| bourgeoisie | One of Karl Marx's opposed classes; owners of the means of production (factories, mines, large farms, and other sources of subsistence).
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| capital | Wealth or resources invested in business, with the intent of producing a profit.
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| capitalist world economy | The single world system, which emerged in the 16th century, committed to production for sale, with the object of maximizing profits rather than supplying domestic needs.
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| colonialism | The political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time.
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| communism | Spelled with a lowercase c, describes a social system in which property is owned by the community and in which people work of the common good.
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| Communism | Spelled with a capital C, a political movement and doctrine seeking to overthrow capitalism and to establish a form of communism such as that which prevailed in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1917 to 1991.
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| Core | Dominant structural position in the world system; consists of the strongest and most powerful states with advanced systems of production.
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| imperialism | A policy of extending the rule of a nation or empire over foreign nations and of taking and holding foreign colonies.
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| indigenous peoples | The original inhabitants of particular territories; often descendants of tribespeople who live on as culturally distinct colonized peoples, many of whom aspire to autonomy.
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| Industrial Revolution | The historical transformation (in Europe, after 1750) of "traditional" into "modern" societies through industrialization of the economy.
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| intervention philosophy | Guiding principle of colonialism, conquest, missionization, or development; an ideological justification for outsiders to guide native peoples in specific directions.
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| neoliberalism | Revival of Adam Smith's classic economic liberalism, the idea that governments should not regulate private enterprise and that free market forces should rule; a currently dominant intervention philosophy.
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| periphery | Weakest structural position in the world system.
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| postcolonial | Referring to interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized (mainly after 1800); more generally, "postcolonial" may be used to signify a position against imperialism and Eurocentrism.
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| semiperiphery | Structural position in the world system intermediate between core and periphery.
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| working class, or proletariat | Those who must sell their labor to survive; the antithesis of the bourgeoisie in Marx's class analysis.
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| world-system theory | Argument for the historic and contemporary social, political, and economic significance of an identifiable global system, based on wealth and power differentials, that extends beyond individual countries.
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