The Soul Of Man Under Socialism
by Oscar Wilde

Description

Oscar Wilde was a major celebrity in the late Victorian era. He was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer. His works are known for their caustic wit. Wilde spent two years in a hard labor prison after being convicted of gross indecency. After Wilde read the works of Peter Kropotkin he became an anarchist philosopher. "The Soul of Man under Socialism" was an 1891 essay in which Wilde expounds a libertarian socialist worldview. According to Wikipedia, żIn The Soul of Man, Wilde argues that, under capitalism, "the majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruismżare forced, indeed, so to spoil them": instead of realizing their true talents, they waste their time solving the social problems caused by capitalism, without taking their common cause away. Thus, caring people "seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see" in poverty, "but their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it" because, "the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible."