Communists think of distribution through the channels of human rights to live. Hence Socialism requires some medium of exchange whether it is pounds sterling or labour notes; Communism requires no such medium of exchange. The difference can best be illustrated if we remember the difference between a customer going to a grocer and buying sugar, and the child of the family claiming a share of that sugar the next morning at the breakfast table. Or the position may be stated in this way: Socialism accepts the idea of income, subject to two safeguards. It must be adequate to afford a satisfactory standard of life, and it must represent services given and not merely a power to exploit the labour of others."
It thus appears that the economic freedom which modern reformers are groping after will be under Socialism different only in kind from the economic freedom which is nowadays possessed. In this respect a difference in kind may be of the highest possible importance, because we have already recognized that complete economic freedom is impossible to anybody in a state of nature, since under natural conditions everybody must do more or less work in order to live, and is impossible to the
