Socialism designates (1) a social[15] philosophy (2) a mode of social action, (3) a particular political party.  There is thus philosophic, active, and partisan socialism.  Each of these may be taken either in an absolute or in a more or less relative sense.  The first meaning is the most fundamental, the second less so, and the last the least fundamental, but just now the most frequently used.

Sec. 13. #Philosophic socialism.# As a philosophy socialism is related to social just as individualism is related to individual.  Socialism is faith in the group motive and group action rather than in self-interest and competitive action.  Instead of social philosophy we may say social faith, or social ideals.  This faith may be absolute, or radical, to the rejection of all economic competition; or it may be moderate, and leave more or less place for self-interest and competition.  Every man of conscience and of ideals has moods that are socialistic (in this sense) and dreams of a world without toil, competition, or poverty.

This social philosophy has taken form as “Christian Socialism” among men of strong religious natures, in various religious denominations.  Great secular dreamers—­Plato in his “Republic,” Sir Thomas More, in his “Utopia,” Edward Bellamy, in “Looking Backward,” William Morris, in “News from Nowhere,” and others—­have painted beautiful pictures of ideal economic states from which all of the great evils and problems of our society have been banished.

Sec. 14. #Socialism in action.# Active socialism is group action in economic affairs.  This may be by private voluntary groups, as a club, church, or trade union, or by a public group, or political unit of government, which has therefore a compulsory character.  The radical kind of active socialism would be the ownership by government of all the means of production and the conduct of all business, assigning men, by authority, to particular work and granting them such incomes as the established authority thought they deserved.  This kind exists nowhere.  A moderate kind of active socialism is represented by each separate case of public ownership or industry.  Even public regulation by authority, of the many kinds described in this volume, is touched with a quality of active socialism.  In this sense there can be more or less of active socialism in a community; a state may be more or less socialized in its economic aspects.  An English Chancellor of the Exchequer declared in the last decade of the nineteenth century, “We are all socialists now.”  The ever-increasing sphere of the state[16] gives to that statement to-day a larger, fuller meaning than when it was uttered.