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

smiling, its playing, its

screaming! in short, in its mere existence! Are you capable of resisting its

desire? Or do you not hold out to it, as mother, your breast; as father, as

much of your possessions as it needs? It compels you, therefore it possesses

what you call yours.

If your person is of consequence to me, you pay me with your very existence;

if I am concerned only with one of your qualities, then your compliance,

perhaps, or your aid, has a value (a money value) for me, and I purchase it.

If you do not know how to give yourself any other than a money value in my

estimation, there may arise the case of which history tells us, that Germans,

sons of the fatherland, were sold to America. Should those who let themselves

to be traded in be worth more to the seller? He preferred the cash to this

living ware that did not understand how to make itself precious to him. That

he discovered nothing more valuable in it was assuredly a defect of his

competence; but it takes a rogue to give more than he has. How should he show

respect when he did not have it, nay, hardly could have it for such a pack!

You behave egoistically when you respect each other neither as possessors nor

as ragamuffins or workers, but as a part of your competence, as *"useful

bodies"*. Then you will neither give anything to the possessor ("proprietor")

for his possessions, nor to him who works, but only to him whom you require.

The North Americans ask themselves, Do we require a king? and answer, Not a

farthing are he and his work worth to us.

If it is said that competition throws every thing open to all, the expression

is not accurate, and it is better put thus: competition makes everything

purchasable. In abandoning(73) it to them, competition leaves it to their

appraisal(74) or their estimation, and demands a price(75) for it.

But the would-be buyers mostly lack the means to make themselves buyers: they

have no money. For money, then, the purchasable things are indeed to be had

("For money everything is to be had!"), but it is exactly money that is

lacking. Where is one to get money, this current or circulating property? Know

then, you have as much money(76) as you have -- might; for you count(77) for

as much as you make yourself count for.

One pays not with money, of which there may come a lack, but with his

competence, by which alone we are "competent";(78) for one is proprietor only

so far as the arm of our power reaches.

Weitling has thought out a new means of payment -- work. But the true means of

payment remains, as always, competence. With what you have "within your

competence" you pay. Therefore think on the enlargement of your competence.

This being admitted, they are nevertheless right on hand again with the motto,

"To each according to his competence!" Who is to give to me according to my

competence? Society? Then I should have to put up with its estimation. Rather,

I shall take according to my competence.

"All belongs to all!" This proposition springs from the same unsubstantial

theory. To each belongs only what he is competent for. If I say, The world

belongs to me, properly that too is empty talk, which has a meaning only in so

far as I respect no alien property. But to me belongs only as much as I am

competent for, or have within my competence.

One is not worthy to have what one, through weakness, lets be taken from him;

one is not worthy of it because one is not capable of it.

They raise a mighty uproar over the "wrong of a thousand years" which is being

committed by the rich against the poor. As if the rich were to blame for

poverty, and the poor were not in like manner responsible for riches! Is there

another difference between the two than that of competence and incompetence,

of the competent and incompetent? Wherein, pray, does the crime of the rich

consist? "In their hardheartedness." But who then have maintained the poor?

Who have cared for their nourishment? Who have given alms, those alms that

have even their name from mercy (eleemosyne)? Have not the rich been

"merciful" at all times? Are they not to this day "tender-hearted," as

poor-taxes, hospitals, foundations of all sorts, etc., prove?

But all this does not satisfy you! Doubtless, then, they are to share with

the poor? Now you are demanding that they shall abolish poverty. Aside from

the point that there might be hardly one among you who would act so, and that

this one would be a fool for it, do ask yourselves: why should the rich let go

their fleeces and give up themselves, thereby pursuing the advantage of the

poor rather than their own? You, who have your thaler daily, are rich above

thousands who live on four groschen. Is it for your interest to share with the

thousands, or is it not rather for theirs? --

With competition is connected less the intention to do the thing best than

the intention to make it as profitable, as productive, as possible. Hence

people study to get into the civil service (pot-boiling study), study cringing

and flattery, routine and "acquaintance with business," work "for appearance."

Hence, while it is apparently a matter of doing "good service," in truth only

a "good business" and earning of money are looked out for. The job is done

only ostensibly for the job's sake, but in fact on account of the gain that it

yields. One would indeed prefer not to be censor, but one wants to be --

advanced; one would like to judge, administer, etc., according to his best

convictions, but one is afraid of transference or even dismissal; one must,

above all things -- live.

Thus these goings-on are a fight for dear life, and, in gradation upward,

for more or less of a "good living."

And yet, withal, their whole round of toil and care brings in for most only

"bitter life" and "bitter poverty." All the bitter painstaking for this!

Restless acquisition does not let us take breath, take a calm enjoyment: we

do not get the comfort of our possessions.

But the organization of labor touches only such labors as others can do for

us, slaughtering, tillage, etc.; the rest remain egoistic, because no one can

in your stead elaborate your musical compositions, carry out your projects of

painting, etc.; nobody can replace Raphael's labors. The latter are labors of

a unique person,(79) which only he is competent to achieve, while the former

deserved to be called "human," since what is anybody's own in them is of

slight account, and almost "any man" can be trained to it.

Now, as society can regard only labors for the common benefit, human labors,

he who does anything unique remains without its care; nay, he may find

himself disturbed by its intervention. The unique person will work himself

forth out of society all right, but society brings forth no unique person.

Hence it is at any rate helpful that we come to an agreement about human

labors, that they may not, as under competition, claim all our time and toil.

So far Communism will bear its fruits. For before the dominion of the

commonalty even that for which all men are qualified, or can be qualified, was

tied up to a few and withheld from the rest: it was a privilege. To the

commonalty it looked equitable to leave free all that seemed to exist for

every "man." But, because left(80) free, it was yet given to no one, but

rather left to each to be got hold of by his human power. By this the mind

was turned to the acquisition of the human, which henceforth beckoned to every

one; and there arose a movement which one hears so loudly bemoaned under the

name of "materialism."

Communism seeks to check its course, spreading the belief that the human is

not worth so much discomfort, and, with sensible arrangements, could be gained

without the great expense of time and powers which has hitherto seemed

requisite.

But for whom is time to be gained? For what does man require more time than is

necessary to refresh his wearied powers of labor? Here Communism is silent.

For what? To take comfort in himself as the unique, after he has done his part

as man!

In the first joy over being allowed to stretch out their hands toward

everything human, people forgot to want anything else; and they competed away

vigorously, as if the possession of the human were the goal of all our wishes.

But they have run themselves tired, and are gradually noticing that

"possession does not give happiness." Therefore they are thinking of obtaining

the necessary by an easier bargain, and spending on it only so much time and

toil as its indispensableness exacts. Riches fall in price, and contented

poverty, the care-free ragamuffin, becomes the seductive ideal.

Should such human activities, that every one is confident of his capacity for,

be highly salaried, and sought for with toil and expenditure of all

life-forces? Even in the everyday form of speech, "If I were minister, or even

the., then it should go quite otherwise," that confidence expresses itself --

that one holds himself capable of playing the part of such a dignitary; one

does get a perception that to things of this sort there belongs not

uniqueness, but only a culture which is attainable, even if not exactly by

all, at any rate by many; i.e. that for such a thing one need only be an

ordinary man.

If we assume that, as order belongs to the essence of the State, so

subordination too is founded in its nature, then we see that the

subordinates, or those who have received preferment, disproportionately

overcharge and overreach those who are put in the lower ranks. But the

latter take heart (first from the Socialist standpoint, but certainly with

egoistic consciousness later, of which we will therefore at once give their

speech some coloring) for the question, By what then is your property secure,

you creatures of preferment? -- and give themselves the answer, By our

refraining from interference! And so by our protection! And what do you give

us for it? Kicks and disdain you give to the "common people"; police

supervision, and a catechism with the chief sentence "Respect what is *not

yours, what belongs to others!* respect others, and especially your

superiors!" But we reply, "If you want our respect, buy it for a price

agreeable to us. We will leave you your property, if you give a due equivalent

for this leaving." Really, what equivalent does the general in time of peace

give for the many thousands of his yearly income.? -- another for the sheer

hundred-thousands and millions yearly? What equivalent do you give for our

chewing potatoes and