As a modern political movement, socialism arose in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century. As an idea, it can be discerned much earlier in mythic, philosophic, and theological thought. In the simplest sense, socialism amounts to a belief that all producers ought to share equally in the fruits of combined labor. On a deeper level, socialism is more than an economic formula, and even more than a prescription for justice. It is an expression of faith in the capacity of the mass of mankind to overcome what is thought of as an alienation or estrangement from its own essential nature, which socialists contend is far more creative, pacific, and altruistic than actual experience might indicate.
Until comparatively recently, thi
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