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

do for him and his donated pennies, in

which his wealth consists? The day- laborer would really have more enjoyment

if the receiver with his laws, his institutions, etc., all of which the

day-laborer has to pay for though, did not exist at all. And yet, with it all,

the poor wight loves his master.

No, community, as the "goal" of history hitherto, is impossible. Let us rather

renounce every hypocrisy of community, and recognize that, if we are equal as

men, we are not equal for the very reason that we are not men. We are equal

only in thoughts, only when "we" are thought, not as we really and bodily

are. I am ego, and you are ego: but I am not this thought-of ego; this ego in

which we are all equal is only my thought. I am man, and you are man: but

"man" is only a thought, a generality; neither I nor you are speakable, we are

unutterable, because only thoughts are speakable and consist in speaking.

Let us therefore not aspire to community, but to one-sidedness. Let us not

seek the most comprehensive commune, "human society," but let us seek in

others only means and organs which we may use as our property! As we do not

see our equals in the tree, the beast, so the presupposition that others are

our equals springs from a hypocrisy. No one is my equal, but I regard him,

equally with all other beings, as my property. In opposition to this I am told

that I should be a man among "fellow-men" (Judenfrage, p. 60); I should

"respect" the fellow-man in them. For me no one is a person to be respected,

not even the fellow-man, but solely, like other beings, an object in which I

take an interest or else do not, an interesting or uninteresting object, a

usable or unusable person.

And, if I can use him, I doubtless come to an understanding and make myself at

one with him, in order, by the agreement, to strengthen my power, and by

combined force to accomplish more than individual force could effect. In this

combination I see nothing whatever but a multiplication of my force, and I

retain it only so long as it is my multiplied force. But thus it is a --

union.

Neither a natural ligature nor a spiritual one holds the union together, and

it is not a natural, not a spiritual league. It is not brought about by one

blood, not by one faith (spirit). In a natural league -- like a family, a

tribe, a nation, yes, mankind -- the individuals have only the value of

specimens of the same species or genus; in a spiritual league -- like a

commune, a church -- the individual signifies only a member of the same

spirit; what you are in both cases as a unique person must be -- suppressed.

Only in the union can you assert yourself as unique, because the union does

not possess you, but you possess it or make it of use to you.

Property is recognized in the union, and only in the union, because one no

longer holds what is his as a fief from any being. The Communists are only

consistently carrying further what had already been long present during

religious evolution, and especially in the State; to wit, propertylessness,

the feudal system.

The State exerts itself to tame the desirous man; in other words, it seeks to

direct his desire to it alone, and to content that desire with what it

offers. To sate the desire for the desirous man's sake does not come into the

mind: on the contrary, it stigmatizes as an "egoistic man" the man who

breathes out unbridled desire, and the "egoistic man" is its enemy. He is this

for it because the capacity to agree with him is wanting to the State; the

egoist is precisely what it cannot "comprehend." Since the State (as nothing

else is possible) has to do only for itself, it does not take care for my

needs, but takes care only of how it make away with me, i.e. make out of me

another ego, a good citizen. It takes measures for the "improvement of

morals." -- And with what does it win individuals for itself? With itself,

i.e. with what is the State's, with State property. It will be

unremittingly active in making all participants in its "goods," providing all

with the "good things of culture"; it presents them its education, opens to

them the access to its institutions of culture, capacitates them to come to

property (i.e. to a fief) in the way of industry, etc. For all these fiefs

it demands only the just rent of continual thanks. But the "unthankful"

forget to pay these thanks. -- Now, neither can "society" do essentially

otherwise than the State.

You bring into a union your whole power, your competence, and *make yourself

count; in a society you are employed*, with your working power; in the

former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly, i.e. religiously, as a

"member in the body of this Lord"; to a society you owe what you have, and are

in duty bound to it, are -- possessed by "social duties"; a union you utilize,

and give it up undutifully and unfaithfully when you see no way to use it

further. If a society is more than you, then it is more to you than yourself;

a union is only your instrument, or the sword with which you sharpen and

increase your natural force; the union exists for you and through you, the

society conversely lays claim to you for itself and exists even without you,

in short, the society is sacred, the union your own; consumes you, you

consume the union.

Nevertheless people will not be backward with the objection that the agreement

which has been concluded may again become burdensome to us and limit our

freedom; they will say, we too would at last come to this, that "every one

must sacrifice a part of his freedom for the sake of the generality." But the

sacrifice would not be made for the "generality's" sake a bit, as little as I

concluded the agreement for the "generality's" or even for any other man's

sake; rather I came into it only for the sake of my own benefit, from

selfishness.(96) But, as regards the sacrificing, surely I "sacrifice" only

that which does not stand in my power, i.e., I "sacrifice" nothing at all.

To come back to property, the lord is proprietor. Choose then whether you want

to be lord, or whether society shall be! On this depends whether you are to be

an owner or a ragamuffin! The egoist is owner, the Socialist a ragamuffin.

But ragamuffinism or propertylessness is the sense of feudalism, of the feudal

system which since the last century has only changed its overlord, putting

"Man" in the place of God, and accepting as a fief from Man what had before

been a fief from the grace of God. That the ragamuffinism of Communism is

carried out by the humane principle into the absolute or most ragamuffinly

ragamuffinism has been shown above; but at the same time also, how

ragamuffinism can only thus swing around into ownness. The old feudal system

was so thoroughly trampled into the ground in the Revolution that since then

all reactionary craft has remained fruitless, and will always remain

fruitless, because the dead is -- dead; but the resurrection too had to prove

itself a truth in Christian history, and has so proved itself: for in another

world feudalism is risen again with a glorified body, the new feudalism

under the suzerainty of "Man."

Christianity is not annihilated, but the faithful are right in having hitherto

trustfully assumed of every combat against it that this could serve only for

the purgation and confirmation of Christianity; for it has really only been

glorified, and "Christianity exposed" is the -- human Christianity. We are

still living entirely in the Christian age, and the very ones who feel worst

about it are the most zealously contributing to "complete" it. The more human,

the dearer has feudalism become to us; for we the less believe that it still

is feudalism, we take it the more confidently for ownness and think we have

found what is "most absolutely our own" when we discover "the human."

Liberalism wants to give me what is mine, but it thinks to procure it for me

not under the title of mine, but under that of the "human." As if it were

attainable under this mask! The rights of man, the precious work of the

Revolution, have the meaning that the Man in me entitles(97) me to this and

that; I as individual, i.e. as this man, am not entitled, but Man has the

right and entitles me. Hence as man I may well be entitled; but, as I am more

than man, to wit, a special man, it may be refused to this very me, the

special one. If on the other hand you insist on the value of your gifts,

keep up their price, do not let yourselves be forced to sell out below price,

do not let yourselves be talked into the idea that your ware is not worth its

price. do not make yourself ridiculous by a "ridiculous price," but imitate

the brave man who says, I will sell my life (property) dear, the enemy shall

not have it at a cheap bargain; then you have recognized the reverse of

Communism as the correct thing, and the word then is not "Give up your

property!" but "Get the value out of your property!"

Over the portal of our time stands not that "Know thyself" of Apollo, but a

"Get the value out of thyself!"

Proudhon calls property "robbery" (le vol). But alien property -- and he is

talking of this alone -- is not less existent by renunciation, cession, and

humility; it is a present. Why so sentimentally call for compassion as a

poor victim of robbery, when one is just a foolish, cowardly giver of

presents? Why here again put the fault on others as if they were robbing us,

while we ourselves do bear the fault in leaving the others unrobbed? The poor

are to blame for there being rich men.

Universally, no one grows indignant at his, but at alien property. They do

not in truth attack property, but the alienation of property. They want to be

able to call more, not less, theirs; they want to call everything

theirs. They are fighting, therefore, against alienness, or, to form a

word similar to property, against alienty. And how do they help themselves

therein? Instead of transforming the alien into own, they play impartial and

ask only that all property be left to a third party,