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14 - Social Liberalism - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · Logic Library

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Section fourteen Social liberalism. We are free born men, and wherever we look
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we see ourselves made servants of egoists. Are we therefore to become egoists too?
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Heaven forbid? We want rather to make egoists impossible. We want to
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make them all ragamuffins. All of us must have nothing that quote all may
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have end quote. So say the socialists, who is this person that you
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call all? It is society? But is it corporeal? Then we are
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its body? You why you are not a body? Yourselves, you,
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sir, are corporeal. To be sure, you too, and you,
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but you altogether are only bodies, not a body. Accordingly, the United
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Society may indeed have bodies at its service, but no one body of its
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own. Like the nation of the politicians, it will turn out to be
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nothing but a spirit, its body only semblance. The freedom of man is
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in political liberalism, freedom from persons, from personal dominion, from the master,
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securing of each individual person against other persons, personal freedom. No one
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has any orders to give. The law alone gives orders. But even if
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the persons have become equal, yet their possessions have not. And yet the
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poor man needs the rich, the rich the poor, the former the rich
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man's money, the latter the poor man's labor. So no one needs another
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as a person, but needs him as a giver, and thus as one
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who has something to give as holder or possessor. So what he has makes
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the man, and in having or in possessions, people are unequal. Consequently,
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social liberalism concludes no one must have, as according to political liberalism,
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no one was to give orders. That is, as in that case,
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this state alone obtained to command. So now society alone obtains to possessions.
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For the state protecting each one's person and property against the other separates them from
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one another. Each one is his special part and has his special part.
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He who is satisfied with what he is and has finds this state of things
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profitable. But he who would like to be and have more looks around for
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this more and finds it in the power of other persons. Here he comes
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upon a contradiction. As a person, no one is inferior to another,
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and yet one person has what another has not but would like to have.
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So he concludes the one person is more than the other after all, for
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the former has what he needs, the latter has not. The former is
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a rich man the letter a poor man. He now asks himself further,
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are we to let what we rightly beur it come to life again? Are
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we to let this circuitously restored inequality of persons pass? No, on the
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contrary, we must bring quite to an end. What was only half accomplished.
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Our freedom from another's person still lacks the freedom from what the other's person
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can command, from what he has in his personal power, in short,
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from personal property. Let us then do away with personal property. Let no
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one have anything any longer. Let every one be a ragamuffin. Let property
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be impersonal, Let it belong to society. Before the supreme ruler, the
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sole commander, we had all become equal, equal persons, that is,
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nullities before the supreme proprietor we all become equal ragamuffins. For the present one
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is still in another's abstimation. A ragamuffin have nothing. But then this estimation
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ceases. We are all ragamuffins together and as the aggregate of communistic society,
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or we might call ourselves a ragamuffin crew. When the proletarian shall really have
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founded his proposed society in which the interval between rich and poor is to be
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removed, then he will be a ragamuffin. For then he will feel that
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it amounts to something to be a ragamuffin, and might lift ragamuffin to be
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an honorable form of address, just as the Revolution did with the word citizen.
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Ragamuffin is his ideal. We are all to become ragamuffins. This is
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the second robbery of the personal. In the interest of humanity, neither command
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nor property is left to the individual. The state took the former, society
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the latter, because in society the most oppressive evils make themselves felt. Therefore,
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the oppressed especially, and consequently the members of the lower regions of society
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think that they found the fool in society and make it their task to discover
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the right society. This is only the old phenomenon that one looks for the
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fault first in everything but himself, and conselately in the state, in the
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self seeking of the rich, et cetera, which yet have precisely our fault
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to thank for their existence. The reflections and conclusions of communism look very simple,
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as matters lie at this time in the present situation with regard to the
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state. Therefore, some and lay the majority are at a disadvantage compared to
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others the minority in this state of things, the former are in a state
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of prosperity, the latter in state of need. Hence, the present state
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of things, that is, the state itself, must be done away with,
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and what in its place, instead of the isolated state of prosperity,
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a general state of prosperity, a prosperity of all. Through the Revolution,
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the bourgeoisie became omnipotent, and all inequality was abolished by every one's being raised
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or degraded to the dignity of a citizen. The common man raised, the
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aristocrat degraded. The third estate became sole a state, that is, namely,
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the estate of citizens of the state. Now communism responds, our dignity
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and our essence consists not in our being all the equal children of our mother
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the State, all born with equal claim to her love and her protection,
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but in our all existing for each other. This is our equality, or
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herein we are equal, in that we I as well as you, and
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you and all of you are active or labor each one for the rest,
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in that each of us is a laborer. Then the point for us is
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not what we are for this state citizens not our citizenship. Therefore, but
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what we are for each other, that each of us exists only through the
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other, who, caring for my wants at the same time, sees its
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own satisfied by me. He labors, for example, for my clothing,
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tailor, I for his need of amusement, comedy writer, rope dancer,
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he for my food farmer, I for his instruction scientist. It is labor
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that constitutes our dignity and our equality. What advantage does citizenship bring us burdens?
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And how high is our laborer? Praised as low as possible? But
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labor is our sole value all the same, that we are laborers is the
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best thing about us. This is our significance in the world, and therefore
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it must be our consideration too, and must come to receive consideration. What
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can you meet us with, surely nothing but labor too. Only for labor
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or services do we owe you a recompense? Not for your bare existence,
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not for what you are for yourselves either, but only for what you are
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for us. By what have you claims on us? Perhaps by your high
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birth, No, only by what you do for us that is desirable or
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useful. Be it Thus, then we are willing to be worth to you
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only so much as we do for you, But you are to be held
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likewise by us. Services determine value, that is, those services that are
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worth something to us. And consequently, labours for each other, labours for
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the common good. Let each one be in the other's eyes a laborer,
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he who accomplishes something useful, is inferior to none or all laborers. Laborers,
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of course, in the sense of laborers for the common good, that
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is, communistic labors are equal. But as the laborer is worth his wages,
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let the wages too be equal. Footnote in German and exact quotation of
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Luke ten seven and footnote. As long as faith sufficed for men's honor and
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dignity, no labor, however, harassing could be objected to if it only
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did not hinder a man in his faith. Now, on the contrary,
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when every one is to cultivate himself into man, condemning a man to machine
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like labor amounts the same thing as slavery. If a factory worker must tire
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himself to death twelve hours and more, he is cut off from becoming man.
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Every labor is to have the intent that the man be satisfied. Therefore
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he must become a master in it too, that is, be able to
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perform it as a totality. He who in a pin factory only puts on
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the heads, only draws the wire works as it were, mechanically like a
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machine. He remains half trained, does not become a master. His labor
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cannot satisfy him, It can only fatigue him. His labor is nothing by
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itself, has no object in itself, is nothing complete in itself. He
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labors only into another's hands, and is used exploited by this other. For
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this laborer in another's service, there is no enjoyment of a cultivated mind at
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most crude amusements culture you see, is barred against him. To be a
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good Christian one needs only to believe, and that can be done under the
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most oppressive circumstances. Hence, the Christian minded take care only of the oppressed
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laborer's piety, their patience, submission, et cetera. Only so long as
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the downtrodden classes were Christians could they bear all their misery, For Christianity does
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not let their murmurings and exasperation rise. Now, the hushing of desires is
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no longer enough, but their sating is demanded. The bourgeoisie has proclaimed the
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gospel of the enjoyment of the world, of material enjoyment, and now wonders
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that this doctrine finds adherents among us poor. It has shown that not faith
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and poverty, but culture and possessions make a man blessed. We proletarians understand
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that too, the commonality freed us from the orders and arbitrarianess of individuals.
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But that arbitrariess was left, which springs from the conjuncture of situations, and
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may be called the fertuity of circumstances. Favoring fortune and those favored by fortune
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still remain. When, for example, a branch of industry is ruined and
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thousands of laborers become breathless, people think reasonably enough to acknowledge that it is
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not the individual who must bear the blame, but that the evil lies in
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the situation. Let us change the situation, then, but let us change
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it thoroughly, and so that its fertuity becomes powerless and a law. Let
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us no longer be slaves of chance. Let us create a new order that
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makes an end of fluctuations. Let this order then be sacred. Formerly one
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had to suit the lords to come to anything. After the Revolution, the
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word was grasp fortune, luck hunting, or hazard playing. Civil life was
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absorbed in this. Then alongside this the demand that he who has obtained something
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shall not frivolously stake it again strange and yet supremely natural contradiction. Competition in
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which alone civil or political life unrolls itself, is a game of luck,
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through and through, from the speculations of the exchange down to the station of
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offices, the hunt for customers looking for work, aspiring to promotion and decorations,
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the second hand dealer's petty hackling, et cetera. If one succeeds in
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supplanting and outbidding his rivals, then the lucky throw is made, for it
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must be taken as a piece of luck to begin with, that the victor
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sees himself equipped with inability, even though it has been developed by the most
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careful industry, against which the others do not know how to rise. Consequently,
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that no abler ones are found, and now those who ply their daily
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lives in the midst of these changes of fortune, without seeing any arm in
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it, are seized with the most virtuous indignation when their own principle appears in
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naked form and breeds misfortune as hazard playing. Hazard playing, you see,
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is too clear, too bare faced, and competition, and like every decided
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nakedness offense honorable modesty. The Socialists want to put a stop to this activity
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of chance, and to form a society in which men are no longer dependent
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on fortune, but free in the most natural way in the world. This
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endeavor first utters itself as hatred of the unfortunate against the fortunate, that is,
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of those from fortune has done little or nothing, against those for whom
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it has done everything, but properly, the ill feeling is not directed against
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the fortunate, but against fortune. This rotten spot of the commonality. As
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the Communists first declare free activity to be men's essence. They, like all
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work, they dispositions, need a Sunday, Like all material endeavors, they
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need a god, an uplifting, an edification alongside their witless labor. That
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the communist sees in you, the man, the brother, is only the
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Sunday side of communism. According to the work day side. He does not
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by any means take you as man simply, but as human laborer or laboring
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man. The first view has in it the liberal principle. In the second,
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illiberality is concealed. If you were a lazy bones, he would not
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indeed fail to recognize the man in you, but would endeavor to cleanse him
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as a lazy man from laziness, and to convert you to the faith that
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labor is man's destiny and calling. Therefore, he shows a double face with
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the one. He takes heed that the spiritual man be satisfied with the other.
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He looks about him for means for the material or corporeal man. He
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gives man a twofold post, an office of material acquisition and one of spiritual
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The Commonality had thrown open spiritual and material goods and left it which each one
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to reach out for them if he liked. Communism really procures them for each
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one, presses them upon him and compels him to acquire them. It takes
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seriously the idea that, because only spiritual and material goods make us man,
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we must unquestionably acquire these goods in order to be man. The Commonality made
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acquisition free. Communism compels to acquisition and recognizes only the acquirer, him who
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practices a trade it is not enough that the trade is free, but you
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must take it up. So all that is left for criticism to do is
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to prove that the acquisition of these goods does not yet by any means make
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us man. With a liberal commandment that every one is to make a man
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of himself, or every one to make himself man, there was positive the
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necessity that every one must gain time for his labor of humanization, that is,
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that it should become possible for every one to labor on himself. The
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Commonality thought it that broad. This about if it handed over everything human to
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competition, but gave the individual a right to every human thing. Each may
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strive after everything. Social liberalism finds that the matter is not settled with the
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may, because may means only it is forbidden to none, but not it
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is made possible to everyone. Hence it affirms that the Commonality is liberal only
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with the mouth, and in words, supremely illiberal. In act. It
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on its part, once to give all of us the means to be able
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to labor on ourselves by the principle of labor that of fortune or competition is
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certainly outdone. But at the same time the laborer in his consciousness that the
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essential thing in him is the laborer holds himself aloof from egoism and subjects himself
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to the supremacy of the society of laborers. As the commoner clung with self
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abandonment to the competition state. The beautiful dream of a social duty still continues
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to be dreamed. People think again, that society gives what we need,
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and we are under obligations to it. On that account owe it everything.
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Footnote prudence clear chend l'Ordre cries out, page four hundred fourteen. In industry,
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as in science, the publication of an invention is the first and most
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sacred of duties. And footnote. They are still at the point of wanting
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to serve a supreme giver of all good. That society is no ego at
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all which could give, bestow or grand but an instrument or means from which
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we may derive benefit. That we have no social duties, but solely interests
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for the pursuance of which society must serve us. That we owe society no
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sacrifice, but if we sacrifice anything, sacrifice it to ourselves. Of this
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the socialists do not think, because they, as liberals, are imprisoned in
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the religious principle, and zealously aspire after a sacred society. For example,
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the state was hitherto society from which we have everything is a new master,
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a new spook, a new supreme being, which takes us into its service
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and allegiance. The more precise appreciation of political as well as social liberalism must
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wait to find its place further on. For the present we pass is over
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in order first to summon them before the tribunal of humane or critical liberalism.
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End of Section fourteen.