when the two things are whole poles apart. In the same manner,
communism has been confounded with socialism, although the term should
be used in entirely different connections--communism when we are
speaking in terms of property, socialism when we are speaking in
terms of individual liberty. The word _individualism_ was used by
the present writer in a series of articles entitled "The Ethics
of Democracy," beginning in 1887, as the most convenient term
for describing that state of society where the greatest possible
individual liberty is conjoined with a strong recognition of the right
of private property, substantially the _laissez faire_ school as
it existed in England in the first half of the last century; "the
distinction between communistic and socialistic laws being, that the
former are concerned solely with the taking or redistribution of money
or property; the latter regulate or prohibit men's mode of life, acts,
or contracts, either among themselves or as concerning the state." [1]

[Footnote 1: _Scribner's Magazine_, vol. XV, p. 653.]

Now, property is but the creature of law; and that is to say, in
those of our States which have no common law, of statute. Jurists
and communists are alike agreed on this. "Property is robbery," said
Proudhon; property is but the creature of law, all English jurists
admit. It is, of course, possible to conceive of a social system which
recognizes no right of property, or one which makes all property
belong to the community, or a middle ground which admits the
institution, but holds that every individual holds property subject
to the state's, that is, the organized community's, regulation and
control. A convenient term for this state of affairs to which,
perhaps, in our statutes, we are approaching, is "allowable
_socialism_"; private property is recognized, but its use is
regulated. In England they call it "gas-and-water socialism"; but this
term, though picturesque, is not sufficiently comprehensive, relating,
as it does, only to municipal activities. There is a third variety,
the latest and perhaps the most intelligent of all, that believed in
by leading modern German and American socialists, which we will call
nationalism--the nationalization or municipalization of productive
industry--the science of this doctrine being that private property may
exist in all personal belongings, articles of pleasure, or domestic
necessity, but not in lands, mines, works, or other instrument