Latest / The Philosophy Insights Collection / 30 - My Intercourse - part 7 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner
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- My Intercourse, Part seven. If we assume that as order belongs to the essence of the state, so subordination iiO is founded in its nature, then we see that the subordinates, or those who have received preferment, disproportedly overcharge and overreach those who are put in the lower ranks. But the latter take part first from the socialist standpoint, but certainly with egoistic consciousness, later of which we were therefore at once give their speech some coloring for the question, by what then is your property secure? You creatures of preferment, and give themselves the answer by our reframing from interference, and so by our protection. And what do you give us for it? Kits and disdain you give to the common people, holy supersition and a kitchism with the chief sentence respect, what is not yours, what belongs to others, Respect others, and especially your superiors. But we reply, if you want our respect, buy it for a price agreeable to us. We will leave you your property if you give a due equivalent for this, leaving really, what equivalent does the general in time of peace give for the many thousands of his yearly income, another for the sheer hundred thousands and millions yearly? What equivalent do you give for our chewing potatoes and looking calmly on while you swallow oysters? Only by the oysters of us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes of you, then you may go on eating them. Or do you suppose the oysters do not belong to us as much as to you? You will make an outcry over violence if we reach out our hands and help consume them, And you are right without violence, we do not get them, as you no less have them by doing violence to us. But take the oysters and have done with it, and let us consider our nearer property. Labor, for the other is only possession. We distress ourselves twelve hours in the sweat of our face, and you offer us a frugration for it, then take the light for your labor too. Are you not willing? You fancy that our labor is richly repaid with that wage, while yours, on the other hands, is worth a wage of many thousands. But if you did not rate yours so high, and gave us a better chance to realize value from ours, then we might as well. If the case demanded it, then to pass still more important things than you do for the many thousand dollars. And if you've got only such wages as we, you would soon grow more industrious in order to receive more. But if you render any service that seems to us worth ten and one hundred times more than our own labor, why then you shall get one hundred times more for it too. We, on the other hand, think also to produce for you things for which you will requite as more highly than with the ordinary day's wages. We shall be willing to get along with each other, all right, If only we have first agreed on this, that neither any longer need to present anything to the other, then we may perhaps actually go so far as to pay even the for pause and sit and old, an appropriate price for not parting from us by hunger and want. For if we want them to live, it is fitting also that we purchase the fulfillment of our will. I say purchase, and therefore do not mean a wretched arms, for their life is the property even of those who cannot work. If we, no matter for what reason, want them not to withdraw this life from us, we can mean to bring this to pass only by purchase. Nay, we shall perhaps maybe be because we like to have friendly faces about us, even want a life of comfort for them. In short, we want nothing presented by you, But neither will we present you with anything. For centuries we have handed arms to you from good hearted stupidity, have gold out the might of the poor, and given to the masters the things that are not the masters. Now just open your wallet, for henceforth our wear rises in price quite enormalously. We do not want to take from you anything, anything at all. Only you are to pay better for what you want to have. What then have you? I have an estate of a thousand acres, and I am your playman, and will henceforth attend to your fields only for one fellow day wages. Then I'll take another. You won't find any, for we know men are no longer doing otherwise. And if one puts in appearance who takes less, then let him beware of us. There is the housemaid. She too is now demanding as much, and you will no longer find one below this price. Why then is it all over with me? Not so fast? You will doubtless take in as much as we and if it should not be so, we will take off so much that you shall have weather with to live like us. But I am accustomed to live better. We have nothing against that, but it is not our lookout. If you can clear more, go ahead. Are we to higher under rates that you may have a good living. The rich man always put off the pore with the words, what does you want concern me? See to it how you make your way through the world. That is your affair, not mine. Well, let us let it be our affair then, and let us not yet the means that we have to realize value from ourselves to be pilfered from us by the rich. But you uncultured people really do not need so much. Well, we are taking somewhat more in order that for it we may procure the culture that we perhaps need. But if you thus bring down the rich, who is then to support the arts and sciences hereafter? Oh? Well, we must make it up by numbers. We club together. That gives a nice little Besides, you rich men now buy only the most tasteless books and the most lamentous perdonnas, or a pair of lively dancers legs. Oh irascard equality, No, my good old sir, nothing of equality. We only want to pant for what we are worth, and if you are worth more, you shall count for more. Right along, we only want to be worth our price, and to show ourselves worth the price that you will pay. Is the state likely to be able to awaken so secure a temper and so forceall a self consciousness in the menial? Can it make mad fill himself? Nay? Nay, it even do so much as set this goal for itself. Can it want the individual to recognize his band you, and realize this value from himself. Let us keep the parts of the double question separate, and see first whether the state can bring about such a thing as the unanamity of the ploma is required. Only this unanimity can bring it to pass. And a state law would be evaded in a thousand ways by competition and in secret. But can the state bear with it? The state cannot possibly bear with people suffering coercion from another than it. It could not therefore admit the self help of the uenominous plowmen against those who want to engage for lower wages. Suppose, however, that the state made the law and all of the plowmen were in accord with it. Could the state bear with it? Then? In the isolated case. Yes, But the isolated case is more than that. It is a case of principle. The question therein is of the whole range of the eager's self realization of value from himself, and therefore also of his self consciousness against the state. So far the communists keep company. But as self realization of value from self necessarily directs itself against the state, so it does against society. Two, And therewith reaches out beyond the commune and the communistic and of egoism. Communism makes the maximum of the commonality. But every word is a possessor, proprietor into an irrefragable truth, into a reality. Since the anxiety without obtaining non ceases, and everyone has from the start what he requires in his labor force, he has his competence, and if he makes no use of it, that is his fault. The grasping and handing is at an end, and no competition is left, as so often now without fruit, because with every stroke of labor, an adequate supply of the needful is brought into the house. Now, for the first time, one is a real possessor, because what one has in his labor force can no longer escape from him, as it was continually threatening to do. Under the system of competition, one is a carefree and assured possessor. And one is this precisely by seeking his competence, no longer in aware but in his own labor. This competient for labor, and therefore by being a mother mephin a man of only ideal wealth. I, however, cannot contend myself with the little that I scrape up by my competence for labor, because my competence does not consist merely in my labor. By labor, I can perform the official functions of a president, a minister, etc. These officers demand only a general culture to wit. Such a culture as is generally attainable. For general culture is not merely that which everyone has attained, but broadly that which everyone can attain. And therefore every special culture e g. Medical, military, theological, of which no cultivated man believes that they surpass his powers, or broadly only a skill possible to all. But even if these offices may best in every one, yet it is only the individual's unique force, peculiar to him alone, that gives them, so to speak, life and significance. But he does not manage his office like an ordinary man, but puts in the competence of his uniqueness. This he is not yet paid for when he is paid only in general as an official or a minister. If he has done it so as to earn your thanks, and you wish to retain this thankworthy force of their unique one, you must not pay him like a mere man who performed only what was human, but as one who accomplishes what is unique. Do the like with your labor. Do not be a general scheduled price fixed for my uniqueness, as there can for what I do as man. Only for the latter can a scheduled price be set. Go right on then, setting up a general appraisal of human labors, But do not deprive your uniqueness of its dessert. Human or general needs can be satisfied through society. For satisfaction of unique needs, you must do somewhat seeking a friend and a friendly service, or even an individual's service. Society cannot procure you, and yet you will every moment be in need of such a service, and on the slightest occasions require somebody who is helpful to you. Therefore, do not rely on society, but see to it that you you have the wherewithal to purchase the fulfillment of your wishes. Where the money is to be retained among egoists to the old stamp, and inherited possession adheres. If you no longer let yourselves be paid with it, it is ruined. If you do nothing for this money, it loses all power. Cancel the inheritance, and you have broken off the executor's caught seal. For now everything is an inheritance, whether it be already inherited or awaits its heir. If it is yours, wherefore do you let it be sealed up from you? Why do you respect the seal? But why should you not create a new money? Do you then annihilate the wear in taking from it the hereditary stamp. Now money is aware and an essential means for competence, for it protects against the ossification of resources, keeps them in flux, and brings to pass their exchange. If you know a better medium of exchange, go ahead. Yet it will be a money again. It is not the money that does you damage, but your incompetence to take it. Let your competence take effect. Collect yourselves, and there will be no lack of money of your money, the money of your stam but working I do not call letting your competence take effect. Those who are only looking for work and willing to work hard, are preparing for their own selves the infallible upshot to be out of work. Good and bad luck depend on money. It is a power in the bogious period for this reason that it is only rude of all hands, like a girl into solarb wedded by nobody, all the romance and chivalry of wooing for a dear object come to life again in competition. Money, an object of longing, is carried off by the bold knights of industry. He who has luck takes home the bride. The ragamuffin has luck, He takes her into his household society, and destroys the virgin in his house. She is no longer a bride, but wife, and with her virginity, her family name is also lost. As housewife, the maiden money is called labor, or labor is her husband's name. She is a possession of her husband's. To bring this figure to an end, the child of labor and money is again a girl, an unwedded one, and therefore money, but with a certain descent from labor per father, the form of the face the effigy bears another's stamp. Finally, as regards competition, once more, it has a continued existence. By this very means that all do not attend to their affair and come to an understanding with each other about it. Bread e g. Is in need of all the inhabitants of the city. Therefore they might easily agree on setting up a public bakery. Instead of this, they leave the furnishing of the needful to the competing bakers, just so neat to the butcher's wine to wine dealers, et cetera. Russian competition is not equivalent to favoring the guild. The difference is this, in the guild of baking, etc. Is the affair of the guild brothers in competition the affair of chance competitors in the union of those who require baked goods. And therefore my affair yours the affair of neither the guilded nor the concessionary baker, but the affair of the united. If I do not trouble myself about my affair, I must be content with what it pleases others to vouchsafe me to have bred is my affair, my wish and desire. And yet people leave that to the bakers and hope at most to obtain through their wrangling. They're getting ahead of each other, their livalry, in short, their competition, an advantage which one could not count on in the case of the guild brothers, who were lodged entirely and alone in the proprietorship of the bacon franchise. What everyone requires, everyone should also take a hand in procuring and producing. It is his affair, his property, not the property of the guilded or concessionary master. Let us look back once more. The world belongs to the children of this world, the children of men. It is no longer God's world, but man's, as much every man can procure of it. Let him call his only the true man. The state, human society, or mankind will look to it that each shall make nothing else his own than what he appropriates, as man, are you in human fashion? Unhuman appropriation is that which is not consented to by man i e. It is a criminal appropuration, as the human vice versa is a rightful one, one acquired in the way of law. So they talk since revolution, But my property is not a thing, since this has an existence independent of me. Only my might is my own. Not this tree, but my might or control over it, is what is mine. Now how is this might perversely expressed? They say, I have a right to this tree, or it is my rightful property, so I have earned it by might. That the might must last in order that the tree may also be held, or better, that the might is not a thing existing of itself, but has existence solely in the mighty ego in me. The mighty is forgotten Might, like another of my qualities e g. Humanity, majesty, etc. Is exalted to something existing of itself, so that it still exists long after it has ceased to be My might, Thus transformed into a ghost, might is right. This eternalized might is not extinguished even with my death, but is transferred to bequeathed things now really belong not to me, but to right. On the other side, this is nothing but an hallucination of vision. For the individual's might becomes permanent and right only by others joining their might with his. The delusion consists in their believing that they cannot withdraw their might. The same phenomenon over again, might is separated from me. I cannot take back the might that I gave to the possessor. One has granted power of attorney, has given away his power has renounced coming to a better mind. The proprietor can give up his might and his right to a thing by giving the thing away, squandering it, etc. And we should not be able likewise to let go the might that we lend to him. The rightful man that just desires to call it nothing his own that he does not have rightly or have the right to, and therefore only legitimate property. Now who is to be judged, and a judge his right to him? Last, surely man who imparts to him the rights of man. Then he can say, in an indefinitely broader sense than terrors humanity, the while amilanium phutto e. G. The human is my property. However he may go about it, so long as he occupies this standpoint, he cannot get clear of a judge. And in our time the multifarious judges that had been selected have set themselves against each other in two persons at deadly enmity to wit in God and man. The one party appeal to divine rights, the other to human rights or the rights of man. So much is clear that in neither case does the individual do the entitling himself. Just pick me out an action today that would not be a violation of right. Every moment the rights of man are trampled underfoot by one side, while their opponents cannot open their mouths without uttering a blasphemy against divine rights. Give an arms you more at a right of man, because the relation of beggar and benefactor is an inhuman relation. Utter a doubt, you sin against a divine right. Each dry bread with contentment, you violate the right of man by your equanimity. Eat it with discontent, you revile divine right by your repining. There is not one among you who does not commit a crime at every moment. Your speeches are crimes, and every hinderance to your freedom of speech is no less a crime. We are criminals altogether. Yet you are so so only in that you all stand on the ground of right. Are e in that you do not even know and understand how to value the fact that you are criminals. In viable or sacred property has grown on this very ground. It is a juidical concept. A god sees the bone in another's power and stands off only if it feels itself too weak, but man respects the other's right to his bone. The latter action therefore ranks as human, the former as brutal or egoistic, and as here So in general, it is called human when one sees in everything something spiritual. Here right I e. Makes everything a ghost and takes his attitude toward it as toward a ghost, which one can indeed scare away at its appearance, but cannot heal. It is human to look at what is individual, not as individual, but as a generality in nature. As such, I no longer respect anything, but I know myself to be entitled to everything against it. In the tree in that garden, on the other hand, I must respect alienness, they say, in one sided fashion property, I must keep my hand off it. This comes to an end only when I can, indeed leave that tree to another, as I leave my stick et cetera to another. But do not, in advance regard it as alien to me a sacred Rather, I make to myself no crime of telling it if I will, and it remains my property. However, long as I resign it to others, it is and remains mine. In the banker's fortune. I as little see everything alien as Napoleon did in the territories of kings. We have no dread of conquering it, and we look about us also for the means. Here too we strip off from it. Therefore the spirit of alieness of which we have been afraid. Therefore it is necessary that I do not lay plain to anything more as man, but to everything as I this I, and accordingly to nothing human but to mine. I e. Nothing appertains to me as man but what I will, and because I will it rightfully, All legitimate property of another will be only that which you are content to recognize as yours. If your content ceases, than this property has lost legitimacy for you, and you will laugh at absolute right to it. Besides the hitherto discussed property in the limited sense, there is held up to our reverent heart, another property against which we are far less to sin. This property consists in spiritual goods, in the sanctuary of the inner nature. What a man beholds sacred, no other is to guide at, Because, untrue as it may be, and zealously as one may, in loving and modest wise seek to convince of the true santasy, the man who adheres to it and believes in it. Yet the sacred itself is always to be honored in it. The mistaken man does not believe in the sacred, even though in an infinect essence of it, and so his belief in sacred must at least be respected. In ruder times than ours, it was customary to demand the particular faith and devotion to a particular sacred essence, and they did not take their gentlest way with those who believed otherwise. Since, however, freedom of belief spread itself more and more abroad, the jealous God and soul Lord gradually melted into a pretty general supreme being, and it satisfied humane tolerance if only everyone revered something sacred. Reduced to the most human expression. This sacred essence is man himself, and the humor with the deceptive semblance, as if the human were altogether our own and free from all the other worldliness with which the divine is tainted. Yes, as if man were as much as I or you. There may arise even the proud fancy that the talk is no longer of a sacred essence, and that we now feel ourselves everywhere at home, are no longer in the uncanny i e. In the sacred, and in sacred or in the ecstasy over man discovered. At last, the egoistic cry of pain passes unheard, and the spook that has become so intimate is taken for our true ego. But humaneus is the saint's name c. Gofi, and the humane is only the most clarified sanctasy. The egoist makes the reverse declaration for this precise reason, because you hold something sacred, I die but you, And even if I respected everything in you, the sanctuary is precisely what I should not respect. With these views, there must also be assumed a contradictory relation to spiritual goods. The egoist insults them. The religious man i e. Everyone who puts his essence above himself must constantly protect them. But what kind of spiritual goods are to be protected and what left unprotected, depends entirely on the concept that one forms of the supreme being. And he who fears God e. G. Has more to shelter than he the liberal who fears man. In spiritual goods, we are in distinction from the sensuous injured in a spiritual way, and the sin against them consists in a direct justification, while again the sensuous a purloining or alienation takes place. The goods themselves are robbed of value and of consequence, not merely taken away. The sacred is immediately compromised with the word irreverence or flippancy is designated everything that can be committed as crime against spiritual goods i e. Against everything that is sacred for us and scoffing re, violent contempt, doubt, et cetera, are only different shades of criminal flippancy. That desecration can be practiced in the most manifold way is here to be passed over, and only that desecration is to be preferentially mentioned, which threatens the sacred with danger through an unrestricted press. End of Section thirty