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| someone who wants to return to an earlier form of society or government. More generally, a reactionary is an extreme conservative. |
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| The belief in Christian theology that the first sin- Adam's defiance of God in the Garden of Eden- has somehow effected all human beings. |
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| Beginning among disenchanted welfare liberals in the 1960's, a movement advocating less reliance on government, an assertive foreign policy, and an emphasis on the value of work, thrift, family, and self-restraint. |
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| A belief that the first aim of a political action must be to preserve the social fabric by pursuing a cautious policy of reform. Edmund Burke was a classical conservative. |
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| A policy, initiated by the British conservative leader Benjamin Disraeli, supporting voting rights and other benefits for the working class in order to forge an electoral alliance between the upper and the working class against the predominantly middle-class Liberal Party. |
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| A term Marx developed from Hegel's philosophy to describe the separation or estrangement of persons or classes of people from their human potential. Under Capitalism, Marx claims, the worker's ability to control his or her labor is alienated. |
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| A Marxinian phrase referring to the false or distorted beliefs of members of a subordinate class who fail to understand their true position in society. These false beliefs work to the advantage of the ruling class because they prevent the subordinate class from seeing the cause of its oppression. |
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The effort, criticised by many conservatives, to diminish or eliminate the gap between the wealthiest and poorest members of society. Critics maintain that these efforts promote mediocrity and reduce everyone to the same low level. |
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| A term coined by Thomas Moore from grrek words (eu-topos) meaning either "good place"or "no place". Utopia now refers to a perfect society from which greed, crime, and other social ills have been banished. |
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| Generally speaking, the process whereby opposite views or forces come into conflict, which eventually leads to the overcoming or reconciliation of the opposition in a new and presumably higher form. Different forms of this method of reasoning are found in Socrates, Plato, Hegel, and Marx, among others. |
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| According to Edmund burke, a radical change for the sake of change or novelty. the desire to innovate, Burke says, leads people to neglect or reject their time-tested customs. Contrasted with reforms. |
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| A key concept in socialist, and particularly Marxinian, analysis, referring to one's socially determined location in the structure of social-economic relations. If you are part owner of the forces (or means) of production, you are a member of the Bourgeoisie or capitalist class; if you are yourself a means of production, then you are a member of the working class, or proletariat. |
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| An economic system in which the major means of production are privately owned and operated for the profit of the owners or investors. |
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| Marx's word for wage-laborers, the industrial working class. The proletariat was originally the lowest class in ancient Rome. |
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| A system whereby the major means of production are publicly owned. Originally used to describe any scheme of common or social control of resources, this term is now associated with Marxinian socialism. For Marx and the Marxists, the communal ownership and control of the forces/means of production represents the fulfillment of human history. The culmination of a long-term revolutionary sequence, a mature communist society subscribes to the principle, "From each according to ability, to each according to need." |
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| A term that originally referred to those who lived in a market town, but later to the middle class-merchants and professional people-in general. In Marx's terms, the bourgeoisie is the ruling class in a capitalist society because it owns and controls the forces/means of production. |
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| atomistic conception of society |
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| The view that society consists of individuals who, like marbles on a tray, are essentially unconnected to or independent of one another. Contrast with the organic conception of society. |
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| organic conception of society |
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| In contrast to the atomistic conseption, a view holding that members of a society are connected and interdependent, like the parts of the body, and that society itself is more than merely the sum of its parts. |
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| materialist conception of history |
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| the Marxinian framework for interpreting or explaing social change. the central idea is that changes in the material-productive base bring about changes in the social relations of production and the ideological superstructure. |
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| Hegel's phrase for the process by which intentional actions produce uninteded, but nonetheless "rational", consequences that promote the development of "spirit" through history. |
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| modern/individualist conservatism |
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| belief that government should promote individual liberty by protecting against foreign threats, but otherwise leave people alone to do as they see fit. Such a view may be closer to neoclassical liberalism than to other forms of conservatism. |
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| the influential philosophical movement of the eighteenth century, especially in France, that proclaimed the triumph of reason and science over custom and superstition. |
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| Hegel's account of the confrontation between an all-powerful master and his presumably powerless slave. The conflict between the two reveals that the master is dependent upon his slave, the slave, by winning his struggle for freedom and recognition, liberates both himself and the master. Marx and later liberation ideologists also employ the parable of emancipation. |
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| social relations of production |
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| marx's phrase describing the social division of labor required to transform raw materials into useful goods or commodities. |
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| ideological superstructure |
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| Marx's metaphor for the set of beliefs, ideas, and ideals that justifies or legitimizes the social arrangements that constitute the foundation or base of society. |
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| opiate of the people/masses |
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| Marx's phrase for religion, which he believed dulled the critical capacity of oppressed people by directing their attention and hopes away from this life to an eternal and blissful afterlife. |
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| dictatorship of the proletariat |
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| The form of government that Marx expected to provide the transition from the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie to the eventual coming of communist society. This interim or transitional state will presumably wither away. |
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| withering away of the state |
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| Marx's description of the process whereby the interim dictatorship of the proletariat loses its reason for being and gradually ceases to exist. |
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| Reflections on the Revolution in France |
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| Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels |
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