Socialism is not charity.Oscar Wilde-The Soul of a Man.

I read an essay written by Oscar Wilde a few years ago.I think he highlights the positives of socialism and the negatives of capitalism better than most.I have noticed how there is a new kind of McCarthyism in the US.Being labelled a socialist is akin to being a red under the bed.Why are so many Americans against meeting peoples basic needs?Some seem to think socialism equals free money for the lazy and undeserving but does it?

TextThey try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor. But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life – educated men who live in the East End – coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.

I think 'socialism' is about finding solutions,not charity.I hate when people desribe socialist type ideas as leftist or partisan.I think the democrats and most left leaning political parties are preventing solutions more than Republicans or parties that lean to the right.Charity is not a solution.Malcom X was against the Dems because he knew this.He knew that the Left of Politics was out to help themselves,not minorities.He didnt want charity,he wanted equality.Socialism is about solutions and equality.



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TextWe are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. As for being discontented, a man who would not be discontented with such surroundings and such a low mode of life would be a perfect brute. Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less. For a town or country labourer to practise thrift would be absolutely immoral. Man should not be ready to show that he can live like a badly-fed animal. He should decline to live like that, and should either steal or go on the rates, which is considered by many to be a form of stealing. As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg. No: a poor man who is ungrateful, unthrifty, discontented, and rebellious, is probably a real personality, and has much in him. He is at any rate a healthy protest. As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid.

The Austerity being pushed across the world is grotesque and insulting.Do we want to live like 'badly-fed animals'?Are the rich really so much more important than the rest of us?

TextAnd I have no doubt that it will be so. Up to the present, man has been, to a certain extent, the slave of machinery, and there is something tragic in the fact that as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began to starve. This, however, is, of course, the result of our property system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of much more importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It would be an immense advantage to the community. All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery. At present machinery competes against man. Under proper conditions machinery will serve man. There is no doubt at all that this is the future of machinery, and just as trees grow while the country gentleman is asleep, so while Humanity will be amusing itself, or enjoying cultivated leisure – which, and not labour, is the aim of man – or making beautiful things, or reading beautiful things, or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight, machinery will be doing all the necessary and unpleasant work. The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.

Socialism is not communism.It does not mean gulags or 6 hours of forced labour a day.It could be a utopia.We have the technology right now.If you are against socialism I would recommend reading this essay.It might change your mind about what socialism has to offer.

reply to post by theovermensch


Very nice post. I am too tired to really respond to it now, but I was moved by your argument. The thing is, communism is great in theory, but just like it screws us in democratic societies, human greed motivates those that have access to the stuff we need. We can never depend on other humans to dole out our daily rations. They always take and that's why we can never expect to have any real change no matter what your ideology.

reply to post by wtbengineer


Oscar kind of lumps Communism with Socialism here but if you compare this essay to 'The Communist Manifesto' it is much less arrogant and aggressive.I think the arrogance of alot of people that support socialism or communism takes away from their arguments.Anyway,thanks for taking the time to have a look.

I would not put Oscar Wilde up there with workable insights into running a government. So I don't put much credibility in anything he has said/written along that line.

With the words of Margret Thatcher, former PM of England, I can put some trust into her wisdom if they are put plainly enough and are not self-contradictory as are Wilde's words given above.

Thatcher is supposed to have stated, "Socialism works until you run out of other people's money."

Which rings true?

reply to post by Aliensun


Seems as though the world has run out of other peoples money under 'capitalism'.Now they want your money in the form of taxpayer bailouts and austerity.

I laugh when my beliefs are labeled as "commie" or "socialist".
The general mandates behind each are based on 'good for all', as I understand it.

Its when the humans and their egos get involved in the delivery is where things go wrong.

I agree with your thread - and I believe arguments placed on the good for all are attacked and scoffed at immediately as left-wing, communist, or socialist-- because when you can't attack the message, you attack the messenger.

An old one, but it still seems to work.

Good call.

Originally posted by theovermensch
reply to post by Aliensun

 

Seems as though the world has run out of other peoples money under 'capitalism'.Now they want your money in the form of taxpayer bailouts and austerity.

Free markets ARE that way. The risks you take are your risks usually done willingly if out of ignorance. Not so in the other system. Unfortunately, the need for power by the elite wants it both ways in the US these days.

Communism and Socialism really is charity...

"From each according to his ability to each according to his need" - Karl Marx

reply to post by DisIllusioned PatRiot


I agree to disagree.

There was a time when it was expected that a person was expected to devote 10%-20% of their income to charity. I used to abide by those principles when I first entered the workforce. Unfortunately where I live, we have a system of gov't (while not completely socialist, but damned near close to it) is among the highest taxed on the continent. This excessive taxation for purposes which I have little to no control to how it is dispersed is definitely a form of forced charity IMO.

In today's nanny state and gov't grants to any and all interested parties, which leaves me with pennies on the dollar after taxes, has forced me to withdraw nearly all charitible donations because I feel like it has already been forcibly thrust upon me thrice over.

I don't like the situation but socialism IS indeed Charity!

reply to post by Goldcurrent


So you are in favour of charity because you like to donate 10% of your income to charity but because of the failure of capitaiism you now do not have enough excess to give to charity because it goes to taxes.But you are against socialism because you think it equals charity? That makes no sense. If you are against crony capitalism that takes your money and gives it to companies like Solyndra then I agree. Utter stupidity. It seems you have a problem with taxes and crony capitalism. Dont confuse Crony Capitalism or State Capitalism with Socialism. They are not alike at all. Socialism is not charity. It is equality and solutions. Charity is a capitalist idea but it isnt meant to solve problems because capitalism relies on exploitation to function. Socialism does not.

Utter Stupidity you say? Yes I believe crony capitalsm has definitely been the norm for decades, but with this failure and subsequent 'socialism' comes services and programs lobbied by interest groups in the name of social programs. Those tax dollars get lost in the bureaucracy and we get no real social programs because state bureaucrats end up sucking most of the dollars through administration. Crumbling infrastructure that tax dollars were initially meant for suffers worse under these circumstances.

I have lived in what could be deemed the 'most socialist' province in Canada all my life and have witnessed first hand the fallacies of good idealogies stagnate what should have been a prosperous region for decades. In theory it is a good concept but you have to realize that socialized entitlements hurt charitable contributions. If the human condition were perfect so would be the ideology. Corruption is rampant no matter the system and cronyism takes it's place once again.

I am actually for certain aspects of socialist idealogues but where does a gov't stop giving and which programs do they deem most worthy on behalf of a population? Would you trust that gov't with that much control? I don't know but at the end of the day there is a lot less money in my pocket than that of my southern neighbors but with a whole lot of social programs that I personally never get to use. Hence the feeling of chairtible donations made on my behalf by my gov't. I just never had an opportunity to pick my charity.

I think whatever we call it,any government should be run by consesus.I see socialism as something that is more likely to result in that.I think capitalism has shown that it allows a few of us to have power,influence and control over the rest of us.

reply to post by Goldcurrent


Socialism is not just heavy taxation and redistribution of wealth.
It is the democratization of the means of production as well the the creation of a classless, stateless society and is considered a lower phase of communism.
However, Marx himself used the words socialism and communism interchangeably.