ABSTRACT
Socialism or social democracy as a scheme founded on a sentiment which demands equality in distribution represents socialist thought, not only in its latest, but in its earliest forms also. The practical socialists, with whom we are now dealing, proposed to establish socialism through units of success likewise, but through units of a different kind. In a socialist community all families would be one. As matters stand, they argued, within the limits of the family circle economic advantages are not divided, but shared. Each home, in short, is a miniature socialism in itself. At all events they realised that if an effective socialist sentiment could not extend itself throughout a community of a few hundreds of persons, it would be idle to look for its extension through the world, or even an entire nation. The Rappites, though unswerving socialists in respect of their own fraternity, made no pretence of socialism in their dealings with the outside world.
