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But although the idea of communism is very old even in More's day and did not spring full-clad from his imagination in 1515, it is not communism as such that we are concerned with.

We are concerned not with the genus communism nor with other species of the genus: Platonic, Stoic, early Christian, monastic, canonist or theological communism ; ;

we are concerned with Utopian communism -- that is, simply communism as it appears in the imaginary commonwealth of Utopia, as More conceived it.

Perhaps one way to sharpen our sense of the modernity of Utopian communism is to contrast it with the principal earlier types of communistic theory.

We will achieve a more vivid sense of what it is by realizing what it is not.