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subrosa wrote

They 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.

There is also this to be said. 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.

This touches on why I'm so bothered by mutual aid as charity, mutual aid as a moral imperative to "help people". Among the worst things you could do to me is pity me, lock me into dependence, make me complicit in satisfying your need for sainthood. I'd rather you punch me in the face and feel bad about it.

But I confess that many of the socialistic views that I have come across seem to me to be tainted 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.

Wasn't aware of Oscar Wilde's sympathies for libertarian socialism. Pretty cool I guess.

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Esperaux wrote (edited )

Yeah it seems like the reciprocal aspect of mutual aid has to be stressed more when being discussed in general.

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