Liberalists and authoritarians. The reformers of our system of distribution may therefore be grouped into two main classes, -the liberalists and the authoritarians. The authoritarians are those who wish to substitute some form of compulsion for the system of free contract. The liberalists are those who prefer to keep the system of free and voluntary agreement rather than resort to compulsion. They rely upon free initiative not only in getting things produced but in determining the shares in distribution. Further, the authoritarians may be subdivided into two classes: first, those who believe in a benevolent despotism, such as that which produced most admirable results in the Canal Zone during the building of the Panama Canal or that which prevailed before the war in the German Empire; and, second, those who believe in the authority of the mass over the individual, where the will of the mass is indicated by majority votes and by the election of popular individuals as directors and administrators. The liberalists are likewise divided into two groups: first, those who believe that there is a logical dividing line between the sphere of government action, which must always be compulsory, and the sphere of private enterprise, which must always be voluntary and on a free contractual basis; second, the extreme anarchists who do not believe in force or compulsion of any kind, not even the exercise of police power, much less of military power.

The real conflict between authoritarians and liberalists is between the two intermediate groups; namely, those who believe in the compulsion of a democratic mass over the individual and those who believe in a fairly definite dividing line between the sphere of compulsion and the sphere of freedom-in other words, it is the conflict between socialism and liberalism as we find it in the world today.

The one thing that unites all who can properly be called socialists is their opposition to the private ownership of the means of production, such as land, factories, shops, stores, etc. There are almost as many working programs for abolishing private property in these things as there are socialists. These

working programs, however, fall into two main classes,—the political and the militant. By political programs are meant all those under which the voting power of the masses, if they can ever be persuaded to become socialists in office, is to be used for carrying elections, putting socialists in office, enacting legislation, and changing constitutions so as to take away from private individuals the productive property which they now possess and put it all into the hands of the public. The public in question may be the large group called the state, in which case the system is called state socialism; or it may be a smaller group, such as a guild, a trade union, a syndic; or even, in some cases, a small territorial group such as a township, in which case various names are applied such as guild socialism, syndicalism, or the soviet. Even in these cases, however, the larger group, called the state, must use its power to dispossess the private owners and permit the small groups to take possession.

By the militant programs are meant all those that proceed not to gain control of the existing government by voting but to defy it or overthrow it by force. In both cases force is to be used to dispossess private owners-in one case it is the force of the state, operating by regular, orderly, and constitutional methods; in the other case it is the force of the mob, operating in irregular, disorderly, and unconstitutional methods. The ultimate effects are practically the same, the difference being in the methods by which they are attained.

Before the World War the kind of socialism most talked about was state socialism, or socialism carried out by a large group called a state. The war made that type of socialism, temporarily at least, unpopular, and it is not much talked about now. In its stead socialism under a small group, in some of its various phases, is now attracting attention, particularly in England and Russia. Germany (where, before the war, the advocates of state socialism were strongest, forming the leading political party) is now in the hands of the Social Democratic party, but this party has given up even state socialism and has adopted definitely a program of private capital, as all parties

in all countries will when they are recalled to their senses by hard experience.

Even in Russia, where the extreme wing of the socialist party gained control and where the so-called social revolution was ushered in with much noise and violence, the experience of the Bolsheviki is sobering them down. It was apparent from the very beginning that there were only two possible outcomes. One was to starve so many people to death or otherwise so reduce the population that Russia could, with her rich resources but inefficient social organization, manage to feed and clothe her remaining population. The other was that the new government would come back to the essentials of capitalism; that is, the recognition of private property in whatever one has produced or bought from the producer on a free and open market. Wherever this principle is recognized, there is capitalism because men will make tools and also buy and sell them. Whoever makes a tool or buys one is, to the extent of owning that tool, a capitalist. Whether the tool is small and cheap or large and expensive does not affect the principle. Without a frank recognition of this principle no large population ever was or ever can be abundantly fed and clothed. Already (1921) the essentials of capitalism are being recognized by the soviet government of Russia, though with infinite effrontery its leaders still claim to be leaders of a revolution instead of acknowledging that they are making themselves leaders of the inevitable counterrevolution.

Compulsion versus freedom. It was pointed out in the chapter on Labor Programs that the schemes for the improvement of the laboring classes fall under two general heads. In this chapter we shall discuss some of the more far-reaching plans of social reconstruction, as outlined above. The autocratic form of authoritarianism (namely, Kaiserism) is, fortunately, dead. Among those which rely upon the authority of the mass or group over the individual, communism is the most extreme. It is sometimes called coöperation, but it is compulsory coöperation as distinguished from voluntary coöperation. The compulsion is made complete by the fact that the community, or the group, owns all the property and the individual owns none. All the processes of production and distribution are carried on by the community as a whole rather than by individual initiative and voluntary agreements among individuals.

Meaning of communism. Communism may therefore be defined as a type of social organization in which all wealth, including both producers' goods and consumers' goods, is owned and controlled by the community. It differs from socialism in

that the latter proposes that the community shall own and operate only producers' goods, leaving the consumers' goods to be owned and enjoyed by individuals. A completely communistic society, for example, would own the dwelling houses and even the food and clothing, but would distribute these to the individual members very much as they are now distributed within the small group which we call the family. From a certain point of view we might say that the ideal family of today is a small communistic group in which all property is held in common and enjoyed in common rather than separately by the individual members of the family.

Relation to anarchism. Theoretically, communism would be at the opposite end of the scale from anarchism, which is an absence of all government,-at least the absence of all compulsory government. In actual discussions, however, it is not always easy to distinguish between a communist and an anarchist. As a matter of fact, there is a considerable group of individuals who call themselves communist-anarchists; that is, they are opposed to any kind of government which resembles those with which we are now acquainted. They would substitute small communistic groups, each one working more or less independently of the others, and make such voluntary arrangements for exchange of products as they might find to their mutual advantage. In so far as they would oppose all compulsion, they would be called anarchists; in so far as they would have all wealth owned in common, at least within small groups, they would be called communists. Unless, however, the small group could exercise some compulsory control over the property of the group, it would be anarchism rather than communism. If the group did exercise orderly control over its own property to the exclusion of individuals and of rival groups, it would be compelled to exercise compulsion and would therefore, to that extent, cease to be anarchistic and become purely communistic.

Utopias. Naturally enough, communism has never been tried on a large scale. It has been advocated by many