The Individual Against Authority

Oscar Wilde, Socialism and The Soul of Man under Socialism. First Edition.

Oscar Wilde’s The Soul of Man under Socialism is one of the most audacious arguments for individual freedom in modern political writing. Wilde imagines a socialism that abolishes poverty without surrendering personality, art or dissent.

The Individual Against Authority presents Wilde’s complete 1891 essay alongside original commentary, philosophical analysis and a modern response. Ian P. Loftus sets the work in its Victorian context, tests its account of freedom and authority, and asks what remains persuasive after the authoritarian twentieth century.

Part source text, part critical companion and part political philosophy, this first volume in Poets, Politics & Philosophy returns Wilde’s provocation to the living argument over work, ownership, technology, art and the limits of the state.

Author: Ian P. Loftus
Publisher: Stonecurrent Press
Series: Poets, Politics & Philosophy, Volume One
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-911972-04-4