[Box on page 4]

Politics​—Its Different Forms

The following definitions are taken from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1981 editions).

Anarchy: Absence of any form of political authority; a Utopian society made up of individuals who have no government and who enjoy complete freedom.

Aristocracy: Government by the nobility or by a privileged minority or upper class.

Autocracy: Government by one person having unlimited power; despotism.

Capitalism: (From “capital,” any form of material wealth) An economic system characterized by freedom of competition in the market, without state control, with increasing concentration of private and corporate ownership of production and distribution means.

Communism: A social system characterized by the absence of classes and by common ownership of the means of production and subsistence.

Democracy: Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.

Fascism: A system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism.

Feudalism: A political and economic system based on land held by a vassal on condition of homage and service to a lord.

Monarchy: Government by a monarch or sovereign, such as a king or an emperor.

Nazism: National Socialism. The policy of state control of the economy, racist nationalism, and national expansion as personified in Hitler’s National Socialism in Germany (1933-45).

Oligarchy: Government by the few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.

Plutocracy: Government by the wealthy.

Republic: A government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president.

Socialism: A social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods. In Marxist-Leninist theory, socialism is the material base for communism and the intermediate stage between capitalism and communism.

Theocracy: Government by a god regarded as the ruling power or by priests or officials claiming divine sanction.

Totalitarianism: (a) Centralized control by an autocratic authority; (b) the political concept that the citizen should be totally subject to an absolute state authority.

For thousands of years man has experimented with just about every conceivable form of government and political philosophy​—from monarchies (now mainly replaced by republics) to different types of democracy, (ostensibly, rule by the people), and a variety of oligarchies and dictatorships. (For a definition of terms, see box on page 4.) Since 1917 we have seen the rise of communism, fascism, and national socialism (the Nazi party in Germany).