STIRNER'S TEACHING
1.--GENERAL
1. Johann Kaspar Schmidt was born in 1806, at Bayreuth in Bavaria. He
studied philosophy and theology at Berlin from 1826 to 1828, at Erlangen
from 1828 to 1829. In 1829 he interrupted his studies, made a prolonged
tour through Germany, and then lived alternately at Koenigsberg and Kulm
till 1832. From 1832 to 1834 he studied at Berlin again; in 1835 he
passed his tests there as _Gymnasiallehrer_. He received no government
appointment, however, and in 1839 became teacher in a young ladies'
seminary in Berlin. He gave up this place in 1844, but continued to live
in Berlin, and died there in 1856.
In part under the pseudonym Max Stirner, in part anonymously, Schmidt
published a small number of works, mostly of a philosophical nature.
2. Stirner's teaching about law, the State, and property is contained
chiefly in his book "_Der Einzige und sein Eigentum_" (1845).
--But here arises the question, Can we speak of such a thing as a
"teaching" of Stirner's?
Stirner recognizes no _ought_. "Men are such as they should be--can be.
What should they be? Surely not more than they can be! And what can they
be? Not more, again, than they--can, _i. e._ than they have the
ability, the strength, to be."[209] "A man is 'called' to nothing, and
has no 'proper business,' no 'function,' as little as a plant or beast
has a 'vocation.' He has not a vocation; but he has powers, which
express themselves where they are, because their being consists only in
their expression, and which can remain idle as little as life, which
would no longer be life if it 'stood still' but for a second. Now one
might cry to man, 'Use your power.' But this imperative would be given
the meaning that it was man's proper business to use his power. It is
not so. Rather, every one really does use his power, without first
regarding this as his vocation; every one uses in every moment as much
power as he possesses."[210]
Nay, Stirner acknowledges no such thing as truth. "Truths are phrases,
ways of speaking, words (_logos_); brought into connection, or arranged
by ranks and files, they form logic, science, philosophy."[211] "Nor is
there a truth,--not right, not liberty, humanity, etc.,--which could
subsist before me, and to which I would submit."[212] "If there is a
single truth to which man must consecrate his life and his powers
because he is man, then he is subjected to a rule, dominion, law, etc.;
he is a man in service."[213] "As long as you believe in truth, you do
not believe in yourself; you are a--servant, a--religious man. You
alone are truth; or rather, you are more than truth, which is nothing
at all before you."[214]
If one chose to draw the extreme inference from this, Stirner's book
would be only a self-avowal, an expression of thoughts without any claim
to general validity; in it Stirner would not be informing us what he
thinks to be true, or what in his opinion we ought to do, but only
giving us an opportunity to observe the play of his ideas. Stirner did
not draw this inference,[215] and one should not let the style of the
book, which speaks mostly of Stirner's "I," lead him to think that
Stirner did draw it. He calls that man "blinded, who wants to be only
'Man'."[216] He takes the floor against "the erroneous consciousness of
not being able to entitle myself to as much as I want."[217] He mocks at
our grandmothers' belief in ghosts.[218] He declares that "penalty must
make room for satisfaction,"[219] that man "should defend himself
against man."[220] And he asserts that "over the door of our time stands
not Apollo's 'Know thyself,' but a 'Turn yourself to account!'"[221] So
Stirner intends not only to give us information about his inward
condition at the time he composed his book, but to tell us what he
thinks to be true and what we ought to do; his book is not a mere
self-avowal, but a scientific teaching.
3. Stirner does not call his teaching about law, the State, and property
"Anarchism." He prefers to use the epithet "anarchic" to designate
political liberalism, which he combats.[222]
2.--BASIS
_According to Stirner the supreme law for each one of us is his own
welfare._
What does one's own welfare mean? "Let us seek out the enjoyment of
life!"[223] "Henceforth the question is not how one can acquire life,
but how he can expend it, enjoy it; not how one is to produce in himself
the true ego, but how he is to dissolve himself, to live himself
out."[224] "If the enjoyment of life is to triumph over the longing or
hope for life, it must overcome it in its double significance which
Schiller brings out in 'The Ideal and Life'; it must crush spiritual and
temporal poverty, abolish the ideal and--the want of daily bread. He who
must lay out his life in prolonging life cannot enjoy it, and he who is
still seeking his life does not have it, and can as little enjoy it;
both are poor."[225]
Our own welfare is our supreme law. Stirner recognizes no duty.[226]
"Whether what I think and do is Christian, what do I care? Whether it is
human, humane, liberal, or unhuman, inhumane, illiberal, what do I ask
about that? If only it aims at what I would have, if only I satisfy
myself in it, then fit it with predicates as you like; it is all one to
me."[227] "So then my relation to the world is this: I no longer do
anything for it 'for God's sake', I do nothing 'for man's sake', but
what I do I do 'for my sake'."[228] "Where the world comes in my
way--and it comes in my way everywhere--I devour it to appease the
hunger of my egoism. You are to me nothing but--my food, just as I also
am fed upon and used up by you. We have only one relation to each other,
that of utility, of usableness, of use."[229] "I too love men, not
merely individuals, but every one. But I love them with the
consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love
because love is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no
'commandment of love'."[230]
3.--LAW
I. _Looking to each one's own welfare, Stirner rejects law, and that
without any limitation to particular spatial or temporal conditions._
Law[231] exists not by the individual's recognizing it as favorable to
his interests, but by his holding it sacred. "Who can ask about 'right'
if he is not occupying the religious standpoint just like other people?
Is not 'right' a religious concept, _i. e._ something sacred?"[232]
"When the Revolution stamped liberty as a 'right' it took refuge in the
religious sphere, in the region of the sacred, the ideal."[233] "I am to
revere the sultanic law in a sultanate, the popular law in republics,
the canon law in Catholic communities, etc. I am to subordinate myself
to these laws, I am to count them sacred."[234] "The law is sacred, and
he who outrages it is a criminal."[235] "There are no criminals except
against something sacred";[236] crime falls when the sacred
disappears.[237] Punishment has a meaning only in relation to something
sacred.[238] "What does the priest who admonishes the criminal do? He
sets forth to him the great wrong of having by his act desecrated that
which was hallowed by the State, its property (in which, you will see,
the lives of those who belong to the State must be included)."[239]
But law is no more sacred than it is favorable to the individual's
welfare. "Right--is a delusion, bestowed by a ghost."[240] Men have "not
recovered the mastery over the thought of 'right,' which they themselves
created; their creature is running away with them."[241] "Let the
individual man claim ever so many rights; what do I care for his right
and his claim?"[242] I do not respect them.--"What you have the might to
be you have the right to be. I deduce all right and all entitlement from
myself; I am entitled to everything that I have might over. I am
entitled to overthrow Zeus, Jehovah, God, etc., if I can; if I cannot,
then these gods will always remain in the right and in the might as
against me."[243]
"Right crumbles into its nothingness when it is swallowed up by
force,"[244] "but with the concept the word too loses its meaning."[245]
"The people will perhaps be against the blasphemer; hence a law against
blasphemy. Shall I therefore not blaspheme? Is this law to be more to me
than an order?"[246] "He who has might 'stands above the law'."[247]
"The earth belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let
it be taken from him, does not let himself be deprived of it. If he
appropriates it, then not merely the earth, but also the right to it,
belongs to him. This is egoistic right; _i. e._, it suits me, therefore
it is right."[248]
II. _Self-welfare commands that in future it itself should be men's rule
of action in place of the law._
Each of us is "unique,"[249] "a world's history for himself,"[250] and,
when he "knows himself as unique,"[251] he is a "self-owner."[252] "God
and mankind have made nothing their object, nothing but themselves. Let
me then likewise make myself my object, who am, as well as God, the
nothing of all else, who am my all, who am the Unique."[253] "Away then
with every business that is not altogether my business! You think at
least the 'good cause' must be my business? What good, what bad? Why, I
myself am my business, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has
meaning for me. What is divine is God's business, what is human 'Man's.'
My business is neither what is divine nor what is human, it is not what
is true, good, right, free, etc., but only what is mine; and it is no
general business, but is--unique, as I am unique. Nothing is more to me
than myself!"[254]
"What a difference between freedom and self-ownership! I am free from
what I am rid of; I am owner of what I have in my power."[255] "My
freedom becomes complete only when it is my--might; but by this I cease
to be a mere freeman and become a self-owner."[256] "Each must say to
himself, I am all to myself and I do all for my sake. If it ever became
clear to you that God, the commandments, etc., do you only harm, that
they encroach on you and ruin you, you would certainly cast them from
you just as the Christians once condemned Apollo or Minerva or heathen
morality."[257] "How one acts only from himself, and asks no questions
about anything further, the Christians have made concrete in the idea of
'God.' He acts 'as pleases him'."[258]
"Might is a fine thing and useful for many things; for 'one gets farther
with a handful of might than with a bagful of right.' You long for
freedom? You fools! If you took might, freedom would come of itself.
See, he who has might 'stands above the law.' How does this prospect
taste to you, you 'law-abiding' people? But you have no taste!"[259]
4.--THE STATE
I. _Together with law Stirner necessarily has to reject also, just as
unconditionally, the legal institution which is called State._ Without
law the State is not possible. "'Respect for the statutes!' By this
cement the whole fabric of the State is held together."[260]
The State as well as the law, then, exists, not by the individual's
recognizing it as favorable to his welfare, but rather by his counting
it sacred, by "our being entangled in the error that it is an I, as
which it applies to itself the name of a 'moral, mystical, or political
person.' I, who really am I, must pull off this lion's skin of the I
from the parading thistle-eater."[261] The same holds good of the State
as of the family. "If each one who belongs to the family is to recognize
and maintain that family in its permanent existence, then to each the
tie of blood must be sacred, and his feeling for it must be that of
family piety, of respect for the ties of blood, whereby every
blood-relative becomes hallowed to him. So, also, to every member of the
State-community this community must be sacred, and the concept which is
supreme to the State must be supreme to him too."[262] The State is "not
only entitled, but compelled, to demand" this.[263]
But the State is not sacred. "The State's behavior is violence, and it
calls its violence 'law', but that of the individual 'crime'."[264] If I
do not do what it wishes, "then the State turns against me with all the
force of its lion-paws and eagle-talons; for it is the king of beasts,
it is lion and eagle."[265] "Even if you do overpower your opponent as a
power, it does not follow that you are to him a hallowed authority,
unless he is a degenerate. He does not owe you respect, and reverence,
even if he will be wary of your might."[266]
Nor is the State favorable to the individual's welfare. "I am the mortal
enemy of the State."[267] "The general welfare as such is not my
welfare, but only the extremity of self-denial. The general welfare may
exult aloud while I must lie like a hushed dog; the State may be in
splendor while I starve."[268] "Every State is a despotism, whether the
despot be one or many, or whether, as people usually conceive to be the
case in a republic, all are masters, _i. e._ each tyrannizes over the
others."[269] "Doubtless the State leaves the individuals as free play
as possible, only they must not turn the play to earnest, must not
forget it. The State has never any object but to limit the individual,
to tame him, to subordinate him, to subject him to something general; it
lasts only so long as the individual is not all in all, and is only the
clear-cut limitation of me, my limitedness, my slavery."[270]
"A State never aims to bring about the free activity of individuals, but
only that activity which is bound to the State's purpose."[271] "The
State seeks to hinder every free activity by its censorship, its
oversight, its police, and counts this hindering as its duty, because it
is in truth a duty of self-preservation."[272] "I am not allowed to do
all the work I can, but only so much as the State permits; I must not
turn my thoughts to account, nor my work, nor, in general, anything
that is mine."[273] "Pauperism is the valuelessness of Me, the
phenomenon of my being unable to turn myself to account. Therefore State
and pauperism are one and the same. The State does not let me attain my
value, and exists only by my valuelessness; its goal is always to get
some benefit out of me, _i. e._ to exploit me, to use me up, even if
this using consisted only in my providing a _proles_ (_proletariat_); it
wants me to be 'its creature'."[274]
"The State cannot brook man's standing in a direct relation to man; it
must come between as a--mediator, it must--intervene. It tears man from
man, to put itself as 'spirit' in the middle. The laborers who demand a
higher wage are treated as criminals so soon as they want to get it by
compulsion. What are they to do? Without compulsion they don't get it,
and in compulsion the State sees a self-help, a price fixed by the ego,
a real, free turning to account of one's property, which it cannot
permit."[275]
II. _Every man's own welfare demands that a social human life solely on
the basis of its precepts should take the place of the State._ Stirner
calls this sort of social life "the union of egoists."[276]
1. Even after the State is abolished men are to live together in
society. "Self-owners will fight for the unity which is their own will,
for union."[277] But what is to keep men together in the union?
Not a promise, at any rate, "If I were bound to-day and hereafter to my
will of yesterday," my will would "be benumbed. My creature, _viz._, a
particular expression of will, would have become my dominator. Because I
was a fool yesterday I must remain such all my life."[278] "The union is
my own creation, my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above my
spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort. As I am not
willing to be a slave to my maxims, but lay them bare to my constant
criticism without any warrant, and admit no bail whatever for their
continuance, so still less do I pledge myself to the union for my future
and swear away my soul to it as men are said to do with the devil, and
as is really the case with the State and all intellectual authority; but
I am and remain more to myself than State, Church, God, and the like,
and, consequently, also infinitely more than the union."[279]
Rather, men are to be held together in the union by the advantage which
each individual has from the union at every moment. If I can "use" my
fellow-men, "then I am likely to come to an understanding and unite
myself with them, in order to strengthen my power by the agreement, and
to do more by joint force than individual force could accomplish. In
this joinder I see nothing at all else than a multiplication of my
strength, and only so long as it is my multiplied strength do I retain
it."[280]
Hence the union is something quite different from "that society which
Communism means to found."[281] "You bring into the union your whole
power, your ability, and assert yourself; in society you with your
labor-strength are spent. In the former you live egoistically, in the
latter humanly, _i. e._ religiously, as a 'member in the body of this
Lord'. You owe to society what you have, and are in duty bound to it,
are--possessed by 'social duties'; you utilize the union, and, undutiful
and unfaithful, give it up when you are no longer able to get any use
out of it. If society is more than you, then it is of more consequence
to you than yourself; the union is only your tool, or the sword with
which you sharpen and enlarge your natural strength; the union exists
for you and by you, society contrariwise claims you for itself and
exists even without you; in short, society is sacred, the union is your
own; society uses you up, you use up the union."[282]
2. But what form may such a social life take in detail? In reply to his
critic, Moses Hess, Stirner gives some examples of unions that already
exist.
"Perhaps at this moment children are running together under his window
for a comradeship of play; let him look at them, and he will espy merry
egoistic unions. Perhaps Hess has a friend or a sweetheart; then he may
know how heart joins itself to heart, how two of them unite egoistically
in order to have the enjoyment of each other, and how neither 'gets the
worst of the bargain.' Perhaps he meets a few pleasant acquaintances on
the street and is invited to accompany them into a wine-shop; does he go
with them in order to do an act of kindness to them, or does he 'unite'
with them because he promises himself enjoyment from it? Do they have to
give him their best thanks for his 'self-sacrifice' or do they know
that for an hour they formed an 'egoistic union' together?"[283] Stirner
even thinks of a "German Union."[284]
5.--PROPERTY
I. _Together with law Stirner necessarily has to reject also, and just
as unconditionally, the legal institution of property._ This "lives by
grace of the law. It has its guarantee only in the law; it is not a
fact, but a fiction, a thought. This is law-property, legal property,
warranted property. It is mine not by me, but by--law."[285]
Property in this sense, as well as the law and the State, is based not
on the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his welfare, but on
his counting it sacred. "Property in the civil sense means sacred
property, in such a way that I must respect your property. 'Have respect
for property!' Therefore the political liberals would like every one to
have his bit of property, and have in part brought about an incredible
parcellation by their efforts in this direction. Every one must have his
bone, on which he may find something to bite."[286]
But property is not sacred. "I do not step timidly back from your
property, be you one or many, but look upon it always as my property, in
which I have no need to 'respect' anything. Now do the like with what
you call my property!"[287]
Nor is property favorable to the individual's welfare. "Property, as the
civic liberals understand it, is untenable, because the civic
proprietor is really nothing but a propertyless man, a man everywhere
excluded. Instead of the world's belonging to him, as it might, there
belongs to him not even the paltry point on which he turns around."[288]
II. _Every one's own welfare commands that a distribution of commodities
based solely on its precepts should take the place of property._ When
Stirner designates as "property" the share of commodities assigned to
the individual by these precepts, it is in the improper sense in which
he constantly uses the word property: in the proper sense only a share
of commodities assigned by law can be called property.[289]
Now, according to the decrees of his own welfare, every man should have
all that he is powerful enough to obtain.
"What they are not competent to tear from me the power over, that
remains my property: all right, then let power decide about property,
and I will expect everything from my power! Alien power, power that I
leave to another, makes me a slave; then let own power make me an
owner."[290] "To what property am I entitled? To any to which I--empower
myself. I give myself the right of property in taking property to
myself, or giving myself the proprietor's power, plenary power,
empowerment."[291] "What I am competent to have is my
'competence.'"[292] "The sick, children, the aged, are still competent
for a great deal; _e. g._ to receive their living instead of taking it.
If they are competent to control you to the extent of having you desire
their continued existence, then they have a power over you."[293] "What
competence the child possesses in its smile, its play, its crying,--in
short, in its mere existence! Are you capable of resisting its demand?
or do you not hold out to it, as a mother, your breast,--as a father, so
much of your belongings as it needs? It puts you under constraint, and
therefore possesses what you call yours."[294]
"Property, therefore, should not and cannot be done away with; rather,
it must be torn from ghostly hands and become my property; then will the
erroneous consciousness that I cannot entitle myself to as much as I
want vanish.--'But what cannot a man want?' Well, he who wants much, and
knows how to get it, has in all times taken it to him, as Napoleon did
the continent, and the French Algeria. Therefore the only point is just
that the respectful 'lower classes' should at length learn to take to
themselves what they want. If they reach their hands too far for you,
why, defend yourselves."[295] "What 'man' wants does not by any means
furnish a scale for me and my needs; for I may have a use for more, or
for less. Rather, I must have as much as I am competent to appropriate
to myself."[296]
2. "In this matter, as well as in others, unions will multiply the
individual's means and make secure his assailed property."[297] "When it
is our will no longer to leave the land to the land-owners, but to
appropriate it to ourselves, we unite ourselves for this purpose; we
form a union, a _societe_, which makes itself owner; if we are
successful, they cease to be land-owners. And, as we chase them out from
land and soil, so we can also from many another property, to make it our
own, the property of the--conquerors. The conquerors form a society,
which one may conceive of as so great that by degrees it embraces all
mankind; but so-called mankind is also, as such, only a thought (ghost);
its reality is the individuals. And these individuals as a collective
mass will deal not less arbitrarily with land and soil than does an
isolated individual."[298]
"What all want to have a share in will be withdrawn from that individual
who wants to have it for himself alone; it is made a common possession.
As a common possession every one has a share in it, and this share is
his property. Just so, even in our old relations, a house which belongs
to five heirs is their common possession; but the fifth part of the
proceeds is each one's property. The property which for the present is
still withheld from us can be better made use of when it is in the hands
of us all. Let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of this
robbery."[299]
6.--REALIZATION
_According to Stirner the change which every one's own welfare requires
is to come about in this way,--that men in sufficient number first
undergo an inward change and recognize their own welfare as their
highest law, and that these men then bring to pass by force the outward
change also: to wit, the abrogation of law, State, and property, and
the introduction of the new condition._
I. The first and most important thing is the inward change of men.
"Revolution and insurrection must not be regarded as synonymous. The
former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the existing
condition or state, the State or society, and so is a political or
social act; the latter has indeed a transformation of conditions as its
inevitable consequence, but starts not from this but from men's
discontent with themselves, is not a lifting of shields but a lifting of
individuals, a coming up, without regard to the arrangements that spring
from it. The Revolution aimed at new arrangements: the Insurrection
leads to no longer having ourselves arranged but arranging ourselves,
and sets no brilliant hope on 'institutions.' It is not a fight against
the existing order, since, if it prospers, the existing order collapses
of itself; it is only a working my way out of the existing order. If I
leave the existing order, it is dead and passes into decay. Now, since
my purpose is not the upsetting of an existing order but the lifting of
myself above it, my aim and act are not political or social, but, as
directed upon myself and my ownness alone, egoistic."[300]
Why was the founder of Christianity "not a revolutionist, not a
demagogue as the Jews would have liked to see him; why was he not a
Liberal? Because he expected no salvation from a change of _conditions_,
and this whole business was indifferent to him. He was not a
revolutionist, like Caesar for instance, but an insurgent; not an
overturner of the State, but one who straightened _himself_ up. He waged
no Liberal or political war against the existing authorities, but wanted
to go his own way regardless of these authorities and undisturbed by
them."[301]
"Everything sacred is a bond, a fetter. Everything sacred will be, must
be, perverted by perverters of law; therefore our present time has such
perverters by the quantity in all spheres. They are preparing for the
break of the law, for lawlessness."[302] "Regard yourself as more
powerful than they allege you to be, and you have more power; regard
yourself as more, and you are more."[303] "The poor become free and
proprietors only when they--'rise'."[304] "Only from egoism can the
lower classes get help, and this help they must give to themselves
and--will give to themselves. If they do not let themselves be
constrained into fear, they are a power."[305]
II. Furthermore, in order to bring about the "transformation of
conditions"[306] and put the new condition in the place of law, State,
and property, violent insurrection against the condition that has
hitherto existed is requisite.
1. "The State can be overcome only by a violent arbitrariness."[307]
"The individual's violence [_Gewalt_] is called crime [_Verbrechen_],
and only by crime does he break [_brechen_] the State's authority
[_Gewalt_] when he opines that the State is not above him, but he above
the State."[308] "Here too the result is that the thinkers' combat
against the government is wrong, _viz._ in impotence, so far as it
cannot bring into the field anything but thoughts against a personal
power (the egoistic power stops the mouths of the thinkers). The
theoretical combat cannot complete the victory, and the sacred power of
thought succumbs to the might of egoism. It is only the egoistic combat,
the combat of egoists on both sides, that clears up everything."[309]
"The property question cannot be solved so gently as the Socialists,
even the Communists, dream. It is solved only by the war of all against
all."[310] "Let me then retract the might which I have conceded to
others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my own might! Let me
say to myself, 'Whatever my might reaches to is my property,' and then
claim as property all that I feel myself strong enough to attain; and
let me make my real property extend as far as I entitle (_i. e._
empower) myself to take."[311] "In order to extirpate the unpossessing
rabble, egoism does not say, 'Wait and see what the Board of Equity
will--donate to you in the name of the collectivity', but 'Put your hand
to it and take what you need!'"[312]
In this combat Stirner agrees to all methods. "I will not draw back with
a shudder from any act because there dwells in it a spirit of
godlessness, immorality, wrongfulness, as little as St. Boniface was
disposed to abstain from chopping down the heathens' sacred oak on
account of religious scruples."[313] "The power over life and death,
which Church and State reserved to themselves, this too I
call--mine."[314] "The life of the individual man I rate only at what it
is worth. His goods, the material and the spiritual alike, are mine, and
I dispose of them as proprietor to the extent of my--might."[315]
2. Stirner depicts for us a single event in this violent transformation
of conditions. He assumes that certain men come to realize that they
occupy a disproportionately unfavorable position in the State as
compared with others who receive the preference.
"Those who are in the unfavorable position take courage to ask the
question, 'By what, then, is your property secure, you favored ones?'
and give themselves the answer, 'By our refraining from interference! By
our protection, therefore! And what do you give us for it? Kicks and
contempt you give the "common people"; police oversight, and a catechism
with the chief sentence "Respect what is not yours, what belongs to
others! respect others, and especially superiors!" But we reply, "If you
want our respect, buy it for a price that shall be acceptable to us." We
will leave you your property, if you pay duly for this leaving. With
what, indeed, does the general in time of peace pay for the many
thousands of his yearly income? or Another for the sheer
hundred-thousands and millions? With what do you pay us for chewing
potatoes and looking quietly on while you swallow oysters? Only buy the
oysters from us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes from you, and
you may go on eating them. Or do you suppose the oysters do not belong
to us as much as to you? You will make an outcry about violence if we
take hold and help eat them, and you are right. Without violence we do
not get them, as you no less have them by doing violence to us.
"'But take the oysters and done with it, and let us come to what is in a
closer way our property (for this other is only possession)--to labor.
We toil twelve hours in the sweat of our foreheads, and you offer us a
few groschen for it. Then take the like for your labor too. We will come
to terms all right if only we have first agreed on the point that
neither any longer needs to--donate anything to the other. For centuries
we have offered you alms in our kindly--stupidity, have given the mite
of the poor and rendered to the masters what is--not the masters'; now
just open your bags, for henceforth there is a tremendous rise in the
price of our ware. We will take nothing away from you, nothing at all,
only you shall pay better for what you want to have. What have you then?
"I have an estate of a thousand acres." And I am your plowman, and will
hereafter do your plowing only for a thaler a day wages. "Then I'll get
another." You will not find one, for we plowmen are no longer doing
anything different, and if one presents himself who takes less, let him
beware of us.'"[316]
FOOTNOTES:
[209] Stirner p. 439. [The page-numbers of Stirner's first edition, here
cited, agree almost exactly with those of the English translation under
the title "The Ego and His Own." Any passage quoted here will in general
be found in the English translation either on the page whose number is
given or on the preceding page; for the early pages, subtract two or
three from the number.]
[210] _Ib._ pp. 435-6.
[211] _Ib._ p. 465.
[212] _Ib._ p. 464.
[213] _Ib._ p. 466.
[214] Stirner p. 473.
[215] No more do his adherents, _e. g._ Mackay, "Stirner" pp. 164-5.
[216] Stirner p. 322.
[217] _Ib._ p. 343.
[218] _Ib._ p. 45.
[219] _Ib._ p. 318.
[220] _Ib._ p. 318.
[221] _Ib._ p. 420.
[222] _Ib._ pp. 189-90.
[223] Stirner p. 427.
[224] _Ib._ p. 428.
[225] _Ib._ p. 429.
[226] _Ib._ p. 258.
[227] _Ib._ p. 478.
[228] _Ib._ p. 426.
[229] Stirner p. 395.
[230] _Ib._ p. 387.
[231] [To understand some of the following citations it is necessary to
remember that in German "law" (in the sense of common law, or including
this) and "right" are one and the same word.--While it is probably not
fair to say that these assaults of Stirner are directed only against
some laws, it does seem fair to say that they deny to the laws only some
sorts of validity. We have very little material for compiling the
constructive side of Stirner's teaching, for he avoided specifying what
things the Egoists or their unions were to do in his future social
order; he said explicitly that the only way to know what a slave will do
when he breaks his fetters is to wait and see. But, while he may nowhere
have stated a law which is to obtain in the good time coming, neither
has he said anything which authorizes us to declare that none of his
unions will ever make laws on such a basis as (for instance) the rules
of the Stock Exchange. On page 114 below is quoted a passage where he
distinctly and approvingly contemplates the possibility that a union of
his followers may fix a minimum wage, and may threaten violence to any
person who consents to work below the scale. This would be law, and
might easily be the germ of a State. On pages 108 and 109 are quoted
passages which strongly suggest that the Egoistic union would undertake
to defend its member against all interference with his possession of
certain goods; this would be both law and property.]
[232] Stirner p. 247.
[233] Stirner p. 248.
[234] _Ib._ p. 246.
[235] _Ib._ p. 314.
[236] _Ib._ p. 268.
[237] _Ib._ p. 317.
[238] _Ib._ pp. 317, 316.
[239] _Ib._ pp. 265-6.
[240] _Ib._ p. 276.
[241] _Ib._ p. 270.
[242] _Ib._ pp. 326-7.
[243] _Ib._ pp. 248-9.
[244] Stirner p. 275.
[245] _Ib._ p. 275.
[246] _Ib._ pp. 259, 256.
[247] _Ib._ p. 220.
[248] _Ib._ p. 251. [The German idiom for "it suits me" is "it is right
to me"].
[249] _Ib._ p. 8.
[250] _Ib._ p. 490.
[251] _Ib._ p. 491.
[252] _Ib._ p. 491.
[253] _Ib._ p. 7.
[254] Stirner p. 8.
[255] _Ib._ p. 207.
[256] _Ib._ p. 219.
[257] _Ib._ p. 214.
[258] _Ib._ p. 212.
[259] _Ib._ p. 220.
[260] Stirner p. 314.
[261] _Ib._ p. 295.
[262] _Ib._ pp. 231-2.
[263] _Ib._ p. 231.
[264] _Ib._ p. 259.
[265] _Ib._ p. 337.
[266] Stirner p. 258.
[267] _Ib._ p. 339.
[268] _Ib._ p. 280.
[269] _Ib._ p. 257.
[270] _Ib._ p. 298.
[271] _Ib._ p. 298.
[272] _Ib._ p. 299.
[273] Stirner p. 298.
[274] _Ib._ p. 336.
[275] _Ib._ pp. 337-8.
[276] _Ib._ p. 235; Stirner "_Vierteljahrsschrift_" p. 192.
[277] Stirner p. 304.
[278] Stirner p. 258.
[279] _Ib._ p 411.
[280] _Ib._ p. 416.
[281] _Ib._ p. 411.
[282] Stirner pp. 417-18.
[283] Stirner "_Vierteljahrsschrift_" pp. 193-4.
[284] Stirner p. 305.
[285] _Ib._ p. 332.
[286] _Ib._ pp. 327-8.
[287] _Ib._ pp. 328, 326.
[288] Stirner pp. 328-9.
[289] Zenker fails to recognize this when he asserts (p. 80) that
Stirner demands property based on the right of occupation
[290] Stirner p. 340.
[291] _Ib._ p. 339.
[292] _Ib._ p. 351.
[293] Stirner p. 351.
[294] _Ib._ pp. 351-2.
[295] _Ib._ pp. 343-4.
[296] _Ib._ p. 349.
[297] _Ib._ p. 342.
[298] Stirner pp. 329-30. [See footnote on page 97.]
[299] _Ib._ p. 330.
[300] Stirner pp. 421-2.
[301] Stirner p. 423.
[302] _Ib._ p. 284.
[303] _Ib._ p. 483.
[304] _Ib._ p. 344.
[305] _Ib._ p. 343.
[306] _Ib._ p. 422.
[307] _Ib._ p. 199.
[308] _Ib._ 259.
[309] Stirner pp. 198-9.
[310] _Ib._ p. 344. [But Stirner does not mean that all are to fight
against all; they are merely to declare themselves no longer bound by
the obligations of peace, and then those who are able to agree with each
other can at once make terms to suit themselves.]
[311] _Ib._ p. 340.
[312] _Ib._ p. 341.
[313] Stirner p. 479.
[314] _Ib._ p. 424.
[315] _Ib._ pp. 326-7.
[316] Stirner pp. 359-60.