The Ego and his Own - Max Stirner (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📗
- Author: Max Stirner
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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
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