Bears

In 1891 Oscar Wilde wrote:

"The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism - are forced, indeed, so to spoil them....accordingly, with admirable, though mis-directed intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves the task of remedying the evils they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease...but this is not the solution; it is an aggravation of their 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...It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair"

The Soul of Man Under Socialism

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