 The government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, often a state. The government is like a clan with the purpose to govern the whole family or whole nations with powers of financial, military and civil loss. The main purpose of government is to seek the welfare of the civilians and to fulfill their need for the betterment of the nation. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive and judiciary. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. Each government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy. Typically the philosophy chosen is some balance between the principle of individual freedom and the idea of absolute state authority tyranny. While all types of organizations have governance, the word government is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 independent national governments on earth, as well as subsidiary organizations. Historically prevalent forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy, democracies, oligarchy, democracy, theocracy and tyranny. The main aspect of any philosophy of government is how political power is obtained, with the two main forms being electoral contest and hereditary succession. Definitions and etymology, the government is the system to govern the state or community. The Columbia Encyclopedia defines government as a system of social control under which the right to make laws, and the right to enforce them, is vested in a particular group in society. While all types of organizations have governance, the word government is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 independent national governments on earth, as well as their subsidiary organizations. In the Commonwealth of Nations, the word government is also used more narrowly to refer to the ministry collective executive or collective group of people that exercises executive authority in a state or, metonymically, to the governing cabinet as part of the executive. Finally, government is also sometimes used in English as a synonym for governance.