There is no need to rehearse at length the ideological content of philanthropy, which seeks a nonpolitical and individualizing solution to the exploitation which is structurally inherent in the social system, and whose characteristic motifs of cultural improvement and education are only too familiar.9 What is interesting about Gissing is that he is locked into this program at the same time that he sees through it and arraigns it violently, oscillating between an implacable denunciation of the reformist-philanthropists and an equally single-minded indictment of the “poor” who cannot thus be
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