Glossary

Asset - some thing (physical or maybe digital etc) with financial/monetary value

Anthropologist - a person who studies humans, especially their societies and norms

Aristocrat - aristocracy, literally, from the Greek for "best" and "rule"; so aristocrat is meant to be a member of the best, ruling class. More commonly, an aristocrat is an upper class and/or wealthy person

Billion - one billion is 1,000,000,000 ; one billion is how many seconds are in about 32 years

Capital - as associated with capitalism, means of producing things, accumulated from profiting(in the industrial context, machines; in a modern context this might be digital or intellectual)

Capitalism - has a complex variety of meanings, simply the process by which owners of capital [see capital] get richer and accumulate more capital

Collective - can be used to describe something belonging to a group or can be the group itself ("a/the collective")

Communist - someone who believes in communism, a form of socialism advocating common ownership and often revolution

Economics - a subject often focused on scarcity, frequently studying the production/consumption/transferal of wealth. It has various schools which think differently and believe contrasting theories

Economist - a person who studies economics

Financial - relating to finance, so money

Government - the (usually) elected leaders of a country, who make decisions about the country's choices and public matters. They claim to be legitimate rulers over a geographical region

Investor - a person who seeks to make profit from financial markets and their products

Institution - generally means an established organisation in society. This organisation typically has a function such as government, church, the central bank

Market - an actual place, or conceptual place, where buyers & sellers interact (these groups might be referred to as consumers & producers, individuals & firms etc.). You don't have to be able to see a physical market for it to exist, websites like Amazon are a market for all kinds of things

Monetary - relating to money

Monopoly - sole, majority or strong control over something being traded

Norm - may be social/political etc., refers often to what is normal, or what has become engrained in society

Normalised - the state that something has become a norm, see above

Price cap - a limit introduced by the government to prevent people from paying more than a set amount for something

Profit - the gain made (usually in money terms, pounds/dollars etc.) from business; this is what a company earns minus its costs to operate (bills and wages etc.)

Rent - the amount paid to an owner of an asset; the owner does not need to work to earn this rent

Renter - a person who rents a service or good (such as a house)

Revolution - a total overhaul of something; in a political context this is often seen as violent

Scarce/scarcity - describing something which is not commonly available/the state of something being not commonly available

Supply chain - the mechanism which brings goods/things to companies and shops, from raw materials or resources;
e.g. lumberjacks and truckers might be part of the supply chain for timber

Surplus value - the amount of money made above costs, that grant a businessperson profit

Underwriter - a person whose job is handling insurance

Western - a political context this describes countries/people which originate from Europe, or align with market/capitalist values