Nitrus
03-18-2006, 12:50 PM
Politics, sometimes defined as "the art and science of government." Is a process by which collective decisions are made within groups. Although the term is generally applied to behavior within governments, politics is observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions.
Governments are used to pass laws and make important decisions about the running the country. usually a law will be drafted and then members of the government will vote on whether or not to pass the law.
In most cases the countries governments are run by Presidents, elected every 5 or so years by the people. However in countries which still have a monarchy, the leader of the government is the Prime Minister, who is generally responsible for the country, but has to report to the head of the monarchy, and occasionally get permission to do things.
Political Keywords:
Vote - Voting is a method of decision making wherein a group such as a meeting or an electorate attempts to gauge its opinion—usually as a final step following discussions or debates. Alternatives to voting include consensus decision making (which works to avoid polarization and the marginalization of dissent) and betting (as in an anticipatory democracy).
Government - A government is the body that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws within an organization or group. In its broadest sense, "to govern" means to administer or supervise, whether over an area of land, a set group of people, or a collection of assets. The word government is derived from the Greek Κυβερνήτης (kubernites), which means "steersman", "governor", "pilot" or "rudder".
Minister - A minister or a secretary is a politician who heads a government ministry or department (e.g. education, finance, health, state, war etc.). Senior ministers are members of the cabinet, usually led by a prime minister or president.
Presidentialism - A presidential system, or a congressional system, is a system of government of a republic where the executive branch is elected separately from the legislative. Such systems generally have some combination of historical and/or cultural ties to the former Roman Republic and later Roman Empire and, more commonly, to the United States of America. The Constitution of the United States is credited by some people with being the oldest document constituting a government still in existence, and the Presidential system of government is widely accepted as having originated from it.
The defining characteristic of a presidential government is how the executive is elected, but nearly all presidential systems share the following features (note that while many dictators style themselves "President", this constitutes a dictatorship, not a Presidential system, regardless of the title, and the vast majority of this article generally would not apply to such a system; likewise, some parliamentary democracies, notably Israel and Ireland, have a President with fairly little power):
* The president is both head of state and head of government.
* The president has no formal relationship with the legislature. He is not a voting member, nor can he introduce bills. However, in systems such as that of the United States, the President has the power to veto acts of the legislature, and in turn a supermajority of legislators may act to override the veto. This practice is derived from the British tradition of Royal Assent, in which an act of Parliament cannot come into effect without the signature of the Monarch.
* The president has a fixed term of office. Elections are held at scheduled times, and cannot be triggered by a vote of confidence or other such parliamentary procedures. However, many presidential systems incorporate provisions for the president's trial and subsequent removal from office by the legislature if he or she is found to have committed a crime. In the United States, the House of Representatives may impeach the president, which allows the Senate to hold a trial, but upon a president's removal from office, the next qualified member of the presidential line of succession assumes the Presidency for the remainder of the term. If there is a capable Vice President, he or she assumes the office. To date, no US President has ever been removed from office by Congress, nor has anyone farther down the line of succession acted as or become President, but a number of times Presidents have died in office, and one President resigned in fear of removal from office.
* The executive branch is unipersonal. Members of the Cabinet serve at the pleasure of the president and must carry out the policies of the executive and legislative branches. However, Presidential systems frequently require legislative approval of Presidential nominations to the Cabinet as well as various governmental posts such as Judges; while the President generally has the power to issue orders to members of the Cabinet, military, or any officer or employee of the Executive Branch, a President does not generally have the power to dismiss or give orders to Judges.
* The president often has the power to pardon or commute sentences of convicted criminals, a power which, in systems with separate heads of state and heads of government, is generally given to the head of state.
Prime Minister - A Prime Minister is a politician who serves as the head of the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. A Prime Minister can be:
* the chairperson (leading member) of the cabinet; or
* the official, in countries with a semi-presidential system of government, who is appointed to manage the civil service and execute the directives of the President.
In parliamentary systems like the Westminster system, the prime minister is the head of the elected government while the position of head of state (ie: the King or Queen) is largely ceremonial. The Prime Minister is often a member of parliament and is expected to ensure the passage of bills through the legislature. In some monarchies the prime minister also exercises powers (known as the Royal Prerogative) which are constitutionally vested in the Crown and can be exercised without the approval of parliament.
As well as being Head of Government, a prime minister may have other roles or titles—the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, for example, is also First Lord of the Treasury. Prime ministers may take other ministerial posts—for example during the Second World War Winston Churchill was also Minister of Defence.
Congress - Congress is the name of the main legislative body in a state that operates under a congressional system of government.
A congress is different from a parliament (Westminster System of Government) in that legislative initiative is vested into it. In a congressional system the executive and legislative branches of government are clearly differentiated. Head of State (president) and Head of Government (prime minister) are typically merged into one office, and cabinet members are only rarely taken from the congress.
Countries with Congresses:
* The U.S. Congress is the only constitutional legislative branch of the United States federal government
* The Congress of the Philippines (Filipino: Kongreso ng Pilipinas) is the legislative branch of the Philippine government.
* The National People's Congress is the legislature in the People's Republic of China
* The National Congress of Brazil (Portuguese: Congresso Nacional) is Brazil's legislature.
* The National Congress of Ecuador is the unicameral legislature of Ecuador
In France, the congrès is a formal and exceptional joint meeting of both houses of Parliament in order to ratify an amendment to the Constitution.
Parliament - A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system derived from that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French parlement, the action of parler (to speak): a parlement is a talk, a discussion, hence a meeting (an assembly, a court) where people discuss matters. While all parliaments are legislatures, not all legislatures are parliaments.
The British Parliament is often referred to as the "Mother of Parliaments"—in fact a misquotation of John Bright, who remarked in 1865 that "England is the Mother of Parliaments"—because the British Parliament has been the model for most other parliamentary systems, and its Acts have created many other parliaments. The first English Parliament was formed during the reign of King Henry III in the 13th century. In the United Kingdom, Parliament consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarch. The House of Commons is composed of over 600 members who are directly elected by British citizens to represent various cities, communities, and other electoral districts. The leader of a Party that wins more than half the seats or less than half but can count on support of smaller parties to achieve enough support to pass law is invited by Her Majesty the Queen to form a government, and the party leader becomes the Prime Minister and head of government. The House of Lords is a body of long-serving, unelected members: 92 of whom inherit their seats and 574 of whom have been appointed to lifetime seats.
Legislation can originate from either the Lords or the Commons. It is voted on in several distinct stages, called readings, in each house. First reading is merely a formality. Second reading is where the bill as a whole is considered. Third reading is detailed consideration of clauses of the bill. In addition to the three readings a bill also goes through a committee stage where it is considered in great detail. Once the bill has been passed by one house it goes to the other and essentially repeats the process. If after the two sets of readings there are disagreements between the versions that the two houses passed it is returned to the first house for consideration of the amendments made by the second. If it passes through the amendment stage Royal Assent is granted and the bill becomes law as an Act of Parliament.
Democracy - Democratic government aspires to serve under "the people" rather than ruling over them. This ideal is pursued by implementing some form of a voting system, usually involving indirect representation. It shares links with the concept of a republic.
Liberal democracy is defined as democracy over an entire society, and implies individual liberty and individual responsibility as a citizen of that society. It extends the concept of distributed power all of the way to individual citizens in their personal domains - personal sovereignty and private property tempered by civic duty. In such a society, sovereignty originates in the people and is delegated to government rather than vice versa.
Because democratic government and democratic society are inter-related and used interchangeably, they are often confused, usually when one expects all of the benefits of democratic society to follow from the mechanisms of democratic government. While a democratic society has a democratic government, the reverse is not always true. A democratic government, while preventing despotism of abuse of power by a governing minority, does not protect other minorities from social forces from other members of society with other forms of power that may be played out through plutocracy within an existing democratic government, or majoritarianism. Democratic governments may be "liberal", where fundamental rights of individuals in the minority are protected by law, or they may be "illiberal" where they are not.
Republican - Republican; pertaining to a republic, has come in practice to refer to a constitutional system without a hereditary element; a system under which sovereignty resides in the people of the country, as opposed to a person or a small group.
It has also come to describe a number of different organizations, principles, or political movements, and/or the persons supporting these.
However, at its most basic, a republican form of government is one in which several states retain some degree of autonomy or independence from the central governing authority in the conduct of its sovereign authority, and does not necessarily correlate with the concept of democracy, as suggested by current convention. Historically, several republics have in fact been associations between monarchies.
Republics can range from the extremes represented by the original Articles of Confederation for the United States of America (USA) and the Confederate States Constitution (Confederate States of America) to the relationship between the states of the USA and the Federal Government under the current United States Constitution. See also federation and especially European Union.
It may refer to:
* Campaigners advocating the abolition of a monarchy, for example, the Australian Republican Movement and the British republican movement (see Republicanism).
* Political parties (see Republican Party and Republican People's Party), in particular the Republican Party (United States).
* A willingness to remain within the existing constitutional system while advancing democracy, as with the Democratic-Republican Party in the early USA. The exact nature of the new republic was unclear in the early days and was settled in favour of the Democratic-Republican view.
* A demand for complete Irish independence, as distinct from Home Rule. Later, a willingness to use armed force to detatch Northern Ireland from the UK. It is part of the official name of Fianna Fáil the Republican Party. But it would be associated more with Sinn Féin, though the heritage is disputed. See Irish Republicanism for more details.
* A person, event, or institution of the ancient Roman Republic.
* An activist, event or institution of (and/or resulting from) the French Revolution.
* Supporters of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War.
* Adherents of any other kind of republicanism and/or of political ideals of republics. Note that not all republics were democracies: the Venetian Republic was an oligarchy in which the chief executive (Doge) held office for life. The Icelandic Commonwealth that was founded by the first settlers in the 10th century was also very different from any modern system.
Conservatism & Liberalism - Over the past three centuries, "liberalism" and "conservatism" have in some ways exchanged positions. It was liberalism that objected to the then status quo ... tyrannical of monarchies ... in 18th and 19th century Europe. Liberals espoused the importance of individual rights relative to the government. As more democratic governments have succeeded overall in replacing monarchies and dictatorships, it is the conservatives who have become the champions of individual rights versus intrusions into the private sector by big government.
In the US, conservatism and liberalism are sometimes seen as polar opposites, yet the situation is more complex. A major area of difference in US politics is that between social liberalism and social conservatism. Social liberals advocate policies that promote change of established ideas, while social conservatives support established traditions of American society, or norms of previous generations. The media widely covers the differences in opinion in issues such as same-sex marriage, sex education, and the separation of church and state. Some extreme American "conservatives" term themselves "libertarians" (including some who support the Libertarian Party) and advocate fiscal conservatism mixed with social liberalism, further blurring the traditional distinctions between liberalism and conservatism.
Fiscally, US liberals advocate consumer protection regulations, and other policies which run contrary to fiscal conservative, (or neoliberal), ideals. In the US, liberal and conservative are generalizations that do not point to any concrete set of ideals or values. In the US, "neoliberal" refers mainly to non-mainstream leftist critics of fiscal conservatism and/or of the free trade movement.
The terms Economic conservatism or Fiscal conservatism are general terms, encompass modern neoliberalism, as well as classical liberalism in the tradition of Adam Smith. Popularly used outside of North America, the traditional usage of liberal refers only to these free-market policies. For example, in Europe 'liberal-conservative' is an accepted term. Differences in meaning and usage of the term 'liberal' have contributed to some confusion, see Liberalism.
Theorists of liberalism often assert a moral justification for the free market, grounded in principles of individual liberty and individual choice. Their support is not moral or ideological, but driven by the Burkean notion of prescription: what works best is what is right. Conservatives might also emphasise the importance of civil society in this context: government intervention in the economy will make people feel less responsible for the society.
Historically, many arguments have been advanced for the free market, and liberal principles in general. Present western classical-liberalism and political conservatism may have reached their pro-market position by different routes, but by now the lines have blurred. Rarely will a politician claim that free markets are "simply more productive" or "simply the right thing to do" but a combination of both. This merging of the classical liberal and conservative positions is found in most western conservative movements.
In any case the free market itself is not an issue, for western conservative movements. They operate in long-established market economies: it is the degree of government intervention that is at issue. One archetypal free-market conservative government of the late 20th century - the Margaret Thatcher government in the UK saw deregulation as the cornerstone of contemporary economic conservatism. Thatcher added privatisation to this policy, and privatised British Airways, with remarkable success, and British Rail, with rather more mixed results. She cut taxes (especially on the upper income brackets) and slowed governmental growth. Proponents of Thatcherism attribute the unparalleled economic boom of the early 1980s to the late 1990s to these policies
Communism - Communism refers to a conjectured future classless, stateless social organization based upon common ownership of the means of production, and can be classified as a multivariant branch of the broader socialist movement. Communism also refers to a variety of political movements which claim the establishment of such a social organization as their ultimate goal. Early forms of human social organization have been described as "primitive communism." However, communism as a political goal generally is a conjectured form of future social organization which has never been implemented. There is a considerable variety of views among self-identified communists. However, Marxism and Leninism, schools of communism associated with Karl Marx and of Vladimir Lenin respectively, have the distinction of having been a major force in world politics since the early 20th century. Class struggle plays a central role in the theory of Marxism. The establishment of communism is in this theory viewed as the culmination of the class struggle between the capitalist class, the owners of most of the capital, and the working class. Marx held that society could not be transformed from the capitalist mode of production to the communist mode of production all at once, but required a state transitional period which Marx described as the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. The communist society Marx envisioned emerging from capitalism has never been implemented, and it remains theoretical. However, the term "Communism", especially when the word is capitalized, is often used to refer to the political and economic regimes under communist parties which claimed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat.
I will add to this over time, I hope you all find it useful and not too boring. If you feel anything is missing that should be included PM me or reply here and state what it is that you think should be in here. Most Definitions are courtesy of Wikipedia.
Thanks
-N
Governments are used to pass laws and make important decisions about the running the country. usually a law will be drafted and then members of the government will vote on whether or not to pass the law.
In most cases the countries governments are run by Presidents, elected every 5 or so years by the people. However in countries which still have a monarchy, the leader of the government is the Prime Minister, who is generally responsible for the country, but has to report to the head of the monarchy, and occasionally get permission to do things.
Political Keywords:
Vote - Voting is a method of decision making wherein a group such as a meeting or an electorate attempts to gauge its opinion—usually as a final step following discussions or debates. Alternatives to voting include consensus decision making (which works to avoid polarization and the marginalization of dissent) and betting (as in an anticipatory democracy).
Government - A government is the body that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws within an organization or group. In its broadest sense, "to govern" means to administer or supervise, whether over an area of land, a set group of people, or a collection of assets. The word government is derived from the Greek Κυβερνήτης (kubernites), which means "steersman", "governor", "pilot" or "rudder".
Minister - A minister or a secretary is a politician who heads a government ministry or department (e.g. education, finance, health, state, war etc.). Senior ministers are members of the cabinet, usually led by a prime minister or president.
Presidentialism - A presidential system, or a congressional system, is a system of government of a republic where the executive branch is elected separately from the legislative. Such systems generally have some combination of historical and/or cultural ties to the former Roman Republic and later Roman Empire and, more commonly, to the United States of America. The Constitution of the United States is credited by some people with being the oldest document constituting a government still in existence, and the Presidential system of government is widely accepted as having originated from it.
The defining characteristic of a presidential government is how the executive is elected, but nearly all presidential systems share the following features (note that while many dictators style themselves "President", this constitutes a dictatorship, not a Presidential system, regardless of the title, and the vast majority of this article generally would not apply to such a system; likewise, some parliamentary democracies, notably Israel and Ireland, have a President with fairly little power):
* The president is both head of state and head of government.
* The president has no formal relationship with the legislature. He is not a voting member, nor can he introduce bills. However, in systems such as that of the United States, the President has the power to veto acts of the legislature, and in turn a supermajority of legislators may act to override the veto. This practice is derived from the British tradition of Royal Assent, in which an act of Parliament cannot come into effect without the signature of the Monarch.
* The president has a fixed term of office. Elections are held at scheduled times, and cannot be triggered by a vote of confidence or other such parliamentary procedures. However, many presidential systems incorporate provisions for the president's trial and subsequent removal from office by the legislature if he or she is found to have committed a crime. In the United States, the House of Representatives may impeach the president, which allows the Senate to hold a trial, but upon a president's removal from office, the next qualified member of the presidential line of succession assumes the Presidency for the remainder of the term. If there is a capable Vice President, he or she assumes the office. To date, no US President has ever been removed from office by Congress, nor has anyone farther down the line of succession acted as or become President, but a number of times Presidents have died in office, and one President resigned in fear of removal from office.
* The executive branch is unipersonal. Members of the Cabinet serve at the pleasure of the president and must carry out the policies of the executive and legislative branches. However, Presidential systems frequently require legislative approval of Presidential nominations to the Cabinet as well as various governmental posts such as Judges; while the President generally has the power to issue orders to members of the Cabinet, military, or any officer or employee of the Executive Branch, a President does not generally have the power to dismiss or give orders to Judges.
* The president often has the power to pardon or commute sentences of convicted criminals, a power which, in systems with separate heads of state and heads of government, is generally given to the head of state.
Prime Minister - A Prime Minister is a politician who serves as the head of the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. A Prime Minister can be:
* the chairperson (leading member) of the cabinet; or
* the official, in countries with a semi-presidential system of government, who is appointed to manage the civil service and execute the directives of the President.
In parliamentary systems like the Westminster system, the prime minister is the head of the elected government while the position of head of state (ie: the King or Queen) is largely ceremonial. The Prime Minister is often a member of parliament and is expected to ensure the passage of bills through the legislature. In some monarchies the prime minister also exercises powers (known as the Royal Prerogative) which are constitutionally vested in the Crown and can be exercised without the approval of parliament.
As well as being Head of Government, a prime minister may have other roles or titles—the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, for example, is also First Lord of the Treasury. Prime ministers may take other ministerial posts—for example during the Second World War Winston Churchill was also Minister of Defence.
Congress - Congress is the name of the main legislative body in a state that operates under a congressional system of government.
A congress is different from a parliament (Westminster System of Government) in that legislative initiative is vested into it. In a congressional system the executive and legislative branches of government are clearly differentiated. Head of State (president) and Head of Government (prime minister) are typically merged into one office, and cabinet members are only rarely taken from the congress.
Countries with Congresses:
* The U.S. Congress is the only constitutional legislative branch of the United States federal government
* The Congress of the Philippines (Filipino: Kongreso ng Pilipinas) is the legislative branch of the Philippine government.
* The National People's Congress is the legislature in the People's Republic of China
* The National Congress of Brazil (Portuguese: Congresso Nacional) is Brazil's legislature.
* The National Congress of Ecuador is the unicameral legislature of Ecuador
In France, the congrès is a formal and exceptional joint meeting of both houses of Parliament in order to ratify an amendment to the Constitution.
Parliament - A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system derived from that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French parlement, the action of parler (to speak): a parlement is a talk, a discussion, hence a meeting (an assembly, a court) where people discuss matters. While all parliaments are legislatures, not all legislatures are parliaments.
The British Parliament is often referred to as the "Mother of Parliaments"—in fact a misquotation of John Bright, who remarked in 1865 that "England is the Mother of Parliaments"—because the British Parliament has been the model for most other parliamentary systems, and its Acts have created many other parliaments. The first English Parliament was formed during the reign of King Henry III in the 13th century. In the United Kingdom, Parliament consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarch. The House of Commons is composed of over 600 members who are directly elected by British citizens to represent various cities, communities, and other electoral districts. The leader of a Party that wins more than half the seats or less than half but can count on support of smaller parties to achieve enough support to pass law is invited by Her Majesty the Queen to form a government, and the party leader becomes the Prime Minister and head of government. The House of Lords is a body of long-serving, unelected members: 92 of whom inherit their seats and 574 of whom have been appointed to lifetime seats.
Legislation can originate from either the Lords or the Commons. It is voted on in several distinct stages, called readings, in each house. First reading is merely a formality. Second reading is where the bill as a whole is considered. Third reading is detailed consideration of clauses of the bill. In addition to the three readings a bill also goes through a committee stage where it is considered in great detail. Once the bill has been passed by one house it goes to the other and essentially repeats the process. If after the two sets of readings there are disagreements between the versions that the two houses passed it is returned to the first house for consideration of the amendments made by the second. If it passes through the amendment stage Royal Assent is granted and the bill becomes law as an Act of Parliament.
Democracy - Democratic government aspires to serve under "the people" rather than ruling over them. This ideal is pursued by implementing some form of a voting system, usually involving indirect representation. It shares links with the concept of a republic.
Liberal democracy is defined as democracy over an entire society, and implies individual liberty and individual responsibility as a citizen of that society. It extends the concept of distributed power all of the way to individual citizens in their personal domains - personal sovereignty and private property tempered by civic duty. In such a society, sovereignty originates in the people and is delegated to government rather than vice versa.
Because democratic government and democratic society are inter-related and used interchangeably, they are often confused, usually when one expects all of the benefits of democratic society to follow from the mechanisms of democratic government. While a democratic society has a democratic government, the reverse is not always true. A democratic government, while preventing despotism of abuse of power by a governing minority, does not protect other minorities from social forces from other members of society with other forms of power that may be played out through plutocracy within an existing democratic government, or majoritarianism. Democratic governments may be "liberal", where fundamental rights of individuals in the minority are protected by law, or they may be "illiberal" where they are not.
Republican - Republican; pertaining to a republic, has come in practice to refer to a constitutional system without a hereditary element; a system under which sovereignty resides in the people of the country, as opposed to a person or a small group.
It has also come to describe a number of different organizations, principles, or political movements, and/or the persons supporting these.
However, at its most basic, a republican form of government is one in which several states retain some degree of autonomy or independence from the central governing authority in the conduct of its sovereign authority, and does not necessarily correlate with the concept of democracy, as suggested by current convention. Historically, several republics have in fact been associations between monarchies.
Republics can range from the extremes represented by the original Articles of Confederation for the United States of America (USA) and the Confederate States Constitution (Confederate States of America) to the relationship between the states of the USA and the Federal Government under the current United States Constitution. See also federation and especially European Union.
It may refer to:
* Campaigners advocating the abolition of a monarchy, for example, the Australian Republican Movement and the British republican movement (see Republicanism).
* Political parties (see Republican Party and Republican People's Party), in particular the Republican Party (United States).
* A willingness to remain within the existing constitutional system while advancing democracy, as with the Democratic-Republican Party in the early USA. The exact nature of the new republic was unclear in the early days and was settled in favour of the Democratic-Republican view.
* A demand for complete Irish independence, as distinct from Home Rule. Later, a willingness to use armed force to detatch Northern Ireland from the UK. It is part of the official name of Fianna Fáil the Republican Party. But it would be associated more with Sinn Féin, though the heritage is disputed. See Irish Republicanism for more details.
* A person, event, or institution of the ancient Roman Republic.
* An activist, event or institution of (and/or resulting from) the French Revolution.
* Supporters of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War.
* Adherents of any other kind of republicanism and/or of political ideals of republics. Note that not all republics were democracies: the Venetian Republic was an oligarchy in which the chief executive (Doge) held office for life. The Icelandic Commonwealth that was founded by the first settlers in the 10th century was also very different from any modern system.
Conservatism & Liberalism - Over the past three centuries, "liberalism" and "conservatism" have in some ways exchanged positions. It was liberalism that objected to the then status quo ... tyrannical of monarchies ... in 18th and 19th century Europe. Liberals espoused the importance of individual rights relative to the government. As more democratic governments have succeeded overall in replacing monarchies and dictatorships, it is the conservatives who have become the champions of individual rights versus intrusions into the private sector by big government.
In the US, conservatism and liberalism are sometimes seen as polar opposites, yet the situation is more complex. A major area of difference in US politics is that between social liberalism and social conservatism. Social liberals advocate policies that promote change of established ideas, while social conservatives support established traditions of American society, or norms of previous generations. The media widely covers the differences in opinion in issues such as same-sex marriage, sex education, and the separation of church and state. Some extreme American "conservatives" term themselves "libertarians" (including some who support the Libertarian Party) and advocate fiscal conservatism mixed with social liberalism, further blurring the traditional distinctions between liberalism and conservatism.
Fiscally, US liberals advocate consumer protection regulations, and other policies which run contrary to fiscal conservative, (or neoliberal), ideals. In the US, liberal and conservative are generalizations that do not point to any concrete set of ideals or values. In the US, "neoliberal" refers mainly to non-mainstream leftist critics of fiscal conservatism and/or of the free trade movement.
The terms Economic conservatism or Fiscal conservatism are general terms, encompass modern neoliberalism, as well as classical liberalism in the tradition of Adam Smith. Popularly used outside of North America, the traditional usage of liberal refers only to these free-market policies. For example, in Europe 'liberal-conservative' is an accepted term. Differences in meaning and usage of the term 'liberal' have contributed to some confusion, see Liberalism.
Theorists of liberalism often assert a moral justification for the free market, grounded in principles of individual liberty and individual choice. Their support is not moral or ideological, but driven by the Burkean notion of prescription: what works best is what is right. Conservatives might also emphasise the importance of civil society in this context: government intervention in the economy will make people feel less responsible for the society.
Historically, many arguments have been advanced for the free market, and liberal principles in general. Present western classical-liberalism and political conservatism may have reached their pro-market position by different routes, but by now the lines have blurred. Rarely will a politician claim that free markets are "simply more productive" or "simply the right thing to do" but a combination of both. This merging of the classical liberal and conservative positions is found in most western conservative movements.
In any case the free market itself is not an issue, for western conservative movements. They operate in long-established market economies: it is the degree of government intervention that is at issue. One archetypal free-market conservative government of the late 20th century - the Margaret Thatcher government in the UK saw deregulation as the cornerstone of contemporary economic conservatism. Thatcher added privatisation to this policy, and privatised British Airways, with remarkable success, and British Rail, with rather more mixed results. She cut taxes (especially on the upper income brackets) and slowed governmental growth. Proponents of Thatcherism attribute the unparalleled economic boom of the early 1980s to the late 1990s to these policies
Communism - Communism refers to a conjectured future classless, stateless social organization based upon common ownership of the means of production, and can be classified as a multivariant branch of the broader socialist movement. Communism also refers to a variety of political movements which claim the establishment of such a social organization as their ultimate goal. Early forms of human social organization have been described as "primitive communism." However, communism as a political goal generally is a conjectured form of future social organization which has never been implemented. There is a considerable variety of views among self-identified communists. However, Marxism and Leninism, schools of communism associated with Karl Marx and of Vladimir Lenin respectively, have the distinction of having been a major force in world politics since the early 20th century. Class struggle plays a central role in the theory of Marxism. The establishment of communism is in this theory viewed as the culmination of the class struggle between the capitalist class, the owners of most of the capital, and the working class. Marx held that society could not be transformed from the capitalist mode of production to the communist mode of production all at once, but required a state transitional period which Marx described as the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. The communist society Marx envisioned emerging from capitalism has never been implemented, and it remains theoretical. However, the term "Communism", especially when the word is capitalized, is often used to refer to the political and economic regimes under communist parties which claimed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat.
I will add to this over time, I hope you all find it useful and not too boring. If you feel anything is missing that should be included PM me or reply here and state what it is that you think should be in here. Most Definitions are courtesy of Wikipedia.
Thanks
-N