The Soul of Man Under Socialism

A very short, and very beautiful, account of how individualism is the utopian ideal to be realised under socialism. I'm not sure about his immediate conflation of socialism and communism, but I suppose it is a fragment from that era, something that has since shattered and splintered across a vast ideological spectrum. It's spicy in the sense that it condemns altruism as treating symptoms, not diseases, and aggravates the difficulty - you substitute pity for justice in the same way kind slave-owners were ultimately worse for emancipation than unkind ones. He writes, as all thinkers should, that both private property and poverty corrupt the soul of man. “With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism.” It's a utopian fantasy, but he, of course, addresses this. "It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is perfectly true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a practical scheme? A practical scheme is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under existing conditions. But it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to; and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish." He diverges and then reconvenes across art, poetry, the people, the state: it flows elegantly and he writes with such clarity that I think everyone would benefit from reading this. It takes a few hours, that's all, and may rekindle some perspective that is easy to lose sight of in 2025. It's a beautiful vision, and sustainable by class consciousness under socialism, in a world where machines do all undesirable labour, and humans are free to develop themselves as they see fit. I will leave you with one of my favourite quotes: “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 in what man has, but in what man is.”