The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Charity creates a multitude of sins, Wilde writes, and he means it exactly: the alms that keep a starving man alive keep him alive only to go on starving, and let the giver feel holy for it. What he wants instead is not a programme or a committee but the end of private property itself, with machines taking on the labour that deadens people so that everyone alive is left free for the one task he thinks worth anything, which is becoming entirely and without apology themselves.