Jeremy Bentham, a British philosopher, founded the school of though called utilitarianism. Bentham's work was continued by his student Jon Stewart Mill.

Classical liberalism differs significantly from modern day liberalism or progressivism. It espouses an individualistic conception of man’s relation to the state, which is only justified in terms of its obligation to maintain a stable order in which free relations between people lead to general prosperity. Classical liberalism is secular and advocates for religious tolerance, seeks to advance free trade and secure private property - Locke’s three basic rights are life, liberty, and property - and asserts that the legitimacy of government is derived from a social contract between the state and the governed. A social safety net is not a natural market institution and would have been alien to classical liberals like Adam Smith.

Lenin despised trade unions and thought they starved workers of the will to revolt. He did not think the proletariat in Russia was sufficiently large to successfully enact revolution due to the lack of industrialization, although he did believe industrializing was necessary in the long term. During the New Economic Program (NEP) in the 1920s, Lenin also promoted cultural pluralism and relative economic freedom. In “What is to be Done?” (1902) Lenin claims that a vanguard party of elites must be formed to bring about revolution through the spreading of political propaganda. The existence of this body is one of the most important factors distinguishing Marxist-Leninist communism from Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

Deism was the Enlightenment's criticism of organized religion. In emphasizing "natural laws" and ethical conduct, Deism ultimately rejected the more "metaphysical" aspects of religious teaching, and brought an increased focus to science and moral philosophy.

The most commoly cited phrasing of the "watchmaker analogy" was made by William Paley in his 1802 book Natural Theology.

The Communist Manifesto was published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848 and detailed the struggle between the various classes and the flaws with the current capitalist system. Engels was a German philosopher and writer who spent time working in England and published a variety of essays with Marx. Marx was a German writer who focused on economics and economic philosophy. He met Engels in 1844, when their partnership was formed. Together they worked on alternative economic theories and eventually developed what would become known as Marxism. This theory is different from communism in that communism allowed for a party to initiate a revolution of the working class, while Marxism only predicted the coming revolution when the working class would rise up.

Mein Kampf was Hitler’s manifesto that was published in two volumes and was started while Hitler was in jail for leading an uprising against the government in Munich. The first part came out in 1925 and the second part in 1926. It detailed Hitler’s views on who and what he blamed for the poor state of Germany. His primary blame fell on the Jews and what he felt was their desire to control the world. The book became very popular in Germany and contributed to Hitler’s reputation and rise to power. Das Kapital (1867) was written by Karl Marx and edited by Friedrich Engels.

Fukuyama argued that with the fall of the Soviet Union, Western liberal democracy had triumphed over communism and had no remaining ideological challengers.

Unheard of for the time, citizens of Prussia were almost universally educated to some degree. The vast majority of citizens could at least read or write, and many had even greater educations than that due to the push for education from Frederick the Great.

The Enlightenment was in compliment to the Scientific Revolution. Where the Scientific Revolution catered to the "hard sciences" of math, chemistry, and physics, the Enlightenment brought about a major influx of people to the "soft sciences" of philosophy and social science. The major figures of the Enlightenment focused most of their work around the lives and social constructs of people.

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the founding voices of the feminist movement. She argued that women were not naturally inferior to men and pushed to have men and women recognized as equals. A Vindication of the Rights of Women was published in 1792. Letters on the French Revolution was published in 1790 by Edmund Burke. "Ode on the Peace" was a poem published by Helen Maria Williams in 1801. The Theory of Moral Sentiments was published in 1759 by Adam Smith.