Definitions

State: A state is a sovereign political institution which governs over civil society, which is made up of individuals. The political institution combined with its civil society can also be referred to as the state.

Civil society: This is an organized collection of individuals who participate in various groups which make up the society. The civil society is governed by the state, but is not a part of the political institution.

Power: Power, by the classical sociological definition, is the use or threat of force in order to influence other people's actions.

Sovereignty: This is the legitimate use of power in order to govern a body of individuals. An institution that is sovereign answers to no higher power and is therefore autonomous.

Individual: Individuals are people who live and function within civil society and are governed by the state. However, throughout history, who is regarded as an individual has been debated since different groups of people (and animals) have gained or lost rights that have been attributed to legitimate individuals.

Virtue: Virtue is the moral excellence of an individual. In other words, virtue is the measure of "goodness" in a person.

Private property: Private property has been defined in different ways across the theories, but it can be generalized; private property is property that individuals can appropriate for themselves, and which society and the state have sanctioned the individual's right to use it in whatever way he or she sees fit.

Capital: Capital is wealth used to make more wealth. It can be accumulated, spent, and exchanged. Its second definition is the money which is used as an input along with the means of production and labor for the goal of making profit.

Means of production: The means of production are those inputs that are not capital or labor. In other words, these are the technical tools used to produce commodities.

Labor: Labor is work produced by humans in order to change raw materials into commodities.

Commodity: A commodity is an end product, with the inputs of capital, labor, and means of production. Commodities are sold to consumers in order to satisfy their demands and to provide the producer with revenue (and hopefully profit).

Nation: A nation is a collection of individuals based on some sort of commonality, whether that be a common language, ethnicity, culture, or all of the above. A nation is different from a state because it does not necessarily have a formal political institution that governs the people that belong in it.

Mercantilism: Mercantilism is a political economic system based on the central belief that there is only a fixed amount of wealth in the world and that the state should take precedence over the individual in order to effectively maximize its wealth. The power of the state increases its wealth and vice versa.

Liberalism: Liberalism is a political economic system based on the central belief that wealth comes from labor and that there is a flexible amount of wealth in the world. The individual is virtuous and can govern himself even with a limited government.

Marxism: Marxism is a political economic system based on the central belief that wealth and private property is detrimental and at times dangerous for individuals. Marxists strive to control the factors of production in a socialist system in order to gain enough infrastructure to support a communist utopia, where private property and a government do not exist. Marxism is divided into two polar camps of thought; one which does not believe in the possibility of a Communist Utopia (as Marx never did) and another which believes that a classless society can be created not only in relation to the means of production but in inter-class relations as well. This divide is labeled as a schism between Marxists and Communists.

Monarchy: A system of government with a king or queen as the leader.

Democracy: A system of government wherein each individual of the society has a direct influence over the development of both domestic and foreign policy. Such a society has never been achieved as of yet; and in its place has existed a bureaucratic representative system of governing.

Socialism: A system of government where the state controls the factors of production with the goal that institutions will one day be able to support the communist utopia (and the elimination of both state and private property).

Polyarchy: The most widely embraced system of government in contemporary society, Polyarchy is a system in which a vast majority of citizens are ruled over by a small cadre of the obscenely wealthy in a system of representative democracy.