed in
the form of wages or salary rather than in profit since profit
includes a lot more than the cost of the labor power involved in
investment.

Profit, rate of:  Marx defined the rate of profit as P = S/C+V
where P equals Profit; S = surplus value; C = constant capital
[machines] and V = Variable capital [labor costs].  Capitalists can
increase profits either by decreasing Constant capital costs [via
automation] or decreasing Variable capital costs [racism, sexism,
union-busting, moving jobs to 3rd world countries or all of the
above].

Profit, falling rates of:  Marx held that it is a tendency in any
capitalist system for profit rates to fall.  The idea is that, as
the role of machinery increases, workers are disemployed.  Since
all value comes from the labor power of workers, sooner or later,
profit rates fall since the disemployed cannot produce more value
to exchange for that which it already produced; the surplus piles
up in warehouses, prices fall and profits decline.  Profit rates in
a 'free economy' can be increased by either restricting output
[farmers could burn crops or kill cattle], or by generating new
demand by temporary depressions which give time for goods to wear
out, new inventions [cars, refrigerators, T.V., computers], crime,
war, advertizing, state welfare and such.

Profit sharing:  Generally the sharing of profit by workers in a
factory.  This gives workers a motive for faster, better work and
results in lower rates of absenteeism and worker turnover. 
Sometimes, workers own a factory and share out profits to all
workers after a probationary period.  It can be used to sweat out
more labor or it could be used to shift, gradually, from outside to
inside ownership.  Sometimes workers invest their pension funds in
company stock and thus have a proprietary interest in caring for
machinery and improving quality and quantity of goods/services.

Proletariat:  Latin: Proles = Offspring.  The word referred to the
lowest class in ancient Rome which served the Romans only by having
children.  The word was picked up in during the Paris Commune to
refer to those who served the nobility and merchant class with
their labor.  Marx, then adopted it in his class analysis to mean
those who have only their labor power to sell or those actively
engaged in the production process.  Luk cs held the proletariat is
the source of emancipation since it alone could directly experience
the contradictions of capitalism.

Proletarianization: The process by which the middle classes
[farmers, crafts-persons, small store owners, traders, doctors,
office workers, professors, lawyers, clerks, and others] are
gradually being reduced to wage labor, i.e., they no longer own the
means of production but rather sell their labor power to the
corporation or the state.  See also embourgeoisiement.

Pornography:  Greek: pornos = prostitute, graphy = writing,
therefore sexual writing and by extension, sexual art.  Sexual art
and literature becomes degrading when human beings are 1) reduced
to body parts, 2) used as and only as sexual objects or 3) used to
affirm power in a relationship.  It is sexist when women are the
primary casualty.  See Erotic/Eroticism.

Proof:  The means by which facts are determined to be valid or
invalid.  1) In empirical science, proof is based upon observed
facts.  2) In law, proof is based upon competent testimony and
admissible evidence.  3) In math and logic, proof is based upon
valid reasoning from first, undisputable assumptions.

Propaganda: Persuasive or explanations which are designed to shape
public opinion and thus, social policy.  It involves a use of
language by which one social paradigm is celebrated and other
different social paradigms are degraded.  Propaganda, in its
positive mode, is necessary to create social reality since social
reality does not emerge unless there is conviction, belief, trust,
and faith.  Propaganda helps generate such.  The more serious
political question is which social paradigm is to be used as a
guide to construct social reality.  Sometimes the term is used
invidiously to neutralize the claims of superiority of other social
paradigms.

Property: Latin: proprius = one's own.  The term has two major
uses; first to mark that which is common to all members of a class;
second to denote that to which one has legal title.  Locke and
Hegel held that the right to property is God-given and a
fundamental right which derives not from profits but from the fruit
of one's labor.  Marx held that property was 'the externalization
of [human] labor' which was appropriated by the ruling class in
every stratified society.  The idea of private property probably
emerged about 10,000 years ago in settled agriculture as permanent
claims to land, water, herds, and shelter were made by one kin
grouping to the exclusion of others.  In bourgeois law, anything
that can be owned.  The tendency in market economies is to treat
every thing and every act as property.  Most societies in most of
human history did not grant property rights to most natural things;
lakes, forests, water, game, land and space; or to any social good,
love, honor, sin, sex or political office.  See commodification.

Property, Private: In a carefully reasoned passage in EPM, Marx de-
veloped the proposition that private property is the product, the
result, the necessary consequence of alienated labor.  Capitalists
expropriate surplus value and turn it into material wealth.  They
do that when they but the labor power of others and take part of
the value produced for private use; part of which they use to buy
up farm land from peasants or bribe governments to 'sell' common
lands.  Aside from questions of fairness, the capitalist purchases
the only process by which humans can create themselves as human
beings.  In the act of labor, humans can realize that they exist as
conscious, intending entities and can reflect on their own
existence.  Animals can't.  Thus, to purchase labor power is to
purchase human nature and to use the product for private purpose. 
Private property as a concept is not to be confused with personal
property.  Here private property means that property used in the
production process.  Private property does not refer to clothes,
toothbrushes, and such in this analysis.  See Personal Property,

Prophecy:  Greek: prophetein = ability to interpret the will of the
gods.  Prophecy was/is a pathway to knowledge based upon intuition
and inspiration.  It occurs in dreams, visions, and the
interpretation of 'signs.'  In sociology, the term is used to
denote the first step in the process of constructing social roles
and social occasions through symbolic interaction: first is the
prophecy, then the belief and trust, then the activity which gives
the prophecy substance and, varying truth value.  In the sociology
of religion, prophets are distinguished from priests.  Prophets
condemn the injustices in a society and call for new ways or a
return to older ways of social life; priests help reproduce
existing beliefs and social practices.  You too, can be a prophet.

Prophetic mode:  A style of doing science which is critical and
revolutionary rather than conservative of the existing scientific
paradigm.  The term is used in sociology to distinguish between
those sociologists who administer to the existing (structural-
functional) paradigm (the priests) and those who challenge the
assumptions of that sociology (the prophets) (After Friedrichs). 
See Knowledge, emancipatory, Critical theory, Marxism.

Proscription:  In law, a written statement forbidding an act.

Prosperity Theology:  A religious movement which holds that God
wants believers to be rich; it cites several passages in the
Christian Bible in support of this argument.  While the Protestant
ethic [see which] argued that God appointed some people as
custodians of fields, flocks and nations, it also called for thrift
and hard work; prosperity theology, on the other hand,
permits/justifies a luxurious life style.

Prostitution: The conversion of sex, intimacy and sensuality into
a commodity to be sold under market conditions.  Female
prostitution is common in patriarchal societies; male prostitution
increases in advanced monopoly capital since gender distinctions
are lost and jobs move to cheap labor countries.  Child
prostitution is found in any society in which male adults are
alienated from social power advantages over women.  As metaphor;
prostitution refers to the impersonal sale of any cherished
cultural item; loyalty, friendship, honor, genius, trust, respect,
or public office.  

Prostitution, theory of:  The socialist feminist theory of
prostitution is that women enter sex business as a result of the
separation of production from distribution.  Those in the surplus
population have only their bodies to sell.  Women are more likely
to be prostitutes than are men in a patriarchy since men are more
likely to have job advantages.  Men turn to prostitution as an
venue for social power alienated at work or in politics; they can
buy the dramaturgical facsimile of power for a brief moment.

     The liberal bourgeois defense of prostitution is that since
there is demand for commodity sex, it should be supplied by the
free market.  The patriarchal defense of prostitution is that men
have sexual needs which should be satisfied by unattached females
especially when women are scarce.

Protected Person:  In international law, protected persons include
those on diplomatic missions including ambassadors and their
families and staff.

Protestant/Protestantism:  A religion and a practice which places
no obstacles between believers and their god(s).  Generally, there
is an elected governing council which selects ministers and make
policy about how to raise funds and to disburse them as well as
which programs of the church to support.  Protestantism as a social
movement came along to accompany capitalism.  It challenged
feudalism and serfdom on behalf of trade and commerce and
proclaimed the natural dignity of men [more so than women]; it
challenged Catholic support for kings and Princes.  Some, like
Methodism, began as a refuge and haven for the poor and oppressed
and, over time, became conservative and elitist.  See the
Protestant Ethic, below.  See also Liberation theology.

[The] Protestant Ethic:  A set of values and practices which
include thrift, hard work, individuality and stewardship of wealth
on behalf of their God.  This work ethic, inculcated by the needs
of early capitalism and all low tech economic systems, has its
foundation in the premise that the way of work is the way to a
state of grace and salvation instead of the way of faith (as in
Catholicism) or the way of meditation (as in Eastern religions). 
A second premise is that the ascetic life is spiritually superior
to the way of fleshly pleasure.  Combined with the notion of
stewardship, one has the ingredients for capital accumulation; hard
work, frugal living and a philosophy which asserts being wealthy is
a service to God who appreciates those who look after His/Her vast
domains.  For Calvin, possession of property and the means of
production was proof presumptive of a state of grace. 
Protestantism is hostile to feudal hierarchy in church and state
and has thus progressive tendencies.

Protestant Reformation: A religious movement of huge proportion
which began in the 14th c. with Wycliffe (see whom) who first set
forth the principles of the effort to reform the Roman Catholic
Church.  Huss implemented these principles.  Luther politicized
them and gained the support of the Princes who took church lands
from the Catholic church.  Zwingli, Calvin and Knox helped spread
it.  Henry VIIIth used state power to institute an English version. 
Max Weber held it to help bring capitalism to birth by its
principles of hard work, frugality, and accumulation of wealth. 
Marx held that capitalists and large land owners used it to
legitimate ownership and the appropriate of wealth from the direct
producers.  There continues to be great tension in Christianity and
other major religions between those who advocate social justice and
those who celebrate existing social arrangements as given by their
god.  See Liberation theology, Feminist theology.

Proudon, Pierre Joseph (1809-1865):  A French social philosopher
who gave socialism many concepts and ideas among which was Anarchy,
the concept of the Bourgeoisie, mutual banks and the aphorism,
Property is theft.

Psychology: Greek: psyche = breath + ology.  The term was coined by
Goclenius in 1590 to refer to the science of the study of the soul. 
It is now used to denote a science and a discipline which studies
individuals and the sources of human behavior.  As you might
expect, there is much controversy within psychology; some turn to
genes and to physiology as foundations of behavior; some look at
the mind and how it works; others look at early childhood
experiences and socialization to explain/predict behavior.  Freud
held there were conflicts between parts of the psyche [id, ego and
superego] which structure behavior.  McDougall used instincts to
explain behavior.  Watson argued for a behaviorist psychology which
relied on rewards and punishment.  Kurt Lewin argued for a field
theory which expanded the sources of human behavior to include
social settings.  Social psychology adds social roles, institutions
and larger structures to the explanation.  Symbolic interactional
theory sees most human behavior as a product of human interaction. 
Radicals note that class, gender and racist use of power pre-shapes
symbolic interaction.  See also Emergence theory, Reductionism, and
Macro-social psychology.

Psychology, Social:  A branch of sociology which examines the
process by which people, together, construct social realities and
each other as distinctly social beings.  Symbolic Interactional
Theory is central to the discipline and enquiries to the process by
which mind, self and society are, in the same moment, created. 
Macro-social psychology looks at both cultural differences between
societies as well as stratifications/inequalities within a society
to help sort out the incredible complexity of human behavior.

Psychogenic aids: Those physical substances which when ingested
alter consciousness.  Usually that altered state is experienced as
evidence of solidarity-the oneness of the group.  In order to use
psychogens for such sacred purposes, it is necessary to define
their private use as obscene, corrupt, evil and/or depravation. 
Thus alcohol is conducive of solidarity if used collectively and if
defined as a solidarity mechanism while the private use of alcohol
is described as an illness or a crime irrespective of the amount
consumed.  And generally, if a society uses one kind of psychogenic
(alcohol, marijuana, peyote, special foods, tobacco) singly or in
combination, the use of psychogens from other cultures is defined
as corruption or crime.  Sex, dancing, fasting, whipping and breath
control also alter body chemistry and can be used as psychogens.

Psychopathic disorder:  Behavior in law and medicine which warrants
confinement and/or treatment.  It includes sex with inappropriate
objects and persons; investment of desire in ordinary items such as
clothing or artifacts; uncontrollable rage and violence directed at
innocent or harmless persons or animals.  P. is used as both a
reason to control a person and a justification for unusual
behavior; and judgments about P. are often very political.

Psychosexual development: In freudian theory, the sequence by which
the forces of life (sexuality generally) become linked to social
activity.  It includes the oral state, the anal stage, a passive
pregenital phase and a genital or adult stage.  The assumption is
that trauma at one stage can impair development.  Freudian
revisionists use these assumptions to help sell beer, razor blades,
cars, and other products which are associated with sexual
anxieties.

Psychotechnology: A wide variety of technical means exists by which
to control behavior apart from cognitive processes, self-control,
and from transactions.  Chemotherapy, behavior mod, electric shock
therapy, electronic implants, electronic surveillance as well as
psychosurgery, aversion therapy and "counselling." All of these
techniques work to obtain that behavior desired by a professional
elite.  Presently used mostly on prisoners and students, the
technology is spreading to workers.  In Chicago, every move of 450
workers is monitored via TV cameras.  Time-study experts keep
charts on workers observed talking or working too slowly.  Instant
replay is used to analyze any employee's behavior.  Behavior mod is
then used to "shape" worker behavior.  These technical means work,
but the behavior produced is not social behavior; it is simply
behavior.  Over 5,000,000 "difficult" children are on drugs as are
many housewives and house-husbands.

Public: Latin: publicus = of or pertaining to the people generally. 
In political theory, the public sphere is the venue for formation
of social policy with which to settle issues.  It contrasts to the
civil [now private] sphere which is the venue for pursuing private
goals.  It has come to mean in mass society, a set of unrelated
individuals who share at least one thing in common.  For example,
all those who read Doonesbury or who drive a Datsun is said to
comprise a public.  Some hold that a communication system is also
necessary but communication implies social relationships and joint
coordinated effort to advance the interest(s) shared.  In which
case it would be a voluntary association (if membership were
restricted to a single item) or a collective (if there were some
solidarity).

Public Good, the:  That which makes it possible for people to live
in peace and safety.  The public good often includes programs of
social justice as well as security in home or person or in travel
to and from places of business and dwelling.  

Public Morals:  Sometimes the public good is used as a
justification for criminal action as in laws regarding vagrancy,
loud noise, drunkenness, rowdy behavior, prostitution and other
activity which offends most persons or high status persons in a
community.

Public Opinion: An information set which is pointed toward the
resolution of an issue.  Authentically produced public opinion
requires undistorted communication in the public domain and
effective participation by all relevant sectors of the population
base (environment).  The managed opinion produced by the
Johnson/Nixon administration violated the public opinion policy
process.

Public Policy:  Policy made by and for the people generally. 
Usually it is made by elected representatives [as in the republican
form of governance] or by direct voting [as in democratic
procedures].

Public opinion policy process: A process by which quality variety
is generated with which to reduce mismatch between a social system
and its environment.  Generally several options are generated and
several publics support each option.  A process of collective
deliberation is necessary to select the best option or to organize
a dialectic by which qualitatively new options are produced.

Public Place:  A place to which people in general have access:
parks, restaurants, cinema, shops, streets, museums and other
places serving people defined as adults.

Public relations: An attempt to defuse and deflect the hostility
generated by capitalist modes of production.  Along with private
security, public relations is the fastest growing industry in the
United States.

Punishment:  The use of pain or fine to sanction the behavior of a
person deemed guilty of a prohibited act.  Theories of punishment
are many: Seneca gave three justifications for punishment: to
reform the criminal; to give warning to others; and to remove the
criminal from the community so others may live in safety.  In
utilitarian legal theory, one commits a crime when the benefits to
him/her exceeds the benefits in other activities.  This theory
therefore suggests the solution to crime is best achieved by
raising the costs of crime:  Certainty, swiftness, and harshness of
the penalty is thus "morally tolerable."  In older social theory,
punishment and suffering is thought to purify one.  Then too, there
is the idea that when one is alienated from God, mortification of
the flesh helps reunite one with the Absolute.  Others claim that
punishment is just retribution for evil or disgraceful behavior.

     Modern psychological findings suggest that the best
combination for shaping behavior is a lot of reward together with
a small amount of discomfort/pain.  Some people commit violate
legal codes even when punishment is harsh as in revolutions and
warfare.  Punishment is reasoned away by most people be their
calculations that they will not likely be caught.  Generally
punishment for crime and fear of pain is a primitive form of
ethical rationality but seems to work now and again.

Putative:  That which is assumed by those about another person or
thing.  Thus a putative father is the male assumed to be the father
of a child absent proof to the contrary.

Pymalion studies:  Pymalion was a greek sculptor who created a
statue so beautiful that he fell in love with it.  His faith in it
caused it to come alive.  G. B. Shaw wrote a play by the same name
about women who were empowered or degraded by the men in their
lives; the movie, My Fair Lady is a modern version in which speech,
dress and comportment is taught to a lower class girl who then is
taken to be and feels to be a Princess.

     In 1968, R. Rosenthal and L. Jacobson set up an experiment in
which teachers were told that their students had scored high on an
'I.Q.' test and they would do well.  Actually the students were
assigned at random but, given the belief of the teachers that they
had 'good' students, they behaved in such a way that the students
did, in fact, greatly improve in test performance over the six
grades in which the experiment was conducted.  Now the term is used
generically to refer to all such studies which teach us that
behavior and self worth is a collective product rather than located
in the person of the single individual.  See Self-fulfilling
Prophecy.

Pyrrho (c. 360-270 BCE):  Greek philosopher who argued that it was
impossible to know anything with certainty. Since no truth claim
has any better grounds than any other truth claim, the best thing
to do is to submit to epoch‚, a suspension of judgment.  In our
profound ignorance, we should practice aphasia, non-committal
silence.  As a philosophy of life, we should practice ataraxia,
imperturbable serenity and tranquility.  Many postmodernists take
the view of Pyrrho.  Yet Chaos theory tells us that even in the
most disorderly natural and social dynamics there is an order to be
discovered and used to plan and to control our futures if only in
the short term.  Since most social dynamics take the form of a 2,
4, 8 or 16n outcome field, there is sufficient order and sufficient
variety to make knowledge claims and to make judgments based on
them.

Quality: Latin: qualis = of what kind.  The distinguishing
attribute of a thing; its essential character.  Size, shape,
weight, pattern of movement, sound, smell, taste are said, in
classic philosophy and modern science to be attributes inherent in
a thing.  Postmodern philosophy of science holds these attributes
to be arbitrary categories invented and used by human beings in
pursuit of cultural goals.  Thus, the size of an object, in
postmodern philosophy of science, is a function of the degree to
which people are willing to set the boundaries of a thing. [just
where does one set the geometric limits of a tree or a cloud or a
swarm of bees].  In sociology, this transposes into the question of
where class, race, gender, age and national boundaries, among
others, are to be drawn.  The same is true in psychology for such
attributes as intelligence; is it something comprised of 30 or 40
information processing systems in the human body or is it
performance on pencil and paper tests.  Since natural and social
laws are founded upon quality and quantity, these too are called
into question as human constructs.

Quality circle: (QC).  Nominally, a group of workers who meet
voluntarily and in their own time to discuss ways of improving
product quality. Pressure is often applied to workers to attend
quality circles.  Managers unable to push for attendance in
workers' own time have occasionally held QC meetings in paid time. 
"Quality" in not always the purpose.  For example, a British
company displayed posters praising a quality circle for finding a
way in which a job could be done by two men, instead of three. 
This may or may not have improved the quality of the product, but
it certainly cut costs.  QCs may be known by other names, such as
"quality improvement groups", and in retail businesses a similar
function may be performed by groups with the word "customer" in
their title.

Quality of Life Variables: Certain variables are a good measure of
the degree to which a society is well organized in terms of Praxis
and Community.  In general, participation rates and drop-out rates
in central institutions; family, school, church, politics and pro-
social labor signal positive and negative features of a society. 
Together with Quantity of Life Variables [see below] they help
serve the emancipatory interest by enabling a people to reflect 
upon and perhaps, change, their own social organization.  Crime
rates, suicide rates, absentee rates, desertion and divorce rates,
infant mortality rates, child abuse rates, turnover rates,
morbidity rates, alcoholism and drug abuse rates all point to a
poorly designed social life world in school, family, work, and in
church.  Perhaps the most sensitive indicator of a good and decent
society is found in infant mortality rates; the nine months of
pregnancy and the first year after birth is very crucial to the
well being of a child.

Quantity of Life Variables:  Income, housing, transportation,
clothing, and other material possessions give measure to the degree
that the economic system is working well.  If this wealth is spread
broadly throughout a society, it speaks well to the social justice
built into the economic system.  If wealth is highly stratified,
and the ratio of those with less to those with more wealth is high,
then one can anticipate rebellion and revolution.  However,
quantity of life variables do not tell all the story; great wealth
can fail to bring great satisfaction and contentment.

Quantification: The process of transforming natural and social
dynamics into number systems.  There are major political problems
with this practice: one loses information as one transforms
behavior into word systems, more information is lost when word
systems are replaced by number systems and still more when summary
statistics are used to replace the original data.  One could
describe quantification as a process by which undesirable
information is discarded.  The political question is who decides
what is undesirable? A second big problem is that numbers can be
manipulated by arithmetic and algebraic rules which are coherent
while human behavior may be incoherent i.e., emergent.  And there
are several numbering systems (scales) all of which, unfortunately
use the same symbols.  What is a five in one system (e.g., in a
nominal scale) may not be the same thing in another scale (e.g., an
ordinal scale).  And referring to human beings as so many numbers
tends to strip them of their humanity.  Quantification is the great
god of American social science but should be viewed with much
reservation.

Quantification theory: In quantification theory, the process by
which one reveals the underlaying causal connections in natural and
social phenomena by comparing the characteristics of a data set
with 'normal,' expected or chance distributions is called
inference.  There are several such characteristics one can use to
make guesses about whether causality is at work; one can look at
the flatness of a curve when one creates a distribution along a
variable.  One can assume that very different outcomes which are
seen when a new variable is introduced [or removed] proves causal
connection.  One can look at deviations from a center point and
conclude that some cause is at work.  This process does not take
into account the qualitative changes which occur in the same set of
variables when one of them makes a slight curve as a critical
[feigenbaum] point.  There is a logical form of quantification but
it requires no data nor gives a grounding to inferences.  See
Logic, syllogistic.

Quantity: Latin: quantus = how much, amount. An attribute of an
object or attribute which can be expressed in terms of more or less
of another such object or thing.  In modern philosophy, there are
four scales with which to measure quantity: nominal, ordinal,
interval and rational.  Nominal scales enable one to count how many
objects/attributes are present regardless of size or kind.  Ordinal
scales enable one to rank objects/attributes in terms of size from
smallest to largest.  Interval scales enable one to say exactly how
much one object/attribute is larger or smaller than another. 
Rational scales enable one to multiply or divide objects/attributes
by each other.  One can count a group of apples and oranges by one
cannot multiply six oranges by five apples and get 30 bananas nor
can one say that a person with 120 I.Q. points is twice as smart as
one with 60 I.Q. points.

     There is much argument about the utility of quantification in
setting forth truth claims.  Some say that truth comes only from
the use of these scales, especially rational scaling; others say
that qualities exist that are immeasurable and incommensurate.

Quotidien, le:  The practice of focussing upon everyday life in
order to describe or explain.  Local stories thus have greater
validity than do global explanations, national samples or
generalizing statistics.

Rabbi:  Hebrew: my great one.  The title of one who is qualified to
teach Judaism.  The comparable term in Islam is Imam; in
Christianity, priest or minister.

Race:  There is only one human species, Homo sapiens.  However,
social categories can be and are constructed via symbolic
interaction and the use of force and/or ideology.  Thus a society
can construct one, five or five thousand 'races.'  In the USA,
about five such categories are constructed: Asian, Hispanic, White,
Black and Native American.  It is impossible to assign most people
to one and only one race since all human beings share almost all of
the strings of base pairs which make up the human genome; it is a
poetics and a politics to built a 'race' out of the small
differences in genetic clusterings found in that genome.  See
Ramsey theory.

Racism: A complex set of beliefs that some subspecies of human
beings (stocks) are held to be inferior to others in certain
important ways; ways usually having to do with the capacity to
create ideological culture (they are savages) or to create
political culture (they cannot govern themselves yet).  Racial
theories are highly selective in choice of data for confirmation. 
They serve as post hoc rationales for exploiting people or for
denying social status.  Just which "race" is defined as inferior is
a political matter rather than a scientific one.  Sometimes
"whites" are used as slaves; sometimes "blacks", it is a question
of power.

     Capitalism tends to destroy racist privileges for a number of
reasons: black labor is cheaper in a racist society; markets can be
expanded by selling 'white' goods and services to 'blacks;' strikes
can be broken by bringing people desperate for work; to the extent
merit is used as a criterion for hiring, there is always some
number of Afro-Americans who work harder, longer and more
skillfully than some number of Anglos.

Radical:  Latin: radicalis = having roots. One whose analysis
suggests that a fundamental change in social paradigm is required
in order to solve problems. Most marxists/radicals believe that the
root of most social problems are to be found in the political
economy; those of capitalism (contradictions) cannot be solved
within the system--only transferred to other parts of the system or
to other countries.  Feminists believe that patriarchy must be
destroyed [not males but male prerogatives and female oppressions]. 
Black power advocates insist that racism must be sent to the dust-
heap of history.  Most right-wing radicals [liberals] believe that
the government (the state) should abandon all attempts to regulate
the economy, to solve social problems, or to provide services not
available on the free market.  Other Right-wing radicals believe
that the liberal state should be replaced by one supporting gender,
class, religious or ethnic privilege.

Radical criminology.  A marxist approach to the theory of crime and
crime prevention.  It has several assumptions: (a) that there is
considerable political influence in which behavior is defined as a
legal wrong, (b) that the causes of crimes are largely social-loss
of community and obstacles to Species being, and (c) reduction in
antisocial behavior requires social change rather than individual
therapy or punishment.  The U.S. has the highest crime rate in the
world, the largest surplus population, the greatest wealth, and the
least community.  These factors are not unrelated.  In the United
States, radical criminology was located at the University of
Berkeley until it was abolished by the university administration as
politically dangerous.

Radical feminism: A struggle against both capitalism and
patriarchy.  Central to radical feminism are the assumptions that
socialist revolution does not automatically liberate women; that
women should not trust men to "liberate" them "after the
revolution" and that women should take responsibility for their own
liberation (as, indeed, should all oppressed people).  Part of the
theory holds that the liberation of women liberates men in the same
instant from their sexism. (From Amy Bridges and Heide Hartman).

Radical Psychology: The radical movement in psychology links the
best conditions for a development of the personality and release of
creative energies to a change in social relations and institutions. 
This requires the overthrow of class and power relations through
whatever means are appropriate in a given historical context. 
Psychopathy is more of a social issue than a personal failing or
internal conflict.  Therapy involves a concern with internal
distortions and with relief of private anguish but within the
context of supportive social relationships rather through
chemotherapy or individual therapy.

Radical sociology: A movement within bourgeois sociology which aims
to use social science for human purpose rather than managerial
purposes.  The position of the radical sociologist is that the
scientific theories and methods of constructing social reality at
home, at work, in politics and education should be at least as
decent and rational as the folk theories and methods which are
displaced.  The prospect is not good at this time.  About 5% of
American sociologists view themselves to be radical and/or marxist
sociologists (1976).

Radical Theatre/Cinema: The use of cinema to reflect upon social
relationships in a critical mode.  This contrasts with the use of
cinema as a commodity.  There are three structural aspects to
radical theatre; 1) it creates an honest dialectic between two or
more difficult choices; 2) it erases the line between actors and
audience and 3) it moves people toward human agency in real life. 
Berthold Brecht's play were deliberately radical in this sense.

Ramsey theory:  Frank Ramsey, a British mathematician set forth the
mathematical possibilities of the number of sub-sets one could make
from a given set of events.  His work focussed upon the number of
Constellations one could generate from a particular grouping of
stars.  By extension, one could define the number of races possible
to obtain from the different clusters of base pairs in the human
genome.  We construct some five or six.  Given there are 30 billion
base pairs organized in more billions of genetic strings, the
number of Ramsey sub-sets possible are enormous.

Rank and file: The ordinary members in a union or other
association.  The term comes from the military and gives one an
idea of how seriously democracy is taken in a union.  It refers to
soldiers standing in rows (ranks) and columns (files).

Rape:  The forcible invasion of the body of another person.  Force
includes both violence and threat of violence.  While physical
power is the chief mode of doing rape, physical violence shades
into the use of social power to threaten job security; into the use
of moral power to justify male dominance; into economic power to
buy the services which would not be given freely and lovingly.

Rape, feminist theory of:  The feminist theory of rape is that it
a power device by which male hegemony is embodied; in more general
terms rape is a semi-public control tactic by which women are
forced back into the home or, alternatively, allowed to venture
into public only under the protection of a male with status.

     In predatory warfare, young men were given the right to rape
women and children while the older men took possession of plunder
and returned home with it to share it out among families in the
clan, tribe or band.  In modern warfare and in slavery, all women
defined as non-persons could be raped without social onus or
personal guilt.  In all societies, sexual norms are strictly
enforced in respect to women defined as daughters, wives, mothers,
nuns, and other females within given degrees of kinship.  This
contrasts to reductionist theories which explain rape as
biologically driven, as personal pathology or as by faulty
socialization.

Rape [as metaphor]:  Rape is often used as a metaphor with which to
convey the anger and disgust which arise when one person invades
the mind and soul of another without mutuality and sociality.  The
varieties of rape are thus many.

Rationality: Latin: reason.  There are two kinds of rationality of
which the student should be concerned; the first is simply the
techniques by which one should, rightly, consider whether the means
one uses to pursue a goal is sensible/workable/successful.  This is
called technical rationality.  There is however, the question of
whether the goals one pursues are wise/humane/helpful to others. 
This is the concern of substantive rationality or reason (after
Adorno and Horkheimer).  See Praxis, Praxis Society for a
substantively Rational Society.

Rationality (As a Moment of Praxis): The organization of resources
such that predictable outcomes are possible.  In praxis,
rationality is activity linked to the achievement of human purpose. 
It is not mere technical rationality in which there is a mechanical
determinism in which the means are effective in reaching a goal,
but also one in which the goals are themselves oriented to a
general theory of human rights and dignity.

Rationality Crises: Capitalism produces distortions in the economic
system.  In popular democracies, the state moves in to correct
those distortions but cannot formulate policy which threatens
either competitive or monopoly capitalism, thus planning is
impossible.  The state responds to crises by emergency measures, by
exhortation for cooperation but cannot choose between contradictory
steering imperatives (after Habermas).

Rational-purposive institutions: Those institutions (bureaucracies,
prisons, welfare, the military, systems design engineers, and such)
which effectively control the alienated elements of the population
through the principles of management science (after Weber).

Rational Thinking: A mode of thinking in which a given thing is
conceived in terms of a stable relationship to another thing.  Thus
one thing is conceived to be equal to 1/4th or 1/5th of another
thing.  Such a practice helps solve problems since complex
equations can be worked out.  This mode of thinking, when applied
to human behavior is a source of great mischief since a) it reifies
relationship to a fixed ratio, b) it objectifies human agency by
restricting flexibility and 3) it replaces interactional causality
with mechanistic causality models when it is not proper to do so.

     Rational thinking produces predictable behavior and is much
desired in a society where it is useful to be able to predict (and
control) the behavior of students, workers, voters, customers,
soldiers and masses generally.  See Quantification, Quantity.

Readerly approach: The organizing principles of 'reading' (or
viewing) any text are non-contradiction, coherency, and
consistency. The reader/viewer is encouraged to accept "as truth"
the words/social occasions themselves. Thus, there is nothing
behind or underneath the words/occasions; no hidden agenda.  What
the text means is direct, without question, on the surface. Missing
from the readerly approach is the context of the text's production;
that is, its connection to the political economy, racism,
patriarchy and to cultural pretensions, remain concealed. Thus in
this reading, people who 'read' the text as given, reconstitute and
re-validate the structures of domination embedded in the readerly
approach to the text.

'Reading': Explanation, view or theory.  Postmodernists speak of
'your reading' and 'my reading' without speaking to the superiority
or great validity of one over the other.

Reality:  That which exists in and of itself apart from human
thought and/or action.  A central problem in modern science is how
to reduce the mismatch between objective reality and subjective
understanding of that reality.  Contrast to the pre-modern view
that reality exists in the mind of God or that it is a poor
approximation of perfect and ideal forms which call them forth. 
Contrast as well to the postmodern view that 'reality' is in part
constituted by the act of research; by the 'self-fulfilling
prophecy;' by human imagination and/or will.

Reality, Objective:  Premodern views often deny the permanence or
even existence of 'reality.'  Modern science assumes reality but
doubts it can be fully known.  Postmodern philosophy of science
holds that reality is both constructed by the conceptual language
used; by the methods of research; by the interests and purposes of
the researcher and by ignoring the incredible variety and
complexity of really existing natural and social dynamical systems. 
Chaos theory notes that all dynamical systems have open boundaries
at some level of observation which calls into doubt the assumption
of a single bounded entity which answers to the concepts used to
refer to them; thus the objective reality of a thing called a tree,
a group, a nation, a religious organization or an atom is, in part,
a matter of arbitrary conceptualization.

Realization, the Problem of:  Capitalism is the finest system of
production so far developed; it tends to improve the means of
production until this capacity far outstrips the capacity of people
to buy all the goods produced.  As capitalism increases
productivity, fewer and fewer people can enter the market.  This is
a problem; how to realize profit on the unsold part of production. 
The answer is manifold: first advertizing can create demand for
more and more goods; then too, capitalist firms in one country can
take markets away from capitalists in other countries.  Then too,
the government can buy up 'surplus' wheat, sugar, tobacco, corn and
give it away to needy people or other countries.  Or tariffs can be
put on imported goods to protect American markets.  Lots of ways to
realize profit above and beyond what the market needs or wants.

Rebellion: A spontaneous uprising against exploitation and
oppression.  Often poorly organized, poorly led and short-lived,
still it is a dramatic symptom of a failed politics or economics. 
Much small gauge reform ensues from such rebellions.  In the USA,
the riots and lootings of the 1960's lead to the Great Society and
the War on Poverty Programs.  These were dismantled in the 80's and
90's since the rebellion failed to change the basic politics of the
country.

Rebellion, Pre-theoretical:  Most rebellion in pre-theoretical in
that it lacks good theory, good organization and good program. 
Workers sometimes steal, sabotage, slow-down, or use violence on
'scabs' and management.  Marxist theory argues that particular
people are not the class enemy but rather social relationships. 
Destruction and violence is thus, pre-theoretical in that it
attacks the wrong targets and adopts the wrong tactics.  See also
crime, banditry, racism, family violence.  See also, Resistence.'

Recreation, Sociology of: The marxist position on capitalist forms
of recreation is highly critical.  In the U.S. and in the West,
there is the assumption that the world of work is necessarily
alienating.  The evenings and weekends are to be used to repair
(re-create) the harm done to the human spirit.  In socialist
philosophy, humans should create themselves as Species-being while
at work, not in the intervals between work.  There is also the
problems of mass-sports and capital intensive recreation.  Mass-
sports turns us into a passive audience while capital-intensive
recreation (skiing, snowmobiling, auto vacations, jeeping, bowling,
etc.) not only ties up a lot of valuable natural resources in
trivial activity but is often harmful of the ecology.

Recession: The "official" definition of a recession is defined as
a period of at least six months in which production declines.  A
politically safe word (depression isn't), a lot of people can be
out of work and there is no cause for alarm since GNP is not
falling.

Recidivism:  Repeated criminal behavior.  Recidivism is measured by
the number of crimes committed by persons under probation and by
the number of crimes committed during a three year period by
persons released from prison.  It can be used to judge the success
rate of the criminal justice system; more often it is used to
justify longer terms and harsher punishment.

Red:  The color associated with communism and by extension, any
radical movement which pursues social justice for all.  First used
in the French Revolution (1789), the Red Flag became a symbol of 
defiance and militant struggle for human emancipation.  In Russian,
Krasnyi means both red and beautiful.

Red Feather Institute:  A radical independent think-tank put
together by Tim Lehmann, Tom Harblin, Wendell Ott and T.R. Young on
4 July, 1971. It took as its goal the support of radical
consciousness and politics in the Rocky Mountain Area.  The
election of Richard M. Nixon signalled to the founders the use of
state power to eradicate anti-war activity, civil rights movement,
student power and feminist actions as well as anti-socialist and
anti-communist police action.  It had four programs at its
inception: The Transforming Sociology Series, alternative syllabi
for graduate students, regular conferences for marxists, feminists,
and other progressive activists including Protestant and Catholic
clergy in the area.  Finally, it supported lectures by leading
radical scholars outside the Rocky Mountain area.  Young and his
family built the Red Feather Lodge and hosted many conferences
until personal tragedy intervened.  The Institute continues on a
much smaller scale and has moved to its present address in
Michigan.

     The name came from Red Feather Lake Village, a small mountain
town named after Princess Red Feather, the leader of an operatic
troupe which so appealed to the residents that they renamed the
town to honor her.  The first meetings of the Institute were at the
Young cabin on Lake Papoose in Red Feather Village in the late
60's.  It also takes the French logo of the Red Feather for radical
scholarship.

Red Squad: The city of Chicago maintains a police capacity with
which to destroy socialism in that city.  The term is used
generally to refer to such as activities in any political unit
where police are used to suppress dissent.  The policy of the Red
Squad included: (1) search for compromising behavior (whether legal
or not), (2) an exchange of information with other police including
the F.B.I., (3) a network of paid informers, (4) ties with private
right-wing organizations and (5) use of material collected to make
it difficult for one to keep a job, get credit, insurance, or to
seek political office.  Red Squad agents pose as reporters or
members of a radical group and attempt to sow foment and mistrust
between subject, friends and family, all without due process or
public writ.  F.B.I. files suggest that thousands of liberal
democrats (who comprise a small danger to capitalism) were closely
watched as were supporters of women's liberation and civil rights
groups.  Presumption of innocence, due process and rights to
political dissent are ignored by such activities.

Redistribution:  When wealth accumulates in the hands of a few
persons, most societies have mechanisms for its redistribution;
many religions call for tithes to support the poor; some call for
sabbaticals at which debts are forgiven; among the Northwest Indian
tribes, the potlatch redistributed wealth.  Banditry, kidnapping
and other forms of crime redistribute wealth from rich to poor.
Taxation can be used to do provide a safety net or it can be used
to funnel wealth to the upper classes.  One should note that most
socialist economic systems distribute on the bases of both need and
merit thereby reducing the need for redistribution.

Reductionism: The practice of attributing causality to parts of a
system rather than the system as a complex interactive whole.  Thus
crime is said to be caused by individual psychological states or
even biochemical factors such as blood chemistry, brainwaves, genes
and so forth.  Sometimes reduction is appropriate, but when not, it
is a cardinal error in inference and explanation.  In American
science it reaches epidemic proportions.

Reflection Theory:  The materialist theory of psychology which
holds that thinking, feeling, sensing and doing are reflections of
nature and the existing social order.  This view sometime
diminishes the creativity and emancipatory potential of human
thought to those moments when contradictions are so great that
revolution occurs.  Marx held that human consciousness did reflect
historical existing material conditions but that the contradictions
stimulated radical thought long before material conditions
triggered outright rebellion.

Reform: A movement which attempts to solve the contradictions of a
social paradigm without changing its basic structure.  The attempt
to improve prison life or to get food stamps to the poor, in
effect, are counter revolutionary in that the harsher aspects of
capitalism are moderated without ending poverty or crime.  Some
think that reform may be additive and thus result in revolutionary
change.

Rhetoric:  The artful presentation of an idea using verbal symbols;
this was the classical meaning of the term.  In modern usage, it
has come to mean artificial and empty explanations to be contrasted
with serious, rigorous scientific enquiry and findings. 
Postmodernists hold that all writings and talks are rhetoric in the
classical sense.  As such, all texts should be seen as open,
personal and incapable of imposing ideological hegemony [see
which].

Reification: From the Latin: Res = things + facere = to make.  The
process of treating some aspect of nature or society as a special
thing in and of itself. The process of creating social reality. 
When social relations are reified apart from human intentionality
and human control, alienation occurs.  Reification is necessary to
create social life worlds but can be a serious problem if coerced
and made permanent apart from changes in material conditions.  More
generally, the process by which an epistemological category [an
idea] becomes an ontological category [a thing] via human action. 
Intentionality and sociality are necessary to construct a
distinctly social-life world; that is, one which is not part of the
natural world until human beings create it.  The "self-fulfilling
prophecy" is sometimes used to refer to the reification process by
which social facts are made.  De-reification is the process by
which forms of social reality are dismantled or degraded.  See
Sanctification, Profanation, Demonization.

Relative deprivation theory: A theory which holds that people do
not become outraged at injustice or inequality or other
deprivations as long as others like them (to whom they compare
themselves) are also exploited or deprived.

Religion: From the Latin, ligio: I bind; religio; I bind back, I
bind fast [together].  Religion thus refers to any set of beliefs
and/or practices which bind a people together.  As most use the
word, it refers to a theistic religion [see theology] but there are
billions who live in solidarity with each other and with nature
absent a god concept.  Buddhism, secular humanism, socialist
humanism and many forms of paganism sanctify but do not deify. 
[See Sanctification, as well as Sacred/Profane].  In marxian terms,
religion is usually alienated self-consciousness.  It is a
situation in which people assign to a god or to a devil their own
power for creating or destroying.  More generally, religion is a
set of principles by which human beings bring purpose and meaning
into their own individual lives while guaranteeing (a sometimes
limited) solidarity between individuals.

Reference group theory: The theory that behavior is organized when
a person uses the standards and values of people who are in the
same social position as guide to one's own behavior.  This compares
to the use of more general, universal and/or egalitarian claims for
rights and responsibilities.  Poor people, slaves, women and other
minority use other poor people, slaves, women as references to
judge their own well being rather than those of rich, white males. 
Role theory assumes interaction, reference group theory less so.

Rent: Land, as with labor, is treated as a commodity in capitalist
systems.  Rent is the price one pays to a non-productive land owner
for the land one occupies: for the space, fertility, location, and
improvements on land. Landlord's rights and the notion of rent has
its origins in feudal conquest.  Lords claimed property rights to
common land and began to charge people to live on and/or farm the
land in question.  In order for the farmer to use the land s/he
works, a percentage (usually 1/3 or so) must be paid out to a non-
working "owner."  See also Surplus Value and Exploitation, Super.

Replication: One of several methods to prove the truth value of a
hypothesis which does not depend upon reason or rationality; if the
repetition of a study yields the same results as a previous
finding, the hypothesis is treated as if it were valid.  Such an
effort is an instance of conservative science in that the
eternality of social relationships are assumed.  When replication
fails, the assumption is that the data are poorly measured rather
than that social life is idiographic (in which case differing
findings could both be valid).  Chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics
teach us that complex systems never repeat themselves.

Re-represent/representation:  Modernists and pre-modernists assume
that it is possible to treat one thing as the same as another; each
'represents' the other without loss of meaning or quality. 
Postmodernists say this is impossible.  Think of a marriage; is
each one different from every other marriage such that one cannot
use the idea of a given marriage as a standard to which every other
marriage must conform; or think of an elected official; given the
great variety of people in a Congressional District, can any one
person 'represent' them without violating the needs and interests
of some or most of the residents.  Can a theory be precise enough
to represent each and every instance of the events which the theory
purports to explain/describe.  See postmodern philosophy of
science.

Repression: The process by which unacceptable views and actions are
excluded from a social life world.  A given social paradigm is
constructed and maintained by law, religion, morality and
socialization and re-socialization.  Authorities use a wide range
of punishments [sanctions] from moral condemnation to editing,
"correcting," ignoring, as well as the judicious use of rewards. 
Control over the means to produce meaning (the media) is a major
approach in modern repressive technique.

Repression, Surplus: In Freudian analysis, repression refers to the
process by which some sexual energy is "sublimated" (transferred)
in order to meet the demands of work, social and intellectual life. 
Marcuse pointed out that in a society of alienating work, a surplus
amount of repression, over and above that required to re-produce
social life, had to be enforced in order to keep the worker doing
the same boring, meaningless work in the service of private
capital.  Then too, joy, delight, compassion, friendship and
community must be repressed if people are to be treated as faceless
others in school, work, church, marketplace or politics.

Reproduction of Labor Power:  See Labor Power, reproduction of.

Reproduction (of society):  The process by which existing social
roles, role-sets, groups, institutions and allied culture is
renewed from generation to generation.  Parents, teachers, priests
and preachers, judges, and peers tend to reproduce the beliefs,
feelings and behaviors essential to a social life world.  Managers,
technicians, professionals, and artists embody rules, use
instruments, do science, and create art which tends to repeat
existing social relationships.  Much as a printing press produces
carbon copies of a given information set, those in the reproduction
sector do not produce or circulate goods but do valuable work for
the capitalist class by establishing systems of control,
administering them, and justifying them to the masses.  From the
marxist perspective, society should be produced by insightful
competent humans rather than reproduced by specialists or by
coercion.  Goertzal cites education, government, and recreation as
part of the reproductive sector.  See Repression, surplus.

Republican, as a form of government:  Republican forms of
government require periodic elections of representatives who then
decide all matters of public policy.  Not to be confused with
democracy which calls for direct participation in policy making.

Resistance, workers:  Resistance to alienated conditions may be
formal, taking such forms as strikes, working to rule and overtime
bans.  These methods are most likely in a unionised environment.  
Equally, resistance may be informal, taking such forms as sabotage,
theft, deliberate stupidity in misunderstanding instructions, silly
ideas in suggestion boxes, short-cuts in working practices which
allow a worker to sneak off for a smoke, producing "Friday and
Monday" [shoddy] goods.  For a good example, see Laurie Graham's
essay about her work in a non-unionised Japanese-owned plant in
America, in Elger and Smith (cited under the entry "Japanization").

Revisionism:  A pejorative term used by Right and Left to denigrate
theories, views, analysis with which they disagree.  When the Left
rewrites the history of slavery, warfare or gender relations to
credit slaves, colonies or women with positive qualities, the Right
uses the term.  When orthodox marxism is challenged or modified,
the term is used as a way to discredit such work.

Revisionism, Theory of:  Rosa Luxemburg identifies three major
elements in revisionist practice on the Left: (a) reformist
programs defined by the limits of what is possible within
capitalist ideology, (b) a subordination of socialist theory to
tactics, and (c) opportunism and willingness to stop agitation in
order to win concessions.  Such an agreement eliminates the threat
of militant opposition to capitalist control.  Luxemburg's point is
that practice must be guided by revolutionary theory else it
degenerates into liberalism.  The revolutionary theory is always
class oppression, class struggle, social revolution, communism.

Revolution: In the context of Marxist thought, the term refers to
a radical transformation of the totality of a society, not just a
change in political or economic sphere.  A socialist revolution
means a radical abolition of old social relations and their
replacement by new and more humane relations supportive of praxis
and community. (After Markovic)  The five great structures of
domination are the targets of revolution; changing one is
inadequate to the making of a socialist revolution.  See
Domination, structures of.

Revolution, Theory of: In formal marxian terms, revolution occurs
when a) there is exploitation, b) when the workers are concentrated
in a mass, c) when there is communication between workers, d) when
there is leadership, and e) when there is a coherent analysis to
guide action.  There are two distinctly different pathways to
revolution in marxian writings; first there is the immiseration
thesis [see which] which says that revolutions come along when
things get bad; then, in Grundrisse, Marx spoke of revolution by
skilled and competent workers who had enough education, energy and
free time to think and to act on their class interests.  See also
Lenin and Luxembourg.

Revolutionary Practice: It was a Marxist view that revolutionary
practice emerged not only from political struggle but from the work
process.  In Capital, he presents the idea of evolution in praxis,
from laboring activity to revolutionary activity to self-managing
activity in post-capitalist society.  An important part of the
revolutionary process is not only to destroy capitalist relations
but also the human nature of the revolutionaries and workers
themselves.  In the justly famous "Third Thesis," Marx emphasizes
that it is essential to educate the educator.  One must not only
change material conditions but change human nature itself in a
complex process of advances and reverses. (From Burke)

Revolutionary Base: Just who will make the revolution is a question
central to all socialist/feminist/emancipatory strategy.  Marx held
that the working class would be the social base of the revolution
for these reasons: 1 ) it alone can stop production, 2) it is the
majority of the population, 3) its existence is a negation of
species-being, and 4) only the interests of the working class
correspond to the general interest.  Interests of other classes,
represented as the general interest lead to only "political"
revolution; a change in the elite which rules.  At the XIXth
Congress of the French Communist Party, changes in the structure of
the working class were recognized: the working class also includes
salaried employees such as researchers, engineers, lower level
bureaucratic functionaries, technicians, specialists, experts, and
others who reproduce capital.  There is debate in socialist circles
today whether a) such people are workers or petty bourgeois, b)
whether they will play a decisive role in making the revolution,
and c) what is the proper organizational structure to use given the
proper analysis to make the revolution.

     Marcuse [whom see] viewed the working class in the rich
capitalist societies as hopelessly loyal to capitalism and vested
emancipatory leadership in women, minorities, 3rd world colonies
and free floating intellectuals.

Ricardo, David (1772-1823):  A very important British economist who
set forth the labor theory of value which Marx adopted and
modified.  A socialist movement bears his name in which Ricardo,
Owen and Bentham are combined to critique capitalism and suggest
reorganization of production and distribution of wealth.

Right: Latin: rectus = straight.  The term has two very different
meanings of which students should take note.  First it usually
associated with conservative or elitist partisans [see Left for the
origin of the term].  Then too, in philosophy it refers to the
basis for claiming/grounding a practice or policy.  See Right,
Philosophy of.

Rights, Human (Philosophy of):  Aquinas held that Right and wrong
were based upon both reason and eternally valid laws of nature and
society; both given by the Christian God.  Rousseau held that Right
and wrong were conventional and rest upon consent of the people. 
Hegel held that the law of abstract Right was that one should be a
person and respect others as persons.  Persons could not be
possessed as property or treated as objects in Hegel.  Right does
not allow one to pursue private goals which diminish others or
which opposes what Hegel calls universal will.  Hegel assumes that
there is a universal tendency [or will] to evolve toward perfect
embodiment of rational understanding of both the world and the plan
for it given by a clock-maker god concept.

     One of the most troublesome questions in affirmative
postmodern social philosophy is how to define human rights without
appealing to universal and absolute standards; thus protecting
variety and difference on the one side and yet collective work
toward social justice, basic equality in social processes. 
Affirmative postmodern sensibility resists oppression of
elitist/sexist/racist cultural claims yet it argues for common
rights and obligations within and between groups.  See the United
Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights for a beginning.

Right Wing Communism: Those who tend to emphasize the inexorable
movement toward the collapse of capitalism apart from inten-
tionality.  Critics charge right-wing communists with
overestimating the role of material conditions in revolution and
downplaying the role of bourgeois ideology in mystifying and
repressing the masses.

Rising expectations (Revolution of): A thesis that political
problems in capitalism originate from the increasing expectations
of people who have been liberated from poverty rather than the view
that political discord arise from the faults of the system itself. 
It is the success of capitalism rather than its failing which is
said to be the source of unrest.  It follows that the solution to
unrest is more capitalism (and less government interference) rather
than less capitalism.

Rite of passage: A ceremony in which a given social status is
assigned to a person or stripped away.  In most societies, children
do not have social standing until they are first accepted as part
of the human population in some birthing ceremony and later, as
part of the social base in a ritual.  Part of the reason community
is lost in mass society is that there are no rites of passage for
young people.  Capitalism avoids social relationships and therefore
rites of passage are unnecessary.

Role dispossession: A process by which a social identity is erased
from the self-system.  Compare to depersonalization in which the
social conditions are such that the self does not develop. 
Degradation, debasement, and demoralization are rough equivalents
of this term.

Role distance: Behavior by which a person communicates his/her lack
of full commitment to the status-role at hand.  Role distance is
most apparent when one is in a role which is oppressive but, for
some reason, cannot walk away from it.  The best place to observe
role distance in everyday life is in a large classroom or in any
mass institution.

Role-set: A shared social form created by the interaction of two or
more persons.  Each person actively creates the social identity as
well as the role of all others by complex and subtle responses to
the presentations of all those defined as significant to the
occasion at hand.  Each role set is comprised of general guides to
action which are publicly known or taught to new members.  All
role-sets are mediated by larger social structures such as the
class, race, sexist, ageist, and legal structure.  A given role-set
may be simple (e.g., a friendship- or very complex (a medical unit
in a hospital).

Role-taking: The process of looking at things from the perspective
of another human being in the process of organizing social facts. 
The basic human activity by which transaction and intersubjective
knowledge develops, role-taking is often aborted in power
relationships.  The subordinate is expected to sense every nuance
of intentionality of the more powerful and the more powerful
careless of others intentions and interests in that little
resistance to one's directives is expected. (After Franks).  Role-
taking produces a knowledge of the "inside" principles, values, and
sensitivities of another person.

Role theory: A set of assumptions about how human behavior is
generated and ordered.  The basic assumption is that the role-sets
in a society account for most human behavior from sexual activity
to crime as well as the more ordinary forms of behavior seen in a
society.  This contrasts to biological theories of behavior which
locate the sources of human behavior in genes and/or physical
needs.  The radical implication is that unsocial forms of behavior
can be modified by reorganizing society rather than individual
therapy or imprisonment.  The role is composed of at least two
parts: an actor and a role-other is sometimes called ego and alter-
ego.  The radical implication is that self and society are
twinborn.  Rather than individuals existing in society, people
cease being purely individuals when actively taking a role since
role always implies role-other.  The notion of a professor without
a student is absurd.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778):  French social philosopher
credited with shaping the French Revolution and the US Constitution
in his writings.  These include the view that the natural
differences between people are exaggerated as societies develop
since the law making process is used by the powerful to increase
power and wealth.  Art and science become corrupted as inequality
grows since virtue is not rewarded but rather service to the
powerful commands all rewards.  The state of savagery is no better
since humans have not achieved humanity.  Humanity is achieved in
simple community.  This is achieved by a Social Contract in which
both personal will and community will are respected.  The common
will is not to be found in the sum of all individual wills but
rather in the sovereign or in the state [a public body personified
by either].  There is much to doubt in these assumptions and
solutions; and much still to do.

Ruge, Arnold (1802-80: A radical democrat who served six years in
prison for his political views, Ruge published various radical
journals and other periodicals in which the early writings of Marx
appeared.  It was to Ruge that Marx laid the foundation for a
critical sociology in the maxim, "Engage in the relentless
criticism of everything existent.  "

Ruling Class: A term (poorly chosen) to refer to a loose assortment
of capitalists and state functionaries who make the basic decisions
in capitalist countries.  Industrialists, financiers, agribusiness
executives, large retail interests, and mass media have many
conflicting interests but they share a common understanding that
low costs and high profits are the objectives of capitalism and
work together or in tacit agreement to oppose anything which
threatens profit/cost structures.  Sometimes the leading
capitalists get together via the Committee on Economic Development
which meets yearly.  Often a few corporations which dominate a
market will have agreements as to price and regions.  Many
corporations try to eliminate competition between themselves and
encourage it among their customers and opponents.  In this context,
a "free market" means that customers are unorganized while a "free
world" means that capitalists are free to seek profit.  See Power
Elite also.

Saint-Simon, Claude Henri, Count (17760-1825):  St-Simon renounced
his royal title and worked toward the elimination of poverty and
empowerment of the masses.  St-Simon introduced the concept of
positivism [Comte was his secretary] and held science to be the
vehicle for social justice and social peace.  He suggested a tri-
partite governance system: 1) a Chamber of Invention consisting of
artists and engineers who would draw up policy proposals, 2) a
Chamber of Examination in which scientists would evaluate them and
3) a Chamber of Deputies comprized of Industrialists who would
implement these for the common good.  He called for a secular
religion centered on ethics and brotherhood and stripped of its
gods and dogmas.  Comte took much from St-Simon.

Sacred/Profane:  A dichotomy [two-fold concept] in which people
sanctify, honor, esteem, cherish and worship part of humanity
and/or the natural world while treating the rest of the population
and/or nature as though it had nothing but use value.  Thus some
people sanctify trees, animals and/or rivers while others see them
only as objects to be used, abused, ignored or destroyed.  See
commodification, deification, and/or reification.

Sanctification/de-sanctification: Latin: santus = holy + ficere =
to make.  The process by which things, events, persons and groups
are treated as holy.  One should note the word, holy, comes from
old English, helig, meaning healthy.  Those who work out of a pre-
modern religious framework treat some persons, places or activities
as holy.  Others are de-sanctified or treated as profane.  Modern
sensibility tends to treat all efforts to sanctify or de-sanctify
as primitive thinking. In postmodern theology, sanctification is a
social process by which great value is assigned to a people, some
part [or all] of nature and/or a social process.  There can be no
social life at all without sanctification; to treat everything as
profane is to destroy the very foundation of social life; not even
capitalism or modern science would be possible without a set of
values to which the scientist or the worker gave her/his rare
capacity to belief, to have faith, believe, hope, and to trust. 
See Profanation, Criminalization, Reification.

Sanction: A positive or negative reward for behavior.  A means by
which behavior can be externally controlled, sanctioning first
requires that positive or negative content be defined into the item
used as a sanction.  Rewards and most punishments are useful as
sanctions only if people take them to be such.  This definition is
secured by a number of tactics in socialization activity but
ultimately is grounded in belief, faith, and understanding. 
Habermas holds that normative behavior is being displaced by such
external stimuli.  "Indirect control of the masses through
fabricated stimuli has increased, especially in the areas of
putative subjective freedom such as electoral, consumer, and
leisure behavior". (Habermas, Toward a Rational Society.)

Sartre, Jean-Paul (1905-1980):  A french postmodern philosopher
best known for his work on Existentialism.  Sartre held that human
beings had a much greater freedom than most believe; that it was
bad faith and/or self exculpation to refuse/fail to act on that
freedom.  Human beings invent a 'human nature' for themselves and
then act as if it were natural and inevitable [existence precedes
essence].  Human beings thus negate the nothingness of the world by
acting [don't forget, they/we could act otherwise].  Since God is
dead, we must invent our own values and standards in life; S. says
invent yourself and invent it 'with all your heart.'  S. says that
when we chose, 'We chose for all mankind;' a touch of the Kantian
Imperative there.  God is our name for our desire to bring order
and stability out of ceaseless change and the somethingness we
create out of the nothingness we find.

     Sartre claimed to be a marxist but there is little concern for
oppression, exploitation, alienation and coercion with which Marx
dealt.

Sat, Chit, Ananda: Being, Intelligence, Bliss.  A sanskrit phrase
used in Hindu philosophy to characterize the divine consciousness
to which all knowledge processes should be pointed.

Satanism:  A set of beliefs and practices in which opposition to
the hegemony of the patriarchal God concept is embodied.  The story
goes that some angels were jealous of the power of God and rose up
against him only to be cast out of Heaven.  Still active, these
fallen angels are said to tempt people, especially women, into
denial and opposition to God and to God's plan.  See Moral Panic,
Witchcraft.

Scapegoat: In marxist usage, it refers to that sector of society in
which all sources of evil are said to arise (the Jews, the clergy,
the nobility, the monopolists) so that emancipation from this
sector appears as a general emancipation.  For Marx, social evil
resides in the obstacles to praxis and community rather than in the
person or a sector of the population.  One does not get rid of the
class structure by hanging capitalists but by changing the system.

Skepticism/Skepticism:  A critical stance which holds all existing
ideas are open to discussion and revision.  Some skeptics doubt the
possibility of truth and thus join nihilistic postmodernity.

Science: Latin: scientia = to know.  The term usually refers to the
methods and the bodies of knowledge by which we know about the
natural and social world(s) in which we live.  Scientific activity
is a social activity in which all of the assumptions and conflicts
of that society are present.  See Science, Modern, Pre-modern and
Postmodern.

Science, Modern:  A body of knowledge which holds that there are
abstract 'laws' which describe the ways in which nature and society
operate.  The method of modern science is that of successive
approximations in which hypotheses are generated, tested and used
to guide the formulation of further hypotheses thought to be closed
to Truth if they account from more and more of the variation in a
dependent variable.  Modern science arose in the 1600's and gained
great status from the work of Isaac Newton.  Newton gave us both a
very precise theory and a very useful methodology for the discovery
of the hidden regularities in simple natural systems.  Modern
science has helped improve diet, health, transportation,
communication and construction.  However, it sets order and tight
causality as the normal behavior of all social, economic,
biological and physical systems. Compare to Chaos theory which
tells us this is true for only simple systems; complex systems
display nonlinear dynamics and have fractal geometries.

Science, philosophy of:  A discipline which locates science in the
larger social context in which it is found; which tries to reveal
the political agenda which gives rise and shapes scientific work;
which points to the class, racist and gender biases which drive the
knowledge process as well as the connection of science to ethics,
aesthetics, logic, and metaphysics.  There is great controversy
about the role of science, empiricism and induction in the
knowledge process.  Generally, modern science claims hegemony over
the knowledge process; pre-modernist give priority to inspiration
and revelation.  Nihilist postmodernists tend to reject the
possibility of both theory and reliable knowledge.  Affirmative
postmodernists tend to accept the value of pre-modern, modern and
postmodern knowledge processes while stressing the poetics and
politics which are intrinsic to any and every human product.

Science, Pre-modern:  Pre-modern knowledge processes uses trust,
belief, faith and hope to engage the reality construction process. 
These social psychological activities convert prophecies into
social practices, social relationships and social institutions in
a sort of social magic in which the knowing comes from the doing. 
Pre-modern knowledge processes are fundamental to all other
knowledge processes including modern and postmodern science.

Science, Postmodern.  Postmodern philosophy of science makes a
place for variety, difference, unpredictable change and dis-order
generally.  It argues that the knowledge process has many pathways
to truth and wisdom; that only short term truth statements are
possible for complex systems.  Feminist Standpoint epistemology
(S.S. Rixecker) teaches us that there are many different and valid
standpoints from which to 'know' how a system works and should
work.  Marx made the point that one's consciousness varies with
one's position in the social structure.  The present author takes
the position that a fully human knowledge process requires pre-
modern, modern and postmodern knowledge process.  See each for its
assumptions, limitations and contributions.

Science for the People (SFTP): SFTP is a magazine published in
Somerville, Maine by three collectives of Scientists and Engineers
for Social and Political action.  It means to serve the needs of
people for science and technology rather than of capitalist
corporations or bureaucracies.  Local chapters may be organized and
provide science for the people.

Second Law (of Thermodynamics): A statement which generalized the
tendency of all systems to decay.  In formal terms the "law"
specifies that all systems tend to their most probable state.  The
most probable state is disorder, entropy, chaos, or random rather
than ordered relationship.  It is a very improbable event that six
molecules or six people will be in the same place at the same time
with one and only one pattern of organization relating them.  The
secret to order is that there are "segregating" mechanisms each of
which "constrain" or reduce part of the improbability.  For human
systems those segregating mechanisms are rules, roles, values,
goals, and social relationships.

Second International:  A socialist organization which advocated
gradual evolution toward communism via social democracy.  It
replaced the 1st International in 1899 and lasted until 1991.  It
gave rise to the welfare policies found in many European states. 
Liebknecht, Bebel and Bernstein were among its leaders.

Sect: A voluntary religious association in which all members are
expected to engage in the production of religious culture
irrespective of age.  The structure is seldom bureaucratic; leaders
are usually lay persons and often leadership is distributed broadly
over the congregation.  Sects arise in mass, depersonalized
societies and in times of trouble.  Often they are separatist and
resist integration into mass society.  Sects ordinarily are founded
on spiritual rebirth and a renewed interest in community and
praxis.  The means of production are held (not "owned") in common
and production is used communally to produce culture (not profit). 
The Amish, Branch Davidians [Adventist], Hutterites, Quakers, and
Unitarians are sects.  Compare with Church.

Self, social: The sum of all of the social identifies presented by
an individual and validated by others in specific and differing
social occasions.  Self and society are thus twin-born.  One has no
"self" until one is socialized to a particular social identity:
until one presents that identity (by behavioral means); and until
some other person defined as significant honors and responds to
that presentation.  Thus, the concept of the mother without the
child or the professor without the student are nonsense notions. 
This definition disagrees with the Anglo-Saxon concept of self as
a thing having its own, independent nature such that there is a
'true' self to be discovered and used to mediate one's own
behavior.  See Mind.

Self-determination: A moment of praxis wherein a person acts with
purpose and insight as opposed to coercion and necessity . . . sub-
jective participation in opposition to objectification.

Self Estrangement: Here Marx meant to show that commodity labor
forced the worker to be concerned with him/herself to the exclusion
of species-being-the process by which humans grasp their own
humanity as a collective (as a brother/sisterhood) is destroyed by
wage labor.  In capitalism, people take themselves as the object of
their thought when they think of "myself." However, the essence of
social being is that the object of such thought is not the isolated
individual but rather that collective humanity which one treats as
one's own essential nature.

Self-fulling prophecy: The process by which things defined as real,
become real.  Labelling theory holds that labelling young people as
criminals produces a social reaction in which they are treated as
criminals by others, come to view themselves as criminals and do
all sorts of criminal things as a consequence.  The same is true of
priests, prostitutes, physicians, professors, lawyers and mothers,
The point is that belief in the truth of a thing does help it come
true.  A most remarkable characteristic of social reality not found
in physical systems.  A rose may be a rose but a man is not just a
man for all that.

Self-Realization: In praxis, it is activity in which one realizes
the full wealth of one's human capacities, an activity profoundly
pleasurable for its own sake, no matter how much energy and effort
it might require, no matter how great or small the secondary
rewards such as fame, wealth, or success.  In self-realization, the
labor of the individual in producing material, ideological and/or
political culture results in positive or negative response from
others.  Without that response, one has no way of knowing one
exists nor of the quality of that existence.  Self-realization thus
requires sociality.

Semantics:  A science dealing with the sources of and vehicles for
conveying meaning between two or more human beings.  Some say that
words have intrinsic and universal meaning; others say they are
conventional and are used loosely; that the exchange of information
requires an open semantic system.

Semiotics: Greek: semeiotikos: sema = a mark + otikos = theory of.
Semeiotics is the study of language understood as 'signs.' All
words, phrases, gestures, or cues, all communication spoken or
written, are signs. All language systems are themselves various
sign system (e.g., engineering, computers, accounting gangs, prison
inmates). Semioticians study the evolving meanings communicated
through speech or through a text. For example: the word 'gay' could
refer to someone who is lively or animated or someone who is
homosexual. Then too, those who are homosexual work to change
meaning. As recently as twenty years ago, referring to someone as
gay was insulting, derisive, and resulted in ostracism and social
disgrace.  Today, however, one can speak of "Gay Pride" month or
"Gay Awareness" indicating that to be gay/homosexual is something
to treat as 'normal,' feel good about, and to celebrate.

Sensual/sensuality:  Sensualists place equal or prior value on the
senses as upon reasoning.  Enjoyment of taste, touch, smell and
sexuality are to be encouraged rather than repressed in the name of
God or in the effort to transform people into workers who do not
feel, love, hate or enjoy their work or their roles in life.  Freud
held that some erotic drive should be suppressed and re-channeled
into productive labor else nothing would get done in the pursuit of
pleasure.   Others, such as Marcuse and Norman O. Brown argue the
senses too, need emancipation as much as does reason.

Serf: A member of a caste required to perform agricultural labor
for a 'nobility.'  In Feudalism, serfs are bound to the land and
are treated as property.  People are created as serfs by a coercive
legal system.  Serfdom and slavery are precapitalist ways to
support a leisure class by extracting the surplus value of labor
from farm and craft workers.  The modern version is the contract
labor system in agribusiness except that under the contract system
there is no security if one is sick, crippled, or there is no work
to be done.  See peasant.

Sexism: A complex set of assumptions holding that women are suited
for a secondary role in the creation of culture.  To keep women in
their 'place,' men are given social power within the marriage
relationship; economic power in the inheritance of property; moral
power in the religious ideas and authority to use physical power to
ensure compliance to male hegemony.  Those who support patriarchy
appeal to biological attributes as well in justifying sexist
status-role ascription and thus is rational.  While individual
differences may be relatively great, differences between men as a
category and women as a category are small in terms of strength,
intelligence, creativity, assertiveness, and other crucial factors. 
In any event, one cannot judge the ability of one woman or man in
terms of the averages of a group of men or women.

Sexism [and Capitalism]:  Capitalism tends to dismantle ancient
structures of privilege in the quest for markets and lower wages;
age, sex and racial discrimination offer both.  At the same time,
the reproduction of gender inequality is helpful since there is
always a pool of cheaper labor with which to drive down the wages
of all.  Marx noted, it the Manifesto, that difference in age and
sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working
class; All are instruments of labor more or less expensive to use. 
The call is for men and women; blacks and whites, young and old to
unite and end the divisions which capitalists can use against them.

Sexuality: The socialist position on sexuality is that sexual
activity is a natural and important human activity.  It is not to
be treated casually or used as an instrument of manipulation or for
private gain.  It is to be used as an affirmation and definition of
a cherished social relationship.  People are not to be treated as
objects nor are they to be treated as property.  Sexual caress and
response are personal matters to be settled between individuals
without coercion or anxious guilt.  Sexual activity may be within
or without marriage as an institution but this does not mean that
marriage is to be taken lightly or that there is no mutual
responsibility involved in sexual activity.  Sexual experimentation
of young persons is to be encouraged but young people are
vulnerable in their doubt and concern over their sexuality and
therefore should not be exploited.  Much remains to do before such
questions are settled, including gay rights, bisexuality and other
modes of sexual activity.  In capitalist societies, the chief
concern of socialists is commodity sex and the use of sex to
dispose of surplus production.  See, Emancipation of the senses.

Sexual Psychopathy: There are many forms of harmful sexual behavior
from clothing fetishism to rape and the sexual exploitation of
children. Such pathologies arise, according to Freud from
repression of sexuality which, in turn comes from the incest taboo. 
The incest taboo splits male sexuality into tenderness and
affection (directed toward mother) and lust and carnality (directed
toward objectified females: cunt, piece, ass, whore and such).
Freud held the incest taboo to be necessary in order to channel
some sexual energy into work.  Marcuse holds that sexual repression
and joyful sexuality varies with patriarchy; if work were as
creative and delightful as play, such sexual repression would not
be necessary: love and tenderness could be reunited with sensuality
and sexual activity need not be split into "higher" and "lower"
modes.

Shame:  A internal psychological judgment that one has violated a
basic value, rule, law, or mor‚ of the society in which that person
lives and to which s/he has been socialized.  Shame is private
psychological while guilt is a public, social judgment.  Shame
carries great negative emotional content and renders a person less
likely to do that deed or say that thing again.  See Guilt.

Sign:  In semiotic terminology, all words or phrases, whether
written or spoken, are signs. A sign is that which stands not only
for something other but something more added by those using the
signs.  The sign is composed of two elements: the "signifier" and
the "signified." Signifiers are the words or phrases themselves
(e.g., car, house, gravely disabled). The signified is the content
of the signifier; that is, the meaning assigned to the signifier
(e.g., a mode of transportation, a place in which to keep warm, a
person who is homeless). Thus, the sign is the relationship between
the signifier + the signified.  It can change content depending
upon the class, gender, culture and interests of those 'reading'
them.

Sign, accenting the: In postmodern semiotic terminology, all words,
phrases, gestures within a given system of communication (e.g.,
sports, law, medicine, gangs) are given preferred meaning. They are
loaded with positive or negative emotional or power content.  This
is not a problem with codes of speech that are readily available to
all people in a society. Thus, the languages of popular culture and
commercialism accent words or phrases in ways that are accessible
to large constituencies. A problem, however, presents itself in
dominant discourse; speech codes that regulate and control our
lives (e.g., law, news, finance, bureaucracy). There is limited
access to "law talk," "corporate talk," "medical talk." In such
instances, the meaning of words or phrases are reduced to certain
contents. These contents maintain the power of dominant discourse
to exclude, to distance, to marginalize, and to alienate. This
reduction in meaning is termed uni-accentuality. We feel
frustrated, uncertain, and left out despite our wanting to
genuinely understand. According to postmodern semiotics, the aim is
to enable everyone who uses dominant and hierarchical 'grammars' to
accept and embrace alternative and more complete contents for the
words or phrases they use. This explosion in meaning is termed
multi-accentuality. Multi-accentuality makes possible a reduction
in psychic dis-equilibrium and social disorganization. It promotes
richer, fuller relationships between and among citizens than does
dominant grammars.

Sign System [Grammars]:  In semiotic terminology, not only are all
words, phrases, gestures, etc., signs but entire fields of
knowledge are themselves sign systems. The language of law is a
sign system. The language of culinary art is a sign system. The
language of mortuary science is a sign system. All grammars or
systems of communication are composed of words and phrases which,
when taken as a whole, mean/convey more than the words or phrases
themselves (see Signifying chain, Grammar).

Significant others: Those persons who are defined as important and
worthy of mutual influence in creating a given line of meaning and
activity.  Usually role-others are defined as situationally
significant.  One must permit those defined as significant to help
shape self and consciousness.  The concept of the nonperson helps
one understand the term.  Just who is defined as a "significant
other" is a very political matter.

Signifying Chain: Originally developed by the linguist, Ferdinand
de Saussure, the speech chain is constructed by the interactive
effects of the paradigm (individually selected words) + the syntagm
(clustering of words as sentences). On the vertical axis (paradigm) 
discourse/talk (realm of parole) is chosen from a common language
(realm of la langue). The paradigm provides a range of options from
which we may select. For example, when describing the weather
outside we might invoke the descriptors 'wet,' 'damp,' 'rainy,'
'moisture,' 'precipitation.' The syntagm is the horizontal axis or
string of words linked together as spoken [this is damp and nasty
weather, 'the rain is just what we needed.' Thus, in ordinary
communication, we select words (paradigms) and arrange or order
them into particular phrases or series of sentences (syntagms). 
Meaning thus derives from both words and grouping activity. The
overlapping and interdependent effect of the axis creates an
ephemeral and imaginary 'space' where meaning (much like a slow
moving film) is constructed and conveyed to the receiver of the
message (see semiotics).     

Sikh:  A reform movement in Hinduism founded by Nanak around 1500
A.D.  The religion is monotheistic and accepts personal re-
incarnation.  Sikhs reject idolatry, caste privilege, wine,
tobacco, hypocrisy, slander and refuse to make pilgrimages to holy
places.  Sikhism requires loyalty, gratitude, philanthropy,
justice, impartiality, truth and honesty.  After considerable
repression, it adopted a militant posture which includes self-
defense.

Simmel, Georg (1858-1918):  German philosopher and teacher.  Simmel
was an early sociologist who contributed to the study of social
forms and to the sociology of art.

Simulacrum:  a copy for which no original exists.  Think of the
perfect son, perfect woman, the perfect student, the perfect
priest; is there an original to which actual women, students or
priests might be compared and evaluated.  The term at once rejects
the idea that there are originals to any idea, image or theory
offered to students or to the public and, in the same moment, a
rejection of the possibility of authentic representation of nature
or society by theories.

Sin:  An offense against one's God.  Christians often divide sins
into venial sins and mortal sins; venial sins may be forgiven but
mortal sins condemn one to eternal punishment.  Mortal sins are
usually listed as murder, adultery and idolatry.  Gregory listed
the seven deadly sins as: pride (hubris), envy, anger, dejection,
avarice, gluttony and lust.  Pride usually refers to the idea that
one is so self-centered that s/he can get along without Christ or
God; see karma for an early version of the idea.  Lust refers to
more than sexual pleasure; it includes investment of desire and
pleasure in things of the flesh rather than in spiritual grace and
goodness.

Sin, Original:  A story that says human beings were once innocent
but tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and lost both
innocence and the capacity to know of God's goodness, mercy, truth,
justice and compassion.  The story of original sin entered into
Christianity with the teachings of Paul which held that since Adam
and Eve sinned, everyone was sinful and was saved through Christ. 
In ancient stories, Haeve [Eve] gave Adonai [Adam] of the fruit and
he took it.  They were then cast out of Eden, a primeval utopia. 
This story is important as an explanation of evil has psychological
rather than social origins and as a justification of male gender
privilege.  It was part of the process by which female gods were
degraded and replaced by male gods some 4000 or more years ago. 
See Theology, feminist.

Single union agreement: An agreement that all workers in a company,
irrespective of grade or trade, should be represented by a single
trade union.  Typically a feature of greenfield sites, with the
union being chosen before the workforce is recruited, in the United
Kingdom.  This differs from the traditional British pattern, in
which whitecollar, skilled and semi-skilled workers may be
represented by different unions.  See, Sweetheart Union.

Site/space:  This is not a definable/identifiable place in
postmodern talk but rather a concept with which to mark topics or
problems studied or perhaps, an opportunity to think about things
not yet imagined.  After Rosenau.

Sixth Thesis: "But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in
each single individual.  In its reality, it is the ensemble of
social relations."  Sociologists know this thesis better in the
form Mead put it: Mind, self on the one side and society on the
other, are twinborn.

Slavery.  An economic system in which some people claim ownership
to the person and labor of other people; they have a right to use,
abuse and to take the fruits of that labor.  Slavery is comprised
of two separate and unequal strata; the slave-masters and the
slaves.  Force and ideology combine to maintain it.  Color has
little to do with this economic form: Vikings took slaves back from
England and France on their raids; Chinese took slaves in war or
bought children from poor chinese to serve as slaves.  The Cherokee
nation held slaves long before Columbus helped transform slavery
into a global market.  Many kingdoms in Africa took people home to
serve as slaves; Slavery is an economic relationship not a personal
dependent upon skin color or intelligence.

Smith, Adam (1723-1790):  Scottish economist and moral philosopher
who located ethical behavior in 'sympathy,' an ability to enter
into the situation of others.  While sympathy leads to ethical
behavior, self-interest leads each person to seek his/her own
economic advantage lead by an 'invisible hand' which, in turn,
contributes to the general welfare.  Smith advocated both
productive labor and a free market as sources of the common good. 
The idea of a free market was emancipatory at the time since it was
set against control of licenses and royalties demanded by Kings
from both manufacturers and merchants.  Smith was influenced by
Turgot, a french economist/physiocrat who tried to free commerce
and industry from control by kings and guilds.  Most
modern/capitalist economists focus more on the free market and the
assumption of an 'invisible hand' while neglecting Smith's concern
with sympathy and productive labor.

Social base: That set of individuals who are accorded status and
thus have the right to construct social reality.  All those persons
who enter into social discourse irrespective of what resources they
have.  Children are born into a population base; if accepted by
some kin group, they are socialized and later, accepted into the
social base via a rite of passage.

Social capital: Generally social capital as the product of people
working together to achieve something unattainable to them or in-
dividuals.  The self, the various forms of material culture as well
as society itself cannot be produced by people working as private
individuals.  Social capital includes material items but is much
more than merely the physical base of culture.

Social Change theory:  There are many theories of social change,
each with varying validity.  Population theories emphasize increase
in number of people per square unit as producing divisions of labor
and related social changes; Cultural diffusion theory points to the
stimulating effects of ideas and practices brought into a society
by migrants; Capitalism pushes changes in technology, in knowledge
systems and in class, race and gender relations.  Those in
environmental studies tend to emphasize degradation of soil, air
and water as leading factors in social change.  Many think that
'great' men are crucial to social change.  Others put religion and
religious prophets in the forefront.  All these are deeply
interconnected and variously important in explaining social change. 
The larger point is that change is endemic; it is impossible to
reproduce a culture or a society precisely in each new generation;
conditions change, social practices change.  Change is ubiquitous;
the pace of change increasing; stability, rare and becoming rarer. 
See Chaos theory for a technical explanation of nonlinear social
dynamics.

Social Contract theory:  The view that all social relations
including political, religious and economic rests on an implicit
contract made by people by word and/or by deed.  The sophists held
that society existed by conventions rather than by divine or
natural law as claimed by stoics.  Socrates accepted his death
sentence as part of the social contract; he had benefitted from
Athenian society so he was morally obliged to accept its judgments.
See Natural Law.

Social Control.  In any conflict situation, social control becomes
a major problem.  Racist/ethnocentric societies, slave societies,
patriarchal societies, class or bureaucratic societies have great
problems of resistance and rebellion.  There are two major forms of
social control; ideological (which see) and coercion.  Most
advanced countries use both.   See also Fascism, Techno-.

Social Control, Parallel Systems:  The USA has eight or ten
parallel systems of social control which make it one of the most
repressive countries in the world.  Most of these controls are in
the private sector or only loosely connected to the state so it
appears that the USA is the 'land of the free.'  In addition to the
criminal justice system which now supervises over 4 million people
[1995], there is the Civil Justice System in which private parties
sue each other; the Administrative Justice System in which a few
government agencies try to regulate some 15 million businesses; the
Medical Control System which uses chemicals and psychology to
control mostly children and women but also those behaviors labelled
as 'perversion:' gambling, homosexuality, drug use and alcoholism. 
Then there is the Private Security system made up of security
guards, private courts, private prisons and private detectives.  It
is larger than the CJS and is growing faster.  The Social Welfare
system monitors the behavior of some 15 million people, mostly poor
women and their children.  It enforces middle class values of
house-keeping, shopping, child care, and sexual behavior.  Then too
there is the Peer Review System which monitors the crimes/delicts
of professors, lawyers, doctors, brokers and such.  It is user
friendly.  Add to all these control systems, those of the secret
armies of the far Right and Left as well as secret policing by the
C.I.A. and the Military as well as the black-lists of owners.  Then
too, there is a Religious Control System, rather small now, it
superintends about 10-15 million people who come before their
priest/minister, confess their sins, and accept penance and
punishment.  See also Fascism, Techno.

Social darwinism: A theory of social change (Herbert Spencer) which
holds that progress is inevitable if only people will cease their
interference with nature.  By this is meant that if others stop
interfering with the plans of private business, there will be
progress.  The implicit assumption is, of course, that whatever
capitalism does is natural and whatever the liberals or radicals do
is interference.  Charles Darwin is said to have repudiated social
darwinism which itself is a more formal version of laissez faire
(let it be) cloaked in the language of science.

Social Democracy: A liberal, parliamentary solution to the problems
of capitalism; it works with capitalism in gradual reform.  Social
democracy entails the state sector picking up the costs of
capitalism: welfare for the surplus population, medicare for under-
paid workers, psychiatric care for the angry and depressed worker
as well as many forms of subsidy to capital.  It socializes the
costs but not the profits of capitalism.  The problem with social
democracy is that it doesn't work when capitalism is in crisis and
people, thinking it is really socialism which has failed, come to
wonder if fascism or racism or nationalism or fundamentalist
religion is the answer.  The turn to right-wing politics in Sweden,
England, Israel and the U.S.A. in recent times (1977) is, in part,
the result of the failure of social democracy.  See democratic
socialism and/or market socialism as an alternative.

Social Distance:  The social gap separating individuals, groups of
classes.  Simmel introduced the concept in his work on social
differentiation; Emory Bogardus developed a social distance scale
to compare the degree to which people accepted or rejected social
relationships with other races, religions and classes.

Social Engineering:  The use of social research to solve social
problems as set forth by those who control a political system of
society or a private organization.  Social planning is the word in
current usage.

Social harness: Full and competent participation in organizing the
flow of meaning, flow of affect, and the flow of behavior observed
in a social occasion.

Social Inequality: Differences between groups, classes and gender
with regard to power, wealth and social honor.

Socialization:  The process by which young people are taught to
honor the values and embody the norms of a society.  The term first
appeared in 1828 and was used by Mead and Cooley to explain the way
in which human behavior is patterned by interaction within primary
groups such as family, school and play groups.  After socialization
is completed, a rite of passage confers adult status on a person. 
That status carries with it the rights and obligations to reproduce
existing social relationships or to work within the system to
change it.

Socialization of the means of production:  The process by which the
tools, factories, land, and other goods used to produce essential
goods and service are appropriated by the state on behalf of
workers as a class.  Sometimes force is used as in the Russian and
Chinese revolutions; sometimes the state sets up its own agencies
to produce collective services; school, mail delivery, roads and
such.

Socialized Medicine:  A system of preventative and therapeutic
health care paid for by the general public and available to all
persons meeting the legal requirements of citizen or visitor to a
country.  Distinguished from fee for service used in market systems
of health care.  See National Insurance; Social Security as well.

Social Justice:  Social justice refers to a set of policies and
programs in which quality housing, health care, education,
transportation, recreation are distributed on the basis of social
status rather or in addition to profit.  Note that 'justice' varies
with mode of production; what is fair and right depends upon the
social relationships considered normal; in patriarchy, it is just
that men rule and women defer to them; in slavery, it is just that
slavemasters appropriate the wealth produced by slaves; in
feudality, it is right and proper that kings and nobles live better
than peasants and crafts persons.  If justice is blind, social
justice is not.

Social Mobility:  There are two kinds of social mobility one needs
to think about: first, the movement up or down social class from
one generation to the next; for example if a father is a farmer and
a son is an engineer, the son is said to be upwardly mobile.  This
is said to be vertical mobility.  Movement from one job to another
within the same class strata is called horizontal mobility.  Such
mobility, while real enough, is a notion which in its language,
awards, symbolically, denial of one's kinship, ethnic, religious
and class origins.

     The second kind of social mobility is that of whole societies;
the center of power and wealth has moved several times in history
from Persia, to Greece, to Rome, to England, to the USA and now
toward Japan and the Pacific Rim nations.

Social opinion:  That which is entirely understandable within the
life experience of the listener/viewer.  Any information set which
reproduces existing social structures/relationships.  Compare to
Public Opinion, News, Propaganda.

Social Realism:  A form of art which takes ordinary people with
ordinary problems as its focus rather than the rich or the
beautiful.  Berthold Brecht wrote plays in the genre; Pablo Neruda
writes poetry in the genre; some of Goya's paintings and much folk
music such as that of Woody Guthrie embody social realism.

Social Security:  A set of programs which provide support for those
who are poor, ill, handicapped, aged, unemployed, or untrained for
a job in a changing labor market.  In capitalist societies, such
programs embody distributive justice and equity [see both] but, at
the same time, give great subsidy to the capitalist class since
much poverty, many illnesses, disemployment and changes in the
labor market are directly connected to the pursuit of profit and
should be charged off as a cost of production rather than public
welfare.  The tax system defines how great the subsidy; regressive
taxation gives ever more subsidy.

Social Status:  A person's place in society in relationship to
others.  Status may be awarded upon condition of birth [race,
gender, class, ethnicity] or upon merit.  If upon merit, the base
for merit award can vary from military to occupational skill to
musical to poetic talent or rapacity in accumulating wealth. 
Status can be stratified or it can be widely distributed without
definitions of better or inferior, i.e., it is possible for every
one to be accorded status as a full human being.

Socialism:  Latin: socius = friend or comrade.  A system of
production where the state holds title to most means of production
while decisions are made by a central planning unit on behalf of
the entire society and to the advantage of the entire society. 
"Socialism" is often used when one means communism; one says
socialism in order to deflect coercion and to avoid emotional
resistance to a point. (See Communism).  Because socialism is akin
to state capitalism (which see) it is held to a good deal more
respectable in the USA than is communism.

Socialism, Bureaucratic:  An economic system in which the state
[not the workers, not the collective] own the means of production
and set economic policy.  Work is organized into formal
organizations with hierarchy, chain of command and differential
rewards.  Not to be confused with communism.

Socialism, Christian:  A wide spread socialist movement in
Christianity in which the social justice of Deuteronomy and the
Compassion of the Christ figure were combined in a call for social
justice for the poor and oppressed.  R. Niebuhr spent most of his
career teaching Christian ethics and Theology at Union Seminary in
New York.  He held that changes in social institutions were more
important than changes in the heart as a way to reduce and redeem
'sin.'  He inspired a whole generation of American ministers to
work for social justice.  See Liberation Theology for a recent
version of Christian socialism; see Buddhism for an old, old one.

Socialism, Democratic.  In democratic socialism, interactively rich
and informationally rich discussions and elections are used to set
social policy.  These processes are to be used in every domain of
public life; politics, economics, religion and education.  Compare
to republican forms of government in which disinterested people
vote once every two or four years without much discussion or
information.  It is this last kind of 'democracy' which Plato
denounced.  As Lenin said [but did not always practice]: Socialism
cannot be victorious unless it introduces complete democracy...'
'...unless it wages a many-sided consistent ...struggle for
democracy.'

Socialism (Lemon): A phrase which mocks the quandary in which
liberals find themselves.  Liberals support capitalism but as the
accumulation crises worsens, the state assumes responsibility for
producing labor-intensive, unprofitable goods and services while
the private sector retains the right to produce high-profit capital
intensive lines of production.  Lemon socialism produces inflation
and fiscal crises.

Socialism (market):  A variety of economic systems in which the
wealth produced by the labor power of workers go directly to them
while some part goes to meet collective/community needs.  Market
socialism attempts to keep the flexibility, creativity and
productivity of the market along with the social and economic
justice of collective ownership.  (See John Roemer or Lane
Kenworthy).

Socialist Humanism: The view that the supreme goal in life is the
welfare of the human individual.  This welfare includes the idea of
liberty, equality, social justice, brother-sisterhood and access to
the material bases for the production of culture.  The principles
of socialist humanism are guided by definite theoretical
assumptions: (1) that the human individual is a social product, (2)
that s/he exists only as an "ensemble of social relations," (3)
human development rests upon and is realized only in the
appropriate social conditions and (4) that social conditions depend
upon the material base and the relationship of individuals have to
the material base. (After Schaff).

Socialist liberation movements: A wide ranging series of collective
efforts to overthrow capitalism, especially colonial capitalism; it
is led by indigenous socialists.  The effort has been coordinated
from Moscow until recent times.

Social-Life World: That world created by intending humans and which
includes status roles, social relationships; specific social
occasions.  Humans may live in a symbolic universe as well as a
physical universe.  If people create such a world, it is called a
social-life world.

Socialist revolution: The transformation of society to communism:
democratic self-management by collectives in the production of cul-
ture augmenting praxis and striving for community.  Sometimes (more
often than not) socialist revolution requires violence.  In Chile,
socialist revolution was peaceful until the Nixon administration
and the C.I.A. engineered and financed its violent end.  In the
Union of South Africa, in the various right-wing military
dictatorships and in the police states, violence will probably play
a role in socialist revolution.  In the United States, the growth
in right-wing paramilitary groups and in police technology may work
to provoke violence in the event of a popular movement toward
socialism.

Sociality: A moment of praxis in which the needs of other human
beings are met at the same time one achieves self-realization.  In
the work of Marx (and later Mead, Cooley and others), self is to be
found in social relationship; not in the person of the private
individual.  Self-affirmation necessarily implies sociality.  In
capitalism, work may not imply sociality since it is private
accumulation, not human need, which drives the productive system
(After Markovic).

Social Magic: The folk process by which social reality is
constructed.  Involving faith, trust, innocence, naivete and hope,
social magic produces wide range of social phenomena including
healing, love, community, self-systems, marriage, authority and
other such social forms.  Social magic has at least four parts: (a)
an ideational process involving goals, purposes and intents, (b) a
reification process involving a ceremony or ritual, (c) a
performance phase in which trusting humans organize their behavior
"as-if" the magical ceremony had validity and (c) all this tied to
seriously understood social endeavor (rather than make-believe,
just pretend, or "practice.") Social magic gains its efficacy from
the remarkable ability of people to understand, believe, and
fulfill.  It is a folk method for constructing social reality in
contrast to scientific methods and theories used to create an
ordered society.  Social magic is part of the legacy from pre-
modern thought without which society would be impossible.  See
self-fulfilling prophecy; Pygmalion studies.

Social opinion: An information set which is pointed toward the
generation of solidarity and consensus.  Public opinion, on the
other hand, assumes conflict and dis-sensus.  Social opinion tends
to reproduce existing social relationships while public opinion
tends to transform social relationships.  Conservative societies
must control public opinion and the process by which publics arise
and one way to do so is to fill the newspapers and television news
programs with social opinion instead of public opinion.

Social psychology: A scientific specialty which attempts to
investigate the social sources of human behavior.  Of special
interest is the self system and how it arises; the role of
communication is the production of shared social-life worlds as
well as the social sources of anxiety, misery, and alienation. 
Formal social psychology has developed quite independently of
Marxism.  Some claim that its European origin was out of the
experimental laboratories of William Wundt.  Much in the way of
early social psychology was a result of racists searching for
explanations of "national character" and superiority.  Social psy-
chology became almost exclusively an American discipline until W.W.
11 and the extensive interest in propaganda first and advertising
later.

Social Psychology, modern:  A discipline and body of findings about
the ways and degree to which human beings shape each other's
behavior within a given socio-cultural life-world.  See Mead,
Cooley, Blumer and the terms they put forward to explain the
construction of social selves and social realities.

Social Psychology, premodern:  Many important social psychological
capacities were developed over the many hundreds of thousands of
years in which human beings evolved.  These are largely ignored in
modernist social psychology and/or taken for granted.  They include
the capacity to believe, to have faith, to trust, to suspend
disbelief, to hope and to act as if things not yet true were or
will become true.  Also included are the many forms of emotion
which bind people together or produce negative responses to
persons, places or things.  Without trust, hope, faith, and belief,
social reality and social relationships would be impossible; even
science itself would not exist. 

Social Psychology, socialist:  Socialist social psychologists hold
that ways of thinking, ways of feeling and ways of acting vary
markedly with one's position in the social order; if one changes
class position, for example, one is very likely to change ideas
about profit, rent and dividends and about the inequality of
wealth.  The same is true of gender, race and age; put ones-self in
the shoes of another person and one sees the social world very
differently.  It is not that people are weak or mindless but rather
that they are embedded in a different set of expectations,
obligations and rewards.  The political point is that if one wants
to minimize or maximize some form of behavior or some way of
thinking/feeling, one should work to change society.

Social Psychology, macro:  A branch of psychology which uses the
larger structures of society to explain, in part, how human
behavior is shaped and pre-shaped.  Racism, Sexism, class status as
well as ethnic and national identification are studied to see how
and to what degree the behavior of whole sets of peoples are
affected/pre-shaped by such structures.

Social Power: The power which is embedded in all social
relationships.  There are many things a person cannot produce
alone.  Self, social life worlds, language, friendship, and society
itself is a collective process.  When people take each other into
account and respond to expectations legitimate within a given role
or role relationship, social power exists.  Such power can
transform the physical and social world; it can also be greatly
abused to cheat, harass, deceive and betray those who respond to
it.  Social life is impossible without mutuality and reciprocity.

Social role: The particular set of expectations about feelings,
activities and thinking assigned to a given social position
[status].  The role of a mother or of a physician varies widely
from culture to culture.  See also Role theory.

Social Security:  In the USA, a system of social services sponsored
and funded by the federal government which provides resources for
the poor, the aged and those who are otherwise unable to sell their
labor power on the market for wages sufficient to meet life needs. 
Benefits may be in cash, in services or in the form of goods; food,
clothing and such.  In Social Democracies, social security is set
at a level such that a decent standard of living is possible.  In
the USA, minimum standards of living are set; social workers are
assigned to monitor the use of cash and other services of the poor.

Social self: The view that a "self" is produced by the interaction
of two or more persons.  For example, the concept of the mother
without the child, the professor without the student, the physician
without a patient are absurd.  Self is not something which resides
within the boundaries of a single individual but rather a complex
interaction between two or more people.  Such a view calls into
questions the meaning of concepts like freedom, individuality,
liberty, and punishment of individuals; most behavior, both good
and bad, is socially constructed as are notions of good and bad.

Social System: A series of directives (rules, laws, norms,
folkways) and compatible behaviors by which a social structure is
produced.  Thus the class system produced class strata.  The rule
that the poor pay more for money, housing, food, and clothing while
the rich pay less [in either absolute terms or terms relative to
income] creates a class structure.  The rule that blue collar
workers are paid less than "professionals" serves as another
support for the class structure.  But a social system is a complex
working whole by which human beings, by organizing their own
behavior and by coordinating with others produce an infinite
variety of social forms.  Sometimes the term is used to refer to
one fairly self-contained social activity; for example a school
system or a money system but properly these are subsystems in that
they don't make sense apart from the larger whole.  Who would study
electrical engineering in a "school" if the society were one in
which electrical appliances were not used.

Society: Latin: societas = to share, to unite.  A complex form of
social life comprized of a network of different social institutions
each with a division of labor and often, hierarchy of governance. 
Often contrasted to Community, see which [after Toennies].

Sociobiology: Sociobiology tries to ascertain which patterns of be-
havior are preprogrammed by inheritance.  There is a great deal of
evidence that many animal species engage in unlearned complex
behavior like building, fighting, mating, and the rearing of their
young.  The question is how much programmed behavior is also found
in the human species; to what extent is it overridden by learned
behavior and under what conditions of stress or panic is
genetically based behavior activated.  Often sociobiology attempts
to replace social theory with biological theory.  Such a practice
tends to eternalize one kind of behavior or another and, thus,
remove it as a topic for political discourse.

     Sociobiology started out as a set of assumptions about the
degree to which social organization (the class system, sexism,
fascism) and social problems (crime, war, alcoholism) are based
upon genetics and gene pools (race).  Generally, the development of
the cerebral cortex and other structures make it possible for human
beings to organize a wide variety of social forms and create quite
enough social problems without blaming nature for it.  The
political point is that sociobiology is used, often
inappropriately, to justify inequality in the name of science.

Socioeconomic status: A depoliticized way to refer to one's class
position [usually S.E.S].  S.E.S. is measured by education, income,
ethnicity, gender, and religion.  In the U.S., people like to think
that there are no upper classes or lower classes and so safe terms
like S.E.S. are used in sociology texts.

Sociology: Latin: socius = friend, comrade + Greek, ology = study
of.  A term created by Comte to refer to the science which studies
relationships between people [not people per se]. Sociologists
investigate how people become social actors and how forms of social
reality are constructed.  The usefulness of sociology is not yet
settled.  Some who practice it view it to be a liberating, exciting
venture appropriate to all persons who purport to be educated. 
Some see it as does E.E. Cummings more as "the naughty thumb of
science prodding the beauty of sweet spontaneous life."  Marx
called it a 'bourgeois pseudo-science.'  As a matter of fact
sociology is scarcely two hundred years old; one should wait a few
more centuries before such vast claims for or against it are made
with so much certainty.  The rule is that any science gets its
meaning from the larger society in which it is found.  Sociology
can be used as a technology of oppression as easily as a critical,
emancipatory science.

Sociology, Emancipatory:  Emancipatory sociology provides a society
with its own critical self-knowledge that it might change or resist
change as the case might be.  It uses conflict theory and conflict
methodology in order to reveal the positive and negative features
of a society in terms of some set of human rights and obligations. 
Emancipatory sociology involves the oppressed and exploited in
setting research questions and in formulation of conclusions.  It
sees its task as distributing such knowledge broadly through the
social order more so than in journals, books, or lectures.  The
larger goal is the creation of a praxis society in which people
know society by helping to build it as much as in the study of it
in college classrooms.  Compare to Consensus theory.

Sociology of development: The application of sociological
principles by which a given social paradigm is improved and
extended.  Revolution, on the other hand requires change from the
social paradigm presently in force.  In capitalism, the sociology
of development is funded by the state and used to manage social
problems at home and to extend the system of capitalism (and
markets) abroad.

Sociology of fraud: The deliberate attempt to create the impression
of a social relationship for purposes of private gain.  The
creation of social reality requires trust, faith, belief and
innocence.  The quest for profits often exploits these human
capacities.  When that occurs, the sociology of fraud obtains and
the social process is put in jeopardy.  See also social magic.

Sociology of knowledge: The marxian premise here is that human
knowledge depends upon and varies with one's position in the social
structure.  However, there is a modifying clause which holds that,
under conditions of stratification, the lower classes tend to
embrace the views of the dominant class to the disadvantage of the
former.  One role of the radical social scientist is to oppose the
mystification of the lower classes by the dominant classes.

Solidarity: Social power in its final, most perfect state. 
Solidarity refers to the condition in which a group of people view
each other as cherished coworkers in achieving a goal.  Where
solidarity exists, social bonds are strong, mutual support is
unreserved, and the exploitation of social bonds for private gain
unthinkable.  The position of the socialist is that solidarity is
desired for the entire society not for just a part of it.  Durkheim
explained some of the sources of social solidarity.  See Bonding.

Solidarity, Mechanical.  A solidarity which arises when people eat,
drink, worship or play together.  Such solidarity can elicit
cooperation between persons and groups who have little in common or
even have, objectively, cause for conflict.  Religion can bind
people into mutually affirming relationships.  It can also bind
slaves and slavemasters together in common endeavor; can bind
workers and owners together; can bind ethnic groups together and
thus generate social peace.  The marxist critique asks whether such
forms of solidarity masks oppression or exploitation.

Solidarity, Organic.  This solidarity is said to arise from a
division of labor in which specialized workers in each occupation
depend upon skilled workers in other occupations.  Electricians,
carpenters, plumbers, masons, and bankers are, all, involved in the
construction of a home, office building or dam.  Regardless of
race, religion or ethnic loyalties, they respond to each other
because they need each other to get the job done.  Looking at the
larger society, bankers, farmers, priests, police, clerks, teachers
and industrial workers all do something the others need...or think
they need.  Durkheim argued that this kind of solidarity was proof
of the super-organic nature of society and proof that mechanical
solidarity alone was not sufficient to solve the problem of social
order.  The marxist critique rises the question of whether the
organic whole which emerges from this division of labor is
congenial to the human project understood as praxis [which see]. 
Both lambs and lions have organs which are functionally
interdependent but which produce very different animals; the point
is to look at the totality [see Luk cs].

Solidarity [the union]:  Solidarnoţţ is the name of the Polish
trade union, the only one independent of the communist party in the
socialist bloc.  It began in 1980 in a dispute over increases in
the price of meat set by the Polish government, itself controlled
by the Polish Communist Party.  After a series of strikes, the
government conceded its demands.  The Polish Supreme Court ruled
that the Communist Party had no legal control over Solidarity.  It
lead to the collapse of bureaucratic, elitist communism in Eastern
Europe.

Soliton:  A fractal system which has the unusual ability to
maintain its structure while passing through another system.  Think
of a wave or of an ethnic group in a foreign land; both can survive
as a structured entity under the right conditions.  Generally, non-
linear feedback loops permit such survival while positive or
negative feedback tends to destroy structure.

Sorel, Georges (1847-1920):  Sorel was a French engineer who became
a militant socialist who theorized about the use of violence to
overthrow capitalism.  He advocated anarchy and syndicalism.  His
major work is Reflections on Violence in which he argued that
violence is necessary to counter the monopoly of law, wealth, and
violence of the capitalist state.  He posited two forms of
violence; physical and psychological.  He argued that widely held
social myths were more powerful stimuli to social movements than
were the utopias of single persons. He is also known for his
defense of Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French Army sent to
prison to cover up the corruption of French Generals and Colonels. 

Soviet:  A Russian word for 'council' or 'committee.'  The soviet
was supposed to be the basic self-governing unit of the USSR.  In
fact, soviets became dominated by the Central Committee of the
Soviet Communist party and lost most of its meaning as a democrat
body.  At one time, there were over 50,000 soviets in USSR.

Soul:  Anglo-saxon term for the governing center and/or vital
principle in human beings.  The Latin synonym is anima; the Greek
is psyche or pneuma.  Socrates and Plato regarded the soul as the
deepest human reality.  Plato divided the soul into reason, will
and appetite.  Aristotle viewed the soul as unity of the living
body.  Christians and other religious people believe the soul is
immortal and lives on after physical death.  Wilhelm Wundt viewed
the soul as process rather than entity.  Gilbert Ryle held the soul
is a categorical error in which one reifies the living, thinking
animal and assigns it a spiritual essence beyond mere living. 
Postmodern theology argues that the soul is a collective process
with a variable reality and with very differing characteristics
depending on both social and personal experiences.  Have a good
day. 

Specialization: The performance of a narrowly defined task usually
relating to technical work.  The thought is that one can do
something efficiently if one does it all the time.  Specialization
often subdivides labor so much that purpose of and control over
work is lost to the worker.  Specialists can be useful in
capitalism since they know little of the social meaning of their
labor, they experience no guilt or shame at the results of their
work.

Spartacus League:  A revolutionary marxist group in Germany founded
by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknetch, F. Mehring and Clara Zetkin. 
It was named after Spartacus, the roman slave who led slave
rebellion against Imperial Rome.  His legions were defeated in 71
B.C.E. and 6000 were crucified.  Luxemburg and Liebknetch were
murdered by German secret police but the League continues as a
youth group affiliated with the 4th International.

Spencer, Herbert (1820-1903):  Herbert Spencer was a self taught
engineer and editor who used Darwin's theory of biological
evolution (struggle for survival; survival of the fittest) to
fashion a theory of social evolution.  It holds that predatory
capitalism, exploitation and ruthless individualism is best in the
long run since the fittest persons, firms and societies survive. 
However, there is no end to this long run and the quest for social
justice and social peace is never on the agenda; only a continuous
and ruthless conflict for domination in markets, politics,
religion, and gender relations.  Spencer lies buried across the
path from Marx' grave in Highgate cemetery in London.

Species Being: This term means about the same as human being.  The
idea is that people do not automatically realize their being as a
human species but rather have the potential to become human if they
work hard at it.

Sports (Alienated): In the U.S., football, baseball, hockey,
basketball and other sports become alienated work [rather than
spontaneous enjoyment of physical grace] because players and fans
are objectified, a small elite make a profit from them.  Modern
sports in advanced monopoly capitalist forms are responsible for
hyper-competition, for authoritarian attitudes and while they
convert spontaneous, sensuous play into a business.  It turns men
and women into sex objects and then uses sexual anxiety to sell
products for more profit.  It programs brutality and violence into
the game in order to generate markets for the sport and for the
products hustled between play.  It takes the beauty, elegance, and
creativity of a physical art form and commercializes it.  That
which was used to create community and promote praxis is, under its
monopoly capital form, a business venture, a tax write-off, a means
to extract more surplus value from those workers with money left
after inflation, taxes, and credit payments.

Sports (and Sexism): Sports reproduces sexist relationships in a
number of ways.  It is used to generate all-male solidarities,
women are used to recruit players, women are used to give a sexual
flavor to activities surrounding a game, women gain the habit of
finding identity and life through their menfolk, women learn to
believe it right to be excluded from other "all-male" activities
like politics, management, and war. (After Koch)

Sports, (ideology of): Commercial sports has the same character-
istics of other cultural items produced as commodity in capitalism. 
As with medicine, prostitution, alcohol, housing or food, football
is offered on the market for profit, players are treated as
objectified capital to be bought, sold and depreciated.  Fans are
generated by appeal to a thin solidarity which stops at the ticket
office.  Women are used as sex objects to embellish the product. 
An elite controls production through laws enacted by friendly
legislators.  When laws fail, bribery, espionage, sabotage and
conspiracy are used to control production just as in all capitalist
activity.  Football and other sports is assigned the impossible
task of making up for oppressive, alienating work.  "Thank God its
Friday" and "Sure Happy its Thursday" leads into the second, happy
half of life according to sports equipment advertizing.  The
socialist position is that sports and play should be enjoyed for
their own intrinsic value, that everyone be able to participate and
that it be part of community activity not market activity.  Life is
not to be divided into a dreary, oppressive part and a second,
happy part.

Stage Theory.  There are many stage theories in the behavioral
sciences.  They tend to describe all of human history in two, three
or four simple stages or ages.  The more famous include: Hesiod who
saw four stages; a golden age now past, then a silver age, a brass
and now an iron age.  Comte saw three stages in social evolution:
first theological, then metaphysical and finally scientific.  Sir
Henry Maine saw two major stages in social relations beginning with
society based upon status and now upon contract.  Then there is the
transition of human bonds from mechanical to organic solidarity
(Durkheim) as well as from traditional to legal-rational authority
(Weber), from sacred to secular social life (Becker), from
community to society (Tonnies), from the simple to the complex
(Spencer) and from trial and error in social evolution to
scientific self-control of society (Ward).  Freud posited three
stages in psycho-sexual development: oral, anal and genital. 
Kohlberg posited six stages in moral development while Marx held
there were three stages; pre-history, history and post-history.  In
pre-history, people were subject to the blind laws of Nature; in
History, they were subject to social laws made by elites and
finally, post-history in which democratic and collective agency was
used to build ever-new social forms.

Stalinism: A form of socialism in which the production of political
culture is monopolized by a leader or leaders.  While the means of
production of material culture is owned by the state, the principle
of collective self-management is forcibly suppressed.  Stalinism is
to socialism as a military dictatorship is to the "free" world.  It
is unmarxist to attribute great heroism or great malevolence to a
single individual; Stalin happened to rise to party leadership in
a given tie, in a given cultural complex-but the name is in common
use.

Standpoint Epistemology, Feminist:  This pathway to knowledge
discards the method of successive approximations [which assumes
there is one final truth which we can discover by zeroing in on it
with ever better hypotheses and research designs].  Instead,
Standpoint epistemology holds that the construction of knowledge
requires many voices; especially those which have been marginalized
by racism, sexism or class privilege.  No one standpoint is given
greater honor over others; together they give a rough understanding
of the many ways to grasp the incredible complexity and ever-
changing patterns of social life.  Standpoint epistemology is
activist in that, in the same moment it reveals a neglected or
forgotten point of view, it empowers those excluded.  Standpoint E.
erases the artificial line between researcher and researched and
puts them both on equal footing in the knowledge process.  After
Laurel Nichols.

State: Latin: state = standing or position.  It probably came from
the three estates in feudalism: clergy, nobility and commoners. 
Louis XVIII called these estates [see which] together to help
govern during the early days of the French Revolution. Now used to
refer to a collective political entity with territorial boundaries
and sovereignty over those who live in it.  A social institution
claims sovereignty over all who live in a given geographical area. 
It comes with agencies to administer, to police, to judge, to
imprison and to punish people.  In structural-functional theory the
state is said to be a neutral organ coordinating the other
institutions on behalf of all the people.  Those of the far Right
and far Left consider the state to be a dangerous and unnecessary
institution which should be dismantled; those on the Right tend to
think the market or the church is the proper institution for
governance; those on the Left tend to think that private citizens
or self-governing groups, firms, churches, communities and other
social units should displace the state. 

State capitalism: A form of capitalism in which the state
guarantees the markets and profits of capitalists by military bases
overseas and by subsiding many of the costs of production. 
Corporate liberals like it since it solves problems of capital
accumulation.  Small businessmen and hard-hats don't like it since
their taxes pay for such "welfare to the rich" and they benefit
very little from it.  Sometimes the economic system of the Soviet
Union is called "state capitalism" as a term of contempt.

State, and Class Struggle:  Many socialists see the state as always
on the side of capital..even when it passes labor laws to protect
workers from danger or long hours or unrestricted firing; or
protects consumers from price-fixing and dangerous additives.  Some
say that the state can be made to work on behalf of the workers;
that socialists should take state power and use it to build a
democratic and communist society.  Marx argued that state power
would 'wither away' under a competent socialist government.  Marx
argued that one should retain the state to administer policy but
that policy should be democratically determined.  See below.

State, Theory of: The nation-state appeared with the rise of
capitalism; state power was taken away from monarchs and feudal
lords through a series of revolutions and located in Parliaments,
Councils and Congresses.  Nations exist through written contracts
in which certain rights and responsibilities are set forth for both
the state and for citizens of the state.  There is a large number
of International laws, adopted by the several nations, which
further establish and regulate the authority of the state.  Those
on the Right and Left view it as a dangerous organ which intrudes
and usurps personal rights and class interests.  
     The marxian theory of the state is that it is an organ created
by a society for 1) the safeguarding of its general interests
against internal and external threat and, 2) helping the capitalist
class extract profit.  After the state comes into being, it begins
to make itself independent in regard to society.  The more
independent it becomes, the more it becomes the agent of a
particular class.  The fight against a ruling class (or
bureaucratic elite: Trotsky) thus becomes a fight against the state
and its police, hence treason. (After Engels.) For Marx and Engels,
the state meant the machinery of coercion not of administration. 
Marx held that administrative government was necessary; the only
question is how administration of health, education, labor and play
is to take place under socialism, communism or anarchy.

State sector: Jim O'Connor says there are three economic sectors;
monopoly, competitive and state. The state sector is that part of
the economic institution which administers government policy,
engages in lines of production unprofitable to the private sector
(education, medical care, policing, and other labor intensive
production), and which provides much of the overhead (water,
sewage, transport, insurance, technical training as well as
research and development) for capitalist enterprise.  About one
third of the work force, work is well paid, there is job security,
good working conditions, advancement, equal opportunity and due
process in most of the federal and in many state governments.

Statistical significance: The point at which a person is willing to
infer a causal relationship between two or more variables using a
variety of mathematical procedures (after Julie; an undergrad at U
Colorado whose last name is lost).  There are better sources for
inference than numerical values but for large processes, numbers
are often helpful in making the structural features of a society
visible.  But note that causal inference loses its power as
dynamical regimes become more and more chaotic.  See Chaos theory.

Status: The standing [state] of a person with respect to the degree
to which (s)he is treated as a significant social other.  Without
status, an individual is a "non-person".  The term is sometimes
used in a snobbish way.  The marxist position is that status
differences are politically inspired, exploitative and alien to the
human condition.  A socialist society requires everyone be accorded
status with full rights in the production of culture.  Persons
without status are excluded from the process of creating culture
and the process of constructing social reality.  Usually a person
occupies several statuses during a lifetime.  A status is a social
structural concept; its social psychological homolog is a social
identity, e.g., mother, priest, nephew, doctor and so on.

Status Crimes:  Juveniles are subject to policing and enforcement
of a variety of behaviors not binding upon adults; smoking, curfew,
drinking, truancy, sexual activity, offensive language, leaving
home, refusing to obey parents, or other behavior which defeats the
socialization routines to which they are subject.  Usually they are
sent to the juvenile justice system, a large and expanding control
system, which parallels the criminal justice system but which is
informed by much more humane and therapeutic judgments.  These have
the twin effect of upgrading the labor market by keeping people in
school for more and more years and, at the same time, reducing
competition for jobs with adults.  Many liberals, especially those
on the far Right view any effort to control/socialize anybody as an
unwarranted infringement of privacy by the state.

Status Honor/differentiation:  Many societies define and rank
people according to status-roles.  Thus gender, occupation, 'race,'
age and ethnicity are divided and ranked according to some
arbitrary system of honor.  This ranking produces much conflict and
greatly distorts symbolic interaction.

Status Inconsistency:  A concept introduced by G. Lenski who
pointed out that some people rank low on some systems of status
honor and high on others.  Lenski reported that such inconsistency
fueled several social problems and social movements.  Others have
found little or no such impact.

Stewardship:  A very important term and view in Protestantism that
there is an elite chosen by God to care for the flocks and the
fields on His behalf.  In Christianity, a steward of God is
required to manage wealth with humility and prudence and preserve
it for the next generations to come.

Strike:  A stoppage of work or all public services by those whose
demands are not met in the established political institutions or
governing bodies.  There have been workers' strikes, consumers'
pickets, student boycotts of class as well as players' strikes in
the effort to achieve the goals of those who do not own the means
of production.

Stimulation, of the economy: In a depression, the government must
look for ways to encourage production and demand or it loses
political legitimacy.  It may use fiscal policy (buying things,
giving tax rebates or reducing taxes).  It may use monetary policy
(lowering interest rates, printing cheap money) or it may give
businesses special subsidies to expand.  All this is called
Keynesian economics and has worked to save capitalism; but the
price of Keynesian economics is increasing federal debt; interest
on such debt now runs about 11% per year of all tax dollars.

Stoic/stoicism:  A school of social philosophy founded by Zeno in
Athens in 100 BCE.  The name comes from the Greek word, Stoa =
porch, where the stoics met.  They contributed much to modern
social philosophy; the idea that there is a natural law which
orders all things according to universal reason [logos] and can be
understood by human beings.  This view informed Roman law [see
Natural law] which in turn lead to the Enlightenment and to modern
fascism.  Stoics held that control of social life by reason
required one to enter public discourse and assume the
duty/responsibility for social life.  Human law was superseded by
this natural law and led to the concept of the cosmopolis; a
society in which people would know and live according to the laws
of the cosmos.  Stoicism takes it name from the capacity of stoics
to commit suicide when they failed in their public duty.  Hegel
elevated the idea of Natural law to a theory that all rationality
resided in the state sector informed by natural law.  This
justifies state control of all aspects of social life and informs
both fascism and neo-fascism.

Story/story telling:  An explanation or description of events which
makes no claims of ultimate, exclusive truth but rather admits that
the story is but the teller's view based upon his/her point of
view.  After Laurel Walum Richardson.

Strata organizing: A tactic of social revolution in which "unrecog-
nized" workers are organized thus adding to the pressures brought
to bear against the capitalist system.  Developed by the National
Labor Federation, self-expanding cadres canvass those who are not
permitted by law to form the usual trade unions and help organize
" mutual benefit societies".  Included in the strata of
unrecognized (by the Taft-Hartley Act) workers are farm workers,
domestic workers, independent "contractors", workers in small
shops, businesses, and service as well as those on welfare and the
unemployed.  These are the "surplus population" and include about
50 million people (in 1977).

Stratification: A process by which some people in a society are
channeled into an inferior (or superior) social positions; usually
class, race and gender inequality.  Such inferiority affects one's
capacity to create culture and to enter into social relationships,
thus diminishing the human potential of those at the bottom and at
the top.  Stratification is not to be conflated with
Differentiation [which see].  Usually a stratification system
requires those defined as inferior to produce items of material
culture while the upper strata claim a monopoly over the production
of political and ideological culture.  Stratification systems also
funnel wealth and power to the top of a hierarchy.  Some may say
stratification is necessary (functional), others say that it is a
structure of domination and only necessary if one group is to be
exploited by another.  Some say stratification is natural since
some animal societies are stratified.  However, human biology may
well be qualitatively different from those animals used as example;
baboons, hyenas, cattle, chickens and such.

     Marx emphasized class stratification while Weber added the
strata of power and social honor as very important separate
stratification systems.  Trotsky and C. Wright Mills viewed the
stratification to be comprised of elites and masses.  Mills
identified three dominant elites: big business, big government and
big military.  Others add several more: big unions, major
universities, several popular ministers as well as some sports
stars and movie stars.  There is now a global stratification in
which some seven nations regulate the political economy of the
world [see Group of Seven].

Structure/Structuralism:  In linguistics and modernistic social
sciences, the term refers to a belief that all systems or
institutions (e.g., art, literature, psychology, religion, sports)
are constituted by basic, essential, structural conditions of
fixity and absoluteness. When these foundational conditions or
"deep structures" are positively identified and encoded in science
talk, they promote a certain ordering of the universe; they are
used as proof that all objects and events in the cosmos are
essentially discoverable, reducible to numbers, equations and
formal theories.  Language, then, is the vehicle through which the
structuring of the universe is ascertained and made manifest in
modern science.  Postmodernists look at the words/terms/signs used
to encode these 'structures' to find what is omitted and excluded
by their use.  Chaos theory suggests that such structures are at
best fuzzy, open, changing and deeply connected to other such
'strange' structures.  Do see Poststructuralism.

Structural analysis: A perspective in sociology in which it is
thought that social structures mediate behavior; e.g., the class
structure, the normative structure, the racist, sexist, and
authority structure.  Such structures are highly regular patterns
of behavior generated by systems of coercion or social control
rather than judgment, interaction, and democratic self-government. 
The interactionist view is that insightful human behavior creates
the norms, classes, roles and other social forms.  The first view
is anti-humanist in that the role of the creative human is
minimized.  Most conservatives (and order theorists) hold that
social structures, are (and should be) hard to change (i.e., the %
rule in parliamentary procedure or the strict enforcement of rules
in school and factory).  The latter view (symbolic interaction) is
often a highly romanticized view of social reality.  Most liberal
theorists are Anglo, middle class and can see that they have some
control over the regularities in their own lives.  However,
interactionism ignores the coercive means and other techniques used
to defeat insight, judgment, reflection, and mutual influence in
the market place, at school, in the shop and in the home.

Structural-functionalism: A sociological perspective that
emphasizes order, harmony and cooperation between the various
segments of society.  Functionalists assume that all of the various
parts (structures) of society are more or less necessary, and that
the continued well-being of society depends upon the harmonious
integration of all these parts--each part must contribute its
special goods/services.  Radicals see this as implicit endorsement
of the status quo, and therefore inherently conservative.

     There are other views of what society is and how it works. 
For instance, Marxists are conflict theorists; they look at society
and see conflict and struggle rather than order, harmony,
cooperation and integration, From a structural functionalist
position, crime is necessary.  Marxists hold that crime consists of
behavior which destroys community, culture, or praxis and is not
necessarily functional.

Struggle for survival:  A central point in Darwin's theory of
organic evolution which holds that people, groups and species
compete for food, sex, and status; those best suited to obtain
these survive and those which do not, are eliminated directly by
death or indirectly by inability to rear offspring.  Since it
assumes conflict to be the source of change, it is regarded as a
conflict theory.  Peter Kropotkin [see whom] wrote about
cooperation as a major factor in both change and survival.  See
also Social Darwinism.

Students for a Democratic Society [SDS]:  A radical student
movement founded at Port Huron in 1962 which produced the New Left. 
It's main activity was resistance against the war in Vietnam but it
informed student power movements all over the USA.  It survives in
10 or so splinter groups which continue to provide theory,
leadership, and experience to progressive causes.

Subject: Latin: sub = under; jacere = throw.  The word was first
used to refer to 'that which grounded human thought.'  Now it is
used to refer to the thinker rather than the grounding of what is
perceived and interpreted by the thinker.

Subject, decentered:  A concept put forth by Lacan and others that
the social self as subject and agent of his/her own behavior is
minimized by the larger social categories of which he/she is part.
Modern social psychology attributes too much agency and 'beingness'
to persons and thus undermines the quest for social justice and
agency. The postmodern view of self challenges the mainstream
(modernist) Cartesian notion which holds that individuals are
purposeful, rational, stable, active. This view is contained in
Descartes's famous dictum: cogito ergo sum.  Language forms, in
racist, sexist or elitist societies, shapes and pre-shapes the
behavior of the individual; emancipation requires new 'grammars'
with which to empower and to engage human agency rather than those
now used which categorize, label and de-individuate the human
being.  Lacan used the $ sign [an 'S' for subject with a slash
through it, for negation] to refer to the person who is alienated
from his/her own knowledge and desires.  See Discourse, Lacan's
four.

Subjectivity:  1) a personal point of view seen to be partial and
distorted when compared to objectivity [see which], an impersonal
and more accurate view of nature or society.  2) postmodernists use
the term to warn one away from treating a person as 'subject;' that
is, as the sole author of his/her own beliefs, intentions, actions
or understandings.  The acting subject is lost in an age of images,
appearances, simulations and dramaturgical enactments.  It is also
lost in a bureaucratic, elitist social form since agency is
concentrated in top echelons.  The subject is thus a fiction for
which no stable original 'real self' exists in postmodern thinking.
After Rosenau.

Substantive rationality:  A system of planning or decision making
which considers goals as well as means.  In Weber's work,
bureaucracies are said to be rational in technical terms, that is,
bureaucracy is a rational means to achieve goals.  However, those
goals may be decidedly elitist and destructive.  Weber wanted to
encourage people to be less innocence about the desirability of
rationality which had, since the Enlightenment, been the center
point of all knowledge processes.  In socialist theory, substantive
rationality means organizing capital and labor to produce the
material conditions under which people can create themselves as
human beings in collective and democratic political dialogue.

Suicide:  Self murder.  Durkheim, with keen insight, explained
suicide in terms of the degree to which a person is integrated into
social life; at the low end of social integration, there is anomic
suicide, in which people destroy themselves because social bonds
dissolve and life becomes meaningless to them.  Then when people
are tightly integrated and there is a threat to the social group,
people may sacrifice themselves in order to protect the group. 
Elderly Eskimo men and women sometimes walk away to die quietly
when food is short; pilots sometimes dive their plane into a target
in order to protect their own military.  Then there is there is the
effort to die with dignity and/or to end pain; Dr. Kevorkian in
Michigan has been helping people who are beyond medical help commit
suicide.  In England, there is the Hemlock Society which offers
instruction to people on how to end their lives quickly and
quietly.  The later is often called 'mercy killing.'

Superstructure: That part of a social life world shaped by the base
[means of production].  It includes art, science, music, politics,
law, cinema, literature and religion.  Marx held that the ways in
which people relate to each other in the production of material
culture (the base) affects the ways of thinking, feeling, and
behaving of people (their consciousness).  This consciousness
shapes the superstructure; art, science, music, family, literature,
ideology and religion and politics. Marx held the material base to
be determinate of the superstructure while Max Weber argued that
the superstructure (e.g., the Protestant ethic) shaped the base
(i.e. the capitalist system).

     Postmodern sensibility and symbolic interaction theory views
the dichotomy is false; ideas are always central to human behavior
and, at points in the historical process, produce great change. 
Then too, law, religion, and science are also productive processes. 
The product is ideological and political culture and are just as
important as material culture.

Surplus Labor: In Grundrisse, Marx asserted that capitalism creates
a work ethic of strict discipline and industriousness which, when
mere subsistence needs are satisfied, is surplus.  This surplus
labor is a major cause of the collapse of capitalism.  When people
have time, energy, and such an ethic, they begin to fight for their
full humanity; against domination, against repressed sensuality,
against stupid performance and stupid products.  In vulgar Marxism,
people are thought to revolt when material conditions are bad; in
this analysis, revolt occurs when people have the material
resources to assert their humanity.  The implication is that the
new working class of alienated professionals and technicians also
are a revolutionary base; perhaps more so than the blue collar
worker.

Surplus population: All those surplus to the production of culture. 
In capitalism, those surplus to the manpower needs of capital
intensive production.  The dynamics of capitalism produce a surplus
population since one way to increase profits is to replace workers
with machines.  Machines don't get pregnant, have hangovers, go on
strike, appeal to one's humanity, talk back, require pensions, or
fall in love.  People do and so reduce profits.  And without
employment, people are irrelevant to the exchange process.  In
capitalism only those with money are accorded status in the
exchange process and the rest are surplus.  This is probably the
most important concept in marxist theory along with, perhaps,
community and praxis.  The surplus population includes the poor,
the unemployed, older persons, children without families,
prisoners, and the idle rich.

Surplus production: A major contradiction of capitalism is that,
using capital intensive modes of production, a huge amount of goods
are (or could be) created while, seeking profits, workers are
underpaid or replaced by machinery.  This means that there is no
market (and therefore surplus production) since unemployed persons
have nothing to exchange for the commodity and underpaid workers
must spend their wages for basics such as food, shelter, clothing,
and medicine.  With a huge surplus production and a large surplus
population, many problems arise.  The welfare state supports the
surplus population while the warfare state creates or protects
markets at home and overseas for the surplus productive capacity
unused by domestic markets.

Surplus Population:  That part of a society defined as unnecessary
by those who control the polity or economy of a society.  In racist
societies, minorities are defined as surplus to the human process
and are banished, confined or murdered by one means or another.  In
sexist societies, female children are defined as surplus and are
killed at birth, given less food or other resource and generally
treated as less than full adults if they survive.

     Capitalist societies have a built-in tendency to disemploy
people since profits depend upon reduction of labor costs.  Those
who cannot find work which provides an acceptable profit rate are
thus surplus.  They are, of course, not surplus to their families
or to the human project; only to those transform labor power into
a commodity.  See underclass, population theory, Malthus.

Surplus Value: That part of the value of production which is above
and beyond the costs of reproducing the labor force.  It can be in-
creased by certain political acts: (a) by compensating workers with
less than enough to produce a social-life world, (b) by replacing
human labor with machine technology or (c) by replacing a market
with a monopoly thereby increasing the price of the item in
question.  Surplus value is appropriated by means of profits,
rents, and/or interest.  In 1976, about 26% of the amount paid in
wages was appropriated as "surplus".

Supply and Demand, the law of:  There is a tendency for supply to
increase or decrease when the demand for it increases or decreases. 
In capitalism, since demand is a function of wages and salaries,
and since wages and salaries depend upon profits, there is another
tendency for demand to go up or down apart from human need or
desire.  In communist or socialist economics, supply is supposed to
be set according to the needs of persons and communities rather
than profit.

Survival of the fittest:  A principle of organic evolution put
forward by Darwin which held that those which best fit into an
ecological niche had a greater chance to live and to reproduce
their genes.  It does not say that the fittest are those persons
who are richest or most powerful since peaceful cooperation may fit
the conditions of the environment better than violence, rape, and
destruction.  See both Darwin and Krop0tkin.

Sweetheart Unions:  In the US, the company sets up a 'union' to
represent workers who are then forced to join.  Or a company bribes
union leaders to cooperate with company labor rules.  In the UK,
companies run a 'beauty contest' in which unions who wish to
represent workers present their case to the company, which selects
the union least likely to show any sign of militancy, and thus the
one least likely to represent the interests of workers with any
vigour.  This is particularly true of Japanese-owned plants. 
Typically, workers are unconvinced of the ability of a company-
selected union to represent them, and union density is low by
British standards (e.g. 18% union membership at Nissan and
Sunderland).

Swinks:  An acronym for a new family form: single women including
kids.  As more and more older women become politicized about abuse
and battering, they begin to form households in which two or more
such women live together with their children; sexual intimacy may
or may not be part of the living arrangements.  See Monks, Dinks.

Symbol: An information set (voiced, acted, written or encoded in
some fashion) to which shared and arbitrary meaning has been as-
signed.  Symbols carry three kinds of information which guide human
behavior: a) referential content which give the meaning or the
standard use of a word; b) emotional, which orients one to shame or 
delight, avoidance or acceptance, reward or punishment; c)
behavioral content which guides one toward or away from some
action, person or situation.  Symbols are, thus, more than just "a
guide to social reality.  Without symbolic interaction, there would
be no social life world.  And a new concept changes social reality
by just that much.

Symbols sets:  People have four sets of symbols with which they can
help define a situation and construct a social-life world, 1)
voiced symbols which use some eight variables upon which to encode
meaning [tone, pitch, volume, pace and such]; 2) face and body
talk; hands, face, legs, and eyes are used extensively to transmit
information; 3) clothing and body decorations are used to denote
gender, age, authority and other background information and 4)
props such as keys, clip-boards, guns and such.  These are all
personal media and cannot easily be alienated.  Compare to mass
media which is, in its format, alienating.

Symbolic Interaction:  A very complex process by which ideas are
converted into social facts.  In a 'self-fulfilling prophecy, the
prophecy contains the idea of the role, the occasion or the social
institution under construction.  Then, through a remarkable process
using words, gestures, clothing, equipment and architecture forms
of social reality are constructed by some set of persons.  This
view of reality formation contrasts to theories which locate human
behavior in genes or purely psychological processes.  It also calls
into question the idea that forms of social reality exist
independently of the people who construct them anew in each
marriage, church service, class, or business act.

System (generally): A set of entropy segregating mechanisms; any
fairly structured entity which has a discernible boundary between
it and its environment.  These range from the layers of sand,
gravel and rocks lain down by a river to complex living things. 
The human body can segregate entropy (pick out amino acids, sugars,
fats, and other things from what is ingested; it can pick out
oxygen molecules from others in the air and so on.  The human body
is a working system (is alive) only if it segregates entropy and
thus re-produces order.

     Chaos/Complexity theory teaches us that the boundaries of most
systems are open with fuzzy boundaries; their geometry is fractal,
that is, systems do not occupy all the space available in a
time/space region.  If one changes scale of observation, even the
denser system can be seen to be loosely connected; think of atoms,
molecules, the human body and the classes you attend at college. 
They seem solid and stable but they are really quite open and
unpredictable.  See Soliton.

Systematically Distorted Communication: In Habermas, the barriers
to a communication which produces normative behavior are usually
subjected to scrutiny and reduction through "discourse", as special
kind of conversation about things we ordinarily assume.  But some
social world-view prevent discourse and thus distort communication. 
When communication is distorted, human behavior ceases to be free
and uncoerced.  Elitism and mass media as they are organized do not
permit discourse.  Rules about secrecy, about authority, about
expertise all protect the implicit validity claims of one party to
be called into question.

Systems theory: A set of propositions about how order is produced
across all levels of physical and social reality.  Generally a
system depends upon the transfer of order from its environment if
it is to survive as an improbable arrangement of events.  The
radical aspect of systems theory is that, if a system is not able
to draw order from its environment, either the environment must be
changed or the system must change.  If the environment is
threatened by the transfer or order, then the system itself must
change.  Theories of society, family, bureaucracy, crime, deviance
or disorder which ignore the environment (human and physical) of a
society are political obstacles to adequate understanding and to a
search for adequate variety.

Taboo: A rule forbidding certain behavior usually grounded in a
sacred belief.  Any behavior which interferes with social magic is
the subject of taboo.

Taney, Roger:  Chief Justice on the US Supreme Court from 1836 to
1871.  Taney ruled in favor of States rights, slavery, restrictive
voting rights for workers and women as well as control on the
presidency.  At different times, Taney worked for mass suffrage,
condemned slavery as a 'blot on our national character.'  Taney was
embodiment of the struggles and conflicts of a changing society. 
Early on, he was generally progressive in local terms; as he aged
[and had more social power], he became increasingly hostile to
humanitarian causes.  The Dred Scott decision, which he engineered
brought him savage public criticism.

Taxation:  Public funds are raised by a number of methods chief
among which is taxation.  Taxes can be placed upon goods and
services, property and gifts.  Generally tax policies reflect the
degree to which distributive and redistributive justice is made
real in a society.  Subsidies to the capitalist class through
grants, direct payments and loopholes in the tax code are, in 1995,
about 10 times greater to far fewer persons then are subsidies to
poor people through welfare programs.  Generally taxation policy is
determined by those who have the greater economic and social power.

Taxation, progressive:  Tax policies which increase the tax rate at
income increases.  A person making $20,000/year might pay taxes at
a rate of 17% for any taxable income; a person making $30,000/year
might pay 20% while a person making $50,000/year might pay $25%. 
After tax income is still greater for those in the higher tax
brackets even though they paid more.  See regressive, below.

Taxation, regressive:  Any tax policy which puts greater burdens on
poor people and lesser burden on the rich.  Generally flat rate
taxes, while appearing equal, take a greater share of personal
income of the poor than the rich.  For example, if you pay 500
dollars in tax a year out of an income of $20,000, it is 1/40th of
your income but you have only 19,500 left to meet all your other
expenses; if you pay 5000 dollars out of an income of $200,000 it
is still 1/40th of your income but you have $199,500 left to meet
necessary expenses...your discretionary income is much higher; you
can afford to contribute to the campaigns of those who make tax law
and still have a very comfortable margin.

Taylorism: A system by which a clear-cut division of mental and
physical labor is established throughout a factory.  It is based on
the precise time and motion analysis of each job in isolation and
relegates the entire mental part of the task to the managerial
staff (From Taylor).  Bear in mind the marxian position that the
production of culture requires the unity of mental and physical
labor and you will understand why socialists cannot abide by
taylorism and/or scientific management which claims a monopoly over
thinking for management.

Team briefing: A method of communication which involves "cascading"
information chain to meetings of workers with their immediate
managers.  Typically, the level of detail given to a team will be
greatest for their immediate work area, with progressively less
detailed coverage of, say, the rest of the department, the whole
office or factory, and the entire corporation. In unionised
environments, team briefing is often criticised for "going over the
heads" of the union representatives directly to the workers.  It is
certainly a method of trying to get workers to see their employment
from management's point of view.

Team working:  Workers are encouraged to see themselves as a
"team," perhaps encouraged by a bonus paid to all members of the
group.  This can encourage workers to police each other, in that a
worker perceived by his or her colleagues as lazy or incompetent is
seen to be reducing everyone's earnings.  Team working also usually
involves a measure of flexibility, with each worker being trained
to do every job within the team's area of competence.

Total quality management: A management philosophy which encourages
workers to get the job right first time and to see other
departments within the same company as "customers" i.e., as
competitors.  Thus, the drawing office sees the workshop that will
use its designs as its customer.  Often, especially in the United
Kingdom, associated with standardisation of procedures rather than
flexible response to each unusual problem.
Techne: The application of scientific principles to the production
of material items.  In ancient Greece, techne was the activity of
women and slaves and involved the satisfaction of mere physical
needs using mere technical knowledge while praxis was concerned
with civil matters and the activity of humans quo human beings and
relied upon wisdom and judgment.  Theoria dealt with the eternal
truths and was the province of the gods but, the thought is, theory
can be revealed by a variety of methods all involving escape from
the things of the flesh and things of the world.  

Technocracy: The rule by experts; engineers, scientists and
specialists.  The role and function of the politician is preempted
by the expert.  In the 30's, many workers thought that technocracy
would be better than the elitist version of politics which every-
where thrived.  The thought is that there is a natural division of
labor and that the experts should make decisions since they alone
know what is right and natural.  But the use of experts to
determine foreign policy, manage workers, generate publics and set
medical policy strips away important social values; praxis and
community.  In a well designed society, the knowledge process would
be widely available such that professionals and lay persons would
share the research process as well as decisions about how to use
knowledge gained from it.  Under capitalism (and bureaucratic
socialism), knowledge and technology become instruments of
domination and contribute to the growth of the surplus population. 
See also techne and technology.

Technology: Social knowledge objectified in the form of machines
and routines.  Any system for the transformation of natural
material into cultural goods and services.  In systems theory, a
means of segregating entropy.

Teleology:  A view that all systems have a natural destiny.  The
acorn is destined to become an oak tree; a nation is destined to
kill off Native American Indians and take possession of the land
from sea to shining sea; a person has a natural destiny which can
be known by I.Q. tests, Aptitude tests and Preference tests.  Chaos
theory and postmodern philosophy of science sets this idea aside as
of limited validity.  As Steven Jay Gould pointed out, organic
evolution could have taken any number of paths at a great many
points in the history of the earth; it was by no means certain that
human beings would evolve nor is it certain that they will survive
in the present form.

Terrorism:  Terrorism refers to the illegitimate use of force by
those who oppose existing social, political or economic
arrangements.  As such it has a built-in conservative bias since
the terrorists who take state power are later defined by their own
historians as freedom fighters or progressives.  The IRA is a case
in point; they stay together, claim responsibility [so the British
will know that resistance to their control Northern Ireland is
still opposed], and are given such tasks over and over again until
one or more are caught.  There are three views/definitions of
terrorism the student should know/consider; first there is the idea
that terrorists are organized into small, secret cells and are
given orders via a 'cutout' from those who hire/use them.  Then
there is the idea that modern terrorists are assembled to engineer
a given act of murder or bombing and then quickly disperse back to
their country(s) of origin.  They seldom claim responsibility and
often try to blame other groups.  Thirdly, terrorism in Algeria
under the French had the goal of destroying the false peace between
the French Army and the mass of Algerians: first the act of terror
against the Army; then greater repression by the Army; then
finally, a general uprising.  The process worked well in Algeria
but might not succeed well elsewhere.  See Sorel, Georges.

Text:  A postmodern term which treats all theories, all events, all
persons, places or things as a special construction in a special
socio-cultural world.  Everything is text including this definition
of text.  See simulacrum.

Theology:  The study of the god concept.  Most people believe a)
there is a supreme being which b) has a plan for social life and c)
rewards those who lives in harmony with that plan.  Most believe
that there is a life after death in which one is rewarded/punished
for one's behavior in this world.  Some believe in a hell to which
those who fail to accept the plan are sent.  Marx held that the god
concept was the projection of the power of the people onto
imaginary beings.  Durkheim held that the god concept embodied
social power experienced when people came together.  Hegel said
that God embodied the slow movement toward full knowledge of the
real world as did Teilard de Chardin.  Socialist humanism is a
religion but not a theism.  See Religion.

     There are three major theistic religions: Judaism,
Christianity and Islam.  There are three major a-theistic
religions: buddhism, confucianism and humanism [which see].  Then
too, there are any number of poly-theistic religions: Hinduism,
Shintoism and paganism.  These later may have hundreds, even
millions, of gods to which they turn for inspiration, guidance and
comfort in time of trouble.  See Sanctification; liberation
theology, alienation.

Theology, feminist:  Feminist theology is complex and varies widely
across theologians but generally accepts there was a time when
major gods were female; as such they were nourishing, caring,
compassionate and mothering.  With settled agriculture; especially
irrigation, male gods replaced female gods; they became
controlling, angry, punitive and jealous of other gods.  Zeus,
Jehovah and Elihu were the first such male gods.

Theology, Liberation: This theology was developed by worker-priests
in Latin America and from France, Italy, Spain and later Argentina
in dialogue with marxists.  It holds that announcing the Gospel is
not merely a matter of preaching the word to individuals but rather
the church is obliged to work toward both liberation and salvation. 
Liberation in the world means opposition to "structural sin" which
plagues this world.  There is still concern for personal sin which
threatens salvation in the sacred realm.  Those priests who embrace
this theology enter the world as social critics who attempt to
identify structural sin and trace that sin to its sources.  The
working assumption is that since all people are brothers and
sisters in the sight of God, all enjoy an equal and inviolable
dignity while alive.  This reasoning calls all class, power and
honorific relations into question and tends to lead to democratic
and communistic social organizations. (After Dodson)

Theology, Postmodern.  There are two major postmodern views on
religion: affirmative and nihilistic. Both forms of postmodern
theology hold that the god concept is a human product rather than
a supernatural being who created the universe and who gives all
natural and social laws.  Durkheim argued that the experience of
extra-ordinary effects occur during religious activity and is taken
to be proof of supernatural beings.  It is, he says, these effects
of special acts and psychogens which produce feelings of ecstacy
and visions of the past and future which are, in turn, viewed as
proof of the existence of a supernatural world; theism is
completely natural in this account.  Nihilistic postmodern views
argue that since God is dead/non-existence, each person has an
equal right to claim or do what s/he believes best for him/her. 
Since there is no final authority nor any firm anchor point for
moral/ethical behavior, one can do as one wishes.  Affirmative
Postmodern theology asserts that, even without the god concept to
endorse them, there are good reasons to act ethically and to embody
many of the teachings of great spiritual leaders.  Young argues
that dramas of the Holy are progressive when they sanctify people
to each other and to the good earth.  The political question then
revolves around the ways those who use different dramas of the Holy
are treated.  Liberation theology requires these be respected and
honored in their own right.  See Humanism/socialist humanism.

Theory:  From the Greek, Thea meaning to view, to gaze upon; we get
our words, Theology, Theory and Theatre from the same root word;
can you figure out why?  In modern science the word refers to the
immutable essence of things or regular patterns of behavior of a
system or set of systems.  In Critical theory, to be distinguished
from praxis: that which dealt with the changeable affairs of
humans, In Greek social philosophy, techne was relegated to women
and slaves; praxis to men and theoria was the province of the gods.

Theory, (Theory of): It would not seem necessary to spend time
thinking about a theory of theory or about a theory of methodology
but, as it turns out, some important things happen in the name of
theory and some in the absence of theory.  In brief, the marxian
perspective is that the realm of ideas (theory included) does not
become a material force until an idea (or theory) is apprehended by
insightful knowing humans and translated into overt behavior.  This
contrasts with idealism and mysticism in which the realm of ideas
have a life and a causal effect apart from actions of intending
humans.  The famous 11th thesis embodies the point.  Ideas
themselves do have a part to play in social revolution but will not
by themselves move the world one stop closer to a decent society.

Theory of the state: The liberal view is that the state exists to
balance reciprocity between social institutions.  The conservative
view is that the state interferes with free enterprise.  The
marxist view is that the state is the "executive committee" of
capitalism, i.e., it exists to protect capitalism.  The neomarxist
view is that the state grows to solve the problems of capital
accumulation and political legitimacy in capitalism/elitist
societies.

Thermidor:  The 11th month on the calendar of the French
Revolution.  It gave a name to the overthrow of the revolution by
the Right-wing in french politics.  Now it refers to the wave of
repression after a revolution, the counter-revolution triggered by
that wave and the merciless execution of the revolutionaries when
or if the counter-revolution succeeds.  One could use it as a
cautionary term to encourage the peaceful quest and acceptance of
social justice; it is not clear who will win but it is certain that
whomever loses will suffer greatly after the revolution.  Note that
there was no Thermidor after the Nicaraguan revolution; enemies
were forgiven by the Sandinistas and, after a successful peaceful
counter-revolution, the Sandinistas were forgiven.  Liberation
theology was important before, during and after that revolution.

Tipping:  A small gift for special service from waiters, barbers,
porters, guides, drivers and the like.  Now an automatic and
expected gratuity however good or indifferent the service. 
Socialists view it to be degrading in that it puts one person in a
position of false good will toward another and it is used to
justify low wages in many service industries especially bars and
restaurants.  In addition, it tends to result in poor service to
low income people.  Yet waiters and porters have to pay their bills
regularly; until wages are adequate and the labor process under the
control of workers, it is best to tip; at a minimum, $1 per person
for light meals; 2$ per person for dinners and suppers even if the
bill is under $10...so say my students who work their way through
college when I gave this lecture.

Third World: Those states which are neither capitalist (first
world) or socialist (second world).  Including all of Africa except
Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa, all of Latin America except
Cuba, most of the Near East, Mid East and Far East countries as
well as South East Asia.  The third world is a prize for capitalist
countries: cheap and docile labor, access to markets, and
availability of raw materials.  In order to guarantee control of
third world nations, the national bourgeoisie is invited to share
part of the profits, politicians are subsidized by the multi-
national corporation, military bases are established and the local
military is well supplied and trained in the capitalist country. 
In order to control the class struggle and socialist agitation,
right-wing dictatorships have arisen, sponsored mostly by the U.S.
They combine massive political oppression with openness to foreign
investment.  The best examples are Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Indonesia, Greece, South Korea and Taiwan.

Total institution: A form of social organization in which one's be-
havior is prescribed in minute detail; in which one is treated en
bloc rather than as an individual; in which one and only one social
identity is permitted; and one in which one is socialized (or
resocialized) to do difficult or dangerous work apart from material
rewards.  Some total institutions are mere holding tanks for the
refuse of a poorly designed society: prisons, asylums, orphanages
and such.

Totalitarianism:  A form of government in which all significant
aspects of social life are controlled by the state which, itself,
is in the hands of an Elite.  Very similar to Authoritarianism
except that Authoritarianism permits limited freedoms usually to
males or small business persons in the civil [private] sector. 
Think of an American prison or the American Military for the
closest example of such social organization most of us see.

Totality: According to Luk cs, bourgeois science could not be a
critical science since it takes the viewpoint of the individual (or
a sample of individuals) and ignores the "totality" which gives
meaning to individual acts.  In order to understand poverty, one
must understand the whole system.  The term totality refers to the
whole system which operates to produce the phenomena found within
it. (After Lasek).

Totalitarianism: An ideology which sees in itself a total and
complete explanation of everything in its premises; which asserts
the rightness of acting logically upon those promises irrespective
of the horror or stupidity of that action; which vests the force to
control dissent in a bureaucracy and which claims a monopoly over
the production of political culture. (After Hannah Arendt).

Totalizing:  A postmodern term referring to theories which offer a
way of understanding everything and which, thus rejects other ways
to understand and respond to events in the world.  Thus marxist
theory, the Christian Bible, Islamic theology and Structural-
functionalism are totalizing and are to be suspected.  See
Narrative.

Trade Union: A form of worker organization in which the workers in
a given industry join with the owners to extract surplus value from
the rest of the workers and surplus population.  The interests of
workers as a class are put aside in return for job security,
relatively good wages and good working conditions, pensions, petty
grievance procedures and a chance for advancement to middle echelon
jobs.  These benefits help drive inflation but the big unions
protect themselves against it so it affects those in the
competitive sector and those in the surplus population.

Trade Union Congress:  The most general coordinating organization
of British Labor Unions which include some 170 unions.  Founded in
1868, it gave rise to the Labour Party in Britain and retains
connection with it.  Delegates to the Congress [T.U.C.] are
elected.  It is different from US trade unions in that it works for
the common good as much as the welfare of and only of union
members.

Tragedy:  Greek: tragos = male goat + oide = song.  In early Greek
theatre, a chorus dressed in goat skins sang about heros in
religious dramas.  Aristotle held it to be a dramatic form in which
the central actors suffer from their own actions, errors and
hubris.  Schelling viewed tragedy as a collision between freedom
and necessity, reconciled by acceptance of punishment by the hero. 
Schiller first viewed tragedy to depict suffering and to arouse
pity.  Later he took Kant's view that tragedy embodied the stubborn
resistence of the hero to the suffering which comes to us all. 
Shakespeare used this dramatic form to reduce the nobility to more
human, hence fallible status.  [Shakespeare used the comedy form to
discredit pre-modern sensibility]. These themes are buried in all
efforts to know, to understand, to control and to change.  One
should understand this going into critical social science.

Transaction: The term means to emphasize the fact that knowledge is
always a result of the mutual influence of the inquirer on what
(s)he observes.  If the realm of inquiry is everyday life, then the
inquirer is simply a human being seeking to produce with another
human being what they are going to do.  After that is decided and
they both "know" it, then intersubjective understanding exists and
a social "fact" (i.e., that which is validly known) is established. 
Dewey and Bently used the term to avoid the subject-object split
implicit in such terms so common in a scientific paradigm the point
of which is to treat as natural the isolation of people from each
other.

Transpraxis: This is a concept developed by Fredrich Nietzsche and
his criticism of Hegel's master-slave dichotomy. Nietzsche argued
that when a person or group reacts to hierarchical power relations
and repudiates them, there is often an affirmation of a negation.
In the process of negation, relations of production are
reconstituted. For example: children who are bullied by other older
children attempt to neutralize the power of the bullies by
soliciting the help of their even older siblings. In so doing, the
nature of the struggle (kids using power on one another) has not
been altered.

     Transpraxis is an affirmative attempt to liberate the subject
from the imprisonment of language/thought/habits precisely during
those moments when there is reaction to oppression. The goal is not
to reverse the hierarchies (other children now in control of
bullies); rather, that which is resisted is the hierarchy itself
(good/bad; objective/subjective; white/black). If successful,
transpraxis is the vehicle by which to effect a more humanistic and
just social order. It validates multiplicity, difference, and
diversity without privileging any one form of multiplicity,
difference, or diversity.

Trope:  Heading.  Postmodernist use the concept to refer to the
practice of treating personal opinion or cultural uses as if they
were eternal and objective categories of existence.

Trotsky: Lev Davydovich Bronstein was born in 1879 in southern
Russia of jewish peasants.  Sent to prison, he took the name of his
prison guard in Odessa to confuse the police.  Trotsky joined Lenin
and helped put down the counter-revolution.  Trotsky's ideas
include the idea that simple societies could move directly to
socialism without going through capitalism; that the world
capitalist system required a strong Soviet state to protect itself
from international capital; that local soviets should have real
power; that there should be a 'permanent' revolution even within
socialism; that there was a place for 'limited' markets; that
socialism requires co-operation between workers in all industrial
nations [rather than 'socialism in one state as Stalin urged]. 
Stalin expelled him from the USSR; he finds refuge in Mexico where
he criticizes both German and Russian fascism; for Trotsky, the new
worker's enemy becomes bureaucracy.  He urged its overthrow in a
political as opposed to an economic revolution and called for a
plurality of socialist political parties.  He organized the 4th
socialist International in 1838 in Paris; he called for socialist
democracy, for the overthrow of bureaucracy and for the liberation
of the 3rd world.  He was murdered in Mexico in 1940 by Ramon
Mercader almost certainly on the orders of Stalin.

Truth: Anglo-Saxon: treowth = fidelity.  In modern science, the
term refers to the goodness of fit between a set of words and the
reality which it purports to describe, explain or predict.  In this
knowledge process, truth mirrors/corresponds to reality.  In
analytic logic, truth is a set of coherent propositions.  In
pragmaticism, truth resides in the efficacy of a statement; its
usefulness in solving some problem.  In semantic theories of truth,
truth is a set of statements [a meta-language] which is based upon
statements from everyday language.  

     In postmodern sensibility, truth is a social product; things
defined as true may in fact become true if people believe and act
in way compatible with the definition of the situation.  The
assumptions of correspondence and coherence do not fit the
nonlinear dynamics revealed in Chaos/complexity research.
Postmodern philosophy of science grounded on nonlinearity argues
that truth is complex, contrary and changeable depending upon both
natural and social dynamics; one then speaks of fractal truth
values and contingent truth claims.

Tupermaros:  A group of urban guerrillas who used terror,
kidnapping and assassination to spark a revolution in Uruguay.  It
took the name of an Incan social reformer who live in the 1700's. 
They made the headlines in the USA when they began to kidnap
Americans sent to train the police and the military.  The idea was
to trigger repression by the state and thus politicize the majority
of the population to rise up against the elites which governed
Uruguay. They have had but limited success but continue to harass
the elite.

Twelve Tables:  One of the first set of written laws which laid the
basis for Roman Law [which see].  Roman law is at the heart of US
law; along with Deuternomic Law and British Common Law, most of us
think about crime, punishment and social justice in the terms
specified by the Twelve Tables and their successors.  See Law.

Two party system: The radical view is that the function of the
Republican party is to maintain discipline within the ranks of
capitalists while the function of the Democratic party is to
maintain discipline within the ranks of organized labor and
dissident groups.  This contrasts with the liberal view that the
two-party system is a source of change and provides for the
peaceful resolution of issues.  Since members of both parties work
within the capitalist paradigm, real options to the paradigm are
unlikely.

Tyranny:  Greek: tryannos = lord.  A form of government based upon
the rule of one person or a privileged set of persons.  For Plato,
tyranny was the most degenerate of five forms of government.

Underclass:  Those persons in a racist, sexist or class society
which are not needed or wanted in the production of political and
ideological culture.  Often they are confined to the production of
material wealth [to be used by the privileged] but, in advanced
monopoly capitalism, the underclass is entirely surplus to the
production needs of industry and commerce.  For them, birth
control, abortion, abstinence and other population limiting
practices are encouraged.  In racist societies, genocide is used;
in some sexist societies, female infanticide is practiced in order
to remove those defined as surplus.  See Over-population.

Unemployment:  The term given to the inability or refusal of
workers to find work.  Unemployment may be cyclical, seasonal or
frictional.  Cyclical unemployment comes with the ups and downs of
capitalism [see Kondratieff cycles]; Seasonal unemployment varies
with climate; Frictional unemployment refers to the time lag
between increase in demand and the renewal of actual production.  
Usually it is a produce to the economic system at hand; it is not
found in any other economic system other than capitalism.  Marx
argued, powerfully, that long term unemployment is a result of the
replacement of workers [labor power] with machines [organic
capital].  He argued as well that capitalism needs a Reserve Army
of Workers in order to keep wages down and profits up. See
Disemployment.  

Union:  An association of workers who join together to bargain
about wages and fringe benefits, about conditions of work and the
labor process [safety, division of labor, job assignment] as well
as the kind and quality of goods and services produced.  Some
unions stay focussed on the welfare of its members only; some work
for better working conditions for both union and non-union workers
while some unions work for social justice for all citizens [see
Trade Union Congress of England].
     
Union corruption:  Many unions are subverted in their social
justice programs by the leadership.  In exchange for personal
benefits, the union leaders may accept company rules, may invest
union funds in corrupt schemes, may use violence to prevent
opposition from arising.  See Oligarchy, Iron Law of.

United Front:  The term given to a broad coalition of communists,
socialists, feminists, minorities, liberals, Christian socialists,
environmentalists, and young people who work together for social
justice.  Euro-communism uses united front tactics.

Ultrastability: A characteristic of any system able to maintain
itself in a changing environment without exceeding the ability of
the environment to repair itself.

Underclass (Undermass): Those who bear no relationship to the means
of production whatsoever.  The surplus population.  Composed of the
aged, those on welfare, the unemployed, petty criminals, bums,
hobos, tramps, idle children, those without work in the rural or
urban slums or those in prisons, asylums, and homes for abandoned
children.

Underground structures: a forbidden way of life with low
visibility.  Economic, political, religious or sexual forms of
behavior which are contrary to the normative way of behaving often
appear in repressive societies; they vary from liberation movements
in elitist societies to elitist movements in democratic countries.

Unisex: The convergence in behavior, dress, and emotional response
of the sexes has produced the term "unisex".

United Front: (also broad front, frontism, and front politics) The
view that a revolution can be made through a combined and
collaborative effort of all sectors of the population oppressed by
capitalism and not just the working class.

Unproductive Labor: That part of the labor force which owns
nothing, produces nothing and adds no use value to production. 
Included are sales persons, advertizing agents, lawyers, insurance
agents, stock brokers, real estate agents, most police, the
military, servants, consultants, fashion and waste makers. 
Monopoly capital has produced a new variety of parasites which,
together with the clergy and the aristocracy, consumes the surplus
of a society which might be put to better use.

Upper Class: Those who "own" enough of the means of production such
that they are "freed" to enjoy a life of leisure.  In 1977, about
8% of the population could live off of the labor of others.  In the
early stages of feudalism and capitalism as well, the thought was
that the productive system should be organized such that a division
of labor could be made.  Those who were dull or insensitive were to
produce material culture.  Those who were refined, of "higher"
intellect or artistic capacity could have the free time to produce
"higher culture." Art, science, political and economic theory,
music, drama, literature and the "finer" arts were to be produced
by the elite.  Lesser humans would benefit from that art, poetry,
music and nobility of the soul.  As it turned out, the children of
the idle rich produce little of merit and culture itself is a mass
produced commodity sold back to the worker.  The costs of
supporting eight percent of the population in affluence is high
indeed for the few benefits it brings.

URPE: The Union for Radical Political Economics.  The union pub-
lishes much of value to socialist sociologists with hard data to
support analyses of the current problems of American capitalism.

Usury:  Excessive interest charged by lenders to borrowers.  In the
USA, interest rates vary by class; wealthy people generally pay
about 7 percent interest; middle class people pay 12% or so; poor
people pay 18% or more.  Pawn shops charge about 120% per year and
loan sharks on the street charge 20% per week.  Those of you who
have seen the Rocky movies with S. Stallone will recall that Rocky
was a thug hired to 'break legs' of those who did not pay the loan
shark on time.

     The Pentateuch [the first five books of the Jewish, Christian
and Islamic holy book] permits usury and defines it as a fair
charge for wear and tear only; in that context, no money would
exchange hands for the loan of a tool or land if it were returned
in as good or better shape than when borrowed.  In addition, this
holy book provides for forgiveness of debts every seven years [the
sabbatical].

Utilitarianism:  An economic theory and morality in which all
social life (including economics and politics) should be aimed at
promoting the greatest good (happiness) for the greatest number of
people.  This called for 'rational egoism' or 'enlightened self
interest.' It became the guiding philosophy of the Enlightenment
credited to J. Bentham and J.S. Mill.  The everyday interpretation
came to be a justification for capitalism and inequality when it
was translated as 'rational egoism' and 'enlightened self-interest. 
It is criticized for promoting self-interest, short term values and
materialistic goals.  Since politics and economics are in the hands
of a few, the few are best situated to determine what and who shall
be made happy.  See/compare to the Golden Rule, the Kantian
Imperative and the Code of Hammurabi for other such guides to
proper human conduct.

Utility: Latin: utilis = useful.  Any thing which serves a human
need or has a human use.  See Utilitarianism which makes use of the
concept for a social philosophy.  The concept of utility shifts the
value of a thing from the time and labor of workers to the desires
and values of consumers.  Spinoza said that which is useful is that
which preserves one's being in terms of adaption to the
environment.  Hume set utility as the basis for ethics.  Edgeworth
claimed that the upper classes had greater needs than the lower
classes and that the whole society benefits when these added needs
are satisfied.  The concept is often reduced to consumer demand. 
See Economics, Demand side.

Utopia/Utopianism: Greek: u = no; topi = place.  An ideal (both
meanings) society in which people reach their potential and live
happy and productive lives.  In socialist theory there are some
problems with "utopian thinking": (a) often utopias are ideals
which ignore the existing limits and, thus have no bridge from
reality; then too, utopian thinking often separates theory and
action.  And many utopias are fascist states with drugs and sex to
pacify the masses.  If the student of socialism bears these
problems in mind and deals with them forthrightly, then utopian
thinking can be, may be, very useful.

Validity:  Latin: validitas = strength.  In logic, validity is a
property of arguments which follow from premises whether the
premises are true or not.  In Propositional calculus, validity is
a property of truth tables; if a statement exists in a truth table,
it is valid apart from the truth value of the statement since
'truth' tables are merely abstract mathematical forms.  In social
science methodology, a measure is valid if it measures what it says
it will measure; it is consistent if the measure gives the same
result each time...again, truth or falsity may not enter into
claims of validity [or consistency].

Validity Claims: In Habermas, there are four things we assume when
we talk to someone: 1) That any utterance can be understood by both
(all) parties, 2) That its propositional content is true. (It's not
a lie or mistake), 3) That the speaker is sincere in uttering it
and, 4) That the speaker has a right to be talking.  When there is
some reason to doubt one of these implicit claims, we assume that
the speaker can be called into account.  However there are
obstacles to accountability which invalidate the assumption.  See
his theory of systematically distorted communication.

Value:  Latin: valere = to be strong.  Those human purposes and
philosophies which are held to be most important to a society. 
Aristotle held that eudaemonis [happiness] was the highest value. 
Pyrrho held that arataxia [serenity] was the highest value. 
Confucian thought values jen [humanity] and li [propriety] along
with sincerity.  Agape [selfless love] was held by early Christians
to be the highest value.  Spinoza argued wisdom to be the central
value.  Nietzsche promoted the 'will to power.'  Schweitzer placed
'reverence for life' at the top. Comte stressed order and progress
in science.  The Praxis school set five interdependent values as
the goal of a praxis society: autonomy, sociality, rationality,
creativity and self realization.  In modern science, one discovers
facts; one chooses between values.  In postmodern philosophy,
values are human constructs, instituted by power relations and
highly variable among societies.  See Virtues, Sins, Praxis.

Value (Exchange): Marx distinguished between production for use and
production for exchange.  Exchange value is the value of one good
in terms of the value of another good.  The focus on exchange value
creates several problems.  It justifies withholding of essential
social goods (food, shelter, clothing, medicine, recreation) when
the exchange does not provide profits.  It mystifies and stifles
critique since it enables capitalist theorists to discuss
"rationalization" in terms of an increase in exchange value rather
than in terms of use value.  And exchange value replaces all other
motives for production and distribution.  In marxist theory the
central reason for production is tied to the creation of human
culture.  In capitalism, production is keyed to profit/loss
benefits rather than human need as such; low profit lines of
production tend to be ignored.  See Lemon Socialism.

Value, (Labor Theory of): Marx emphasized the role of human labor
as the sole creator of value.  Use value and exchange value of all
commodities (including labor itself) is determined by the labor
time required to produce them (Grundrisse).  There are two main
criticisms of this theory: (1 ) that price is set by supply and
demand, not labor time and (2) that capital goods create value
apart from the labor of workers.  The first argument is irrelevant
since Marx was discussing value not price; the second argument is
obtuse since Marx' point was to stress that it is through labor
that humans create their cultural environment.  This the case,
capitalism becomes a barrier to value as the surplus population de-
velops (After Leslie Brown).

     One should remember that a dollar is a dollar only if someone
else is willing to work in exchange for it.  All exchange value
comes, in the last analysis from the willingness of someone to do
useful work for another person.  See also use value.

Value, Postmodern view of.  The main point made in postmodern
economic theory here is that art, music, cinema and scripts are
used together in advertizing to create a 'hyper-text' in which the
value of a commodity is artificially enhanced by borrowing on the
art and craft of singers, sports stars, esteemed persons and deep
anxieties in order to create layer after layer of 'false needs.' 
In such a world, value and price bears little relationship to use
value, which see.  Both use value and exchange value are displaced
by the use of psychology, sociology, mass communications and
dramaturgy to create false needs [Marcuse].

Value, surplus:  That which is left after the costs of production
are meet.  These costs are land, labor, capital goods and safe
disposal of by-products.  Capitalists set prices anywhere from 5 to
15% [sometimes very much more] above these unavoidable costs.  This
is called the 'profit margin.'  The economic question is how to use
it; some part could to go to basic research and development of
better goods and equipment, some could to go to those who have
special merit in the productive process [inventors, skilled
reliable workers, effective administrators and such], some could be
used for low profit essential services and some could go to those
who 'own' the stocks of the company.  The political question is
always how much to what/whom.

Value, use:  Anything that satisfies a human want, desire, need or
anxiety.  Marx held that use value varied dramatically between
people and cultures so one needed to dig deeper to get at the final
source of value; he said it was to be found in Labor Value, the
labor that is invested in producing it.  See above.

Vanguard/vanguardism:  A feature of militant marxism-leninist
theory which holds that only a few marxists understand the sources
and solutions to exploitation; that they should lead the revolution
and keep power after the revolution until a 'socialist'
psychological is developed among the common people.  The vanguard
seldom encourages such a 'socialist' model of being thus justifying
continual domination by a party elite. Viet Cong [Viet Minh]:  A
marxist-leninist revolutionary party founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1941
to oppose French and Japanese colonialism.  The Viet Cong defeated
the French at Dien Bien Phu in May, 1954 at which time, the USA
lead Australia, New Zealand, S. Korea, Thailand and the Philippines
in a military effort to prevent the communist victory in the
southern part of Viet Nam.  It was the first time in history that
the USA lost a war.Value: A cultural item in which positive
emotional response is defined.  Values help establish what is
important and how to decide between competing claims.  Values also
circumvent reasoning processes and help solve the problem of
motivation.

Variety: In systems theory, variety is that which is not part of
the operating components of a system or its environment.  The term
is used to denote some changed condition.  The interest of the
radical sociologist is in Ashby's law of requisite variety which
justifies the school of critical theory in terms which even the
most reactionary "hard" scientist can appreciate.  In order for
social systems to survive Ashby's law requires a capacity for
change and renewal as a standard feature of any system in an
unstable environment.

Vico, Giovanni Batista (1688-1744):  The founder of history as a
science and discipline.  According to Vico, 'history is everything'
but there are laws of history which can be known and used.  There
are three stages in history through which every society moves; 1)
the Age of Gods, 2) the Age of Heros and 3) the Age of Man [sic]. 
Societies change from theocracies to monarchies to democracies
informed by reason and rationality.

"Victims without crimes": The phrase points to the harm done to
society by those who are powerful enough to control the process by
which crimes are defined as such by legislative processes.  In
capitalist modes of exchange, surplus value is appropriated, social
power is perverted, humans are turned into commodities (as in
prostitution, wage labor, and mass advertising) and yet there is no
crime identified as such nor a victim identified nor is any
criminal policed.

Violence, gender:  The gender division of labor gives men the moral
right to use force to obtain compliance from the women in their
lives.  There are three major situations in which men assume they
have the right to beat women: 1) when sexual favors are denied, 2)
when domestic services are withheld, and 3) when women do not use
language forms which embody deference and obedience to men.  Most
feminists hold that rape is a more social control tactic.

Virtue: latin: virtus = manly.  Socrates identified virtue with
knowledge.  Plato listed four virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance
and justice.  Aristotle set the Golden Mean as the pathway to
virtue.  Paul listed faith, hope, charity [caritas] as central to
Christian life.  Hobbes had his own list: justice, gratitude,
modesty, equity, and mercy.  Spinoza held that virtue required one
live by reason.  Voltaire held that virtue is an attribute of
societies, not individuals.

Voice/voices:  Postmodernists use the term to refer to the person
who tells a story or offers a theory; the focus is on the voice of
the teller rather than the content of the story.  The term also
points to those whose stories are omitted in the telling of a
story.  See Gilligan, Carol for views on moral development which
excludes the voices of women in setting standards for morality.

Vulgar Marxism: A term used by Lenin and others to heap contempt on
those who used Marx for the only and final arbiter in every dispute
over policy.  Also used to refer to those who do not include the
early Marx in policy discussion.  They use it to reject the
assumption that the means of production [the base] is every where
and always determinative of culture [the superstructure].  Engels
used the term to refer to those who try to use natural law to
explain social behavior; for example, that human thought is a
secretion of the brain or that human beings are atoms which bind
together through force.  See Weber, Early Marx.

Wage Labor:  A term used by Marx to describe the fact that
capitalism converts labor from the human activity of producing
culture into a commodity.  The price of commodity labor is called
wages.  In a capitalist system, people have only labor power to
sell to get the necessities of life.  Wages are set by demand and
supply but can be reduced to below the level required for
reproducing the labor force by cooperation among capitalists and
enforced competition between workers; by recruiting from
underdeveloped nations and by a large surplus population.  It is
increased by unions, by internationalism and/ or by welfare
programs.  There are parallel economic systems used by people to
'reunite production and distribution' outside of capitalist logic. 
See Economic Systems, Parallel.

Wages, Iron Law of:  An idea credited to T. R. Malthus [whom see]
which held that wages tend to oscillate around bare subsistence. 
This is true, Malthus said, since if wages are higher, people have
more children and the labor pool will increase driving down wages. 
Lasalle used the argument against raising wages; Marx used it
against the capitalist system.  The law is falsified by the fact
that if women receive education and work, they limit the number of
children they bear.

Wages, Real Your real wage is what your money can buy; not the num-
ber of dollars you are paid.  When taxes increase or firms raise
prices, your real wage can go down even if you are making more
dollars.  Real wages increased in the U.S. for most people since
1940 but have declined in the past two years (1977).  One must
watch this trend closely-capitalist economists think it can be
reversed, marxist economists think not.

Wallace, Alfred (1823-1913):  English naturalist who first set
forth the idea of organic evolution after years of collecting
plants around the world.  Wallace sent Darwin a paper in which he
set forth the idea of the struggle for existence and survival of
the fittest.  Darwin thought so well of the idea that he had it
read at a scholarly conference along with his own ideas.  Both thus
helped replace pre-modern ideas of divine creation with natural
explanations of the emergence of plant and animal species. 
Focussing upon competition and 'survival' of the fittest, they
tended to ignore cooperation and mutual aid in efforts to survive
within and between species.  Spencer and others took this partial
theory and elevated it to a general theory of social evolution in
politics, economics and warfare.

War Crimes:  Violations of the Geneva convention dealing with
treatment of prisoners of war, civilians, neutral countries and
other areas in which the use of state violence is prohibited.
After WWII, the USA and its allies convened a special Court to
judge the behavior of the German Army and Nazi Party Members who
engineered the death of millions of civilians; mostly jews,
communists and socialists but later on, any one who opposed the
Nazi regime.  The German Army murdered thousands of Polish
Officers, Communist Resistance leaders and sympathizers with it
critics.  The victors of wars seldom convene Courts to judge their
own crimes against humanity and human rights.  Since Vietnam and
the many crimes of the US Military filmed and presented on National
News, every new member of the Armed Forces is required to take
several hours instruction on war crimes and is told that s/he has
the right to refuse to obey an illegal order.  Such crimes continue
in public and in secret among the armies of all countries and
rebels.

War, Sociology of: War is the organizes use of force against
another people or nation. There have been several varieties of such
warfare in human history:

     1) Predatory warfare in which one tribe or band attacks
     another in order to steal herds, tools, weapons or take slave
     as in the Viking raids along England and France.

     2) Wars for colonial empire in which one people invades and
     imposes an exploitive system on a people; the Persian empire,
     the Roman Empire, the Incan Empire and the British Empire are
     examples.  Rule is indirect through governors.

     3) Wars of feudal conquest in which one petty noble conquers
     and rules several other 'kingdoms' in an area.  Charlemagne
     consolidated the petty states of France into empire in the
     11th century.  Rule is direct through succession by birth.

     4) Wars of bourgeois revolution in which the middle classes
     overthrow the nobility and take state power as in England,
     France, the Americas and elsewhere.

     5) Wars of Capitalist Expansion.  World Wars I & 11 can be
     understood as wars between capitalist states as each tried to
     solve its own problems of surplus population and crises at the
     expense of other states.

     6) Wars of socialist liberation in which there is an attempt
     to overthrow the capitalist/feudal state and take power on
     behalf of workers as in Russia (1917), China (1949), Cuba,
     (1959) and Nicaragua (1979).  But see Crusades.
     6) Ethnic/Identity wars.  These arise when times get bad and
     competition for scarce goods becomes bitter.  At such times,
     the 'struggle of existence' becomes reduced to individuals,
     families, tribes, ethnic groups and other such narrow
     groundings for identity.  Racism and nationalism tends to
     flare and gender politics become more brutal.  In massified
     industrial societies, the social base for self becomes eroded;
     people look for new sources of self; some of which are more
     encompassing--some of which are less.

War, Theory of:  From a socialist perspective, war is best under-
stood as the extraction of value from another people by military
force.  Marx' theory of war sets basic conflicts over the means of
production as center-point.  There are different conflicts between
differing groups in different political economies: in primitive
economies, one tribe wars with another over land, water and herds. 
In slavery, armed groups from one country enslave captives; in
Feudalism, one Prince will try to conquer another prince and expand
both land and subjects from which tribute/taxes can be extracted. 
In capitalist societies, the basic conflict between nations is over
markets, raw materials and access to cheap labor.  Socialist
distinguish between unjust wars, above, and just wars.  Generally
any war to liberate people or nations from domination is just.  See
Passive Resistance.

Warfare state: A term used to denote the role of military force in
solving the problems of capitalism.  There are two major problems
solved: the problem of markets is solved by using the military to
resist socialist liberation movements in colonial countries.  The
problem of markets is also solved by the military absorbing much of
the surplus productive capacity of capitalists at profit rates
guaranteed by the state.

Waste Production: In a class society, some people don't have enough
income and some have a lot of "discretionary" income.  In order to
keep machines running, it is necessary to generate demand in the
second group.  One way to do this is to design products to wear out
fast.  People then will have to buy more light bulbs, cars,
toasters, or T.V.'s than they really need.  Another way is to
promote fashions in cars, clothes, houses, or appliances.  A third
way is to generate demand for useless products or for products
which use a lot of resources to save a little labor such as
electric knives, tooth brushes, finger nail files or can openers. 
The drug industry has been known to create "illnesses" in order to
generate a public.  A better way to organize production is on the
basis of need rather than profit within the limits of ecological
integrity.

Webb, Sidney and Beatrice:  A British couple who lead the movement
for social justice in England [Fabian Socialism].  They were at the
center of a set of intellectuals who adopted socialism to
democratic politics and state welfare.  The modern British system
of health care, housing, education, and child care owes much to
this group.  They are models for such American couples as the Scott
Nearings, Al McClung and Betty Briant Lee, Elise and Kenneth
Boulding as well as hundreds of others who join love and labor in
the marriage form.

Weber, Max (1864-1920):  Weber contributed much to progressive
sociology; his critique/analysis of bureaucracy, his concern with
forms of stratification other than class, his work on power and
authority all help one understand the larger structures which
defeat democracy and human agency.  He is best noted for his work
on the sociology of religion in which he made the connection
between the Protestant ethic of hard work, frugality, and
stewardship of wealth [on behalf of God] with the Spirit of
Capitalism.  In methodology, he is known for his use of 'ideal
types' as keys to understanding a society or an age--and for
verstehen as a pathway to knowledge; verstehen contrasts to
empirical analysis and inference.  Along with Marx and Durkheim,
Weber is a most productive and insightful social theorist.

Welfare state: A term used to refer to any capitalist or feudal
country in which the state provides comprehensive social security
from 'cradle to grave.'  Health care, child care, housing
allowance, education benefits, pensions and food stamps are the
major forms of welfare found in such states.  Capitalism is the
only economic system which separates production and distribution
and which produces a surplus population unable to reunite them. 
Welfare provides political legitimacy of capitalism by carrying the
costs of supporting the surplus population (which see).

Westphalen, Jenny von (1814-1881):  Childhood friend and wife to
Karl Marx.  Her dowry and her life was given over to Karl's work. 
She bore six children, three of whom died in infancy.  She died of
malnutrition and cancer two years before Marx.

White collar crime: Acts of petty thievery or embezzlement by which
the assets of a corporation are converted to the private use of a
middle class functionary.  White collar crime is greatly condemned
by liberal criminologists who ignore corporate crime; the larger
crimes of business, industry and finance against society and commu-
nity.

Witchcraft:  There are two usages of the word which is of interest
to critical/feminist scholars: first it is a set of beliefs and
practices in which the forces/spirits of nature and/or the Devil
are invoked to accomplish objectives.  Christians tend to set the
Christ and the Anti-Christ in opposition.  Then there is a form of
feminist theology in which 'good witches' use such forces to heal,
to comfort and to protect those against whom fate, chance or the
'forces of evil' threaten.  Socialist feminists see Witchcraft as
a political tool used against women who challenge patriarchy and
male hegemony [after Barbara Erhenreich].  See Moral panic.

Wizard of Oz: A children's story wherein the problems of capitalism
are set forth in allegorical fashion and the objectives of
socialist revolution are personified by the characters of Dorothy
(the search for social relatedness), the tinman (a quest for love
and compassion), the lion (a search for courage and dignity), and
the strawman (who sought insight, understanding and wisdom).  The
Wicked Witch of the East was meant to be capitalism; the yellow
brick road was meant to symbolize the gold standard and tight money
policies; the silver slippers (not ruby) were symbolic of loose
money policy and The Wizard of Oz symbolized any humbug of a
politician who could only give the people what the people could
produce themselves.

Workers' Councils:  In Yugoslavia and elsewhere, workers elect
people via secret ballots to decide on hiring, firing, management,
prices, work schedules, and division of profits.  See democratic
self management.

Wonk/wonks:  A marriage form in which two or more women live
together without kids.  Personal comfort and sexual pleasure are
central to this form of intimacy.  See Dinks, Monks and Yuppies.

Worker: One who must sell his labor power to another.  One who
produces wealth but does not own it after it is produced.  Under
some forms of socialism, the working class is considered to be the
sole repository of worth.

Working Class:  Those who have only their labor power to sell;
those who produce wealth in industry, agriculture, mining, milling,
fishing, transport, communications and forestry.  Included are
white collar people who perform essential services [but not on
behalf of the capitalist class] such as nurses, doctors, engineers,
teachers and inventors.  Sometimes artists, musicians, painters,
dramatists, poets and architects are included when they produce
emancipatory art otherwise they are bourgeois functionaries.  The
point of authentically socialist revolution is to transform the
working class into the architect and agent of general social
policy.

Working Day:  The period in a day which necessary to produce enough
value to cover the costs of reproducing labor power as well as raw
materials and capital costs [building, tools, machines etc].  The
1st International called for an 8-hour working day to replace the
working day set by the owner which was based upon physical and
psychological limits of the fastest, best and hardest workers; it
reached 16 hours in England.

World Council of Churches:  An coalition of Christian churches
working around the world for social justice.  Many conservative
church leaders condemn it as communist and/or socialist.  See
Socialism, Christian.

Writerly: From scriptible, a French term which holds that a theory,
play, story or myth is re-written each time it is told.  This a
subversive approach to reading a text. It legitimates a multitude
of interpretations which validate a variety of truths and of
knowledges. Unlike the readerly approach which tends toward
freezing a text, the writerly approach resists official
interpretations and a finished product.  The underlying structure
of signification, of meaning, are unearthed. The text contains an
explosion and scattering of meanings. Rather than privileging one
meaning, one voice, through the text, the reader/viewer is
encouraged to discover the multiple and repressed voices embedded
in the words. Familiarity and coherence, cornerstones of the
readerly approach, are resisted and supplanted with displacement
and ambivalence. It is also an active reconstruction of alternative
truths, replacement of ways of knowing.
       
Wycliffe, John (c. 1320-1384):  An Oxford scholar whose doctrines
helped bring about a great transformation of Christian religion. 
Wycliffe held that all dominion over land or people comes as a gift
from God.  It has the form of a fief and can be removed if the
person to whom the gift is given does not serve God.  The Church is
serve to the spiritual needs of people, they are not to hold
property; it is lawful for the state to take property from any
monk, priest, bishop or pope who is not doing the Will of God. The
King is God's vicar on earth and has superiority over priests in
all earthly matters.  Wycliffe held that the Bible is the 'charter'
for all Christians and helped translate it into English.  Its prose
was an elegant and powerful poetry which served as base of the King
Jame's version used widely.  Wycliffe sent priests out to spread
the word.  In Bohemia, Huss helped institute the Protestant
Reformation [which see] which Wycliffe designed.

Xenophobia:  Fear of strangers.  The questions of who is a
'stranger' and what is to be feared are important to conflict
theory and to the quest for social justice.

Yankee-Cowboy thesis: A view that American capitalists are split
into two segments as a result of government expenditures.  These
expenditures have created a new elite with different interests and
policies from the corporate liberals of the East.  The "cowboys"
benefit from government contracts in defense, aerospace, and elec-
tronic industry.  They are said to favor more violent, police state
tactics in dealing with foreign and/or domestic opposition to
capitalism.  The underlying question is: "Is the ruling class split
and engaged in mutual destruction or are the differences in
interest and policy contained such that capitalism still rules
America?"

Youth, Sociology of:  The discipline which studies the ways in
which persons are placed into and removed from age grades between
birth through age 18. It deals with differences in socialization of
boys and girls, patterns of authority and resistance to authority
of parents; the character of the parenting process as well as who
and how many are involved in parenting.  Generally, individuals are
accepted into a family or tribe or society when they go through a
rite of passage in which they are given both name and status in a
social base as a legal child in a family.  If not, the infant is a
non-person and may be killed, made ward of a court or adopted out
to another parent.  After passage into a social base, the young
person is put through a rather long socialization process at the
end of which, usually, s/he goes through another rite of passage
and is accorded full adult status.  See Age grades for more; see
Majority for the displacement of rites of passage by law.

Yuppie:  This acronym stands for Young, Upwardly mobile person who
are concerned only with their own lifestyle and economic security. 
It is used as a term of opprobrium and or amused teasing.  The
perfect person in a capitalist society is one who maximizes his/her
own pleasure; who helps extract surplus value from working class
people and who spends discretionary money as fast as possible.  See
also Dinks, Minks and Monks.

Zeno of Elea (490-430 BCE):  Aristotle held Zeno to be the inventor
of the dialectic in his famous paradoxes: 1) one grain of millet
makes no sound when it falls to earth; 10,000 grains make a noise. 
How can 10,000 noiseless things make a noise? 2) Space is a
nonsense notion since if it exists, it can be divided; if divided,
either it has finite or infinite parts.  Space with finite parts
have magnitude; space with infinite parts have no magnitude.  How
can space exist if it has no magnitude?  3) A flying arrow cannot
be flying since it must be either moving in a place where it is or
moving in a space where it is not.  It cannot be moving in a place
where it is since or it would be there and not moving; it cannot be
moving in a place where it is not since it is not there.  These
paradoxes are now understood to be language games which bear no
connection to the dynamics of natural and social systems.  However,
at the time, they did present one with a dialectic of analytic
categories and thus reveals the human role in creating categories
with which nature and society are analysed.

Zero sum game:  A form of competition in which one or more parties
must lose while one or more gains.  Compare to Non-Zero Sum games.

Zimbardo, Philip:  Zimbardo set up a very important social
psychological experiment at Stanford in which he took 24 bright,
mature, emotionally stable men and by flipping a coin, designated
some as 'prisoners' and some as 'guards.'  The 'prisoners' were
picked up at their homes by a police officer, searched, handcuffed,
fingerprinted, blindfolded and taken to 'prison.'  The 'guards'
were told they could make their own rules.  The experiment lasted
two weeks.  Some prisoners became depressed, confused, hysterical
and had to be released after a few days; the guards, otherwise nice
guys, became cruel and heartless.  Zimbardo had to end the
experiment early; the sociology of it all become too, too real.
You too could become a swaggering guard or a cowering inmate.

Zionism:  Hebrew: tsiyon = Jerusalem. An international Jewish
movement founded in Switzerland in 1897 calling for a homeland in
Palestine for Jews persecuted in all nations.  The 1927 Balfour
Declaration by the English government sanctioned Zionism; England
helped create the new Israeli state in 1948.  Zionism as such is
grounded upon the first five books of the old Testament called the
Torah, especially Deuteronomy which covenants with 'the children of
Israel' to give them the land on which they walk if they keep the
laws given to Moses by their God.

Z theory: A form of management in which workers are involved in the
work process on the factory floor.  Schedules, division of labor, 
work assignments, and other aspects of the labor process are given
over to workers to do as they see best.  Investment policies,
wages, fringe benefits and kind of product are not given over to
workers to decide; only how best to do that decided by top
management.  See Democratic self-management.