Poli 120 - Ideology and Politics - Ch. 7 - 8

Control of all resources and decisions concerning production and distribution of goods concentrated in a central planning authority, often the central government. Contrast with decentralized control.

The dispersion of control of resources and production into the hands of people at the lowest possible level, such as the town or workplace. Contrast with centralized control.

An economic system where the major material forces of production are privately owned and operated for the profit of the owners, investors or senior management.

(Also called social relations of production). Marxs phrase describing the social division of labor (for example, managers, supervisors, laborers) required to transform the material forces of production into useful goods.

A phrase Marx and Engels used to denote the moralistic and unrealistic schemes of earlier socialists.

Hegel's phrase for the process by which intentional actions produced unintentional, but nonetheless "rational" consequences that permit history to unfold.

Generally speaking, the process by which opposite views or forces come into contact, which eventually leads to the overcoming or reconciliation of the opposition in a new and presumably higher form. Plato used the term to describe a method of reasoning while Hegel, Marx and Engels used it to describe a process of historical change.

A philosophical construct of Hegel's. He portrays the confrontation between an all powerful master and his presumably powerless slave. The conflict between the two reveals that the master is dependant on his slave: the slave by winning his struggle for freedom and recognition liberates both himself and the master. Marx and later "liberation" ideologies also employ this parable of emancipation.