Words Matter: Definitions For Open Debate

In discussing any subject, especially health care reform, how we define words becomes important. I have chosen the dictionary definitions below that I use in my writings and I expect are accepted by others. If it is used differently that distinction will need to expressed so we can understand each other.

Privilege: "Such an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others."

Right: "Something that is due to a person or governmental body by law, tradition, or nature."

Survival: "A state of surviving; remaining alive."

Capacity: "The ability to do something."

Belief: "Is the psychological state in which an individual is convinced of the truth or validity of a proposition or premise (argument). Belief does not necessarily confer the ability to adequately prove one's main contention to other people, who may disagree."

Capitalism: "A system of economics under which ownership of and investment in the means of production and distribution depends chiefly upon corporations and private individuals."

Socialism: " Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy."

Economic System: "The system of production and distribution and consumption."

Morality: "A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct."

Religion: "1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe."

Secularism: "1. a view that religion and religious considerations should be ignored or excluded from social and political matters.
2. an ethical system asserting that moral judgments should be made without reference to religious doctrine, as reward or punishment in an afterlife"

Ethical: "Of or based on a system of moral beliefs about right and wrong."

Moral: "Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong."

Health: " A condition of optimal well-being."

Wealth: "Is the items of economic value that an individual owns."

Distribution of Wealth: "Is a comparison of the wealth of various members or groups in a society, and is one aspect of the economy and social structure."

Money: "Is any token or other object that functions as a medium of exchange that is socially and legally accepted in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts. Money also serves as a standard of value for measuring the relative worth of different goods and services and as a store of value. Some authors explicitly require money to be a standard of deferred payment.^"

Income: "In economics, factor income is the flow (that is, measured per unit of time) of revenue accruing to a person or nation from labor services and from ownership of land and capital."

Wages: "Economists define wages more broadly than just cash compensation and include any return to labor, such as goods workers might create for themselves, returns in kind (such as sharecroppers receive), or even the enjoyment that some derive from work. For economists, even in a world without others, an individual would still acquire wages from labor: food hunted or gathered would be considered wages and any returns resulting from an investment in tools (such as an axe or a hoe) would be deemed interest (a return on a capital investment). "

Profit: "Pure economic profit is the increase in wealth that an investor has from making an investment, taking into consideration all costs associated with that investment including the opportunity cost of capital. Accounting profit is the difference between retail sales price and the costs of acquisition (whether by harvest, extraction, manufacture, or purchase). A key difficulty in measuring either definition of profit is in defining costs. Accounting profit may be positive even in competitive equilibrium when pure economic profits are zero."

Social Insurance: "Government provision for unemployed, injured, or aged people; financed by contributions from employers and employees as well as by government revenue."

Government: "The system by which a country or state is ruled."

Society: "A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture."

Rent: "Economic rent, in economics, a payment to a factor of production in excess of that which is needed to keep it employed in its current use."

Interest: "A fee paid on borrowed assets."

Truth: "Extends from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular. The term has no single definition about which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree."

Fact: "Is something that is the case, something that actually exists, or something that can be verified according to an established standard of evaluation."

Legal Evidence: "Tight rules governing the presentation of facts that tend to prove or disprove the point at issue. In law, certain policies require that evidence that tends to prove or disprove an assertion or fact must nevertheless be excluded from consideration based either on indicia relating to reliability, or on broader social concerns. Testimony (which tells) and exhibits (which show) are the two main categories of evidence presented at a trial or hearing. "