The Ego and his Own by Max Stirner (most read books txt) 📕

honor from the listeners, etc.); but only so long

as my thoughts are --its thoughts. If, on the other hand, I harbor

thoughts that it cannot approve (i.e. make its own), then it does not allow

me at all to realize value from them, to bring them into exchange into

commerce. My thoughts are free only if they are granted to me by the State's

grace, i.e. if they are the State's thoughts. It lets me philosophize

freely only so far as I approve myself a "philosopher of State"; against the

State I must not philosophize, gladly as it tolerates my helping it out of its

"deficiencies," "furthering" it. -- Therefore, as I may behave only as an ego

most graciously permitted by the State, provided with its testimonial of

legitimacy and police pass, so too it is not granted me to realize value from

what is mine, unless this proves to be its, which I hold as fief from it. My

ways must be its ways, else it distrains me; my thoughts its thoughts, else it

stops my mouth.

The State has nothing to be more afraid of than the value of me, and nothing

must it more carefully guard against than every occasion that offers itself to

me for realizing value from myself. I am the deadly enemy of the State,

which always hovers between the alternatives, it or I. Therefore it strictly

insists not only on not letting me have a standing, but also on keeping down

what is mine. In the State there is no property, i.e. no property of the

individual, but only State property. Only through the State have I what I

have, as I am only through it what I am. My private property is only that

which the State leaves to me of its, cutting off others from it (depriving

them, making it private); it is State property.

But, in opposition to the State, I feel more and more clearly that there is

still left me a great might, the might over myself, i.e. over everything

that pertains only to me and that exists only in being my own.

What do I do if my ways are no longer its ways, my thoughts no longer its

thoughts? I look to myself, and ask nothing about it! In my thoughts, which

I get sanctioned by no assent, grant, or grace, I have my real property, a

property with which I can trade. For as mine they are my creatures, and I am

in a position to give them away in return for other thoughts: I give them up

and take in exchange for them others, which then are my new purchased

property.

What then is my property? Nothing but what is in my power! To what

property am I entitled? To every property to which I -- empower myself.(68)

I give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving

myself the proprietor's power, full power, empowerment.

Everything over which I have might that cannot be torn from me remains my

property; well, then let might decide about property, and I will expect

everything from my might! Alien might, might that I leave to another, makes me

an owned slave: then let my own might make me an owner. Let me then withdraw

the might that I have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the

strength of my own might! Let me say to myself, what my might reaches to is

my property; and let me claim as property everything that I feel myself strong

enough to attain, and let me extend my actual property as far as I entitle,

i. e. -- empower, myself to take.

Here egoism, selfishness, must decide; not the principle of love, not

love-motives like mercy, gentleness, good-nature, or even justice and equity

(for justitia too is a phenomenon of -- love, a product of love): love knows

only sacrifices and demands "self-sacrifice."

Egoism does not think of sacrificing anything, giving away anything that it

wants; it simply decides, what I want I must have and will procure.

All attempts to enact rational laws about property have put out from the bay

of love into a desolate sea of regulations. Even Socialism and Communism

cannot be excepted from this. Every one is to be provided with adequate means,

for which it is little to the point whether one socialistically finds them

still in a personal property, or communistically draws them from the community

of goods. The individual's mind in this remains the same; it remains a mind of

dependence. The distributing board of equity lets me have only what the

sense of equity, its loving care for all, prescribes. For me, the

individual, there lies no less of a check in collective wealth than in that

of individual others; neither that is mine, nor this: whether the wealth

belongs to the collectivity, which confers part of it on me, or to individual

possessors, is for me the same constraint, as I cannot decide about either of

the two. On the contrary, Communism, by the abolition of all personal

property, only presses me back still more into dependence on another, viz.,

on the generality or collectivity; and, loudly as it always attacks the

"State," what it intends is itself again a State, a status, a condition

hindering my free movement, a sovereign power over me. Communism rightly

revolts against the pressure that I experience from individual proprietors;

but still more horrible is the might that it puts in the hands of the

collectivity.

Egoism takes another way to root out the non-possessing rabble. It does not

say: Wait for what the board of equity will -- bestow on you in the name of

the collectivity (for such bestowal took place in "States" from the most

ancient times, each receiving "according to his desert," and therefore

according to the measure in which each was able to deserve it, to acquire it

by service), but: Take hold, and take what you require! With this the war of

all against all is declared. I alone decide what I will have.

"Now, that is truly no new wisdom, for self-seekers have acted so at all

times!" Not at all necessary either that the thing be new, if only

consciousness of it is present. But this latter will not be able to claim

great age, unless perhaps one counts in the Egyptian and Spartan law; for how

little current it is appears even from the stricture above, which speaks with

contempt of "self-seekers." One is to know just this, that the procedure of

taking hold is not contemptible, but manifests the pure deed of the egoist at

one with himself.

Only when I expect neither from individuals nor from a collectivity what I can

give to myself, only then do I slip out of the snares of --love; the rabble

ceases to be rabble only when it takes hold. Only the dread of taking hold,

and the corresponding punishment thereof, makes it a rabble. Only that taking

hold is sin, crime -- only this dogma creates a rabble. For the fact that

the rabble remains what it is, it (because it allows validity to that dogma)

is to blame as well as, more especially, those who "self-seekingly" (to give

them back their favorite word) demand that the dogma be respected. In short,

the lack of consciousness of that "new wisdom," the old consciousness of

sin, alone bears the blame.

If men reach the point of losing respect for property, every one will have

property, as all slaves become free men as soon as they no longer respect the

master as master. Unions will then, in this matter too, multiply the

individual's means and secure his assailed property.

According to the Communists' opinion the commune should be proprietor. On the

contrary, I am proprietor, and I only come to an understanding with others

about my property. If the commune does not do what suits me, I rise against it

and defend my property. I am proprietor, but property is not sacred. I

should be merely possessor? No, hitherto one was only possessor, secured in

the possession of a parcel by leaving others also in possession of a parcel;

but now everything belongs to me, I am proprietor of *everything that I

require* and can get possession of. If it is said socialistically, society

gives me what I require -- then the egoist says, I take what I require. If the

Communists conduct themselves as ragamuffins, the egoist behaves as

proprietor.

All swan-fraternities,(69) and attempts at making the rabble happy, that

spring from the principle of love, must miscarry. Only from egoism can the

rabble get help, and this help it must give to itself and -- will give to

itself. If it does not let itself be coerced into fear, it is a power. "People

would lose all respect if one did not coerce them into fear," says bugbear Law

in Der gestiefelte Kater.

Property, therefore, should not and cannot be abolished; it must rather be

torn from ghostly hands and become my property; then the erroneous

consciousness, that I cannot entitle myself to as much as I require, will

vanish. --

"But what cannot man require!" Well, whoever requires much, and understands

how to get it, has at all times helped himself to it, as Napoleon did with the

Continent and France with Algiers. Hence the exact point is that the

respectful "rabble" should learn at last to help itself to what it requires.

If it reaches out too far for you, why, then defend yourselves. You have no

need at all to good-heartedly -- bestow anything on it; and, when it learns to

know itself, it -- or rather: whoever of the rabble learns to know himself, he

-- casts off the rabble-quality in refusing your alms with thanks. But it

remains ridiculous that you declare the rabble "sinful and criminal" if it is

not pleased to live from your favors because it can do something in its own

favor. Your bestowals cheat it and put it off. Defend your property, then you

will be strong; if, on the other hand, you want to retain your ability to

bestow, and perhaps actually have the more political rights the more alms

(poor-rates) you can give, this will work just as long as the recipients let

you work it.(70)

In short, the property question cannot be solved so amicably as the

Socialists, yes, even the Communists, dream. It is solved only by the war of

all against all. The poor become free and proprietors only when they --

rise. Bestow ever so much on them, they will still always want more; for

they want nothing less than that at last -- nothing more be bestowed.

It will be asked, but how then will it be when the have- nots take heart? Of

what sort is the