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The Soul of Man under Socialism by Oscar Wilde
page 8 of 45 (17%)
with ideas of authority, if not of actual compulsion. Of course,
authority and compulsion are out of the question. All association
must be quite voluntary. It is only in voluntary associations that
man is fine.

But it may be asked how Individualism, which is now more or less
dependent on the existence of private property for its development,
will benefit by the abolition of such private property. The answer
is very simple. It is true that, under existing conditions, a few
men who have had private means of their own, such as Byron,
Shelley, Browning, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, and others, have been
able to realise their personality more or less completely. Not one
of these men ever did a single day's work for hire. They were
relieved from poverty. They had an immense advantage. The
question is whether it would be for the good of Individualism that
such an advantage should be taken away. Let us suppose that it is
taken away. What happens then to Individualism? How will it
benefit?

It will benefit in this way. Under the new conditions
Individualism will be far freer, far finer, and far more
intensified than it is now. I am not talking of the great
imaginatively-realised Individualism of such poets as I have
mentioned, but of the great actual Individualism latent and
potential in mankind generally. For the recognition of private
property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by
confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism
entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man
thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that
the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not
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