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

looking calmly on while you swallow oysters? Only buy the

oysters of us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes of you, then 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 over violence if we reach out our hands and

help consume 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 have done with it, and let us consider our nearer

property, labor; for the other is only possession. We distress ourselves

twelve hours in the sweat of our face, and you offer us a few groschen for it.

Then take the like for your labor too. Are you not willing? You fancy that our

labor is richly repaid with that wage, while yours on the other hands is worth

a wage of many thousands. But, if you did not rate yours so high, and gave us

a better chance to realize value from ours, then we might well, if the case

demanded it, bring to pass still more important things than you do for the

many thousand thalers; and, if you got only such wages as we, you would soon

grow more industrious in order to receive more. But, if you render any service

that seems to us worth ten and a hundred times more than our own labor, why,

then you shall get a hundred times more for it too; we, on the other hand,

think also to produce for you things for which you will requite us more highly

than with the ordinary day's wages. We shall be willing to get along with each

other all right, if only we have first agreed on this -- that neither any

longer needs to -- present anything to the other. Then we may perhaps

actually go so far as to pay even the cripples and sick and old an appropriate

price for not parting from us by hunger and want; for, if we want them to

live, it is fitting also that we -- purchase the fulfillment of our will. I

say "purchase," and therefore do not mean a wretched "alms." For their life is

the property even of those who cannot work; if we (no matter for what reason)

want them not to withdraw this life from us, we can mean to bring this to pass

only by purchase; nay, we shall perhaps (maybe because we like to have

friendly faces about us) even want a life of comfort for them. In short, we

want nothing presented by you, but neither will we present you with anything.

For centuries we have handed alms to you from goodhearted -- stupidity, have

doled out the mite of the poor and given to the masters the things that are --

not the masters'; now just open your wallet, for henceforth our ware rises in

price quite enormously. We do not want to take from you anything, anything at

all, only you are to pay better for what you want to have. What then have you?

"I have an estate of a thousand acres." And I am your plowman, and will

henceforth attend to your fields only for one thaler a day wages. "Then I'll

take another." You won't find any, for we plowmen are no longer doing

otherwise, and, if one puts in an appearance who takes less, then let him

beware of us. There is the housemaid, she too is now demanding as much, and

you will no longer find one below this price. "Why, then it is all over with

me." Not so fast! You will doubtless take in as much as we; and, if it should

not be so, we will take off so much that you shall have wherewith to live like

us. "But I am accustomed to live better." We have nothing against that, but it

is not our look-out; if you can clear more, go ahead. Are we to hire out under

rates, that you may have a good living?

The rich man always puts off the poor with the words, "What does your want

concern me? See to it how you make your way through the world; that is *your

affair*, not mine." Well, let us let it be our affair, then, and let us not

let the means that we have to realize value from ourselves be pilfered from us

by the rich. "But you uncultured people really do not need so much." Well, we

are taking somewhat more in order that for it we may procure the culture that

we perhaps need. "But, if you thus bring down the rich, who is then to support

the arts and sciences hereafter?" Oh, well, we must make it up by numbers; we

club together, that gives a nice little sum -- besides, you rich men now buy

only the most tasteless books and the most lamentable Madonnas or a pair of

lively dancer's legs. "O ill-starred equality!" No, my good old sir, nothing

of equality. We only want to count for what we are worth, and, if you are

worth more, you shall count for more right along. We only want to be *worth

our price*, and think to show ourselves worth the price that you will pay.

Is the State likely to be able to awaken so secure a temper and so forceful a

self-consciousness in the menial? Can it make man feel himself? Nay, may it

even do so much as set this goal for itself? Can it want the individual to

recognize his value and realize this value from himself? Let us keep the parts

of the double question separate, and see first whether the State can bring

about such a thing. As the unanimity of the plowmen is required, only this

unanimity can bring it to pass, and a State law would be evaded in a thousand

ways by competition and in secret.

But can the State bear with it? The State cannot possibly bear with people's

suffering coercion from another than it; it could not, therefore, admit the

self-help of the unanimous plowmen against those who want to engage for lower

wages. Suppose, however, that the State made the law, and all the plowmen were

in accord with it: could the State bear with it then?

In the isolated case -- yes; but the isolated case is more than that, it is a

case of principle. The question therein is of the whole range of the *ego's

self-realization of value from himself*, and therefore also of his

self-consciousness against the State. So far the Communists keep company;

but, as self-realization of value from self necessarily directs itself against

the State, so it does against society too, and therewith reaches out beyond

the commune and the communistic -- out of egoism.

Communism makes the maxim of the commonalty, that every one is a possessor

("proprietor"), into an irrefragable truth, into a reality, since the anxiety

about obtaining now ceases and every one has from the start what he

requires. In his labor-force he has his competence, and, if he makes no use

of it, that is his fault. The grasping and hounding is at an end, and no

competition is left (as so often now) without fruit, because with every stroke

of labor an adequate supply of the needful is brought into the house. Now for

the first time one is a real possessor, because what one has in his

labor-force can no longer escape from him as it was continually threatening to

do under the system of competition. One is a care-free and assured

possessor. And one is this precisely by seeking his competence no longer in a

ware, but in his own labor, his competence for labor; and therefore by being a

ragamuffin, a man of only ideal wealth. I, however, cannot content myself

with the little that I scrape up by my competence for labor, because my

competence does not consist merely in my labor.

By labor I can perform the official functions of a president, a minister,

etc.; these offices demand only a general culture -- to wit, such a culture as

is generally attainable (for general culture is not merely that which every

one has attained, but broadly that which every one can attain, and therefore

every special culture, e. g. medical, military, philological, of which no

"cultivated man" believes that they surpass his powers), or, broadly, only a

skill possible to all.

But, even if these offices may vest in every one, yet it is only the

individual's unique force, peculiar to him alone. that gives them, so to

speak, life and significance. That he does not manage his office like an

"ordinary man." but puts in the competence of his uniqueness, this he is not

yet paid for when he is paid only in general as an official or a minister. If

he has done it so as to earn your thanks, and you wish to retain this

thank-worthy force of the unique one, you must not pay him like a mere man who

performed only what was human, but as one who accomplishes what is unique. Do

the like with your labor, do!

There cannot be a general schedule-price fixed for my uniqueness as there can

for what I do as man. Only for the latter can a schedule-price be set.

Go right on, then, setting up a general appraisal for human labors, but do not

deprive your uniqueness of its desert.

Human or general needs can be satisfied through society; for satisfaction

of unique needs you must do some seeking. A friend and a friendly service,

or even an individual's service, society cannot procure you. And yet you will

every moment be in need of such a service, and on the slightest occasions

require somebody who is helpful to you. Therefore do not rely on society, but

see to it that you have the wherewithal to -- purchase the fulfillment of your

wishes.

Whether money is to be retained among egoists? To the old stamp an inherited

possession adheres. If you no longer let yourselves be paid with it, it is

ruined: if you do nothing for this money, it loses all power. Cancel the

inheritance, and you have broken off the executor's court-seal. For now

everything is an inheritance, whether it be already inherited or await its

heir. If it is yours, wherefore do you let it be sealed up from you? Why do

you respect the seal?

But why should you not create a new money? Do you then annihilate the ware in

taking from it the hereditary stamp? Now, money is a ware, and an essential

means or competence. For it protects against the ossification of resources,

keeps them in flux and brings to pass their exchange. If you know a better

medium of exchange, go ahead; yet it will be a "money" again. It is not the

money that does you damage, but your incompetence to take