POLITICAL DICTIONARY
This is a work in progress that will be updated several times. My field of interest is how culture influences success and unfortunately this will then involve politics. As an aid to the reader and to better make my points I want to have a dictionary of common political terms which are often not well understood. Feel free to suggest new terms to be added or for existing definitions explained. The point of this dictionary is not to serve as a universal political dictionary but is instead to serve the purposes of my growing examination of how culture influences success. This does not mean that the definitions are inaccurate, but the focus is on how these terms are used in my field of interest.
Adam Smith - Supposed to be the founder of capitalist economics, Adam Smith never actually said the things he is supposedly said. It’s not really there in Wealth of Nations from 1776, he mostly talks about taxes. But he is both hero and villain depending on which side of the political spectrum you are on.
Burkean Conservatism - Edmund Burke’s writings denouncing the French Revolution are often considered the start of modern conservatism which simply means conservatism that is not strictly support for the status quo. Burke set the tone for modern conservatism with his writings criticizing the French Revolution and the specific feature of criticism influences all of conservatism as it is seen by others and the conservatives themselves. Burke stated that each generation of humans could not be much more intelligent than the one before, therefore our growth in understanding must be gradual. For the current generation to try and do away with all that has come before is an act doomed to failure as one generation can not know more than all past generations or even one past generation as all generations are of equal intellectual ability. But with more time to work on the same problems improvements can be made each generation and added to the inheritance of the past and gradual improvement is possible. But to try and sweep away all the past and replace the work of generations with the work on one generation is doomed to failure and must be stopped. This position has been the foundation of modern conservatism for over two hundred years. The weakness of the position is obvious, it explains why revolutionary change won’t work but does not offer something in its place. For over two hundred years people have found this unsatisfactory and Burkean conservatism functions in a practical sense as a mere delaying tactic and a source of I-told-you-so comments.
Capitalism - This term was started by Saint Simon to refer the modern sections of the economy in early nineteenth century Europe. A full examination is beyond the scope of a short writing. The early socialists witnessed the end of the land based aristocratic form of European society. Refusing to acknowledge the replacement was fundamentally different they reused the outline of the prior form of organization and replaced aristocracy with bourgeoisie and land with capital, or money. This was an attempt to make this turnover understandable to a Europe confused as to the change happening all around them.
In later years the term has come to refer to an economy allowing private ownership of property with the degree of private ownership and control indicating the degree to which the economy is considered capitalistic.
Colonialism - This word has changed meaning several times. Originally a colony was immigration to an annexed country to form a growing population. Eventually it came to mean areas annexed by Europe but with no plans to replace the original population or to import large numbers of Europeans. Confusingly enough in the locations where numbers of Europeans were brought in they were referred to as settlers to differentiate them from the colonists who were often there temporarily for government administration. After Europe withdrew from its former colonies the left refused to admit colonialism was over and now insists it colonialism survives due to the income disparities.
Communism - Lenin began his political career Russian Social Democratic Party, the largest left wing Russian party and like all left wing parties of that time it had the word Social in the name. Like almost all socialist parties of that time it followed the lead of the German Socialist Party as it was the most successful and important of all socialist parties. It was the most successful and important of all in its impact on its home country. Americans systematically believe the European welfare state was invented by Sweden, this tiny northern county dominates the American imagination to an extent that is unsupportable by rational examination. The modern European welfare state was invented by Germany in the nineteenth century by the German Socialist party. At first built this on their own and payed for the benefits through member dues. In later years the government took over and imitated these benefits in the accurate belief that if the working class could receive the same benefits from the government they would lose interest in the party which invented these benefits.
The Swedish welfare state which so dominates the American imagination was invented in the 1920s, the first modern European welfare state was invented by Bismark in the nineteenth century by imitating the same benefits the German Socialist Party innovated on the government level. This is the true start of the modern European welfare state, though the German term would be social state. Welfare state is the American name for a European phenomenon and not very useful or accurate. This first welfare state invented by Bismark was a Social Democracy, Bismarck introduced the social state for the sole purpose of making his repression of democracy acceptable to the working class and it worked.
Because the German Socialists were the true inventors of the modern welfare state they were the leading party of the movement and Karl Kautsky, the intellectual leader of the German Socialists was the pope of international socialism. When Lenin took control of Russia he expected the pope to hand over his funny hat and make Lenin the new pope of Socialism worldwide. When Kautsky instead denounced Soviet Russia as a fraud Lenin decided to split the left in two, one side following him and one side following Kautsky, who he would now only refer to as the renegade Kautsky. In 1919 Lenin renamed his party the Communist Party of Russia and ordered that all those who would follow his path of violent takeover leave the Socialist movement and form one and only one Communist Party for each country and then follow the orders of the first Communist Party in Russia. If Lenin could not be pope he preferred schism and being a partial pope.
To further confuse issues there is a specific use of the term Communism in leftist intellectual systems. The idea here is that after a violent takeover the Socialist will introduce Socialism by force. After a time the people who first had Socialism forced on them will come to accept and prefer this form of organization and force will no longer be needed and this future version of the left they term Communism and see as the eventual fate of their movement.
The many terms are important for a historical understanding but in present day discussion the term is almost entirely used for rhetorical purposes, as can be said of almost all political terms.
Commonwealth - A literal translation of the Roman res publica or public things, which is usually rendered as Republic.
Conservatism - Literally means the desire to keep things the same never applied this way. Since affirmative-action is part of the status quo someone who wants things to stay the same would want to keep affirmative-action. This applies to any feature of the status quo. Just like the political usage of right and left the current political usage of conservative dates to the French Revolution. At first conservatives were opposed to the revolution but over time it has come to mean opposition modern political trends in general. This usage is not consistent, Nazism was new and many political conservatives such as Churchill fought against it yet opposition to novelties such as Nazism and Fascism never seems to be considered a conservative tendency while opposition to novelties such as Communism and Socialism is considered a conservative tendency. The vague and inconsistent manner in which the term is used is beyond the scope of a short writing.
Critical - Code word for Marxist.
Democracy - Means rule by the people and originally meant the people directly deciding issues. As populations became to large it came to mean representative democracy where voters would choose legislators who would then vote on the laws. Once democracy became accepted as an ideal opponents came to refer to their philosophies as being truer forms of democracy thus claiming the admiration for democracy for themselves. Mussolini referred to Fascism as Direct Democracy and the left quickly followed and claimed the Soviet Union was a truer democracy and the pattern continues. Now that it is admired it is never criticized instead alternatives are described as being the true democracy.
Ethno State - As Americans refuse to use nation the correct way Americans are unable to use nation-state the correct way and so have invented the term ethno-state for the purpose of discussing what the rest of the world discusses by simply using the original term of nation-state.
Ethnic Group - In the English languages human groupings are supposed to follow this order of hierarchy:
humanity -> race -> nation -> tribe -> clan -> family -> individual.
Americans systematically use nation to mean state and so have to substitute ethnic group for nation in this hierarchy. Prior to the twentieth century race and nation were used interchangeably.
Fascism - The best definition of fascism is its own, the word means bundle of sticks and the meaning is that while each stick is weak when bundled together the whole is strong. This is applied to human affairs in having the group be bound together for strength and this binding together will be enforced if need be. This is the meanings of the fasces symbol from ancient Rome still used today, the fasces is a weapon used for enforcing discipline and a symbol of the strength from unity. This obsession with enforced unity and for an ethnically limited group for the sake of increasing the group’s power and success is Fascism’s own definition and the most accurate one. This makes Fascism an ever present trend in politics around the world and across all eras. But Western Civilization under the influence of Christianity opposed this trend in human affairs and thus its reemergence after Europe was dechristianized was noted by both the Fascists and others as a novel event. This formal reemergence of Fascism began in Italy after World War One and cannot be separated from the war itself. Before the war there was no doubt on the left that in the next great, all consuming European war the working class of each country would unite across national lines and emerge as the true victor of the war and create a new socialist world. Nothing of the sort happened. Class consciousness was bullets through fog compared to national loyalty and there was not even a single instance of soldiers choosing class loyalty over ethnic loyalty. The Socialist leader Mussolini saw this and knew that Socialism as then constructed was doomed. He created Fascism as a response, which kept the social state of the left, the government benefits and safety net and combined it with the tradition human instinct to bind many together for strength.
Of course in modern life Fascism is almost always used as invective, an insult against those disagree with. It is always associated with the political right despite that every Fascist party that ever existed supported the social state invented by nineteenth century Europe. A tempting explanation is that the focusing of loyalty on an ethnically limited group is the defining feature of Fascism and thus justifies applying it to a political right which does not support the social state. And yet any and all non white group loyalty is free from being described as Fascist. The Mexican motto For My Race Everything, For the Others Nothing would make Mussolini blush, yet the Mexicans are never described as Fascist. And so the current use of Fascist as an insult is too complex to be explained in a short writing.
Free Market - Similar to Laizzez Faire and liberal in the non American usage but most often applied to inter country business rather than intra country business.
Imperialism - A complex term with several meanings. Originally the Empire would be the area controlled by a country outside of the home country and Imperialism would be the ideas supporting or encouraging this. In 1905 Lenin redefined it to mean the investment of wealth overseas which he blamed for the failure of capitalism to collapse as Marx predicted. Lenin viewed this investment as economically productive and fully credited with keeping the world economy growing fast enough to avoid the leftist takeover he desired. After Lenin had first redefined it further redefinitions came and it became a label for overseas investment claimed to be predatory and disadvantageous to the third world by the left.
Irredentism - the goal of having all members of an ethnic group within one nation-state by annexing any parts of neighboring nation-states containing members of their group.
Laizzez Faire - French for leave alone it refers to extreme liberalism in business regulations though in American usage it would be referred to as extreme conservatism. Most often used by those idealizing this state of affairs.
Left - The political terms left and right derive from the French Revolution where people of similar beliefs began to sit together in parliament on opposing sides and the real and imagined philosophies of these groups became the archetypical example and identification of almost all political philosophies. A complete discussion of the meaning of left is impossible in a short writing.
Leninism - The socialist movement that originated in nineteenth century Europe believed it would come to power through majority support and democratic means or through a revolution sparked by an all consuming European war which would require the arming of the urban workers to achieve full mobilization. The leftists with working class backgrounds or at least sympathies supported democratic means and focused on improved working conditions and not a world changing and history making reshaping of all human relations. The intellectuals in the left with no working experience or working class sympathies focused on the hope of a future world changing and history making reshaping of all human relations. Lenin was on this side of the left. He formulated his Vanguard theory of how the left would achieve its history making reshaping of all human relations and split off his followers in the RSDP in 1905. Lenin believed that the majority of workers would not support the left’s vision of an ideal future until they have personally experienced it. And so the only way they could personally experience it would be to have it forced on the by the minority. This forcing minority he termed the Vanguard and in 1905 he termed those in the Russian Socialist movement who agreed with him Bolsheviks and those who kept faith with the plan for democratic change as Mensheviks. This breaking apart of the left was repeated on a worldwide scale in 1919 when Lenin ordered leftists in every country to split in two as the Russian Socialists had in 1905. And so in every country one and only one Communist Party was formed by the followers of Lenin and his Vanguard theory.
Liberal - This term is systematically used by Americans in a manner different from the rest of the world. Americans generally mean the exact opposite of the rest of the world when they use this term. The literal meaning is obviously free and originally this meant free to conduct business as one choose and is associated in the public’s imagination as beginning with Manchester freedom in the English midlands during the start of the Industrial Revolution. This freedom to conduct business as one wishes is receives the usual treatment of political terms and is either idealized as the sum of all good things or the sum of all bad things.
The specifically American usage of this term would seem to originate in the nineteenth century usage as freedom from religious traditions and social conventions in sexual relations and private life in general. This specific usage has become in America a general term for the entire left including the lefts policies of restricting economic freedom. This curious and nonsensical usage by Americans is revealing of the differences between America and Europe, the greater focus on religious and family issues in America and the greater focus on class issues in Europe. The disparity between the usage of liberal in America and Europe also reveals what issues are most divisive. The difference between the economic policies of the right and left in the US are not so great while the differences in how we should live our private lives involves a vast gulf. In Europe it is much reversed, the right and left do not differ that much on their ideal view of personal relations but the gap between what is wanted for economic organization constitute a vast gulf too wide for friendly compromise.
Liberal Democracy - Representative democracy with freedom to live as speak as one chooses where no direct harm is done to others.
Maoism - Most countries will have several socialist parties but only one Communist party and that party was usually founded between 1919 and 1925. After Kautsky failed to anoint Lenin as the new world leader of Socialism Lenin split the left into Socialist and Communists with all communists being required to obey Moscow. Thus the rule that only one Communist Party per country being needed. Maoism broke with Russian control and created a wing of the communist movement which embraced the violent and undemocratic takeover of the world espoused by Lenin but without the obedience to Moscow and failed to create a new locus of control. In practice it was a very loosely affiliated group of mostly third world communist. In contrast to Soviet Communism there was an embrace of the agrarian and rural poor as in many third world countries there were no industrial workers to organize.
Marxism - Socialism predates Marx and concern and assistance for the poor predates Socialism. In his own words Marx’s original contribution was the class struggle. The bourgeois cities which had been granted the right to self government in the early middle ages quickly became the wealthiest part of Europe and their wealth eventually eclipsed that of the land owning aristocracy and eventually the bourgeois cities eclipsed the land owning aristocracy politically as well. Rather than attribute the success of the self governing cities to the advantages of self government and a new culture and spirt Marx viewed them as a conspiratorial power bloc which had outmaneuvered the older power bloc of the landowners. He then claimed that the industrial workers were destined to eclipse the bourgeois themselves in a mystical fashion which is inevitably compared to Jewish messianism by everyone except the Marxists themselves. We just have to wait and then when it happens it will just happen magically, just like that. Marx’s addition of the class struggle was a permanent feature of left wing intellectual life but his passive approach to waiting for the day when the socialist world would triumph was abandoned.
Means Testing - Testing for poverty before government benefits are given. This is the distinguishing feature of American social benefits. One must prove one is poor enough to be given the benefit while in Europe many benefits such as free healthcare or tuition are given to all. One of the consistent controversies in American politics is whether means testing should be dropped. Leftists tend to believe that European benefits are more generous because more people receive them. The standard argument against ending means testing by the American right is that the benefits would become too expensive.
Nation - Americans use nation differently than all other peoples. Nation comes from the latin word for birth and refers to the group you are born into, your race or ethnic group. This is unchangeable at birth unlike religion or citizenship. American culture minimizes ethnic and racial differences and American English has come to use the word nation to mean state or country. In the American usage nation-state means the same thing as nation-nation or state-state as Americans use nation to mean an independent political entity. This difference in the use of nation applies to national as well. In American English national means country wide in scope, as in the National League. In all other countries national would mean racial or ethnic except when specifically influenced by American culture. When whites in India wanted to set up an organization to lobby for the interests of Indians they named it the Indian National Congress which became the Congress Party. The world national in the name refers to the racial focus of the organization and not the countrywide sphere of influence. Later whites in South Africa decided to imitate this prior example and founded the African National Congress to lobby for the interests of Blacks in South Africa. Again the word national referred to the race being lobbied for and not the countrywide scope of the organization. When whites in America founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People the word national referred to the countrywide scope of the organization. This difference between how Americans all all others use the word nation is a constant cause of confusion.
Nation-state - Americans systematically use the term nation differently than the rest of the world. The rest of the world uses nation-state to mean a country where the ethnic group and the state are almost the same thing. Japan the country and Japan the people are almost the same thing as almost no non Japanese live in Japan and almost no Japanese live outside of Japan. Thus the word Japan means both a country and a people, Japan is a nation-state. America is not a nation-state as American is not a race. Israel is not a nation-state as most Jews live outside the country thus Israel and Jews do not mean almost the same thing the way Japan and Japanese do. Because of the oddball American use of nation the hypothetical terms nation-nation and nation-state would mean the same to an American. In practice Americans tend to use nation-state as the fancy word for country and that is what they are usually trying to convey when they use the term.
The reader may ask why this term exists, the answer is the unique history of Europe requires the term and no competent history of Europe fails to address the rise of the nation-state. The Roman Empire is a candidate for the most successful multi-ethnic state in world history. Across a gigantic territory an extremely diverse collection of ethnicities and languages were combined in a more meaningful way that perhaps any other entity has ever achieved. The unifying principle holding it together was not a shared personal background but shared allegiance to a philosophy of civilization and advancement, the Roman Empire was unified by philosophy rather than by sharing stories of home cooking or singing the same songs. This Empire collapsed and a vast area came to only know local administration. One can say the Empire collapsed down a multitude of states no larger than a modern county. What was once a gigantic multi ethnic empire was reduced to a vast swatch of micro states each smaller than the area inhabited by its ethnicity. This did not last. The tiny micro states formed after the collapse of the Roman Empire spent hundreds of years combining and warring until eventually each ethnicity had its own country, a nation-state. England and France were the first to achieve nation-state status, among larger countries Germany and Italy were last. No competent version of European history ignores the rise of the nation-state after the collapse of the Roman Empire. But this term is not needed outside of European history. One does not need to talk of the rise of the nation-state in Asia or Africa as they never had any other type of state. They never had a Roman Empire unifying several ethnicities and then dissolving into micro states and then slowly reforming into nation-states.
Nationalism - This world means something different in America than from all other countries as Americans use the word nation differently than all other countries. In America nationalism is considered indistinct from patriotism. Outside America nationalism refers to support for one’s ethnicity or race. Outside the US one can be nationalistic without being patriotic. A Somali in Sweden can be nationalistic in his support of Somalis and not be patriotic in his support of Sweden. As always the American misuse of nation is a cause of misunderstandings. For example when Emmanuel Macron claimed nationalism is the enemy of patriotism his comment confused Americans. Macron’s position is not truly confusing, his point is that support for one’s race or ethnicity comes at the expense of support for the country as a whole, an obviously true point.
Nazism - Originally named the German Workers Party was renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party in the 1920s and termed Nazi for short. National was not used in the American sense but in the original sense of relating to the nation, the group you belong to by birth. In this case it would be German. Socialism referred to support for the social state or what Americans would refer to as the welfare state. The Nazis did not support the European trend toward Social Democracy as they opposed democracy, but they fully supported what is best termed the social state but which Americans will most likely insist on terming the welfare state. The term national was meant to be in direct opposition to the term international, which was popular among the left and best corresponds to the modern idea of multiculturalism. The left at the time was dominated by internationalism and the hope of a future socialist world government. The Nazis directly opposed this and supported the social state concept of the mainstream left while inverting the internationalism and promoting a purely national perspective.
To place this rejections of internationalism in history one has to refer to world war one. By the 1880s the European left had realized that there was not enough public support for the history making takeover they were aiming for. They then placed their hope in war. The European states of the time tried to fill the army ranks with rural supporters of traditional Europe and deny entrance to the urban workers most supportive of socialism. The left correctly observed that in a future all out war Europe would have no choice but to fully mobilize and bring the urban workers into the army. This they predicted, would give their supporters control of the army and from that control of the world. For this reason the European left dreamed of war, of an all consuming European war which would indirectly bring them to power. In 1914 they got the all consuming war they wanted. The local intellectuals in each country advocated for the newly armed working class elements in the army to turn their rifles towards their officers and make a Europe wide revolution. Nothing of the sort happened, the urban working class always chose country over class and there was not even a hint of a revolution.
Word War One changed the left, it showed that country was more important to almost everyone in Europe then class. Out of this the Socialist leader Mussolini started the first party based on this newly proven reality by combining the social state of the left with rabid support of one’s nation, or what Americans would term one’s ethnic group. Schickelgruber then took this formula and made it more extreme with the introduction of genetically produced behavior and categorizing Germans as genetically more cooperative than others and prone to have their generous cooperation taken advantage of. This combination of the social state with nationalism and then made more extreme with the conviction that behavior across nations is genetically determined became the philosophy of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party.
Patriotism - Patriotism derives from the word for father as in fatherland. It is support for one’s country while nationalism is support for one’s race or ethnicity. As always the American misuse of the word nation causes confusion. As there is no American race Americans cannot truly be nationalistic, only patriotic. This confusion of terms by the oddball American use of nation causes important misunderstandings. In Mein Kampf Schicklegruber denounced patriotism and called it the cause of fools and said only nationalism was sensible. Schicklegruber’s point can never be understood by Americans. It is common for patriotic Americans to be slandered by the left as following the example of Schicklegruber despite American Patriotism being the opposite of Schicklegruber’s ideas. And yet the left supports Blacks and Latinx in promoting a nationalism which is fully in line with Schicklegruber’s ideas.
Populism - Advocacy for a social state without any intellectual pretensions is often derided as populism and compared to Nazism and Fascism. This invective serves to keep advocacy of the social state a monopoly of the intellectuals.
Protectionism - Regulations barring or hindering imports are termed protectionism. There are many possible motives for supporting protectionism. One can believe foreign exporters are unfairly receiving government assistance, one can believe foreign exporters benefit from poor working conditions which would have to be imitated to compete on price. Protectionism is also promoted as a growth promoting policy by allowing fledgling industries in one’s own country time to develop and by reducing the outflow of money by reducing imports. It is generally opposed by what outside the US are termed liberals and by what inside the US are termed conservatives.
Race - From the latin word for root, the largest human grouping still smaller than humanity. Due partially to the Biblical influence the usual number of races spoken of is three, white, Black and Asian. Whether or not there should be more is purely scientific issue unrelated to politics. The use of the term is confusing in that traditionally it was used to mean nation, for example in that past they would speak of the Italian race, the Spanish race. This is an archaism at this point but still found in historical works.
Radicle - Code word for Marxist.
Reactionary - Originally an opponent of the French Revolution it came to mean an extreme conservative and is now used solely as invective.
Republic - Derived from the Roman term res publica, meaning public things. Each Roman had is own life and then there are the things affecting all Romans, the res publica which became republic. From this in Europe it came to mean a democratic state during the era of the end of monarchy. In America it is often used as a term for representative democracy, but this is an American innovation, the term does not originally refer to representative democracy. The distinction is that in representative democracy one votes to elect those who decide while in democracy one votes on the issues themselves. In the American usage voting for those who then vote on the issues in the national legislature is often termed republican political organization though this is a local innovation. Even the European usage of Republic to mean a democratically organized country is an innovation as it originally was the Roman term for state.
Revolution - A change in political control which also changes the fundamentals of society. The longed for dream of the left since the French Revolution.
Right - The political terms left and right derive from the French Revolution where people of similar beliefs began to sit together in parliament on opposing sides and the real and imagined philosophies of these groups became the archetypical example and identification of almost all political philosophies. A complete discussion of the meaning of right is impossible in a short writing.
Socialism - This is a term prone to misuse. It is common for leftists to use it to mean the sum of all good things and the right to use it to mean the sum of all wrong things. What is most important for a clear understanding of history is the distinction between socialism and communism started by Lenin. In 1919 Lenin declared that all socialist parties must split in two, with those believing in democratic change keeping the name socialist and those advocating a violent takeover and subsequent dictatorship renaming themselves communist. This key distinction between those believing in democratic change and those believing violent change is what is most important for a clear understanding of history and must be emphasized.
Prior to Lenin intentionally splitting the socialist movement it was a varied group with roots in the early nineteenth century advocating improved conditions for industrial workers. This movement was always split between worker’s rights advocates who merely wanted improved conditions and intellectuals who wanted to use worker’s rights issues as a tool for reshaping society according to their abstract philosophies. This initial split has always remained with the left and was later joined by an additional split into democratic and non democratic camps.
Social Democracy - This is the current form of European political organization. The word democracy is important as the left has always harbored anti democratic elements. This was formally recognized and idealized by Lenin starting in 1905 locally in Russia and then internationally in 1919. The Social Democrats formally reject the anti democratic elements of the left while embracing the social state innovations of the nineteenth century as pioneered by Germany. The term is inherently a continental European term and not used in the anglo-sphere. In practical and specific terms all Western countries can be described as Social Democracies. Americans have an obsessive focus on means testing social benefits meaning one must prove one is poor enough to deserve the benefit. Lack of means testing is often used by Americans as the key distinction between a welfare state and the American state of welfare and between modern America and social democracy. But if one ignores politics the strongest argument is on the side of all western countries being social democracies.
Supply Side Economics - Government organized stimulation of the economy can come in two forms, stimulating spending by consumers and stimulating investment by business. Consumer spending is the demand side of the economy and business activity is the supply side of the economy. It is easy to make an argument that in the long term stimulating the economy by stimulating investment, or stimulating the supply side, is better in the long run for the entire economy. In the 80s the Reagan era enacted a series of tax cuts which were intended to stimulate business investment. In practice the only stimulatory effect was to increase consumer spending. The phrase Supply Side Economics has become poisoned with association tax cuts for the rich and for false promises of beneficial stimulus. Yet the logic of stimulating the economy through business investment rather than consumer spending is still sound.
Utopian Socialism - Marx invented this term for the socialists who came before him and believed in peaceful and democratic change and improvement in working conditions and conditions for the poor. Marx claimed this peaceful vision was unrealistic and could never work yet all successful left wing systems are derived from what he termed Utopian Socialism and everything based on Marx has failed.
Welfare State - This is the American term for modern European political organizations which provide benefits and a safety net so as the minimum floor of allowable poverty is not uncomfortable. The American imagination runs wild with both positive and negative visions of what all this entails and Americans obsessively associate these negative and positive visions with Sweden. The modern version of the welfare state was invented in Germany in the nineteenth century. The most accurate term for modern Europe would be Social Democracy, a term which Americas on both right and left avoid. As welfare state is mostly used as a term in American political debates it should be understood as Americans understand it. The American view is that in a welfare state employment is purely voluntary and one will be supported at a comfortable level by the state no matter how little or how poorly one works. That this is not the case seems to matter little to political debates, just as Europeans refuse to admit to the extent of American social benefits due to their being almost entirely means tested
Westminster Democracy - The most common form of democracy in the world and originating in Britain. The American form of democracy has never spread beyond America as it promotes a divided government which all other countries seek to avoid. In Westminster democracy the voters elect the legislature and then the party or coalition of parties with the most seats chooses the prime minister who runs the executive branch for as long as the legislature allows, with some small compromises for practicality. In the American system the voters themselves select the President, the head of the executive branch, and are free to vote one party into the Presidency and another into the legislature creating a divided government. The rest of the world abhors this possibility and almost all countries choose Westminster Democracy as their form of democratic government.
