More generally the Ancien Regime is applied to any governmental system before a revolution - e.g. to Russia under the Tsars. In practice, many modern western economies developed under heavy government support and subsidy. Civil Rights Are rights held by individuals and groups derived from the social contract - the common consent of society at large to the rules under which its members live. The term relates in particular to the ideas outlined by Rousseau in The Social Contract . Communism Can be understood in two main ways.
Political communism is put into effect through political parties.
Conservatism Can mean many things - including opposition ot change by old Communist. Its greatest thinker was probably Edmund Burke . Burke was not a supporter of tyranny or despotism, but he was opposed to the assumptions of the liberals of the French revolutionary period. Against them he argued that People are not good - they are what they are and you cannot make things better over night Populism should not be trusted. These views are maintained in many later conservative strains of thought.