tribution after the child
becomes a worker. The untrained and indocile youth, however, is made
the subject of compulsory distribution.

The collection and distribution of taxes is by public authority. No
attempt is made to give back an exact equivalent to each taxpayer. The
money is taken and spent by authority. The new forms, or at least the
new extensions, of taxation, especially of incomes and inheritances
at progressive rates, are very important examples of authoritative
distribution.[14] The courts sometimes find themselves obliged to
apply the method of authoritative distribution, altho they do it
unwillingly. They try to confine their efforts to interpreting the
contracts men have voluntarily entered into, and they avoid, so far
as possible, the making of contracts or the fixing of rates.
Authoritative distribution is exemplified in the work of many
commissions appointed by law to fix rates or settle disputes, such as
boards of conciliation and arbitration and railway commissions.

Sec. 12. #Meanings of socialism.# Our reason for leaving to the last the
discussion of _authority_ as a method of distribution is not that it
appeared last in historical development, but that it now is the most
strongly advocated as an alternative of competition. One of the most
striking developments of opinion in the nineteenth century was that
favoring an increasing use of authority in distribution. This was
meant not merely to supplement and modify competition, but to displace
it completely, or (in the more moderate program) in large part. This
opinion, or plan, has appeared under a variety of names, the main ones
being communism, collectivism, social-democracy, and socialism, of
which the last name has just now the greatest vogue. Socialism is
a word of manifold meanings no one of which is generally accepted.
Discussion is therefore often a Babel of tongues.

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 actio