Part 2 (1/2)

We have just said that I+I+I+etc. represents the social Utopia of Stirner. His League of Egoists is, in fact, nothing but a ma.s.s of abstract quant.i.ties. What are, what can be the basis of their union?

Their interests, answers Stirner. But what will, what can be the true basis of any given combination of their interests? Stirner says nothing about it, and he can say nothing definite since from the abstract heights on which he stands, one cannot see clearly economic reality, the mother and nurse of all the ”Egos,” egoistic or altruistic. Nor is it surprising that he is not able to explain clearly even this idea of the cla.s.s struggle, of which he nevertheless had a happy inkling. The ”poor”

must combat the ”rich.” And after, when they have conquered these? Then every one of the former ”poor,” like every one of the former ”rich,”

will combat every one of the former poor, and against every one of the former rich. There will be the war of all against all. (These are Stirner's own words.) And the rules of the ”Leagues of Egoists” will be so many partial truces in this colossal and universal warfare. There is plenty of fight in this idea, but of the ”realism” Max Stirner dreamed of, nothing.

But enough of the ”Leagues of Egoists.” A Utopian may shut his eyes to economic reality, but it forces itself upon him in spite of himself; it pursues him everywhere with the brutality of a natural force not controlled by force. The elevated regions of the abstract ”I” do not save Stirner from the attacks of economic reality. He does not speak to us only of the ”Individual”; his theme is ”the Individual _and his property_.” Now, what sort of a figure does the property of the ”Individual” cut?

It goes without saying, that Stirner is little inclined to respect property as an ”acquired right.” ”Only that property will be legally and lawfully another's which it suits _you_ should be his property. When it ceases to suit you, it has lost its legality for you, and any absolute right in it you will laugh at.”[14] It is always the same tune: ”For me there is nothing above myself.” But his scant respect for the property of others does not prevent the ”Ego” of Stirner from having the tendencies of a property-owner. The strongest argument against Communism, is, in his opinion, the consideration that Communism by abolis.h.i.+ng individual property transforms all members of society into mere beggars. Stirner is indignant at such an iniquity.

”Communists think that the Commune should be the property-owner. On the contrary, _I_ am a property-owner, and can only agree with others as to my property. If the Commune does not do as I wish I rebel against it, and defend my property, I am the owner of property, but property _is not sacred_. Should I only be the holder of property (an allusion to Proudhon)? No, hitherto one was only a holder of property, a.s.sured of possession of a piece of land, because one left others also in possession of a piece of land; but now _everything_ belongs to me, I am the owner of _everything I need_, and can get hold of. If the Socialist says, society gives me what I need, the Egoist says, I take what I want.

If the Communists behave like beggars, the Egoist behaves like an owner of property.”[15] The property of the egoist seems pretty shaky. An ”Egoist,” retains his property only as long as the other ”Egoists” do not care to take it from him, thus transforming him into a ”beggar.” But the devil is not so black as he is painted. Stirner pictures the mutual relations of the ”Egoist” proprietors rather as relations of exchange than of pillage. And force, to which he constantly appeals, is rather the economic force of a producer of commodities freed from the trammels which the State and ”Society” in general impose, or seem to impose, upon him.

It is the soul of a producer of commodities that speaks through the mouth of Stirner. If he falls foul of the State, it is because the State does not seem to respect the ”property” of the producers of commodities sufficiently. He wants _his_ property, his _whole_ property. The State makes him pay taxes; it ventures to expropriate him for the public good.

He wants a _jus utendi et abutendi_; the State says ”agreed”--but adds that there are abuses and abuses. Then Stirner cries ”stop thief!” ”I am the enemy of the State,” says he, ”which is always fluctuating between the alternative: He or I.... With the State there is no property, _i.e._, no individual property, only State property. Only through the State have I what I have, as it is only through the State that I am what I am. My private property is only what the State leaves me of its own, while it deprives other citizens of it: that is State property.” So down with the State and long live full and complete individual property!

Stirner translated into German J. B. Say's ”Traite D'Economie Politique Pratique” (Leipsic, 1845-46). And although he also translated Adam Smith, he was never able to get beyond the narrow circle of the ordinary bourgeois economic ideas. His ”League of Egoists” is only the Utopia of a petty bourgeois in revolt. In this sense one may say he has spoken the last word of bourgeois individualism.

Stirner has also a third merit--that of the courage of his opinions, of having carried through to the very end his individualist theories. He is the most intrepid, the most consequent of the Anarchists. By his side Proudhon, whom Kropotkin, like all the present day Anarchists, takes for the father of Anarchism, is but a straight-laced Philistine.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] See pages 295-305 of the 1841 edition.

[8] ”The Individual and his Property.”

[9] ”Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum.” 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1882, pp. 35-36.

(American translation: ”The Ego and his Own.” New York: 1907.)

[10] Ibid. Pp. 7-8.

[11] Ibid. pp. 196-197.

[12] Ibid. p. 200.

[13] ”The Holy Family, or Criticism of Critical Criticism, against Bruno Bauer and Company.”

[14] Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum.

[15] Ibid. p. 266.

CHAPTER IV

PROUDHON

If Stirner combats Feuerbach, the ”immortal” Proudhon imitates Kant.

”What Kant did some sixty years ago for religion, what he did earlier for certainty of certainties; what others before him had attempted to do for happiness or supreme good, the 'Voice of the People' proposes to do for the Government,” pompously declares ”the father of Anarchism.” Let us examine his methods and their results.

According to Proudhon, before Kant, the believer and the philosopher moved ”by an irresistible impulse,” asked themselves, ”What is G.o.d?”

They then asked themselves ”Which, of all religions, is the best?” ”In fact, if there does exist a Being superior to Humanity, there must also exist a system of the relations between this Being and Humanity. What then is this system? The search for the best religion is the second step that the human mind takes in reason and in faith. Kant gave up these insoluble questions. He no longer asked himself what is G.o.d, and which is the best religion, he set about explaining the origin and development of the Idea of G.o.d; he undertook to work out the biography of this idea.” And the results he attained were as great as they were unexpected. ”What we seek, what we see, in G.o.d, as Malebranche said ...