The Soul of Man under Socialism

An eBook of Oscar Wilde’s classic essay, this edition includes a short critical commentary on the work; the book also includes a short essay examining Wilde’s life and and works.

In "The Soul of Man", Wilde argues that, under capitalism, "the majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism—are forced, indeed, so to spoil them": instead of realising 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."