Market Exchange A form of economic exchange which takes place when each party to the exchange presumes they have received goods or service of greater value than the goods or services they have provided. Maximization is inherent in such economic exchanges. Market exchange is the dominant mode of allocation for state level societies.
Matrilineal Descent A system of tracing kinship relatedness exclusively through females. A consequence of such a system is that membership in a matrilineage is unambiguous and exclusive. That is, one belongs to one and only one group. If the group "owns" intellectual or real property, the group is also corporate.
Matrilocal Residence A residence pattern in which a newly married couple goes to live in, or near, the wife's mother's household.
Maximization The economic principle that states people act so as to maximize the value of the return to themselves in relation to either the energy expended to produce something or the value attached to goods they give in market exchange.
Mercantile economy refers to the post-Rennaisance economies of Europe which were predicated on the extraction of raw materials from all over the world to supply the development of manufacturing in Europe. It prompted global exploration in search for new sources of materials or for more efficient routes to known sources.
Mode of Allocation All of the factors involved in the distribution of goods and services within a society or, in the case of states, throughout a market.
Mode of Production All of the factors involved in the transformation of resources into artefacts (goods and services).
Morph The minimal unit of form in a language.
Morpheme The minimal unit of meaningful form in language to a native speaker. A free morpheme is a such a unit which has meaning by itself. A bound morpheme one which has meaning only when attached to another form unit, usually a free morhpheme.