The Ego and his Own - Max Stirner (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📗
- Author: Max Stirner
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present, one is still in another's estimation a "ragamuffin," a
"have-nothing"; but then this estimation ceases. We are all ragamuffins
together, and as the aggregate of Communistic society we might call ourselves
a "ragamuffin crew."
When the proletarian shall really have founded his purposed "society" in which
the interval between rich and poor is to be removed, then he will be a
ragamuffin, for then he will feel that it amounts to something to be a
ragamuffin, and might lift "Ragamuffin" to be an honourable form of address,
just as the Revolution did with the word "Citizen." Ragamuffin is his ideal;
we are all to become ragamuffins.
This is the second robbery of the "personal" in the interest of "humanity."
Neither command nor property is left to the individual; the State took the
former, society the latter.
Because in society the most oppressive evils make themselves felt, therefore
the oppressed especially, and consequently the members of the lower regions of
society, think they found the fault in society, and make it their task to
discover the right society. This is only the old phenomenon -- that one
looks for the fault first in everything but himself, and consequently in the
State, in the self-seeking of the rich, etc., which yet have precisely our
fault to thank for their existence.
The reflections and conclusions of Communism look very simple. As matters lie
at this time -- in the present situation with regard to the State, therefore
-- some, and they the majority, are at a disadvantage compared to others, the
minority. In this state of things the former are in a state of prosperity,
the latter in state of need. Hence the present state of things, i.e. the
State itself, must be done away with. And what in its place? Instead of the
isolated state of prosperity -- a general state of prosperity, a *prosperity
of all*.
Through the Revolution the bourgeoisie became omnipotent, and all inequality
was abolished by every one's being raised or degraded to the dignity of a
citizen : the common man -- raised, the aristocrat -- degraded; the third
estate became sole estate, viz., namely, the estate of -- *citizens of the
State*. Now Communism responds: Our dignity and our essence consist not in our
being all -- the equal children of our mother, the State, all born with
equal claim to her love and her protection, but in our all existing *for each
other. This is our equality, or herein we are equal*, in that we, I as well
as you and you and all of you, are active or "labor" each one for the rest; in
that each of us is a laborer, then. The point for us is not what we are *for
the State (citizens), not our citizenship therefore, but what we are for
each other*, that each of us exists only through the other, who, caring for my
wants, at the same time sees his own satisfied by me. He labors e. g. for my
clothing (tailor), I for his need of amusement (comedy-writer, rope-dancer),
he for my food (farmer), I for his instruction (scientist). It is labor that
constitutes our dignity and our -- equality.
What advantage does citizenship bring us? Burdens! And how high is our labor
appraised? As low as possible! But labor is our sole value all the same: that
we are laborers is the best thing about us, this is our significance in the
world, and therefore it must be our consideration too and must come to receive
consideration. What can you meet us with? Surely nothing but -- labor too.
Only for labor or services do we owe you a recompense, not for your bare
existence; not for what you are for yourselves either, but only for what you
are for us. By what have you claims on us? Perhaps by your high birth? No,
only by what you do for us that is desirable or useful. Be it thus then: we
are willing to be worth to you only so much as we do for you; but you are to
be held likewise by us. Services determine value, -- i.e. those services
that are worth something to us, and consequently *labors for each other,
labors for the common good. Let each one be in the other's eyes a laborer*.
He who accomplishes something useful is inferior to none, or -- all laborers
(laborers, of course, in the sense of laborers "for the common good," i. e.,
communistic laborers) are equal. But, as the laborer is worth his wages,(74)
let the wages too be equal.
As long as faith sufficed for man's honor and dignity, no labor, however
harassing, could be objected to if it only did not hinder a man in his faith.
Now, on the contrary, when every one is to cultivate himself into man,
condemning a man to machine-like labor amounts to the same thing as slavery.
If a factory worker must tire himself to death twelve hours and more, he is
cut off from becoming man. Every labor is to have the intent that the man be
satisfied. Therefore he must become a master in it too, i.e. be able to
perform it as a totality. He who in a pin factory only puts on the heads, only
draws the wire, works, as it were, mechanically, like a machine; he remains
half-trained, does not become a master: his labor cannot satisfy him, it can
only fatigue him. His labor is nothing by itself, has no object in
itself, is nothing complete in itself; he labors only into another's hands,
and is used (exploited) by this other. For this laborer in another's service
there is no enjoyment of a cultivated mind, at most, crude amusements:
culture, you see, is barred against him. To be a good Christian one needs
only to believe, and that can be done under the most oppressive
circumstances. Hence the Christian-minded take care only of the oppressed
laborers' piety, their patience, submission, etc. Only so long as the
downtrodden classes were Christians could they bear all their misery: for
Christianity does not let their murmurings and exasperation rise. Now the
hushing of desires is no longer enough, but their sating is demanded. The
bourgeoisie has proclaimed the gospel of the enjoyment of the world, of
material enjoyment, and now wonders that this doctrine finds adherents among
us poor: it has shown that not faith and poverty, but culture and possessions,
make a man blessed; we proletarians understand that too.
The commonalty freed us from the orders and arbitrariness of individuals. But
that arbitrariness was left which springs from the conjuncture of situations,
and may be called the fortuity of circumstances; favoring fortune. and those
"favored by fortune," still remain.
When, e. g., a branch of industry is ruined and thousands of laborers become
breadless, people think reasonably enough to acknowledge that it is not the
individual who must bear the blame, but that "the evil lies in the situation."
Let us change the situation then, but let us change it thoroughly, and so that
its fortuity becomes powerless. and a law! Let us no longer be slaves of
chance! Let us create a new order that makes an end of fluctuations. Let
this order then be sacred!
Formerly one had to suit the lords to come to anything; after the Revolution
the word was "Grasp fortune!" Luck-hunting or hazard-playing, civil life was
absorbed in this. Then, alongside this, the demand that he who has obtained
something shall not frivolously stake it again.
Strange and yet supremely natural contradiction. Competition, in which alone
civil or political life unrolls itself, is a game of luck through and through,
from the speculations of the exchange down to the solicitation of offices, the
hunt for customers, looking for work, aspiring to promotion and decorations,
the second-hand dealer's petty haggling, etc. If one succeeds in supplanting
and outbidding his rivals, then the "lucky throw" is made; for it must be
taken as a piece of luck to begin with that the victor sees himself equipped
with an ability (even though it has been developed by the most careful
industry) against which the others do not know how to rise, consequently that
-- no abler ones are found. And now those who ply their daily lives in the
midst of these changes of fortune without seeing any harm in it are seized
with the most virtuous indignation when their own principle appears in naked
form and "breeds misfortune" as -- hazard-playing. Hazard-playing, you see,
is too clear, too barefaced a competition, and, like every decided nakedness,
offends honourable modesty.
The Socialists want to put a stop to this activity of chance, and to form a
society in which men are no longer dependent on fortune, but free.
In the most natural way in the world this endeavor first utters itself as
hatred of the "unfortunate" against the "fortunate," i.e., of those for whom
fortune has done little or nothing, against those for whom it has done
everything. But properly the ill- feeling is not directed against the
fortunate, but against fortune, this rotten spot of the commonalty.
As the Communists first declare free activity to be man's essence, they, like
all work-day dispositions, need a Sunday; like all material endeavors, they
need a God, an uplifting and edification alongside their witless "labor."
That the Communist sees in you the man, the brother, is only the Sunday side
of Communism. According to the work-day side he does not by any means take you
as man simply, but as human laborer or laboring man. The first view has in it
the liberal principle; in the second, illiberality is concealed. If you were a
"lazy-bones," he would not indeed fail to recognize the man in you, but would
endeavor to cleanse him as a "lazy man" from laziness and to convert you to
the faith that labor is man's "destiny and calling."
Therefore he shows a double face: with the one he takes heed that the
spiritual man be satisfied, with the other he looks about him for means for
the material or corporeal man. He gives man a twofold post -- an office of
material acquisition and one of spiritual.
The commonalty had thrown open spiritual and material goods, and left it
with each one to reach out for them if he liked.
Communism really procures them for each one, presses them upon him, and
compels him to acquire them. It takes seriously the idea that, because only
spiritual and material goods make us men, we must unquestionably acquire these
goods in order to be man. The commonalty made acquisition free; Communism
compels to acquisition, and recognizes only the acquirer, him who practices
a trade. It is not
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