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# NONSERVIAM
Non Serviam (1993)
## FILES
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser00 [ 6102] Non Serviam #00: Introduction from the Editor
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser01 [ 23282] Non Serviam #01: Egoism (January 22, 1993)
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser02 [ 22240] Non Serviam #02: The Self
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser03 [ 24066] Non Serviam #03: A Critique of Communism and the Individualist Alternative
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser04 [ 20837] Non Serviam #04: A Critique of Communism and the Individualist Alternative (Continued)
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser05 [ 16159] Non Serviam #05: A Critique of Communism and the Individualist Alternative (Continued)
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser06 [ 22152] Non Serviam #06: A Critique of Communism and The Individualist Alternative (Continued)
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser07 [ 23091] Non Serviam #07: Archists, Anarchists and Egoists
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser08 [ 22489] Non Serviam #08: Egoism: The Alternative of Freedom
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser09 [ 23512] Non Serviam #09: Capitalism: Freedom perverted
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser10 [ 22920] Non Serviam #10: The Egoism of Max Stirner
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser11 [ 23125] Non Serviam #11: A Critique of Communism and the Individualist Alternative (Continued)
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser12 [ 13083] Non Serviam #12: On Revisiting Saint Max
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser13 [ 22153] Non Serviam #13: S.E. Parker: Preface
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser14 [ 16602] Non Serviam #14: William Flygare: To My Sweetheart
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/NONSERVIAM/nonser15 [ 19056] Non Serviam #15: Dora Marsden: Thinking and Thought
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non serviam #0
**************
WELCOME
Contents: Welcoming letter from the editor
Advertisement
On the next issue
***********************************************************************
Welcome to "non serviam". You have probably read the
advertisement, which, in any case, is appended below. At the present
time, the newsletter is handled solely through my personal
mail-address solan@math.uio.no, so all letters and request should
be sent to that address.
People subscribing to this list range from self-taught amateurs
to professors of philosophy, and so the interest ranges from
academic interest in ideas to the more practical and applied.
Nothing more will come out from this newsletter than is put into it.
The only synergistic effect we can hope for, is that of inspiration
through an environment of people discussing the same ideas.
Because this newsletter tries to address both professional and
amateur alike, I would appreciate it if submitted entries took this
into consideration. In practice, this means that claims should be
supported by reasoned arguments, so that the opposite part has
something to hold on to. References are fine, as long as they do
not substitute argument.
The newsletter is not primarily aimed at confrontation, though
this surely is not barred, but at exchange of information. That
means that if anyone finds something [s]he thinks will be of interest
to the readers of the newsletter, [s]he should feel free to post it.
Examples of what is relevant are articles on how Nietzsche, Rand, Hegel
and Feuerbach relate to the primary subject matter of this newsletter.
Likewise articles on the relation to the basis of anarchism, and on
the relation to sciences - in particular psychology. As examples of
what is non-relevant, we have: Election issues, flames, issues in
philosophy not even touching the main subject, academic small-talk,
and nuisance mail. I would also appreciate minimization of quoting
from other posters.
Current and back issues of Non Serviam, together with some material
relevant to Stirner, are available via anonymous ftp from
red.css.itd.umich.edu and ftp.css.itd.umich.edu.
The files are stored in /poli/Non.Serviam on both sites. If you
have problems retrieving the files, send email to pauls@umich.edu.
Sincerely,
Svein Olav Nyberg (editor)
(solan@math.uio.no)
____________________________________________________________________
Advertisement:
"Non serviam!" - "I will not serve", is known from literature as
Satan's declaration of his rebellion against God. We wish to follow
up on this tradition of insurrection.
In modern times, the philosophy of the individual's assertion of
himself against gods, ideals and human oppressors has been most
eloquently expressed by Max Stirner in his book "Der Einzige und
Sein Eigentum"[1].
Stirner, whose real name was Johann Kaspar Schmidt [1806-56],
lived in a time dominated by German Idealism, with Hegel as its
prominent figure. It is against this background of fixation of ideas
that Stirner makes his rebellion. Stirner takes down these ideas
from their fixed points in the starry sky of Spirit, and declares
all ideas to be the ideas of an Ego[2], and the realm of spirits and
ideas to be the mind of the thinker himself. His heaven-storming is
total. Even the idealist tool - dialectic, and the supreme ghost of
Idealism, [Absolute] Spirit - are stripped of their status of
intrinsic existence, and are taken back into the Ego himself. This
is most clearly seen in Stirner's main triad: Materialist -
Idealist - Egoist. And the triad stops at its last link. Any further
progress cannot negate Egoism, for - progress has been taken back
into the individual, as his - property.
For Stirner, the solution to the "alienation", or
"self-alienation" of Idealism, is in self-expression, or -
ownership. What cannot be one's own cause, the cause that is not
one's own, is not worth pursuing. As Stirner says "Away then, with
every cause that is not altogether my cause!"
Now, this is the philosophical starting point of this newsletter.
For the more formal part, though the letter is centered on
philosophy and ideas, articles on topics relevant to true egoists
will also be admitted. The prime requirement is that the articles
are not on-line ranting, but serious attempts to convey something of
interest and relevance. Articles on literature through the ages will
be very fine, stories will be welcomed if I see them fit, and I even
think I might fall for an article on french cuisine made easy ...
However: If in doubt whether the article will be accepted, contact
me by personal mail first. A waste of time is a waste of time.
I hope to be able to make each of the issues of the newsletter
thematic, that is we have one main theme in each issue. The main
theme is not meant to be the sole content, however, but more an
inspiration for writing.
Editor & List owner: solan@math.uio.no
[1] English title: "The Ego and Its Own".
[2] Einziger - single individual.
____________________________________________________________________
Next issue:
By asserting oneself - by insurrection - one is an egoist, one
who puts himself first. For the next issue of "non serviam", #1, I
would therefore appreciate articles about "what egoism means" in
general. Both questions of the type "is hedonism the real egoism",
and articles pondering the status of egoism in ethics are appreciated.
Psychological angles of attack are also appreciated.
____________________________________________________________________
***********************************************************************
* "Whoever is a complete person does not need - to be an authority!" *
* From +The False Principle of Our Education+ *
***********************************************************************
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From: pauls@css.itd.umich.edu (Paul Southworth)
Subject: Non Serviam, Issue #1
Message-ID: <1jp5mfINNbnd@stimpy.css.itd.umich.edu>
Date: 22 Jan 1993 16:00:15 GMT
Organization: University of Michigan ITD Consulting and Support Services
Lines: 499
At last, the first issue of "non serviam". For issue #0, and for
a copy of Max Stirner's book "Der Einzige und sein Eigentum" (an
English translation available in Macintosh MS-Word format, compressed
and BinHexed) visit the ftp site "red.css.itd.umich.edu" (141.211.182.91)
and look in /poli/Non.Serviam.
I am not associated with the Non Serviam project. Please direct your
queries to solan@math.uio.no.
Paul Southworth
Archivist
red.css.itd.umich.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
non serviam #1
**************
Contents: Editor's Word
John Beverley Robinson: "Egoism"
Ken Knudson: A Critique of Communism and
The Individualist Alternative (serial)
***********************************************************************
Editor's Word
_____________
This is the first "real" issue of non serviam, and the present theme,
as will also be the theme of the next issue, #2, is as presented in #0:
By asserting oneself - by insurrection - one is an egoist,
one who puts himself first. For the next issue of "non serviam",
#1, I would therefore appreciate articles about "what egoism
means" in general. Both questions of the type "is hedonism the
real egoism", and articles pondering the status of egoism in
ethics are appreciated. Psychological angles of attack are also
appreciated.
Dissenting from this theme, I have a long and well-written article from
Ken Knudson which I intend to publish in full. Given the length of it,
it will be sent as a serial. It will also be available on the ftp site
in not too long a time. I have, on the version here, left the page
numberings for easier access to footnotes.
I asked about "what egoism means". I should perhaps also have asked what
egoism does not mean. For there are a lot of misconceptions about what
egoism is. Religious literature incessantly warns us not to think about
our own best interest, but the interest of the heavenly, of Man, and of
just about everything else. But seldom is there found any advise to
follow exactly this own interest. Why then these warnings against self
interest, on and on, again and again? Surely not to counter any opposing
system of ideas. For there have been close to none. What then is left
to counter but - the individual himself!
But to counter the individual is not a position that looks very good, so
it has to be disguised, disguised as an attack on some "Deep Evil"
lurking in self interest - in egoism. So the common view of egoism is
far from formed by observation of actual egoists, but by propaganda in
its disfavor. I will now list what I consider the types most typically
mistaken for egoists, both by critics of egoism and by "egoists":
THE PSYCHOPATH: The psychopath is characterized by a tendency of always
being in the right and of manipulating others. He typically takes little
heed of the interests of people he confronts. The reasoning displayed by
those who identify psychopaths with egoists are usually of the type
"He does not care for others - THUS he must care only for himself ...",
which sets up a dichotomy without any basis in reality. Identifying an
individual pursuing his own interests with a psychopath is a powerful
means of keeping individuals "in line".
THE EGO-BOOSTER: Somewhat related to the psychopath, in that he tries to
make himself "big" in the eyes of others often at the expense of some
third person. But the Ego-Booster cares a lot about the judgement of
others. In fact - he depends on it. Getting approval from other people
dominates his way of life. His focus is not on himself, but on something
else - his self IMAGE.
THE MATERIALIST: The glutton, the carelessly promiscuous and the one who
spends all his time gathering possessions is often seen as the egoist
by people who have seen through the traps above. A friend of mine wrote
in his thesis on Stirner that these were "vulgar egoists". They sure
enough care for their own interests. But they only care for PART of
their own interest, giving in to some urge to dominate them. They either
care only for the taste in their mouths right-here-right-now, or for
the feelings in other parts. They do not satisfy the whole chap, as
Stirner wrote.
THE IDEALIST: Not too typical, but still - important. Can range from
the proponent of Fichte+s Absolute or Transcendental Ego, to the person
who has as his sole goal in this life to spread his own ideas. The first
of these is not a proper egoist in that the "I" he is talking about is
not the personal, individual "I" but - an abstraction, the mere IDEA of
an ego. The latter is just the materialist mentality let loose in the
realm of ideas.
THE FORMAL EGOIST: The formal egoist is perhaps the most elusively like
to the proper egoist. For the formal egoist knows that an egoist looks
to the satisfaction of the whole chap. Actually the formal egoist can
know more about egoism than the egoist himself. For the formal egoist
really wants to be an egoist - and he follows the recipe he has found
to the last little detail, and sets out to find even new nuances. There
is only one thing missing, and that is his realization that there is no
recipe. So though a behaviorist would just the Formal Egoist to be equal
to a proper egoist, he is truly far off, in that his real drive is Duty.
Egoism is not a religious or ideological system to be followed by duty,
but simply the being and awareness of oneself.
It is important to see that the different conceptions of egoism depend
strongly on what is put into the concept of an "ego". Which ego is then
"the true one"? Is it the Bodily Ego, the Empirical Ego, the Self Image,
the Creative Ego, the Teleological Ego, the Will ... ? I will return to
this in the next issue of non serviam, #2.
Svein Olav
____________________________________________________________________
Egoism
by John Beverley Robinson
_________________________
There is no word more generally misinterpreted than the word
egoism, in its modern sense. In the first place, it is supposed
to mean devotion to self interest, without regard to the
interest of others. It is thus opposed to altruism - devotion
to others and sacrifice of self. This interpretation is due to
the use of the word thus antithetically by Herbert Spencer.
Again, it is identified with hedonism or eudaimonism, or
epicureanism, philosophies that teach that the attainment of
pleasure or happiness or advantage, whichever you may choose to
phrase it, is the rule of life.
Modern egoism, as propounded by Stirner and Nietzsche, and
expounded by Ibsen, Shaw and others, is all these; but it is
more. It is the realization by the individual that he is an
individual; that, as far as he is concerned, he is the only
individual.
For each one of us stands alone in the midst of a universe. He
is surrounded by sights and sounds which he interprets as
exterior to himself, although all he knows of them are the
impressions on his retina and ear drums and other organs of
sense. The universe for him is measured by these sensations;
they are, for him, the universe. Some of them he interprets as
denoting other individuals, whom he conceives as more or less
like himself. But none of these is himself. He stands apart.
His consciousness, and the desires and gratifications that
enter into it, is a thing unique; no other can enter into it.
However near and dear to you may be your wife, children,
friends, they are not you; they are outside of you. You are
forever alone. Your thoughts and emotions are yours alone.
There is no other who experiences your thoughts or your
feelings.
No doubt it gives you pleasure when others think as you do, and
Inform you of it through language; or when others enjoy the
same things that you do. Moreover, quite apart from their
enjoying the same things that you enjoy, it gives you pleasure
to see them enjoy themselves in any way. Such gratification to
the individual is the pleasure of sympathy, one of the most
acute pleasures possible for most people.
According to your sympathy, you will take pleasure in your own
happiness or in the happiness of other people; but it is always
your own happiness you seek. The most profound egoist may be
the most complete altruist; but he knows that his altruism is,
at the bottom, nothing but self-indulgence.
But egoism is more than this. It is the realization by the
individual that he is above all institutions and all formulas;
that they exist only so far as he chooses to make them his own
by accepting them.
When you see clearly that you are the measure of the universe,
that everything that exists exists for you only so far as it is
reflected in your own consciousness, you become a new man; you
see everything by a new light: you stand on a height and feel
the fresh air blowing on your face; and find new strength and
glory in it.
Whatever gods you worship, you realize that they are your gods,
the product of your own mind, terrible or amiable, as you may
choose to depict them. You hold them in your hand, and play
with them, as a child with its paper dolls; for you have
learned not to fear them, that they are but the "imaginations
of your heart."
All the ideals which men generally think are realities, you
have learned to see through; you have learned that they are
your ideals. Whether you have originated them, which is
unlikely, or have accepted somebody else's ideals, makes no
difference. They are your ideals just so far as you accept
them. The priest is reverend only so far as you reverence him.
If you cease to reverence him, he is no longer reverend for
you. You have power to make and unmake priests as easily as you
can make and unmake gods. You are the one of whom the poet
tells, who stands unmoved, though the universe fall in
fragments about you.
And all the other ideals by which men are moved, to which men
are enslaved, for which men afflict themselves, have no power
over you; you are no longer afraid of them, for you know them
to be your own ideals, made in your own mind, for your own
pleasure, to be changed or ignored, just as you choose to
change or ignore them. They are your own little pets, to be
played with, not to be feared.
"The State" or "The Government" is idealized by the many as a
thing above them, to be reverenced and feared. They call it "My
Country," and if you utter the magic words, they will rush to
kill their friends, whom they would not injure by so much as a
pin scratch, if they were not intoxicated and blinded by their
ideal. Most men are deprived of their reason under the
influence of their ideals. Moved by the ideal of "religion" or
"patriotism" or "morality," they fly at each others' throats -
they, who are otherwise often the gentlest of men! But their
ideals are for them like the "fixed ideas" of lunatics. They
become irrational and irresponsible under the influence of
their ideals. They will not only destroy others, but they will
quite sink their own interests, and rush madly to destroy
themselves as a sacrifice to the all-devouring ideal. Curious,
is it not, to one who looks on with a philosophical mind?
But the egoist has no ideals, for the knowledge that his ideals
are only his ideals, frees him from their domination. He acts
for his own interest, not for the interest of ideals. He will
neither hang a man nor whip a child in the interest of
"morality," if it is disagreeable to him to do so.
He has no reverence for "The State." He knows that "The
Government" is but a set of men, mostly as big fools as he is
himself, many of them bigger. If the State does things that
benefit him, he will support it; if it attacks him and
encroaches on his liberty, he will evade it by any means in his
power, if he is not strong enough to withstand it. He is a man
without a country.
"The Flag," that most men adore, as men always adore symbols,
worshipping the symbol more than the principle it is supposed
to set forth, is for the egoist but a rather inharmonious piece
of patch-work; and anybody may walk on it or spit on it if they
will, without exciting his emotion any more than if it were a
tarpaulin that they walked upon or .spat upon. The principles
that it symbolizes, he will maintain as far as it seems to his
advantage to maintain them; but if the principles require him
to kill people or be killed himself, you will have to
demonstrate to him just what benefit he will gain by killing or
being killed, before you can persuade him to uphold them.
When the judge enters court in his toggery, (judges and
ministers and professors know the value of toggery in
impressing the populace) the egoist is unterrified. He has not
even any respect for "The Law." If the law happens to be to his
advantage, he will avail himself of it; if it invades his
liberty he will transgress it as far as he thinks it wise to do
so. But he has no regard for it as a thing supernal. It is to
him the clumsy creation of them who still "sit in darkness."
Nor does he bow the knee to Morality - Sacred Morality! Some of
its precepts he may accept, if he chooses to do so; but you
cannot scare him off by telling him it is not "right." He
usually prefers not to kill or steal; but if he must kill or
steal to save himself, he will do it with a good heart, and
without any qualms of "conscience." And "morality" will never
persuade him to injure others when it is of no advantage to
himself. He will not be found among a band of "white caps,"
flogging and burning poor devils, because their actions do not
conform to the dictates of "morality," though they have injured
none by such actions; nor will he have any hand in persecuting
helpless girls, and throwing them out into the street, when he
has received no ill at their hands.
To his friends - to those who deserve the truth from him, - he
will tell the truth; but you cannot force the truth from him
because he is "afraid to tell a lie." He has no fear, not even
of perjury, for he knows that oaths are but devices to enslave
the mind by an appeal to supernatural fears.
And for all the other small, tenuous ideals, with which we have
fettered our minds and to which we have shrunk our petty lives;
they are for the egoist as though they were not.
"Filial love and respect" he will give to his parents if they
have earned it by deserving it. If they have beaten him in
infancy, and scorned him in childhood, and domineered over him
in maturity, he may possibly love them in spite of
maltreatment; but if they have alienated his affection, they
will not reawaken it by an appeal to "duty."
In brief, egoism in its modern interpretation, is the
antithesis, not of altruism, but of idealism. The ordinary man
- the idealist - subordinates his interests to the interests of
his ideals, and usually suffers for it. The egoist is fooled by
no ideals: he discards them or uses them, as may suit his own
interest. If he likes to be altruistic, he will sacrifice
himself for others; but only because he likes to do so; he
demands no gratitude nor glory in return.
____________________________________________________________________
Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
- 1 -
A NOTE TO READERS
I address myself in these pages primarily to those
readers of "Anarchy" who call themselves "communist-
anarchists." It is my purpose in this article to show that
this label is a contradiction in terms and that anyone
accepting it must do so by a lack of clear understanding of
what the words "anarchist" and "communist" really mean. It
is my hope that in driving a wedge between these two words,
the communist side will suffer at the expense of the
anarchist.
I make no claims to originality in these pages. Most of
what I have to say has been said before and much better. The
economics is taken primarily from the writings of Pierre-
Joseph Proudhon, William B. Greene, and Benjamin R. Tucker.
The philosophy from Max Stirner, Tucker again, and, to a
lesser extent, James L. Walker.
I hope you won't be put off by my clumsy prose. I'm a
scientist by trade, not a professional writer. I implore
you, therefore, not to mistake style for content. If you
want both the content and good style may I suggest Tucker's
"Instead of a Book". Unfortunately, this volume has been out
of print since 1897, but the better libraries - especially
those in the United States - should have it. If you can
read French, I recommend the economic writings of Proudhon.
"General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century"
is particularly good and has been translated into English by
the American individualist, John Beverley Robinson. (Freedom
Press, 1923). Also in English is Tucker's translation of one
of Proudhon's earliest works, the well-known "What is
Property?". This book is not as good as the "General Idea"
book, but it has the advantage of being currently available
in paperback in both languages. A word of warning: unless
you are thoroughly familiar with Proudhon, I would not
recommend the popular Macmillan "Papermac" edition of
"Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon"; they seem to
have been selected with irrelevance as their only criterion.
Like so many other great writers, Proudhon suffers
tremendously when quoted out of context and this particular
edition gives, on average, less than a page per selection.
Better to read his worst book completely than to be misled
by disconnected excerpts like these. Finally the
individualist philosophy, egoism, is best found in Max
Stirner's "The Ego and His Own". This book suffers somewhat
from a very difficult style (which wasn't aided by Stirner's
wariness of the Prussian censor), but if you can get through
his obscure references and biblical quotes, I think you will
find the task worth the effort.
- 2 -
H. L. Mencken once observed that just because a rose
smells better than a cabbage doesn't mean to say it makes a
better soup. I feel the same way about individualist
anarchism. At first whiff, the altruist rose may smell
better than the individualist cabbage, but the former sure
makes a lousy soup. In the following pages I hope to show
that the latter makes a better one.
Ken Knudson
Geneva, Switzerland
March, 1971
- 3 -
COMMUNISM: FOR THE COMMON GOOD
"Communism is a 9 letter word used by inferior magicians
with the wrong alchemical formula for transforming earth
into gold."
- Allen Ginsberg
"Wichita Vortex Sutra"
By way of prelude to the individualist critique of
communism, I should like to look briefly at the communist-
anarchists' critique of their Marxist brothers. Anarchists
and Marxists have traditionally been at odds with one
another: Bakunin and Marx split the First International over
their differences a century ago; Emma Goldman virtually made
her living in the 1920's from writing books and magazine
articles about her "disillusionment in Russia"; in May,
1937, the communists and anarchists took time off from their
war against Franco to butcher each other in the streets of
Barcelona; and the May days of '68 saw French anarchists
directing more abuse against the communist CGT than against
the Gaullist government.
What is the nature of these differences? Perhaps the
most concise answer to this question came in 1906 from a
veritable expert on the subject: Joseph Stalin. He wrote in
"Anarchism or Socialism?" that there were essentially three
main accusations which (communist) anarchists leveled
against Marxism:
1) that the Marxists aren't really communists because
they would "preserve the two institutions which constitute
the foundation of [the capitalist] system: representative
government and wage labour"; [1]
2) that the Marxists "are not revolutionaries",
"repudiate violent revolution", and "want to establish
Socialism only by means of ballot papers"; [2]
3) that the Marxists "actually want to establish not
the dictatorship of the proletariat, but their own
dictatorship over the proletariat." [3]
Stalin goes on to quote Marx and Engels to "prove" that
"everything the anarchists say on this subject is either the
result of stupidity, or despicable slander." [4] Today the
anarchists have the advantage of history on their side to
show just who was slandering whom. I won't insult the
reader's intelligence by pointing out how all three
objections to Marxism were sustained by Uncle Joe himself a
few decades later.
But let us look at these three accusations from another
point of view. Aren't the communist-anarchists simply saying
in their holier-than-thou attitude, "I'm more communist than
you, I'm more revolutionary than you, I'm more consistent
- 4 -
than you?" What's wrong with Marxism, they say, is NOT that
it is for communism, violent revolution and dictatorship,
but that it goes about attaining its goals by half-measures,
compromises, and pussyfooting around. Individualist-
anarchists have a different criticism. We reject communism
per se, violent revolution per se, and dictatorship per se.
My purpose here is to try to explain why.
* * * * *
____________________________________________________________________
***********************************************************************
* "Whoever is a complete person does not need - to be an authority!" *
* From +The False Principle of Our Education+ *
***********************************************************************
Svein Olav
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non serviam #2
**************
Contents: Editor's Word
Svein Olav Nyberg: The Self
Ken Knudson: A Critique of Communism and
The Individualist Alternative (serial: 2)
***********************************************************************
Editor's Word
_____________
A friend of mine was half a year ago confronted with the claim that the
Self "really did not exist", and that this was scientifically proven.
At the time, I only laughed, and considered the proponent of the idea
to be a little weird. I still consider it weird, but having heard the
claim over again, I do not laugh.
In the last issue, I went over the basic types of [mistaken] selfish-
ness, and promised to follow up with a discussion of what was the true
Self/ego. In conjunction with the above concern, this is the starting
point for my article The Self.
Ken Knudson's eminent article continues. The chapter one makes up
almost half the article, so I have chosen to issue the rest of the
chapter as separate issues, so that discussion may begin. I hope the
somewhat arbitrary sectioning of the article into the different issues
is forgiven.
The next chapter will be "REVOLUTION: THE ROAD TO FREEDOM?".
Svein Olav
____________________________________________________________________
Svein Olav Nyberg:
The Self
As seen in the last issue, what "selfish" means depends strongly upon
what you mean by "self". I will not here try to correct all the wrong
ideas of what the Self is, but rather give an indication of what I think
the right view is. There are, as you well are aware, many different
conceptions of what "self" means. A general line of division between
these conceptions I have found very well illustrated in Wilber, Engler
and Brown's book on the psychology of meditation [1]: To different
stages of cognitive development belongs different self -structures and,
not the least, -images. The highest stage, called the Ultimate stage, is
described as "the reality, condition, or suchness of all levels." If you
draw the stage diagram on a paper, the Ultimate Self is in relation to
the other "selves" as the paper in relation to the elements of the
diagram drawn on it. Improper selfishness, then, might be viewed as the
mistaking of the image for the real thing.
So, there is a very important division between the underlying Self, and
the various self-images. This division is found more or less explicitly
in a variety of sources. Pirsig, in his famous best-seller, denounces
the ego, but embraces the Self in his praise of arete as "duty towards
Self." [2] The philosopher Nietzsche writes that "The Self is always
listening and seeking: it compares, subdues, conquers, destroys. It
rules and is also the Ego's ruler. Behind your thoughts and feelings,
my brother, stands a mighty commander, an unknown sage - he is called
Self.", and also, a little above this, "[the Self] does not say 'I' but
performs 'I'." [3].
In [1] it is concluded that though all who experience the Ultimate
stage do essentially the same, the experience and understanding of it
depends on the prior interpretation. The Buddhist experience an egoless
state, while the theistic meditators experience [being one with] their
god. Who is having this unifying experience? The same guy, essentially,
who has everyday experience. Fichte [4] asks of his audience, "Gentle-
men, think of the wall," and proceeds "Gentlemen, think of him who
thought the wall." In this way he gets an infinite chain, as "whenever
we try to objectify ourselves, make ourselves into objects of
consciousness, there always remains an _I_ or ego which transcends
objectification and is itself the condition of the unity of conscious-
ness," as Copleston describes.
Now, whether we shall side with the meditators who claim to experience
this _I_, or with Fichte who says we cannot, is of little importance
here. What is important, is that the _I_, this ground and condition
indeed exists, and that it is the ground of the empirical ego or egos.
I want to take a closer look at this _I_ - the Self.
So far, the Self may be seen on as something just lying in the back-
ground, a kind of ultimate observer. But Fichte's question can also be
asked of action, "Who is lifting your arm when you lift your arm?"
Like it was clear in the first case that it was not the image of the
Self - the ego - that was aware, but the Self itself, it is equally
obvious that it is not the image of the Will that lifts the arm - but
the Will itself. To understand this better, try to will the coke bottle
in front of you to lift. Won't do. Now, "will" your arm up in the same
way that you willed the coke bottle. Won't do either. Still, lifting
the arm is easy. (See also [3])
Proceeding like above, we can find a well of parts of the underlying
Self. But they are all one. The Self that sees the stick is the same
Self that throws a rock at it. How else would it hit? I have found it
useful to single out three of them, which I will call the Experiencing
Self, the Creative Self and the Teleological Self.
Stirner [5] speaks of "the vanishing point of the ego", and of the
"creative nothing". He has "built his case on nothing". This latter is
the one that reveals what he intends. For surely, he has built his
cause on - himself. But in the way of Fichte, the Self is not a thing,
but the basis for speaking of things. To be a thing is to be an object
for some subject and, as Fichte showed, the subject cannot properly be
an object. So, Stirner's "creative nothing" is him Self.
In contrast to Fichte, however, Stirner emphasizes the finite here-and-
now individual Self, not the abstract Ego: "Fichte's ego too is the
same essence outside me, for every one is ego; and, if only this ego
has rights, then it is "the ego", it is not I. But I am not an ego along
with other egos, but the sole ego: I am unique. Hence my wants too are
unique, and my deeds; in short everthing about me is unique."
So we see Stirner rejects the positivistic idea of viewing himself from
a 3rd person vantage point. He is not "ego", the image of himself. For
one can have an image of anyone. But ones own Self is experienced from
the 1st person point of view, and one is oneself the only one who can
experience oneself from there. Again quoting Stirner: "They say of God:
'Names name thee not.' That holds good of me: No -concept- expresses
me; they are only names."
The history of philosophy can be simplified as follows: We have gone
from a focus on experienced reality, to experienced self, and from that
on to that which contains both - the Experiencing Self. Stirner, as a
student of Hegel, must have seen this, and, as he states, this history
is also _my_ history. The dialectic process is taken back into its
owner. I am not any longer viewing myself as a moment in the dialectical
self-unfolding of the Absolute, but as he who learns and thinks these
thoughts, and - take the advantage of them.
The philosophical process did not stop at the Experiencing Self, with
which an empiricist would be content. A reaction came, asking what
elements of experience were constituted by the subject himself. The
observer was no longer seen as a passive observer, but as an active
participant contributing his own elements into experience. Thus we
can say that the awareness of the creative role of the intellect was
properly emerging. We had the Creative Self. This was idea was taken
very far by Stirners teachers - into German idealism.
Stirners main thesis is that of the individual as the ground not only
of observation and creation, but of evaluation. This thesis is given
a short presentation as a 0th chapter in The Ego and His Own: "All
things are Nothing to Me." No outer force is to determine ones cause,
ones evaluation. With a convincing rhetoric, Stirner makes room for
the case that he himself is the evaluator, the one whose cause is to
be acted for.
Stirners main dialectical triad is then this, that we go from mere
experience to action [thought], and as a solution to the strain between
these go to valuation and interest, self-interest. This is a recurring
theme in his book, and the structure of the argument is presented in
the first chapter, very appropriately named "A human Life".
The triad, as I have understood and interpreted it, is this:
The Experiencing Self: This is, so to say, the beacon that enlightens
the empirical world, which makes it possible qua empirical world. With
knowledge of oneself only as experiencing, one is stuck with things,
and all ones activity is centered around things, as Stirner says. One
is a Materialist. In history, both the personal and the philosophical
one, the Empirical Self is seen as a passive observer on whom the world
is imprinted, all until we come to the antithesis of this view:
The Creative Self: We discover our own more active role in experience,
our own contribution of elements/form to our experience, as shown by
the [Kantian inspired] experiments of the early Gestalt psychologists.
With this knowledge, attention goes to thought itself, and, we become
intellectual and spiritual young men. Our quest goes for that in which
we can pry Spirit, and we become - Idealists.
The Teleological Self: There is a [dialectical] strain between the two
views and aspects of the Self above, a conflict that can only, as Stirner
says, be resolved by a third party, which is the synthesis. We begin to
ask: Why do I focus on this, and not on that, in experience? Why do I
create this and not that? For whom am I doing my creation, my thinking?
I find the answer to the above questions in what I will call the
Teleological Self. The Teleological Self is he [or rather - I] for whom
all things done by me are done, the commander who is the measure of all
activity. Any value, any selection, and thereby any focus and any
creation, owes its existence to the Teleological Self. In the Teleological
Self we find the grounding of our "why?".
The dilemma between Materialism and Idealism is resolved in Selfishness.
Not do I go for the material for its sake, nor do I let the cause of any
ideal invade me and make its cause mine. I take both, but as tools and
things to be disposed of at - my pleasure. In this fashion the dialectics
is buried. For it is only alive in the world of ideas, which I have taken
back into myself.
---
This was an attempt to convey some thoughts on the Self. If anyone feels
tempted to pick up this thread, expand on it or negate it, you are
welcome. It will be a pleasure.
[1] Wilber, Engler, Brown: "Transformations of Consciousness"
[2] Robert Pirsig: "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
[3] Friedrich Nietzsche: "Zarathustra", on the Despisers of the Body.
[4] Copleston, Vol VII, p. 40
[5] Max Stirner: "The Ego & His Own"
____________________________________________________________________
Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(continued)
Before one can get into an intelligent criticism of
anything, one must begin by defining one's terms.
"Anarchism", according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica
dictionary, is "the theory that all forms of government are
incompatible with individual and social liberty and should
be abolished." It further says that it comes from the Greek
roots "an" (without) and "archos" (leader).* As for
"communism", it is "any social theory that calls for the
abolition of private property and control by the community
over economic affairs." To elaborate on that definition,
communists of all varieties hold that all wealth should be
produced and distributed according to the formula "from each
according to his** ability, to each according to his needs"
and that the administrative mechanism to control such
production and distribution should be democratically
organised by the workers themselves (i.e. "workers'
control"). They further insist that there should be no
private ownership of the means of production and no trading
of goods except through the official channels agreed upon by
the majority. With rare exceptions, communists of all
varieties propose to realise this ideal through violent
revolution and the expropriation of all private property.
That no one should accuse me of building up straw men
in order to knock them down, allow me to quote Kropotkin***
--------------------
* Historically, it was Proudhon who first used the word
to mean something other than disorder and chaos: "Although a
firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term)
an anarchist." [5]
** Here Marx uses the masculine pronoun to denote the
generic "one". In deference to easy flowing English grammar,
I'll stick to his precedent and hope that Women's Lib people
will forgive me when I, too, write "his" instead of "one's".
*** I have chosen Kropotkin as a "typical" communist-
anarchist here and elsewhere in this article for a number of
reasons. First, he was a particularly prolific writer, doing
much of his original work in English. Secondly, he is
generally regarded as "probably the greatest anarchist
thinker and writer" by many communist- anarchists, including
at least one editor of "Freedom". [6] Finally, he was the
founder of Freedom Press, the publisher of the magazine you
are now reading.
- 5 -
to show that communist-anarchism fits in well with the above
definition of communism:
"We have to put an end to the iniquities, the vices, the
crimes which result from the idle existence of some and the
economic, intellectual, and moral servitude of others.... We
are no longer obliged to grope in the dark for the
solution.... It is Expropriation.... If all accumulated
treasure...does not immediately go back to the collectivity
- since ALL have contributed to produce it; if the insurgent
people do not take possession of all the goods and
provisions amassed in the great cities and do not organise
to put them within the reach of all who need them...the
insurrection will not be a revolution, and everything will
have to be begun over again....Expropriation, - that then,
is the watchword which is imposed upon the next revolution,
under penalty of failing in its historic mission. The
complete expropriation of all who have the means of
exploiting human beings. The return to common ownership by
the nation of all that can serve in the hands of any one for
the exploitation of others." [7]
Now let us take our definitions of communism and
anarchism and see where they lead us. The first part of the
definition of communism calls for the abolition of private
property. "Abolition" is itself a rather authoritarian
concept - unless, of course, you're talking about abolishing
something which is inherently authoritarian and invasive
itself (like slavery or government, for example). So the
question boils down to "Is private property authoritarian
and invasive?" The communists answer "yes"; the
individualists disagree. Who is right? Which is the more
"anarchistic" answer? The communists argue that "private
property has become a hindrance to the evolution of mankind
towards happiness" [8], that "private property offends
against justice" [9] and that it "has developed
parasitically amidst the free institutions of our earliest
ancestors." [10] The individualists, far from denying these
assertions, reaffirm them. After all wasn't it Proudhon who
first declared property "theft"?* But when the communist
--------------------
*By property Proudhon means property as it exists under
government privilege, i.e. property gained not through
labour or the exchange of the products of labour (which he
favours), but through the legal privileges bestowed by
government on idle capital.
- 6 -
says, "Be done, then, with this vile institution; abolish
private property once and for all; expropriate and
collectivise all property for the common good," the
individualist must part company with him. What's wrong with
private property today is that it rests primarily in the
hands of a legally privileged elite. The resolution of this
injustice is not to perpetrate an even greater one, but
rather to devise a social and economic system which will
distribute property in such a manner that everyone is
guaranteed the product of his labour by natural economic
laws. I propose to demonstrate just such a system at the end
of this article. If this can be done, it will have been
shown that private property is not intrinsically invasive
after all, and that the communists in expropriating it would
be committing a most UNanarchistic act. It is, therefore,
incumbent upon all communists who call themselves anarchists
to read carefully that section and either find a flaw in its
reasoning or admit that they are not anarchists after all.
The second part of the definition of communism says
that economic affairs should be controlled by the community.
Individualists say they should be controlled by the market
place and that the only law should be the natural law of
supply and demand. Which of these two propositions is the
more consistent with anarchism? Herbert Spencer wrote in
1884, "The great political superstition of the past was the
divine right of kings. The great political superstition of
the present is the divine right of parliaments." [11] The
communists seem to have carried Spencer's observation one
step further: the great political superstition of the future
shall be the divine right of workers' majorities. "Workers'
control" is their ideology; "Power to the People" their
battle cry. What communist-anarchists apparently forget is
that workers' control means CONTROL. Marxists, let it be
said to their credit, at least are honest about this point.
They openly and unashamedly demand the dictatorship of the
proletariat. Communist-anarchists seem to be afraid of that
phrase, perhaps subconsciously realising the inherent
contradiction in their position. But communism, by its very
nature, IS dictatorial. The communist-anarchists may
christen their governing bodies "workers' councils" or
"soviets", but they remain GOVERNMENTS just the same.
Abraham Lincoln was supposed to have asked, "If you
call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No!
Calling a tail a leg don't MAKE it a leg." The same is true
about governments and laws. Calling a law a "social habit"
[12] or an "unwritten custom" [13] as Kropotkin does,
doesn't change its nature. To paraphrase Shakespeare, that
which we call a law by any other name would smell as foul.
----
REFERENCES
1. Joseph Stalin, "Anarchism or Socialism" (Moscow; Foreign
Languages Publishing House, 1950), p. 85. Written in 1906
but never finished.
2. Ibid., pp. 90-1.
3. Ibid., p.95.
4. Ibid., p. 87.
5. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, "What is Property: An Inquiry
into the Principle of Right and of Government," trans.
Benjamin R. Tucker (London: William Reeves), p. 260.
Originally published in French in 1840.
6. Bill Dwyer, "This World", "Freedom," March 27, 1971.
7. Pierre Kropotkine, "Paroles d'un Revolte" (Paris: Ernest
Flammarion, 1885), pp. 318-9.
8. Paul Eltzbacher, "Anarchism: Exponents of the Anarchist
Philosophy," trans. Steven T. Byington, ed. James J. Martin
(London: Freedom Press, 1960), p. 108. "Der Anarchismus" was
originally published in Berlin in 1900.
9. Ibid., p. 109.
10. Ibid., p. 110.
11. Herbert Spencer, "The Man Versus The State," ed. Donald
MacRae
(London: Penguin Books, 1969), p. 151. Originally published
in 1884.
12. Prince Peter Kropotkin, "The Conquest of Bread" (London:
Chapman & Hall, Ltd., 1906), p. 41.
13. Eltzbacher, op. cit., p. 101.
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* "Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven" *
* -- Milton, Paradise Lost *
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Contents: Ken Knudson: A Critique of Communism and
The Individualist Alternative (serial: 3)
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Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(continued)
Let us take a closer look at the type of society the
communists would have us live under and see if we can get at
the essence of these laws. Kropotkin says that "nine-tenths
of those called lazy...are people gone astray." [14] He then
suggests that given a job which "answers" their
"temperament" and "capacities" (today we would hear words
like "relate", "alienation" and "relevancy"), these people
would be productive workers for the community. What about
that other ten percent which couldn't adjust? Kropotkin
doesn't elaborate, but he does say, "if not one, of the
thousands of groups of our federation, will receive you,
whatever be their motive; if you are absolutely incapable of
producing anything useful, or if you refuse to do it, then
live like an isolated man....That is what could be done in a
communal society in order to turn away sluggards if they
become too numerous." [15] This is a pretty harsh sentence
considering that ALL the means of production have been
confiscated in the name of the revolution. So we see that
communism's law, put bluntly, becomes "work or starve."*
This happens to be an individualist law too. But there is a
difference between the two: the communist law is a man-made
law, subject to man's emotions, rationalisations, and
inconsistencies; the individualist law is nature's law - the
law of gastric juices, if you will - a law which, like it or
not, is beyond repeal. Although both laws use the same
language, the difference in meaning is the difference
between a commandment and a scientific observation.
Individualist-anarchists don't care when, where, or how a
man earns a living, as long as he is not invasive about it.
He may work 18 hours a day and buy a mansion to live in the
other six hours if he so chooses. Or he may feel like
Thoreau did that "that man is richest whose pleasures are
the cheapest" [16] and work but a few hours a week to ensure
his livelihood. I wonder what would happen to Thoreau under
communism? Kropotkin would undoubtedly look upon him as "a
ghost of bourgeois society." [17] And what would Thoreau say
to Kropotkin's proposed "contract"?: "We undertake to give
you the use of our houses, stores, streets, means of
transport, schools, museums, etc., on condition that, from
twenty to forty-five or fifty years of age, you consecrate
four or five hours a day to some work recognised [by whom?]
as necessary to existence....Twelve or fifteen hundred hours
--------------------
*Article 12 of the 1936 constitution of the USSR reads:
"In the USSR work is the duty of every able-bodied citizen
according to the principle: `He who does not work, neither
shall he eat.' In the USSR the principle of socialism is
realised: `From each according to his ability, to each
according to his work.'"
- 8 -
of work a year...is all we ask of you." [18] I don't think
it would be pulling the nose of reason to argue that Thoreau
would object to these terms.
But some communist-anarchists would reject Kropotkin's
idea of not giving to the unproductive worker according to
his needs, even if he doesn't contribute according to his
abilities. They might simply say that Kropotkin wasn't being
a good communist when he wrote those lines (just as he
wasn't being a good anarchist when he supported the Allies
during World War I). But this idea, it seems to me would be
patently unjust to the poor workers who would have to
support such parasites. How do these communists reconcile
such an injustice? As best I can gather from the writings of
the classical communist-anarchists, they meet this problem
in one of two ways: (1) they ignore it, or (2) they deny it.
Malatesta takes the first approach. When asked, "How will
production and distribution be organised?" he replies that
anarchists are not prophets and that they have no blueprints
for the future. Indeed, he likens this important question to
asking when a man "should go to bed and on what days he
should cut his nails." [19] Alexander Berkman takes the
other approach (a notion apparently borrowed from the
Marxists*): he denies that unproductive men will exist after
the revolution. "In an anarchist society it will be the most
useful and difficult toil that one will seek rather than the
lighter job." [20] Berkman's view of labour makes the
protestant work ethic sound positively mild by comparison.
For example: "Can you doubt that even the hardest toil would
become a pleasure...in an atmosphere of brotherhood and
respect for labour?" [21] Yes, I can doubt it. Or again: "We
can visualise the time when labour will have become a
pleasant exercise, a joyous application of physical effort
to the needs of the world." [22] And again, in apparent
anticipation of Goebbles' famous dictum about the powers of
repetition, "Work will become a pleasure... laziness will be
unknown." [23] It is hard to argue with such "reasoning". It
would be like a debate between Bertrand Russell and Billy
Graham about the existence of heaven. How can you argue with
faith? I won't even try. I'll just ask the reader, next time
he is at work, to look around - at himself and at his mates
- and ask himself this question: "After the revolution will
--------------------
* At least Berkman is consistent in this matter. Marx,
paradoxically, wanted to both "abolish labour itself" ("The
German Ideology"), AND make it "life's prime want"
("Critique of the Gotha Programme").
- 9 -
we really prefer this place to staying at home in bed or
going off to the seashore?" If there are enough people who
can answer "yes" to this question perhaps communism will
work after all. But in the meantime, before building the
barricades and shooting people for a cause of dubious
certainty, I would suggest pondering these two items from
the bourgeois and communist press respectively:
"In Detroit's auto plants, weekend absenteeism has reached
such proportions that a current bit of folk wisdom advises
car buyers to steer clear of vehicles made on a Monday or
Friday. Inexperienced substitute workers, so the caution
goes, have a way of building bugs into a car. But in Italy
lately the warning might well include Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday. At Fiat, the country's largest maker,
absenteeism has jumped this year from the normal 4 or 5
percent to 12.5 percent, with as many as 18,000 workers
failing to clock in for daily shifts at the company's Turin
works. Alfa Romeo's rate has hit 15 percent as hundreds of
workers call in each day with `malattia di comodo' - a
convenient illness.... Italian auto workers seem to be doing
no more than taking advantage of a very good deal. A new
labour contract guarantees workers in state-controlled
industries 180 days of sick leave a year, at full pay, while
workers in private firms (such as Fiat) get the same number
of days at 75 percent of full pay." [24]
When doctors, employed by the state, made an inspection
visit in Turin we are told that they found "that only 20
percent of the `indisposed' workers they had visited were
even mildly sick." For those who think that this is just a
bourgeois aberration, let us see what revolutionary Cuba,
after 12 years of communism, has to say about such
"parasites". I translate from the official organ of the
Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party:
"Worker's discussion groups are being set up in all work
centres to discuss the proposed law against laziness. These
groups have already proven to be a valuable forum for the
working class. During these assemblies, which for the
moment are limited to pilot projects in the Havana area,
workers have made original suggestions and posed timely
questions which lead one to believe that massive discussion
of this type would make a notable contribution to the
solution of this serious problem. An assembly of boiler
repairmen in the Luyano district was representative of the
general feeling of the workers. They demanded that action be
taken against those parasitic students who have stopped
going to classes regularly or who, although attending
classes, do just enough to get by. The workers were equally
adamant about co-workers who, after a sickness or accident,
refuse to go back to their jobs but go on receiving their
- 10 -
salaries for months without working. Questions were often
accompanied by concrete proposals. For example, should
criminals receive the same salaries on coming back to work
from prison as when they left their jobs? The workers
thought not, but they did think it all right that the
revolutionary state accord a pension to the prisoner's
family during his stay in the re-education [sic] centre. At
the Papelera Cubana factory the workers made a suggestion
which proved their contempt of these loafers; habitual
offenders should be punished in geometric proportion to the
number of their crimes. They also proposed that workers who
quit their jobs or were absent too often be condemned to a
minimum, not of 6 months, but of one year's imprisonment and
that the worker who refuses three times work proposed by the
Ministry of Labour be considered automatically as a criminal
and subject to punishment as such. The workers also
expressed doubts about the scholastic `deserters', ages 15
and 16, who aren't yet considered physically and mentally
able to work but who don't study either. They also cited the
case of the self employed man who works only for his own
selfish interests. The dockworkers of Havana port, zone 1,
also had their meeting. They envisioned the possibility of
making this law retroactive for those who have a bad work
attitude, stating forcefully that it wasn't a question of
precedents, because otherwise the law could only be applied
in those cases which occurred after its enactment. The
harbour workers also proposed imprisonment for the
`sanctioned' workers and that, in their opinion, the
punishment of these parasites shouldn't be lifted until they
could demonstrate a change of attitude. The steadfastness of
the workers was clearly demonstrated when they demanded that
punishments not be decided by the workers themselves in
order to avoid possible leniency due to reasons of sympathy,
sentimentality, etc. The workers also indicated that these
parasites should not have the right to the social benefits
accorded to other workers. Some workers considered
imprisonment as a measure much too kind. As you can see, the
workers have made many good proposals, which leads us to
believe that with massive discussion, this new law will be
considerably enriched. This is perhaps the path to social
legislation by the masses."* [25]
These two extracts clearly demonstrate that human nature
remains pretty constant, independent of the social system
the individual workman is subjected to. So it seems to me
that unless human nature can somehow be miraculously
transformed by the revolution - and that WOULD be a
revolution - some form of compulsion would be necessary in
order to obtain "from each according to his abilities."
While on this point, I would like to ask my communist-
- 11 -
anarchist comrades just who is supposed to determine another
person's abilities? We've seen from the above article that
in Cuba the Ministry of Labour makes this decision. How
would it differ in an anarchist commune? If these anarchists
are at all consistent with their professed desire for
individual freedom, the only answer to this question is that
the individual himself would be the sole judge of his
abilities and, hence, his profession. But this is
ridiculous. Who, I wonder, is going to decide of his own
free will that his real ability lies in collecting other
people's garbage? And what about the man who thinks that he
is the greatest artist since Leonardo da Vinci and decides
to devote his life to painting mediocre landscapes while the
community literally feeds his delusions with food from the
communal warehouse? Few people, I dare say, would opt to do
the necessary "dirty work" if they could choose with
impunity ANY job, knowing that whatever they did - good or
bad, hard or easy - they would still receive according to
their needs.** The individualist's answer to this perennial
question of "who will do the dirty work" is very simple: "I
--------------------
*The Associated Press has since reported the passage of
this law: "Cuba's Communist regime announced yesterday a
tough new labour law that Premier Fidel Castro said is aimed
at 400,000 loafers, bums and `parasites' who have upset the
country's new social order. The law, which goes into effect
April 1, provides for penalties ranging from six months to
two years of forced labour in `rehabilitation centres' for
those convicted of vagrancy, malingering or habitual
absenteeism from work or school. The law decrees that all
males between 17 and 60 have a `social duty' to work on a
daily systematic basis unless they are attending an approved
school. Those who do not are considered `parasites of the
revolution' and subject to prosecution by the courts or
special labourers' councils. The anti-loafing law - seen as
a tough new weapon to be used mainly against dissatisfied
young people - was prompted by Mr. Castro's disclosure last
September that as many as 400,000 workers were creating
serious economic problems by shirking their duties." [26]
** Anyone who has ever gone to an anarchist summer camp
knows what I mean. Here we have "la creme de la creme", so
to speak, just dying to get on with the revolution; yet who
cleans out the latrines? More often than not, no one. Or,
when it really gets bad, some poor sap will sacrifice
himself for the cause. You don't have solidarity; you have
martyrdom. And no one feels good about it: you have
resentment on the part of the guy who does it and guilt from
those who don't.
- 12 -
will if I'm paid well enough." I suspect even Mr. Heath
would go down into the London sewers if he were paid 5
million pounds per hour for doing it. Somewhere between this
sum and what a sewer worker now gets is a just wage, which,
given a truly free society, would be readily determined by
competition.
This brings us to the second half of the communist
ideal: the distribution of goods according to need. The
obvious question again arises, "Who is to decide what
another man needs?" Anarchists once more must leave that
decision up to the individual involved. To do otherwise
would be to invite tyranny, for who can better determine a
person's needs than the person himself?* But if the
individual is to decide for himself what he needs, what is
to prevent him from "needing" a yacht and his own private
airplane? If you think we've got a consumer society now,
what would it be like if everything was free for the
needing? You may object that luxuries aren't needs. But that
is just begging the question: what is a luxury, after all?
To millions of people in the world today food is a luxury.
To the English central heating is a luxury, while to the
Americans it's a necessity. The Nazi concentration camps
painfully demonstrated just how little man actually NEEDS.
But is that the criterion communists would use for
determining need? I should hope (and think) not. So it seems
to me that this posses a definite dilemma for the communist-
anarchist: what do you do about unreasonable, irrational, or
extravagant "needs"? What about the man who "needs" a new
pair of shoes every month? "Nonsense," you may say, "no one
needs new shoes that often." Well, how often then? Once a
year? Every five years perhaps? And who will decide? Then
what about me? I live in Switzerland and I'm crazy about
grape jam - but unfortunately the Swiss aren't. I feel that
a jam sandwich isn't a jam sandwich unless it's made with
GRAPE jam. But tell that to the Swiss! If Switzerland were a
communist federation, there wouldn't be a single communal
warehouse which would stock grape jam. If I were to go up to
the commissar-in-charge-of-jams and ask him to put in a
--------------------
* I'm reminded here of the tale of the man who decided
his mule didn't NEED any food. He set out to demonstrate his
theory and almost proved his point when, unfortunately, the
beast died. Authoritarian communism runs a similar risk
when it attempts to determine the needs of others.
- 13 -
requisition for a few cases, he would think I was nuts.
"Grapes are for wine," he'd tell me with infallible logic,
"and more people drink wine than eat grape jam." "But I'm a
vegetarian," I plead, "and just think of all the money (?)
I'm saving the commune by not eating any of that expensive
meat." After which he would lecture me on the economics of
jam making, tell me that a grape is more valuable in its
liquid form, and chastise me for being a throwback to
bourgeois decadence.
And what about you, dear reader? Have you no
individual idiosyncrasies? Perhaps you've got a thing about
marshmallows. What if the workers in the marshmallow
factories decide (under workers' control, of course) that
marshmallows are bad for your health, too difficult to make,
or just simply a capitalist plot? Are you to be denied the
culinary delights that only marshmallows can offer, simply
because some distant workers get it into their heads that a
marshmallowless world would be a better world?
But, not only would distribution according to need hurt
the consumer, it would be grossly unfair to the productive
worker who actually makes the goods or performs the
necessary services. Suppose, for example, that hardworking
farmer Brown goes to the communal warehouse with a load of
freshly dug potatoes. While there Brown decides he needs a
new pair of boots. Unfortunately there are only a few pairs
in stock since Jones the shoemaker quit his job - preferring
to spend his days living off Brown's potatoes and writing
sonnets about the good life. So boots are rationed. The boot
commissar agrees that Brown's boots are pretty shabby but,
he points out, Smith the astrologer is in even greater need.
Could Brown come back in a month or so when BOTH soles have
worn through? Brown walks away in disgust, resolved never
again to sweat over his potato patch.
Even today people are beginning to complain about the
injustices of the (relatively mild) welfare state. Theodore
Roszak writes that in British schools there has been a
"strong trend away from the sciences over the past four
years" and that people are showing "annoyed concern" and
"loudly observing that the country is not spending its money
to produce poets and Egyptologists - and then demanding a
sharp cut in university grants and stipends."[27] If people
are upset NOW at the number of poets and Egyptologists that
they are supporting, what would it be like if EVERYONE could
simply take up his favourite hobby as his chosen profession?
I suspect it wouldn't be long before our professional
chess players and mountain climbers found the warehouse
stocks dwindling to nothing. Social unrest would surely
increase in direct proportion to the height of the trash
- 14 -
piling up on the doorsteps and the subsequent yearning for
the "good old days" would bring about the inevitable
counter-revolution. Such would be the fate of the
anarchist-communist utopia.
* * * * *
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* If the whole is not defined as the sum of its parts, there is *
* no reason to expect the whole to be just the sum of its parts. *
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Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(continued)
* * * * *
Peter Kropotkin opens his chapter on "Consumption and
Production" in "The Conquest of Bread" with the following
words:
"If you open the works of any economist you will find that
he begins with PRODUCTION, the analysis of means employed
nowadays for the creation of wealth; division of labour,
manufacture, machinery, accumulation of capital. From Adam
Smith to Marx, all have proceeded along these lines. Only
in the latter parts of their books do they treat of
CONSUMPTION, that is to say, of the means necessary to
satisfy the needs of individuals....Perhaps you will say
this is logical. Before satisfying needs you must create the
wherewithal to satisfy them. But before producing anything,
must you not feel the need of it? Is it not necessity that
first drove man to hunt, to raise cattle, to cultivate land,
to make implements, and later on to invent machinery? Is it
not the study of needs that should govern production?"[28]
When I first came upon these words, I must admit I was
rather surprised. "What have we here," I thought, "is the
prince of anarchist-communism actually going to come out in
favour of the consumer?" It didn't take long to find out
that he wasn't. Most communists try very hard to ignore the
fact that the sole purpose of production is consumption. But
not Kropotkin; he first recognises the fact - and THEN he
ignores it. It's only a matter of three pages before he gets
his head back into the sand and talks of "how to reorganise
PRODUCTION so as to really satisfy all needs." [My emphasis]
Under communism it is not the consumer that counts; it
is the producer. The consumer is looked upon with scorn - a
loathsome, if necessary, evil. The worker, on the other
hand, is depicted as all that is good and heroic. It is not
by accident that the hammer and sickle find themselves as
the symbols of the Russian "workers' paradise." Can you
honestly imagine a communist society raising the banner of
bread and butter and declaring the advent of the "consumers'
paradise"? If you can, your imagination is much more vivid
than mine.
But that's exactly what individualist-anarchists would
do. Instead of the communist's "workers' control" (i.e. a
producers' democracy), we advocate a consumers' democracy.
Both democracies - like all democracies - would in fact be
- 15 -
dictatorships. The question for anarchists is which
dictatorship is the least oppressive? The answer should be
obvious. But, judging from the ratio of communists to
individualists in the anarchist movement, apparently it's
not. So perhaps I'd better explain.
The workers in some given industry decide that item A
should no longer be produced and decide instead to
manufacture item B. Now consumer X, who never liked item A
anyway, couldn't care less; but poor Y feels his life will
never be the same without A. What can Y do? He's just a lone
consumer and consumers have no rights in this society. But
maybe other Y's agree with him. A survey is taken and it is
shown that only 3% of all consumers regret the passing of A.
But can't some compromise be arrived at? How about letting
just one tiny factory make A's? Perhaps the workers agree to
this accommodation. Perhaps not. In any case the workers'
decision is final. There is no appeal. The Y's are totally
at the mercy of the workers and if the decision is adverse,
they'll just have to swallow hard and hope that next week
item C isn't taken away as well. So much for the producers'
dictatorship.
Let's now take a look at the consumers' dictatorship.
Consumers are finicky people - they want the best possible
product at the lowest possible price. To achieve this end
they will use ruthless means. The fact that producer X asks
more for his product than Y asks for his similar product is
all that the consumer needs to know. He will mercilessly buy
Y's over X's. The extenuating circumstances matter little to
him. X may have ten children and a mother-in-law to feed.
The consumer still buys from Y. Such is the nature of the
consumers' dictatorship over the producer.
Now there is a fundamental difference between these two
dictatorships. In the one the worker says to the consumer,
"I will produce what I want and if you don't like it you can
lump it." In the other the consumer says to the worker, "You
will produce what I want and if you don't I will take my
business elsewhere." It doesn't take the sensitive antennae
of an anarchist to see which of these two statements is the
more authoritarian. The first leaves no room for argument;
there are no exceptions, no loopholes for the dissident
consumer to crawl through. The second, on the other hand,
leaves a loophole so big that it is limited only by the
worker's imagination and abilities. If a producer is not
doing as well as his competitor, there's a reason for it. He
may not be suited for that particular work, in which case he
will change jobs. He may be charging too much for his goods
or services, in which case he will have to lower his costs,
profits, and/or overhead to meet the competition. But one
- 16 -
thing should be made clear: each worker is also a consumer
and what the individual looses in his role as producer by
having to cut his costs down to the competitive market
level, he makes up in his role as consumer by being able to
buy at the lowest possible prices.*
* * * * *
Let us turn our attention now to the various
philosophies used by communists to justify their social
system. The exponents of any social change invariably claim
that people will be "happier" under their system than they
now are under the status quo. The big metaphysical question
then becomes, "What is happiness?" Up until recently the
communists - materialists par excellence - used to say it
was material well-being. The main gripe they had against
capitalism was that the workers were NECESSARILY in a state
of increasing poverty. Bakunin, echoing Marx, said that "the
situation of the proletariat...by virtue of inevitable
economic law, must and will become worse every year." [29]
But since World War II this pillar of communist thought has
become increasingly shaky - particularly in the United
States where "hard hats" are now pulling in salaries upwards
of four quid an hour. This fact has created such acute
embarrassment among the faithful that many communists are
now seeking a new definition of happiness which has nothing
to do with material comfort.
Very often what they do in discarding the Marxist
happiness albatross is to saddle themselves with a Freudian
one.** The new definition of happiness our neo-Freudian
communists arrive at is usually derived from what Otto
Fenichel called the "Nirvana
--------------------
* The usual objection raised to a "consumers'
democracy" is that capitalists have used similar catch
phrases in order to justify capitalism and keep the workers
in a subjugated position. Individualists sustain this
objection but point out that capitalists are being
inconsistent by not practicing what they preach. If they
did, they would no longer be in a position of privilege,
living off the labour of others. This point is made clear in
the section on capitalism later in this article.
** Wilhelm Reich and R. D. Laing are among the latest
gurus of the libertarian left. And it's not uncommon in
anarchist circles to hear a few sympathetic words about
Herbert Marcuse's "Eros and Civilisation," despite the
author's totalitarian tendencies.
- 17 -
principle." The essence of this theory is that both life-
enhancing behaviour (e.g. sexual intercourse, eating) and
life-inhibiting behaviour (e.g. war, suicide) are
alternative ways of escaping from tension. Thus Freud's life
instinct and death instinct find their common ground in
Nirvana where happiness means a secure and carefree
existence. This sounds to me very much like the Christian
conception of heaven. But with communism, unlike heaven, you
don't have to give up your life to get in - just your
humanity.
Homer Lane used to have a little anecdote which
illustrates the point I'm trying to make about the communist
idea of happiness:
"A dog and a rabbit are running down a field. Both
apparently are doing the same thing, running and using their
capacity to the full. Really there is a great difference
between them. Their motives are different. One is happy, the
other unhappy. The dog is happy because he is trying to do
something with the hope of achieving it. The rabbit is
unhappy because he is afraid. A few minutes later the
position is reversed; the rabbit has reached his burrow and
is inside panting, whilst the dog is sitting outside
panting. The rabbit is now happy because it is safe, and
therefore no longer afraid. The dog is unhappy because his
hope has not been realised. Here we have the two kinds of
happiness of which each one of us is capable - happiness
based on the escape from danger, and happiness based on the
fulfillment of a hope, which is the only true happiness."
[30]
I leave it to the reader as an exercise in triviality
to decide which of these two types of happiness is
emphasised by communism. While on the subject of analogies,
I'd like to indulge in one of my own. Generally speaking
there are two kinds of cats: the "lap cat" and the "mouser."
The former leads a peaceful existence, leaving granny's lap
only long enough to make a discreet trip to its sandbox and
to lap up a saucer of milk. The latter lives by catching
mice in the farmer's barn and never goes near the inside of
the farm house. The former is normally fat and lazy; the
latter skinny and alert. Despite the lap cat's easier life,
the mouser wouldn't exchange places with him if he could,
while the lap cat COULDN'T exchange places if he would. Here
we have two cats - perhaps even from the same litter - with
two completely different attitudes toward life. The one
expects a clean sandbox and food twice a day - and he is
rarely disappointed. The other has to work for a living, but
generally finds the reward worth while. "Now what has this
got to do with the subject at hand?" I hear you cry. Just
- 18 -
this: the communists would make "lap cats" of us all. "But
what's so bad about that?" you may ask. To which I would
have to reply (passing over the stinky problem of WHO will
change the sandbox), "Have you ever tried to `domesticate' a
mouser?"
Communism, in its quest for a tranquil, tensionless
world, inevitably harks back to the Middle Ages. Scratch a
communist and chances are pretty good you'll find a
mediaevalist underneath. Paul Goodman, for example, derives
his ideal "community of scholars" from Bologna and Paris
models based in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. [31]
Erich Fromm writes longingly of "the sense of security which
was characteristic of man in the Middle Ages....In having a
distinct, unchangeable, and unquestionable place in the
social world from the moment of birth, man was rooted in a
structuralised whole, and thus life had a meaning which left
no place, and no need, for doubt. A person was identical
with his role in society; he was a peasant, an artisan, a
knight, and not AN INDIVIDUAL who HAPPENED to have this or
that occupation. The social order was conceived as a natural
order, and being a definite part of it gave man a feeling of
security and of belonging. There was comparatively little
competition. One was born into a certain economic position
which guaranteed a livelihood determined by tradition. [32]
Kropotkin goes even further than Fromm. I'd like to examine
his position in some detail because I think it is very
instructive of how the communist mentality works. In perhaps
his best-known book, "Mutual Aid," Kropotkin devotes two of
its eight chapters to glorifying the Middle Ages, which he
boldly claim were one of "the two greatest periods of
[mankind's] history." [33] (The other one being ancient
Greece. He doesn't say how he reconciles this with the fact
that Greece was based firmly on a foundation of slavery).
"No period of history could better illustrate the
constructive powers of the popular masses than the tenth and
eleventh centuries...but, unhappily, this is a period about
which historical information is especially scarce." [34] I
wonder why? Could it be that everyone was having such a good
time that no one found time to record it? Kropotkin writes
of the mediaeval cities as "centres of liberty and
enlightenment." [35] The mediaeval guilds, he says, answered
"a deeply inrooted want of human nature," [36] calling them
"organisations for maintaining justice." [37] Let's see what
Kropotkin means here by "justice":
"If a brother's house is burned, or he has lost his ship, or
has suffered on a pilgrim's voyage, all the brethren MUST
come to his aid. If a brother falls dangerously ill, two
brethren MUST keep watch by his bed till he is out of
danger, and if he dies, the brethren must bury him - a great
- 19 -
affair in those times of pestilences [Kropotkin must have
been dozing to admit this in his Utopia] - and follow him to
the church and the grave. After his death they MUST provide
for his children....If a brother was involved in a quarrel
with a stranger to the guild, they agreed to support him for
bad and for good; that is, whether he was unjustly accused
of aggression, OR REALLY WAS THE AGGRESSOR, they HAD to
support him....They went to court to support by oath the
truthfulness of his statements, and if he was found guilty
they did not let him go to full ruin and become a slave
through not paying the due compensation; they all paid
it....Such were the leading ideas of those brotherhoods
which gradually covered the whole of mediaeval life." [38]
(My emphasis)
And such is Kropotkin's conception of "justice," which could
better be described as a warped sense of solidarity. He goes
on to say, "It is evident that an institution so well suited
to serve the need of union, without depriving the individual
of his initiative, could but spread, grow, and fortify."
[39] "We see not only merchants, craftsmen, hunters, and
peasants united in guilds; we also see guilds of priests,
painters, teachers of primary schools and universities,
guilds for performing the passion play, for building a
church, for developing the `mystery' of a given school of
art or craft, or for a special recreation - even guilds
among beggars, executioners, and lost women, all organised
on the same double principle of self-jurisdiction and mutual
support." [40] It was such "unity of thought" which
Kropotkin thinks "can but excite our admiration." [41]
-----
REFERENCES
14. Kropotkin, op. cit., p. 209.
15. Ibid., p. 206.
16. Henry David Thoreau, "Journal," March 11, 1856.
17. Kropotkin, op. cit., p. 206.
18. Ibid., p. 205.
19. Errico Malatesta, "Anarchy" (London: Freedom Press,
1949), p. 33. Originally published in 1907.
20. Alexander Berkman, "A.B.C. of Anarchism" (London:
Freedom Press, 1964), p. 27. This is the abbreviated version
of the Vanguard Press "ABC of Communist Anarchism" which
appeared in 1929.
21. Ibid., p. 28.
22. Ibid., p. 29.
23. Ibid., p. 25.
24. "Italy: An Illness of Convenience," "Newsweek," January
4, 1971, p. 44.
25. "Un Forum Legislatif de la Classe Ouvriere?", "Granma"
(French edition), January 31, 1971, p. 3.
26. "Cuba Announces Labor Penalties For Loafers," "The
International Herald Tribune," March 19, 1971, p. 4.
27. Theodore Roszak, "The Making of a Counter Culture"
(Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1969), p. 29.
28. Kropotkin, op. cit., pp. 236-7.
29. Mikhail Bakunin, "The Political Philosophy of Bakunin:
Scientific Anarchism," ed. G. P. Maximoff (New York: The
Free Press, 1953), p. 285.
30. Homer Lane, "Talks to Parents and Teachers" (London:
George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1928), p. 121.
31. Paul Goodman, "Compulsory Mis-education" and "The
Community of Scholars" (New York: Vintage Books, 1962,
1964), p. 174.
32. Erich Fromm, "Fear of Freedom" (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1960), p. 34. First published in the
United States in 1942 under the title "Escape from Freedom."
33. Petr Kropotkin, "Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution"
(Boston: Extending Horizons Books, 1955), p. 297. This book
first appeared in London in 1902.
34. Ibid., p. 166.
35. Ibid., p. 169.
36. Ibid., p. 176.
37. Ibid., p. 176.
38. Ibid., pp. 172-3.
39. Ibid., p. 176.
40. Ibid., p. 174.
41. Ibid., p. 177.
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* "I am I" *
* - Schelling *
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Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(continued)
But where did the common labourer fit into all this?
Kropotkin makes the remarkable generalisation that "at no
time has labour enjoyed such conditions of prosperity and
such respect." [42] As proof he cites the "glorious
donations" [43] the workers gave to the cathedrals. These,
he says, "bear testimony of their relative well-being." [44]
(Just as the Taj Mahal bears testimony of the relative
well-being of the people of India, no doubt). "Many
aspirations of our modern radicals were already realised in
the Middle Ages [and] much of what is described now as
Utopian was accepted then as a matter of fact." [45]
As for the material achievements of the Middle Ages,
Kropotkin can't find a superlative super enough to describe
them - but he tries:
"The very face of Europe had been changed. The land was
dotted with rich cities, surrounded by immense thick walls
[I wonder why?] which were embellished by towers and gates,
each of them a work of art in itself. The cathedrals,
- 20 -
conceived in a grand style and profusely decorated, lifted
their bell-towers to the skies, displaying a purity of form
and a boldness of imagination which we now vainly strive to
attain....[He displays a bit of `boldness of imagination'
himself (to be quite charitable) when he goes on to say:]
Over large tracts of land well-being had taken the place of
misery; learning had grown and spread. The methods of
science had been elaborated; the basis of natural philosophy
had been laid down; and the way had been paved for all the
mechanical inventions of which our own times are so proud.
Such were the magic [sic] changes accomplished in Europe in
less than four hundred years." [46]
Just what were these "magic changes" of which Kropotkin
is so proud? He lists about a dozen. [47] Among them are:
printing (neglecting to inform us that the Gutenberg press
was invented in the middle of the 15th century, sometime
after the mediaeval cities "degenerated into centralised
states"); steelmaking (neglecting to inform us that
steelmaking had been mentioned in the works of Homer and was
used continuously since that time); glassmaking (neglecting
to inform us that the Encyclopaedia Britannica - to which he
contributed numerous articles - devotes to the Middle Ages
all of two sentences of a 27 page article on the history of
glassmaking); the telescope (neglecting to inform us that it
wasn't even invented until 1608); gunpowder and the compass
(neglecting to inform us that the Chinese lay earlier claims
to both of these inventions); algebra (neglecting to inform
us that algebra was in common use in ancient Babylonia and
that, although being introduced to mediaeval Europe by the
Arabs, no important contributions were made by Europeans
until the Renaissance); the decimal system (neglecting to
inform us that the Hindus invented the system about a
thousand years before it gained any ground in Europe in the
17th century); calendar reform (neglecting to inform us that
although Roger Bacon suggested such reform to the Pope in
the 13th century, no action was taken until 300 years later
under the reign of Pope Gregory XIII in 1582); chemistry
(neglecting to inform us of an earlier work of his where he
said chemistry was "entirely a product of our [19th]
century." [48]) Indeed the only things he mentions as
products of the Middle Ages which stand up under scrutiny
are counterpoint and, paradoxically, the mechanical clock.
To top it all off, he then has the gall to cite Galileo and
Copernicus as being "direct descendents" of mediaeval
science [49] - somehow managing to ignore the fact that
Galileo spent the last eight years of his life under house
arrest for supporting the Copernican theory, thanks to that
grand mediaeval institution, the Inquisition.
You may be wondering why the people of the Middle Ages
- 21 -
let such a Utopia slip through their fingers. Kropotkin
cites foreign invasions - notably those of the Mongols,
Turks, and Moors [50] - but makes it quite clear that the
"greatest and most fatal error of most cities was to bass
their wealth upon commerce and industry." [51] So here we
have it laid bare for all to see: Kropotkin's ideal
community would not only return us to the dark ages, but
would take away the one thing that could bring us back -
commerce and industry.
Rudolf Rocker, the darling of the anarcho-syndicalists,
similarly eulogises the Middle Ages. He, too, felt that
mediaeval man led a "rich life" [52] which gave "wings to
his spirit and prevent[ed] his mental stagnation." [53] But
unlike Kropotkin - who chalked up mediaeval solidarity to
man's innate "nature" - Rocker (correctly) explains these
"fraternal associations" by means of a most unanarchistic
concept - Christianity:
"Mediaeval man felt himself to be bound up with a single,
uniform culture, a member of a great community extending
over all countries, in whose bosom all people found their
place. It was the community of Christendom which included
all the scattered units of the Christian world and
spiritually unified them....The deeper the concept of
Christianity took root in men, the easier they overcame all
barriers between themselves and others, and the stronger
lived in them the consciousness that all belonged to one
great community and strove toward a common goal." [54]
So we see that the glue that held these idyllic
mediaeval communities together was not Kropotkin's "mutual
aid," but rather Christian mysticism. Rocker was perceptive
enough to see this; Kropotkin apparently was not. But what
both of these men failed to see was that mysticism is the
necessary glue of ANY communist society. The mystical
Garden of Eden is the ultimate goal of every church of the
communist religion. Unfortunately, as every good Christian
will tell you, the only way you can stay in the Garden of
Eden is to abstain from the "tree of knowledge." Communists
are apparently willing to pay this price. Individualists are
not. It is communism's intention to carry religion to its
ultimate absurdity: it would sacrifice man on the cross of
altruism for the sake of - Man.
* * * * *
I'd like to end my diatribe against communism by
quoting another one. This is what one prophetic Frenchman,
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, had to say about communism eight
years before the "Communist Manifesto" appeared like a
- 22 -
spectre to haunt Europe - and like a good French wine, his
words seem to have improved with age:
"Communism - or association in a simple form - is the
necessary object and original aspiration of the social
nature, the spontaneous movement by which it manifests and
establishes itself. It is the first phase of human
civilisation. In this state of society, - which the jurists
have called `negative communism', - man draws near to man,
and shares with him the fruits of the field and the milk and
flesh of animals. Little by little this communism - negative
as long as man does not produce - tends to become positive
and organic through the development of labour and industry.
But it is then that the sovereignty of thought, and the
terrible faculty of reasoning logically or illogically,
teach man that, if equality is the sine qua non of society,
communism is the first species of slavery....The
disadvantages of communism are so obvious that its critics
never have needed to employ much eloquence to thoroughly
disgust men with it. The irreparability of the injustice
which it causes, the violence which it does to attractions
and repulsions, the yoke of iron which it fastens upon the
will, the moral torture to which it subjects the conscience,
the debilitating effect which it has upon society; and, to
sum it all up, the pious and stupid uniformity which it
enforces upon the free, active, reasoning, unsubmissive
personality of man, have shocked common sense, and condemned
communism by an irrevocable decree. The authorities and
examples cited in its favour disprove it. The communistic
republic of Plato involved slavery; that of Lycurgus
employed Helots, whose duty it was to produce for their
masters, thus enabling the latter to devote themselves
exclusively to athletic sports and to war, Even J. J.
Rousseau - confounding communism and equality - has said
somewhere that, without slavery, he did not think equality
of conditions possible. The communities of the early Church
did not last the first century out, and soon degenerated
into monasteries....The greatest danger to which society is
exposed today is that of another shipwreck on this rock.
Singularly enough, systematic communism - the deliberate
negation of property - is conceived under the direct
influence of the proprietary prejudice; and property is the
basis of all communistic theories. The members of a
community, it is true, have no private property; but the
community is proprietor, and proprietor not only of the
goods, but of the persons and wills. In consequence of this
principle of absolute property, labour, which should be only
a condition imposed upon man by Nature, becomes in all
communities a human commandment, and therefore odious.
Passive obedience, irreconcilable with a reflecting will, is
strictly enforced. Fidelity to regulations, which are always
- 23 -
defective, however wise they may be thought, allows of no
complaint. Life, talent, and all the human faculties are the
property of the State, which has the right to use them as it
pleases for the common good. Private associations are
sternly prohibited, in spite of the likes and dislikes of
different natures, because to tolerate them would be to
introduce small communities within the large one, and
consequently private property; the strong work for the weak,
although this ought to be left to benevolence, and not
enforced, advised, or enjoined; the industrious work for the
lazy though this is unjust; the clever work for the foolish,
although this is absurd; and, finally, man - casting aside
his personality, his spontaneity, his genius, and his
affections - humbly annihilates himself at the feet of the
majestic and inflexible Commune! Communism is inequality,
but not as property is. Property is the exploitation of the
weak by the strong.* Communism is the exploitation of the
strong by the weak. In property, inequality of conditions is
the result of force, under whatever name it be disguised:
physical and mental force; force of events, chance, FORTUNE;
force of accumulated property, etc. In communism, inequality
springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.
This damaging equation is repellent to the conscience, and
causes merit to complain; for although it may be the duty of
the strong to aid the weak, they prefer to do it out of
generosity, - they never will endure a comparison. Give them
equal opportunities of labour, and equal wages, but never
allow their jealousy to be awakened by mutual suspicion of
unfaithfulness in the performance of the common task.
Communism is oppression and slavery. Man is very willing to
obey the law of duty, serve his country, and oblige his
friends; but he wishes to labour when he pleases, where he
pleases, and as much as he pleases. He wishes to dispose of
his own time, to be governed only by necessity, to choose
his friendships, his recreation, and his discipline; to act
from judgement, not by command; to sacrifice himself through
selfishness, not through servile obligation. Communism is
essentially opposed to the free exercise of our faculties,
to our noblest desires, to our deepest feelings. Any plan
which could be devised for reconciling it with the demands
of the individual reason and will would end only in changing
the thing while preserving the name. Now, if we are honest
truth-seekers, we shall avoid disputes about words. Thus,
communism violates the sovereignty of the conscience and
equality: the first, by restricting spontaneity of mind and
heart, and freedom of thought and action; the second, by
placing labour and laziness, skill and stupidity, and even
vice and virtue on an equality in point of comfort." [55]
--------------------
* See footnote on page 5.
-----
REFERENCES
42. Ibid., p. 194.
43. Ibid., p. 194.
44. Ibid,, p. 194.
45. Ibid., pp. 194-5.
46. Ibid., pp. 209-10.
47. Ibid., p. 214.
48. Kropotkine, "Paroles," p. 333.
49. Kropotkin, "Mutual Aid," p. 215.
50. Ibid., p. 217.
51. Ibid., p. 219.
52. Rudolf Rocker, "Nationalism and Culture," trans. Ray E.
Chase (Los Angeles: Rocker Publications Committee, 1937), p.
92.
53. Ibid., p. 91.
54. Ibid., p. 92.
55. Proudhon, op. cit., pp. 248-51.
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* "Nothing is more to me than myself." *
* -- Max Stirner *
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Ken Knudson: A Critique of Communism and
The Individualist Alternative (serial: 6)
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Editor's Word
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There are three main proponents of egoism known today, Max Stirner,
Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. Each of them has a very distinct
approach to egoism. While Rand has a very conceptual approach, asking
"who is the right beneficiary of a man's action" [1], Stirner takes
an almost opposite path, rejecting any "justification" outside himself,
in that the root of his egoism is to find in the einzige - the unique,
individual person. Nietzsche speaks about a "will to power" of a
thousand little emotional sub-selves that make out the total self,
while for Rand the self is the mind - the intellect - alone. Stirner
is close to the existentialist camp in his focus on the unique choice,
by his focus on the "creative nothing" which creates itself, while
Nietzsche, who believed himself to descend from Polish nobility,
emphasizes "fate" [amor fati] and belonging to the blood one is born
into.
So, we see there are more than enough choices of ones "egoism". Instead
of embracing one alternative and denouncing the other two as the false
- and possibly even evil - egoisms, I will try to explain in general (*)
outlines why I have chosen to emphasize one of them - namely Stirner+s.
Stirner is often described as a nominalist, one to whom concepts and/or
universals have no meaning outside groupings made by observers. I have
an opposite opinion on that: For Stirner, the road to egoism is seen as
going through Idealism, not outside. He recognizes ideals and thoughts,
only does not - surrender to them. Stirners "anti-conceptualism" is to
be found late in his book: "The conceptual question 'what is man?' -
has then changed into the personal question 'who is man?' With 'what'
the concept was sought for, in order to realize it; with 'who' it is no
longer any question at all, but the answer is personally on hand at
once in the asker: the question ansers itself." "... no -concept-
expresses me, nothing that is designated as my essence exhausts me;
they are only names." This is his insistence on his uniqueness as an
individual. An insistence not found equally strong by Nietzsche or by
Rand. Where the latter focusses strongly on abstract "Man" (**), whose
moral characteristics follow from the possession of reason, the former
at times (***) goes as far as negating the individual in his quest for
the "Ubermensch", the super-man, which is supposed to fulfill some
longing to go beyond oneself and beyond the transitory stage of Man: [2]
Man is but a rope over the abyss between the animal and the Ubermensch.
So, Stirner is unique in his emphasis on uniqueness. This is the central
element in Stirner+s thought - the first-person and particular view-
point, the me-outlook, as opposed to the third-person and general view-
point. The third-person, gemeral view-point is for him justified only
insofar as it is grounded in the me-outlook. "Away, then, with every
cause that is not altogether _my_ cause!"
Among the three, Stirner is the only one who makes no claim for anyone
as to how they should live, or what is suitable for their "kind", but
leaves it totally to individual choice. This is why I prefer Stirner.
Svein Olav
[1] The Ayn Rand Lexicon
[2] Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".
(*) {The field is now open: Anyone wanting to express their unique path
to egoism and why it has taken the form it has is invited to write
such an article. If you want, make it an autobiography. Myself, I
plan a more comprehensive article later. This was a start.}
(**){There is an open question of whether, and if so to which degree,
Stirner's criticism of Feuerbach's "Man" is applicable to Rand's
concept of "Man" as in "qua man". Perhaps subject for a later
article.}
(***){Nietzsche is no systematic philosopher, and so one can find
support both for and against egoism in his writing.}
____________________________________________________________________
Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(continued)
REVOLUTION: THE ROAD TO FREEDOM?
"It's true that non-violence has been a dismal failure.
The only bigger failure has been violence."
- Joan Baez
There's an old story about a motorist who stopped a
policeman in downtown Manhattan and asked him how he could
get to the Brooklyn Bridge. The officer looked around,
thought a minute, scratched his head and finally replied,
"I'm sorry, but you can't get there from here. Some
anarchists are now wondering if you can get to the free
society from where we stand today. I must confess that I,
too, harbour some doubts. But if there is a way, it is
incumbent upon all who wish to find that way to carefully
examine the important end-means problem.
"The end justifies the means." Few people would argue
with this trite statement. Certainly all apologists of
government must ultimately fall back on such reasoning to
justify their large police forces and standing armies.
Revolutionary anarchists must also rely on this argument to
justify their authoritarian methods "just one more time",
the revolution being for them "the unfreedom to end
unfreedom." It seems that the only people who reject
outright this article of faith are a handful of (mostly
religious) pacifists. The question I'd like to consider
here is not whether the end JUSTIFIES the means (because I,
too, tend to feel that it does), but rather whether the end
is AFFECTED by the means and, if so, to what extent.
That the end is affected by the means should be
obvious. Whether I obtain your watch by swindling you,
buying it from you, stealing it from you, or soliciting it
as a gift from you makes the same watch "graft", "my
property", "booty", or "a donation." The same can be said
for social change. Even so strong an advocate of violent
revolution as Herbert Marcuse, in one of his rare lapses
into sanity, realised this fact:
"Unless the revolution itself progresses through freedom,
the need for domination and repression would be carried over
into the new society and the fateful separation between the
`immediate' and the `true' interest of the individuals would
be almost inevitable; the individuals would become the
objects of their own liberation, and freedom would be a
matter of administration and decree. Progress would be
progressive repression, and the `delay' in freedom would
threaten to become self-propelling and self-perpetuating."
[56]
- 25 -
But despite the truth of Marcuse's observation, we still
find many anarchists looking for a shortcut to freedom by
means of violent revolution. The idea that anarchism can be
inaugurated by violence is as fallacious as the idea that it
can be sustained by violence. The best that can be said for
violence is that it may, in rare circumstances, be used as
an expedient to save us from extinction. But the
individualist's rejection of violence (except in cases of
self-defence) is not due to any lofty pacifist principles;
it's a matter of pure pragmatism: we realise that violence
just simply does not work.
The task of anarchism, as the individualist sees it, is
not to destroy the state, but rather to destroy the MYTH of
the state. Once people realise that they no longer need the
state, it will - in the words of Frederick Engels -
inevitably "wither away" ("Anti-Duehring", 1877) and be
consigned to the "Museum of Antiquities, by the side of the
spinning wheel and the bronze axe" ("Origin of the Family,
Private Property and the State", 1884). But unless
anarchists can create a general and well-grounded disbelief
in the state as an INSTITUTION, the existing state might be
destroyed by violent revolution or it might fall through its
own rottenness, but another would inevitably rise in its
place. And why shouldn't it? As long as people believe the
state to be necessary (even a "necessary evil", as Thomas
Paine said), the state will always exist.
We have already seen how Kropotkin would usher in the
millennium by the complete expropriation of all property.
"We must see clearly in private property what it really is,
a conscious or unconscious robbery of the substance of all,
and seize it joyfully for the common benefit." [57] He
cheerfully goes on to say, "The instinct of destruction, so
natural and so just...will find ample room for
satisfaction." [58] Kropotkin's modern-day heirs are no
different. Noam Chomsky, writing in the "New York Review of
Books" and reprinted in a recent issue of "Anarchy",
applauds the heroism of the Paris Commune of 1871,
mentioning only in passing that "the Commune, of course [!],
was drowned in blood." [59] Later in the same article he
writes, "What is far more important is that these ideas
[direct workers' control] have been realised in spontaneous
revolutionary action, for example in Germany and Italy after
World War I and in Spain (specifically, industrial
Barcelona) in 1936." [60] What Chomsky apparently finds
relatively UNimportant are the million-odd corpses which
were the direct result of these "spontaneous revolutionary
actions." He also somehow manages to ignore the fact that
the three countries he mentions - Germany, Italy and Spain -
were without exception victims of fascism within a few years
- 26 -
of these glorious revolutions. One doesn't need a great deal
of insight to be able to draw a parallel between these
"spontaneous" actions with their reactionary aftermaths and
the spontaneous "trashings" which are currently in fashion
in the United States. But it seems the Weathermen really DO
"need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." [61]
The question of how to attain the anarchist society has
divided anarchists nearly as much as the question of what
the anarchist society actually is. While Bakunin insisted on
the necessity of "bloody revolutions" [62], Proudhon
believed that violence was unnecessary - saying instead that
"reason will serve us better." [63] The same discord was
echoed on the other side of the Atlantic some decades later
when, in the wake of the infamous Haymarket bombing, the
issue of violence came to a head. Benjamin Tucker, writing
in the columns of "Liberty", had this to say about
accusations leveled against him by Johann Most, the
communist-anarchist editor of "Freiheit":
"It makes very little difference to Herr Most what a man
believes in economics. The test of fellowship with him lies
in acceptance of dynamite as a cure-all. Though I should
prove that my economic views, if realised, would turn our
social system inside out, he would not therefore regard me
as a revolutionist. He declares outright that I am no
revolutionist, because the thought of the coming revolution
(by dynamite, he means) makes my flesh creep. Well, I
frankly confess that I take no pleasure in the thought of
bloodshed and mutilation and death. At these things my
feelings revolt. And if delight in them is a requisite of a
revolutionist, then indeed I am no revolutionist. When
revolutionist and cannibal become synonyms, count me out, if
you please. But, though my feelings revolt, I am not
mastered by them or made a coward by them. More than from
dynamite and blood do I shrink from the thought of a
permanent system of society involving the slow starvation of
the most industrious and deserving of its members. If I
should ever become convinced that the policy of bloodshed is
necessary to end our social system, the loudest of today's
shriekers for blood would not surpass me in the stoicism
with which I would face the inevitable. Indeed, a plumb-
liner to the last, I am confident that under such
circumstances many who now think me chicken-hearted would
condemn the stony-heartedness with which I should favour the
utter sacrifice of every feeling of pity to the necessities
of the terroristic policy. Neither fear nor sentimentalism,
then, dictates my opposition to forcible methods. Such being
the case, how stupid, how unfair, in Herr Most, to picture
me as crossing myself at the mention of the word revolution
simply because I steadfastly act on my well-known belief
- 27 -
that force cannot substitute truth for a lie in political
economy!" [64]
It is this issue of economics which generally sorts
anarchists into the violent and non-violent wings of
anarchism. Individualists, by and large, are pacifists in
practice (if not in theory), whereas the communists tend
toward violent revolution.* Why is this so? One reason I
think is that individualists are more concerned with
changing the conditions which directly affect their lives
than they are with reforming the whole world "for the good
of all." The communists, on the other hand, have a more
evangelical spirit. Like all good missionaries, they are out
to convert the unbeliever - whether he likes it or not. And
inevitably this leads to violence. Another reason communists
are more prone to violence than individualists can be found,
I think, in looking at the nature of the force each is
willing to use to secure and sustain his respective system.
Individualists believe that the only justifiable force is
force used in preventing invasion (i.e. defensive force).
Communists, however, would compel the worker to pool his
products with the products of others and forbid him to sell
his labour or the products of his labour. To "compel" and
"forbid" requires the use of offensive force. It is no
wonder, then, that most communists advocate violence to
achieve their objectives.
If freedom is really what we anarchists crack it up to
be, it shouldn't be necessary to force it down the throat of
anyone. What an absurdity! Even so superficial a writer as
Agatha Christie recognised that "if it is not possible to go
back [from freedom], or to choose to go back, then it is not
freedom." [66] A. J. Muste used to say that "there is no way
to peace - peace IS the way." The same thing is true about
freedom: the only way to freedom is BY freedom. This
statement is so nearly tautological that it should not need
saying. The only way to realise anarchy is for a sufficient
number of people to be convinced that their own interests
demand it. Human society does not run on idealism - it runs
on pragmatism. And unless people can be made to realise that
anarchy actually works for THEIR benefit, it will remain
--------------------
* There are exceptions of course. It is hard to imagine
a more dedicated pacifist than Tolstoy, for example. On the
other side of the coin is Stirner, who quotes with near
relish the French Revolutionary slogan "the world will have
no rest till the last king is hanged with the guts of the
last priest." [65]
- 28 -
what it is today: an idle pipe dream; "a nice theory, but
unrealistic." It is the anarchist's job to convince people
otherwise.
Herbert Spencer - the great evolutionist of whom Darwin
said, "He is about a dozen times my superior" - observed the
following fact of nature:
"Metamorphosis is the universal law, exemplified throughout
the Heavens and on the Earth: especially throughout the
organic world; and above all in the animal division of it.
No creature, save the simplest and most minute, commences
its existence in a form like that which it eventually
assumes; and in most cases the unlikeness is great - so
great that kinship between the first and the last forms
would be incredible were it not daily demonstrated in every
poultry-yard and every garden. More than this is true. The
changes of form are often several: each of them being an
apparently complete transformation - egg, larva, pupa,
imago, for example ... No one of them ends as it begins; and
the difference between its original structure and its
ultimate structure is such that, at the outset change of the
one into the other would have seemed incredible." [67]
This universal law of metamorphosis holds not only for
biology, but for society as well. Modern-day Christianity
resembles the early Christian church about as much as a
butterfly resembles a caterpillar. Thomas Jefferson would
have been horrified if he could have foreseen the
"government by the consent of the governed" which today is
the hereditary heir of his Declaration of Independence.
French revolutionaries took turns beheading one another
until that great believer in "les droits de l'homme",
Napoleon Bonaparte, came upon the scene to secure "liberte,
egalite, fraternite" for all. And wasn't it comrade Stalin
who in 1906 so confidently forecast the nature of the coming
revolution?: "The dictatorship of the proletariat will be a
dictatorship of the entire proletariat as a class over the
bourgeoisie and not the domination of a few individuals over
the proletariat." [68] The examples of these ugly duckling
stories in reverse are endless. For as Robert Burns wrote
nearly two centuries ago:
"The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley;
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain
For promis'd joy." [69]
-----
REFERENCES
56. Herbert Marcuse, "Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the
Rise of Social Theory" (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
Ltd., 1967), p. 435. This quotation was taken from the
supplementary chapter written in 1954. The original book was
first published by Oxford University Press in 1941.
57. Kropotkine, Paroles, p. 341.
58. Ibid., p. 342.
59. Noam Chomsky, "Notes on Anarchism," "Anarchy 116,"
October, 1970, p. 316.
60. Ibid., p. 318.
61. Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues," 1965.
62. Eltzbacher, op. cit., p. 89.
63. Ibid., p. 57.
64. Benjamin R. Tucker, "Instead of a Book (By a Man Too
Busy to Write One)" (New York: Benj. R. Tucker, 1897), p.
401. Reprinted from "Liberty," May 12, 1888.
65. Max Stirner (Johann Kaspar Schmidt), "The Ego and His
Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority," trans.
Steven T. Byington (New York: Libertarian Book Club, 1963),
p. 298. "Der Einzige und sein Eigentum" was written in 1844
and translated into English in 1907, when it was published
in New York by Benj. Tucker.
66. Agatha Christie, "Destination Unknown" (London: Fontana
Books), p. 98.
67. Spencer, op, cit., pp. 323-4.
68. Stalin, op. cit., p. 97.
69. Robert Burns, "To a Mouse," 1785, stanza 7.
____________________________________________________________________
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* "Whoever is a complete person does not need - to be an authority!" *
* From +The False Principle of Our Education+ *
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Contents: Editor's Word
Sidney Parker: "Archists, Anarchists and Egoists"
Ken Knudson: A Critique of Communism and
The Individualist Alternative (serial: 7)
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Editor's Word
_____________
Sidney Parker is the editor of the Stirnerite magazine "Ego", and is
the author of the below article on "Archists, Anarchists and Egoists".
This article will be the first in a series of articles sent to me by
Sidney Parker that I will reprint here. They have previously appeared
in the (out of print) magazine "Ego"/"The Egoist".
Svein Olav
____________________________________________________________________
Sidney Parker:
Archists, Anarchists and Egoists
--------------------------------
"I am an anarchist! Wherefore I will not rule
And also ruled I will not be."
-- John Henry Mackay
"What I get by force I get by force, and what
I do not get by force I have no right to."
-- Max Stirner
In his book MAX STIRNER'S EGOISM John P. Clark claims that Stirner
is an anarchist, but that his anarchism is "greatly inadequate". This
is because "he opposes domination of the ego by the State, but he
advises people to seek to dominate others in any other way they can
manage...Stirner, for all his opposition to the State...still exalts
the will to dominate."
Clark's criticism springs from his definition of anarchism as
opposition to "domination" in all its forms "not only domination of
subjects by political rulers, but domination of races by other races,
of females by males, of the young by the old, of the weak by the
strong, and not least of all, the domination of nature by humans."
In view of the comprehensiveness of his definition it is odd that
Clark still sees Stirner's philosophy as a type of anarchism - albeit
a "greatly inadequate" one. He is quite correct in stating that the
_leitmotif_ of _theoretical_ anarchism is opposition to domination
and that, despite his anti-Statist sentiments, Stirner has no
_principled_ objection to domination. Indeed, he writes "I know that
my freedom is diminished even by my not being able to carry out my
will on another object, be this something without will, like a
government, an individual etc."
Is conscious egoism, therefore, compatible with anarchism? There is
no doubt that it is possible to formulate a concept of anarchism that
is ostensibly egoistic. For many years I tried to do this and I know
of several individuals who still claim to be anarchists because they
are egoists. The problem, however, is that anarchism as a _theory_ of
non-domination demands that individuals refrain from dominating
others _even_if_they_could_gain_greater_satisfaction_from_dominating_
_than_from_not_dominating_. To allow domination would be to deny
anarchism. In other words, the "freedom" of the anarchist is yet
another yoke placed around the neck of the individual in the name of
yet another conceptual imperative.
The question was answered at some length by Dora Marsden in two
essays that appeared in her review for THE EGOIST September 12, 1914
and February 1, 1915. The first was entitled THE ILLUSION OF
ANARCHISM; the second SOME CRITICS ANSWERED.
Some months before the appearance of her first essay on anarchism
Marsden had been engaged in a controversy with the redoubtable
Benjamin Tucker in which she had defended what she called "egoist
anarchism" against what she saw as the "clerico-libertarianism" of
Tucker. At the premature end of the controversy Tucker denounced her
as an "egoist and archist," to which she rep+lied that she was quite
willing to "not - according to Mr Tucker - be called 'Anarchist'" but
responded readily to "Egoist".
In the interval between the end of the controversy and the
publication of her first essay she had evidently given considerable
thought to the relation of egoism to anarchism and had decided that
the latter was something in which she could no longer believe. The
gist of her new position was as follows:
Every form of life is archistic. "An archist is one who seeks to
establish, maintain, and protect by the strongest weapons at his
disposal, the law of his own interest." All growing life-forms are
aggressive: "aggressive is what growing means. Each fights for its
own place, and to enlarge it, and enlarging it is a growth. And
because life-forms are gregarious there are myriads of claims to lay
exclusive hold on any place. The claimants are myriad: bird, beast,
plant, insect, vermin - each will assert its sole claim to any place
as long as it is permitted: as witness the pugnacity of gnat, weed,
and flea, the scant ceremony of the housewife's broom, the axe which
makes a clearing, the scythe, the fisherman's net, the slaughter-
house bludgeon: all assertions of aggressive interest promptly
countered by more powerful interests! The world falls to him who can
take it, if instinctive action can tell us anything."
It is this aggressive 'territoriality' that motivates domination.
"The living unit is an organism of embodied wants; and a want is a
term which indicates an apprehension of the existence of barriers -
conditions easy or hard - which lie between the 'setting onwards' and
the 'arrival', i.e. the satisfaction. Thus every want has two sides,
obverse and reverse, of which the one would read the 'not yet
dominated', and the other 'progressive domination'. The two sides
grow at the expense of each other. The co-existence of the
consciousness of a lacking satisfaction, with the corresponding and
inevitable 'instinct to dominate', that which prolongs the lack, are
features which characterize 'life'. Bridging the interval between the
want and its satisfaction is the exercising of the 'instinct to
dominate' - obstructing conditions. The distinction between the
lifeless and the living is comprised under an inability to be other
than a victim to conditions. That of which the latter can be said,
possesses life; that of which the former, is inanimate. It is to this
doministic instinct to which we have applied the label archistic."
Of course, this exercising of the doministic instinct does not
result in every life-form becoming dominant. Power being naturally
unequal the struggle for predominance usually settles down into a
condition in which the less powerful end up being dominated by the
more powerful. Indeed, many of the less powerful satisfy the instinct
to dominate by identifying themselves with those who actually do
dominate: "the great lord can always count on having doorkeepers in
abundance."
Marsden argues that anarchists are among those who, like
Christians, seek to muzzle the doministic tendency by urging us to
renounce our desires to dominate. Their purpose "is to make men
willing to assert that though they are born and inclined archists
they _ought_ to be anarchists." Faced with "this colossal encounter
of interest, i.e. of lives...the anarchist breaks in with his 'Thus
far and no further'" and "introduces his 'law' of 'the inviolability
of individual liberty'." The anarchist is thus a _principled_
_embargoist_ who sees in domination the evil of evils. "'It is the
first article of my faith that archistic encroachments upon the
'free' activity of Men are not compatible with the respect due to the
dignity of Man as Man. The ideal of Humanity forbids the domination
of one man by his fellows'....This humanitarian embargo is an
Absolute: a procedure of which the observance is Good-in-itself. The
government of Man by Man is wrong: the respect of an embargo
constitutes Right."
The irony is, that in the process of seeking to establish this
condition of non-domination called anarchy, the anarchist would be
compelled to turn to a sanction that is but another form of
domination. In the _theoretical_ society of the anarchist they would
have to resort to the intra-individual domination of _conscience_ in
order to prevent the inter-individual domination that characterizes
political government. In the end, therefore, anarchism boils down to
a species of "clerico-libertarianism" and is the gloss covering the
wishes of "a unit possessed of the instinct to dominate - even his
fellow-men."
Not only this, but faced with the _practical_ problems of achieving
the "Free Society", the anarchist fantasy would melt away before the
realities of power. "'The State is fallen, long live the State' - the
furthest going revolutionary anarchist cannot get away from this. On
the morrow of his successful revolution he would need to set about
finding means to protect his 'anarchistic' notions: and would find
himself protecting his own interests with all the powers he could
command, like an archist: formulating his laws and maintaining his
State, until some franker archist arrived to displace and supersede
him."
Nonetheless, having abandoned anarchism Marsden has no intention of
returning to an acceptance of the _authority_ of the State and its
laws for this would be to confuse "an attitude which refused to hold
laws and interests sacred (i.e. whole unquestioned, untouched) and
that which refuses to respect the existence of forces, of which Laws
are merely the outward visible index. It is a very general error, but
the anarchist is especially the victim of it: the greater
intelligence of the archist will understand that though laws
considered as sacred are foolishness, respect for any and every law
is due for just the amount of retaliatory force there may be involved
in it, if it be flouted. Respect for 'sanctity' and respect for
'power' stand at opposite poles, the respecter of the one is the
verbalist, of the other - the archist: the egoist."
I agree with Dora Marsden. Anarchism is a redemptionist secular
religion concerned to purge the world of the sin of political govern-
ment. Its adherents envisage a "free society" in which all archistic
acts are forbidden. Cleansed of the evil of domination "mankind" will
live, so they say, in freedom and harmony and our present
"oppressions" will be confined to the pages of history books. When,
therefore, Marsden writes that "anarchists are not separated in any
way from kinship with the devout. They belong to the Christian Church
and should be recognized as Christianity's picked children" she is
not being merely frivolous. Anarchism is a _theory_ of an ideal
society - whether communist, mutualist, or individualist, matters
little in this respect - of necessity must demand _renunciation_ of
domination both in means and ends. That in _practice_ it would
necessitate another form of domination for its operation is a
contradiction not unknown in other religions - which in no way alter
their essence.
The conscious egoist, in contrast, is not bound by any demand for
renunciation of domination and if it is within his competence he will
dominate others _if_this_is_in_his_interest_. That anarchism and
egoism are not equivalent is admitted, albeit unwillingly, by the
well-known American anarchist John Beverley Robinson - who depicted
an anarchist society in the most lachrymous terms in his REBUILDING
THE WORLD - in his succinct essay EGOISM. Throwing anarchist
principles overboard he writes of the egoist that "if the State does
things that benefit him, he will support it; if it attacks him and
encroaches on his liberty, he will evade it by any means in his
power, if he is not strong enough to withstand it." Again, "if the
law happens to be to his advantage, he will avail himself of it; if
it invades his liberty he will transgress it as far as he thinks it
wise to do so. But he has no regard for it as a thing supernal."
Robinson thus denies the validity of the anarchist principle of
non-domination, since the existence of the State and its laws
necessitates the existence of a permanent apparatus of repression.
If I make use of them for my advantage, then I invoke their
repressive power against anyone who stands opposed to what I want. In
other words, I make use of an _archistic_ action to gain my end.
Egoism, _conscious_ egoism, seen for what it is instead of being
pressed into the service of a utopian ideology, has nothing to do
with what Marsden well-called "clerico-libertarianism". It means, as
she put it in her controversy with Tucker, "....a tub for Diogenes; a
continent for Napoleon; control of a Trust for Rockefeller; all that
I desire for me: _if_we_can_get_them_." It is not based upon any
fantasy for its champions are well aware of the vital difference
between "if I want something I ought to get it" and "being competent
to achieve what I want". The egoist lives among the realities of
power in the world of archists, not among the myths of the renouncers
in the dream world of anarchists.
____________________________________________________________________
Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(continued)
Why is it that Utopian dreams have a habit of turning
into nightmares in practice? Very simply because people
don't act the way the would-be architects of society would
have them act. The mythical man never measures up to the
real man. This point was brought home forcefully in a recent
letter to "Freedom" by S. E. Parker who observed that our
modern visionaries are bound for disappointment because they
are "trying to deduce an `is' from an `ought'." [70] Paper
constitutions might work all right in a society of paper
dolls, but they can only bring smiles to those who have
observed their results in the real world. The same is true
of paper revolutions which invariably have to go back to the
drawing board once the reign of terror sets in. And if
communist-anarchists think that their paper social systems
are exempt from this, how do they explain the presence of
anarchist "leaders" in high government positions during the
Spanish Civil War?
Hasn't everyone been surprised at sometime or other
with the behaviour of people they thought they knew well?
Perhaps a relative or a good friend does something "totally
out of character." We can never completely know even those
people closest to us, let alone total strangers. How are we,
then, to comprehend and predict the behaviour of complex
groups of people? To make assumptions about how people must
and will act under a hypothetical social system is idle
conjecture. We know from daily experience that men don't act
as they "ought" to act or think as they "ought" to think.
Why should things be any different after the revolution? Yet
we still find an abundance of revolutionaries willing to
kill and be killed for a cause which more likely than not,
if realised, would bear no recognizable resemblance to what
they were fighting for. This reason alone should be
sufficient to give these people second thoughts about their
methods. But apparently they are too carried away by the
violence of their own rhetoric to be bothered with where it
will lead them.*
There is but one effective way to rid ourselves of the
oppressive power of the state. It is not to shoot it to
death; it is not to vote it to death; it is not even to
persuade it to death. It is rather to starve it to death.
--------------------
* I am reminded here of a Herblock cartoon which came
out during the Johnson-Goldwater presidential campaign of
1964. It pictures Goldwater standing in the rubble of a
nuclear war and proclaiming, "But that's not what I meant!"
I wonder if the Utopia which our idealists intend to usher
in by violent revolution will be what they really "meant"?
- 30 -
Power feeds on its spoils, and dies when its victims refuse
to be despoiled. There is much truth in the well- known
pacifist slogan, "Wars will cease when people refuse to
fight." This slogan can be generalised to say that
"government will cease when people refuse to be governed."
As Tucker put it, "There is not a tyrant in the civilised
world today who would not do anything in his power to
precipitate a bloody revolution rather than see himself
confronted by any large fraction of his subjects determined
not to obey. An insurrection is easily quelled; but no army
is willing or able to train its guns on inoffensive people
who do not even gather in the streets but stay at home and
stand back on their rights." [71]
A particularly effective weapon could be massive tax
refusal. If (say) one-fifth of the population of the United
States refused to pay their taxes, the government would be
impaled on the horns of a dilemma. Should they ignore the
problem, it would only get worse - for who is going to
willingly contribute to the government's coffers when his
neighbours are getting away scotfree? Or should they opt to
prosecute, the burden just to feed and guard so many
"parasites" - not to mention the lose of revenue - would be
so great that the other four-fifths of the population would
soon rebel. But in order to succeed, this type of action
would require massive numbers. Isolated tax refusal - like
isolated draft refusal - is a useless waste of resources. It
is like trying to purify the salty ocean by dumping a cup of
distilled water into it. The individualist-anarchist would
no more advocate such sacrificial offerings than the violent
revolutionary would advocate walking into his neighbourhood
police station and "offing the pig." As he would tell you,
"It is not wise warfare to throw your ammunition to the
enemy unless you throw it from the cannon's mouth." Tucker
agrees. Replying to a critic who felt otherwise he said,
"Placed in a situation where, from the choice of one or the
other horn of a dilemma, it must follow either that fools
will think a man a coward or that wise men will think him a
fool, I can conceive of no possible ground for hesitancy in
the selection." [72]
There is a tendency among anarchists these days -
particularly in the United States - to talk about
"alternatives" and "parallel institutions". This is a
healthy sign which individualists very much encourage. The
best argument one can possibly present against "the system"
is to DEMONSTRATE a better one. Some communist-anarchists
(let it be said to their credit) are now trying to do just
that. Communal farms, schools, etc. have been sprouting up
all over the States. Individualists, of course, welcome
these experiments - especially where they fulfill the needs
- 31 -
of those involved and contribute to their happiness. But we
can't help questioning the over-all futility of such social
landscape gardening. The vast majority of these experiments
collapse in dismal failure within the first year or two,
proving nothing but the difficulty of communal living. And
should an isolated community manage to survive, their
success could not be judged as conclusive since it would be
said that their principles were applicable only to people
well-nigh perfect. They might well be considered as the
exceptions which proved the rule. If anarchy is to succeed
to any appreciable extent, it has to be brought within the
reach of everyone. I'm afraid that tepees in New Mexico
don't satisfy that criterion.
The parallel institution I would like to see tried
would be something called a "mutual bank."* The beauty of
this proposal is that it can be carried out under the very
nose of the man-in-the-street. I would hope that in this
way people could see for themselves the practical advantages
it has to offer them, and ultimately accept the plan as
their own. I'm well aware that this scheme, like any other,
is subject to the law of metamorphosis referred to earlier.
But should this plan fail, unlike those plans which require
bloody revolutions for their implementation, the only thing
hurt would be the pride of a few hair-brained
individualists.
--------------------
* The reader can judge for himself the merits of this
plan when I examine it in some detail later on in this
article.
-----
REFERENCES
70. S. E. Parker, "Letters", "Freedom," February 27, 1971.
71. Tucker, "Instead of a Book," p. 413. Reprinted from
"Liberty," October 4, 1884.
72. Tucker, "Instead of a Book," p. 422. Reprinted from
"Liberty," June 23, 1888.
____________________________________________________________________
*************************************************************************
* *
* "Human rights and wrongs are not determined by Justice, but by Might" *
* -- Ragnar Redbeard *
* *
* "Everyone who would be free must show his power" -- Ibid *
* *
*************************************************************************
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Contents: Editor's Word
Ken Knudson: A Critique of Communism and
The Individualist Alternative (serial: 8)
***********************************************************************
Editor's Word
_____________
In this issue, Ken's article comes on its own. Todays chapter is an
exposition of his ideas on egoism, viewed from a political point of
view. Nothing more needs to be said. Enjoy!
Svein Olav
____________________________________________________________________
Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(continued)
EGOISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM
"Many a year I've used my nose
To smell the onion and the rose;
Is there any proof which shows
That I've a right to that same nose?"
- Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller
The philosophy of individualist-anarchism is "egoism."
It is not my purpose here to give a detailed account of this
philosophy, but I would like to explode a few of the more
common myths about egoism and present to the reader enough
of its essence so that he may understand more clearly the
section on individualist economics. I am tempted here to
quote long extracts from "The Ego and His Own," for it was
this book which first presented the egoist philosophy in a
systematic way. Unfortunately, I find that Stirner's
"unique" style does not readily lend itself to quotation.
So what I have done in the following pages is to dress up
Stirner's ideas in a language largely my own.
Voltaire once said, "If God did not exist, it would be
necessary to invent him." Bakunin wisely retorted, "If God
DID exist, it would be necessary to abolish him."
Unfortunately, Bakunin would only abolish God. It is the
egoist's intention to abolish GODS. It is clear from
Bakunin's writings that what he meant by God was what
Voltaire meant - namely the religious God. The egoist sees
many more gods than that - in fact, as many as there are
fixed ideas. Bakunin's gods, for example, include the god
of humanity, the god of brotherhood, the god of mankind -
all variants on the god of altruism. The egoist, in
striking down ALL gods, looks only to his WILL. He
recognises no legitimate power over himself.* The world is
there for him to consume - if he CAN. And he can if he has
the power. For the egoist, the only right is the right of
might. He accepts no "inalienable rights," for such rights -
by virtue of the fact that they're inalienable - must come
from a higher power, some god. The American Declaration of
--------------------
* He does not, of course, claim to be omnipotent. There
ARE external powers over him. The difference between the
egoist and non-egoist in this regard is therefore one mainly
of attitude: the egoist recognises external power as an
enemy and consciously fights against it, while the non-
egoist humbles himself before it and often accepts it as a
friend.
- 33 -
Independence, for example, in proclaiming these rights found
it necessary to invoke the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's
God." The same was true of the French Revolutionary
"Declaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen."
The egoist recognises no right - or what amounts to the
same thing - claims ALL rights for himself. What he can get
by force he has a right to; and what he can't, he has no
right. He demands no rights, nor does he recognise them in
others. "Right - is a wheel in the head, put there by a
spook," [73] says Stirner. Right is also the spook which has
kept men servile throughout the ages. The believer in rights
has always been his own jailer. What sovereign could last
the day out without a general belief in the "divine right of
kings"? And where would Messrs. Nixon, Heath, et. al. be
today without the "right" of the majority?
Men make their tyrants as they make their gods. The
tyrant is a man like any other. His power comes from the
abdicated power of his subjects. If people believe a man to
have superhuman powers, they automatically GIVE him those
powers by default. Had Hitler's pants fallen down during one
of his ranting speeches, the whole course of history might
have been different. For who can respect a naked Fuehrer?
And who knows? The beginning of the end of Lyndon Johnson's
political career might well have been when he showed his
operation scar on coast-to-coast television for the whole
wide world to see that he really was a man after all. This
sentiment was expressed by Stirner when he said, "Idols
exist through me; I need only refrain from creating them
anew, then they exist no longer: `higher powers' exist only
through my exalting them and abasing myself. Consequently
my relation to the world is this: I no longer do anything
for it `for God's sake,' I do nothing `for man's sake,' but
what I do I do `for my sake'." [74] The one thing that makes
a man different from any other living creature is his power
to reason. It is by this power that man can (and does)
dominate over the world. Without reason man would be a
pathetic non-entity - evolution having taken care of him
long before the dinosaur. Now some people say that man is
by nature a social animal, something like an ant or a bee.
Egoists don't deny the sociability of man, but what we do
say is that man is sociable to the extent that it serves his
own self-interest. Basically man is (by nature, if you will)
- 34 -
a selfish being. The evidence for this is overwhelming.* Let
us look at a hive of bees to see what would happen if
"reason" were suddenly introduced into their lives:
"In the first place, the bees would not fail to try
some new industrial process; for instance, that of making
their cells round or square. All sorts of systems and
inventions would be tried, until long experience, aided by
geometry, should show them that the hexagonal shape is the
best. Then insurrections would occur. The drones would be
told to provide for themselves, and the queens to labour;
jealousy would spread among the labourers; discords would
burst forth; soon each one would want to produce on his own
account; and finally the hive would be abandoned, and the
bees would perish. Evil would be introduced into the honey-
producing republic by the power of reflection, - the very
faculty which ought to constitute its glory." [75]
So it would appear to me that reason would militate
against blind, selfless cooperation. But by the same token,
reason leads to cooperation which is mutually beneficial to
all parties concerned. Such cooperation is what Stirner
called a "union of egoists." [76] This binding together is
not done through any innate social instinct, but rather as a
matter of individual convenience. These unions would
probably take the form of contracting individuals. The
object of these contracts not being to enable all to benefit
equally from their union (although this isn't ruled out, the
egoist thinks it highly unlikely), but rather to protect one
another from invasion and to secure to each contracting
individual what is mutually agreed upon to be "his."
By referring to a man's selfishness, you know where you
stand. Nothing is done "for free." Equity demands
reciprocity. Goods and services are exchanged for goods and
services or (what is equivalent) bought. This may sound
"heartless" - but what is the alternative? If one depends on
kindness, pity or love the services and goods one gets
become "charity." The receiver is put in the position of a
beggar, offering nothing in return for each "present." If
you've ever been on the dole, or know anyone who has, you
will know that the receiver of such gifts is anything but
gracious. He is stripped of his manhood and he resents it.
Now the egoist isn't (usually) so cold and cruel as this
--------------------
* Many people cite trade unions as a "proof" of man's
solidarity and sociability. Just the opposite is true. Why
else do people strike if not for their own "selfish" ends,
e.g. higher wages, better working conditions, shorter hours?
- 35 -
description makes him out to be. As often as not he is as
charitable and kind as his altruist neighbour. But he
CHOOSES the objects of his kindness; he objects to
COMPULSORY "love." What an absurdity! If love were
universal, it would have no meaning. If I should tell my
wife that I love her because I love humanity, I would be
insulting her. I love her not because she happens to be a
member of the human race, but rather for what she is to me.
For me she is something special: she possesses certain
qualities which I admire and which make me happy. If she is
unhappy, I suffer, and therefore I try to comfort her and
cheer her up - for MY sake. Such love is a selfish love. But
it is the only REAL love. Anything else is an infatuation
with an image, a ghost. As Stirner said of his loved ones,
"I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them
because love makes ME happy, I love because loving is
natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no `commandment
of love'." [77]
The lover of "humanity" is bewitched by a superstition.
He has dethroned God, only to accept the reign of the holy
trinity: Morality, Conscience and Duty. He becomes a "true
believer" - a religious man. No longer believing in himself,
he becomes a slave to Man. Then, like all religious men, he
is overcome with feelings of "right" and "virtue." He
becomes a soldier in the service of humanity whose
intolerance of heretics rivals that of the most righteous
religious fanatic. Most of the misery in the world today (as
in the past) is directly attributable to men acting "for the
common good." The individual is nothing; the mass all.
The egoist would reverse this situation. Instead of
everyone looking after the welfare of everyone else, each
would look after his own welfare. This would, in one fell
swoop, do away with the incredibly complicated, wasteful and
tyrannical machinery (alluded to previously) necessary to
see to it that not only everyone got his fair share of the
communal pie, but that everyone contributed fairly to its
production. In its stead we egoists raise the banner of free
competition: "the war of all against all" as the communists
put it. But wouldn't that lead to (dare I say it) ANARCHY?
Of course it would. What anarchist would deny the logical
consequences of the principles he advocates? But let's see
what this "anarchy" would be like.
The egoist believes that the relationships between men
who are alive to their own individual interests would be far
more just and equitable than they are now. Take the
property question for example. Today there is a great
disparity of income. Americans make up about 7% of the
world's population, but they control over half of its
- 36 -
wealth. And among the Americans, nearly one quarter of the
wealth is owned by 5% of the people.* [78] Such unequal
distribution of wealth is due primarily to the LEGAL
institution of property. Without the state to back up legal
privilege and without the people's acquiescence to the
privileged minority's legal right to that property, these
disparities would soon disappear. For what makes the rich
man rich and the poor man poor if not the latter GIVING the
former the product of his labour?
Stirner is commonly thought to have concerned himself
little with the economic consequences of his philosophy. It
is true that he avoided elaborating on the exact nature of
his "union of egoists," saying that the only way of knowing
what a slave will do when he breaks his chains is to wait
and see. But to say that Stirner was oblivious to economics
is just not so. On the contrary. It was he, after all, who
translated into German both Adam Smith's classic "An Inquiry
into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" and
Jean Baptiste Say's pioneering work on the free market
economy, "Traite d'Economie Politique." The few pages he
devotes to economics in "The Ego and His Own" are among his
best:
"If we assume that, as ORDER belongs to the essence of the
State, so SUBORDINATION too is founded in its nature, then
we see that the subordinates, or those who have received
preferment, disproportionately OVERCHARGE and OVERREACH
those who are put in the lower ranks....By what then is your
property secure, you creatures of preferment?...By our
refraining from interference! And so by OUR protection! And
what do you give us for it? Kicks and disdain you give to
the `common people'; police supervision, and a catechism
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.'...What equivalent do you give for our chewing
potatoes and looking calmly on while you swallow oysters?
Only buy 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?...Let us consider our nearer property, labour...We
distress ourselves twelve hours in the sweat of our face,
--------------------
* Contrary to popular belief, this gulf is getting
larger. Since 1966, despite a constantly mushrooming GNP,
the American factory workers' REAL wages (as opposed to his
apparent, inflationary wages) have actually declined. [79]
- 37 -
and you offer us a few pennies for it. Then take the like
for your labour too. Are you not willing? You fancy that our
labour is richly repaid with that wage, while yours on the
other hand is worth a wage of many thousands. But, if you
did not rate yours so high, and gave us a better chance to
realise value from ours, then we might well, if the case
demanded it, bring to pass still more important things than
you do for the many thousand pounds; and, if you 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 a hundred times more than our own
labour, why, then you shall get a hundred times more for it
too; we, on the other hand, think also to produce for you
things for which you will requite us 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 needs to - PRESENT anything
to the other....We want nothing presented by you, but
neither will we present you with anything. For centuries we
have handed alms to you from good-hearted - stupidity, have
doled out the mite of the poor and given to the masters the
things that are - not the masters'; now just open your
wallet, for henceforth our ware rises in price quite
enormously. 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 plowman, and will henceforth
attend to your fields only for a full day's wages. `Then
I'll take another.' You won't find any, for we plowmen are
no longer doing otherwise, and, if one puts in an 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 it is 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 wherewith 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 hire out under rates, that you may have a good
living? The rich man always puts off the poor with the
words, `What does your 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 let the means that we have to realise value from
ourselves 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....`O ill-starred equality!'
No, my good old sir, nothing of equality. We only want to
- 38 -
count 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 think to show ourselves worth the price that
you will pay." [80]
Fifty years later Benjamin Tucker took over where
Stirner left off:
"The minute you remove privilege, the class that now enjoy
it will be forced to sell their labour, and then, when there
will be nothing but labour with which to buy labour, the
distinction between wage-payers and wage-receivers will be
wiped out, and every man will be a labourer exchanging with
fellow-labourers. Not to abolish wages, but to make EVERY
man dependent upon wages and secure to every man his WHOLE
wages is the aim of Anarchistic Socialism. What Anarchistic
Socialism aims to abolish is usury. It does not want to
deprive labour of its reward; it wants to deprive capital of
its reward. It does not hold that labour should not be sold;
it holds that capital should not be hired at usury." [81]
Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his second inaugural
address that "We have always known that heedless self-
interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad
economics." I've tried to show in this section that self-
interest is "good morals." I now intend to show that it is
also good economics.
-----
REFERENCES
73. Stirner, op. cit., p. 210.
74. Ibid., p. 319.
75. Proudhon, op. cit., pp. 243-4.
76. Stirner, op. cit., p. 179.
77. Ibid., p. 291.
78. "At the Summit of the Affluent U.S. Society," "The
International Herald Tribune." March 19, 1971, p. 1.
79. "Newsweek," February 1, 1971 , p. 44.
80. Stirner, op. cit., pp. 270-2.
81. Tucker, "Instead of a Book," p. 404. Reprinted from
"Liberty," April 28, 1888.
____________________________________________________________________
***********************************************************************
* EGOTIST, n.: *
* A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. *
* *
* From "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce *
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Contents: Editor's Word
Ken Knudson: A Critique of Communism and
The Individualist Alternative (serial: 9)
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Editor's Word
_____________
The saga continues ... The chapter Ken Knudson's article today,
"Capitalism: Freedom Perverted" is probably the most challenging
chapter to the readers of Non Serviam, and I have no doubt that many
will wish to comment. Such comments do, unless they are themselves
articles, belong on the list, nonserv. As Ken Knudson is presently
on vacation, it might take some time beforehe replies.
Happy reading, and I look forward to a good discussion.
Svein Olav
____________________________________________________________________
Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(continued)
CAPITALISM: FREEDOM PERVERTED
"Permit me to issue and control the money of a
nation and I care not who makes its laws."
- Meyer A. Rothchild
Roosevelt, in blaming the depression of the 'thirties
on "heedless self-interest," played a cheap political trick
for which the world has been suffering ever since. The great
crash of 1929, far from being created by "free enterprise,"
was created by government interference in the free market.
The Federal Reserve Board had been artificially controlling
interest rates since 1913. The tax structure of the country
was set up in such a way as to encourage ridiculously risky
speculation in the stock market. "Protective tariffs"
destroyed anything that vaguely resembled a free market.
Immigration barriers prevented the free flow of the labour
market. Anti-trust laws threatened prosecution for charging
less than the competition ("intent to monopolise") and for
charging the same as the competition ("price fixing"), but
graciously permitted charging more than the competition
(commonly called "going out of business.") With all these
legislative restraints and controls, Roosevelt still had the
gall to blame the depression on the "free" market economy.
But what was his answer to the "ruthlessness" of freedom?
This is what he had to say on taking office in 1933:
"If we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and
loyal army willing to sacrifice to the good of a common
discipline, because without such discipline no progress is
made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready
and willing to submit our lives and property to such
discipline because it makes possible a leadership which aims
at a larger good." [82]
We've been on that Keynesian road ever since. The
"larger good" has become larger and larger until today the
only cure the politicians come up with for the economy's
ills is more of the same poison which made it sick in the
first place. The rationale for such a policy was expressed
by G. D. H. Cole in 1933:
"If once a departure is made from the classical method of
letting all the factors [of the economy] alone - and we have
seen enough of that method [have we?] to be thoroughly
dissatisfied with it - it becomes necessary to control ALL
the factors...for interference with one, while the others
are left unregulated, is certain to result in a fatal lack
of balance in the working of the economic system.." [83] (My
emphasis)
- 40 -
Many people, on hearing the individualist critique of
governmental control of the economy, jump to the erroneous
conclusion that we believe in capitalism. I'm sorry to say
that some anarchists - who should know better - share this
common fallacy. In a letter to "Freedom" a few months ago I
tried to clear up this myth. Replying to an article by one
of its editors, I had this to say:
"First let me look at the term `anarcho-capitalist.' This,
it seems to me, is just an attempt to slander the
individualist-anarchists by using a supercharged word like
`capitalist' in much the same way as the word `anarchy' is
popularly used to mean chaos and disorder. No one to my
knowledge accepts the anarcho-capitalist label*, just as no
one up to the time of Proudhon's memoir on property in 1840
accepted the anarchist label. But, unlike Proudhon who could
call himself an anarchist by stripping the word of its
derogatory connotation and looking at its real MEANING, no
one can logically call himself an anarcho-capitalist for the
simple reason that it's a contradiction in terms: anarchists
seek the abolition of the state while capitalism is
inherently dependent upon the state. Without the state,
capitalism would inevitably fall, for capitalism rests on
the pillars of government privilege. Because of government a
privileged minority can monopolise land, limit credit,
restrict exchange, give idle capital the power to increase,
and, through interest, rent, profit, and taxes, rob
industrious labour of its products." [84]
Now most anarchists when they attack capitalism strike
it where it is strongest: in its advocacy of freedom. And
how paradoxical that is. Here we have the anarchists,
champions of freedom PAR EXCELLENCE, complaining about
freedom! How ridiculous, it seems to me, to find anarchists
attacking Mr. Heath for withdrawing government subsidies
from museums and children's milk programmes. When anarchists
start screaming for free museums, free milk, free subways,
free medical care, free education, etc., etc., they only
show their ignorance of what freedom really is. All these
"free" goodies which governments so graciously shower upon
--------------------
* I have since been informed that "the term `anarcho-
capitalist' is now in use in the USA - particularly amongst
those who contribute to the Los Angeles publication
`Libertarian Connection'." It seems to me that people
accepting such a label must do so primarily for its shock
value. Very few people like capitalists these days, and
those who do certainly don't like anarchists. What better
term could you find to offend everyone?
- 41 -
their subjects ultimately come from the recipients
themselves - in the form of taxes. Governments are very
clever at concealing just how large this sum actually is.
They speak of a billion pounds here and a few hundred
million dollars there. But what does a figure like
$229,232,000,000.00 (Nixon's proposed budget) actually mean
to the taxpayer? Virtually nothing. It's just a long string
of numbers preceded by a dollar sign. People have no
conception of numbers that size. But let me try to shed some
light on this figure by breaking it down into a number the
individual taxpayer can't help but understand: the average
annual cost per family. This is a number governments NEVER
talk about - for if they did, there would be a revolt which
would make the storming of the Bastille look like a Sunday
school picnic. Here's how to calculate it: you take the
government's annual budget and divide it by the population
of the country; then you multiply the result by the average
size of family (4.5 seems a reasonable number). Doing this
for the American case cited, we come to $4,800 (i.e. 2000
pounds per family per year!*). And that is just the FEDERAL
tax bite. State and local taxes (which primarily pay for
America's "free" education and "free" public highways) have
yet to be considered. I leave it as an exercise to the
British reader to see why their "welfare state" also prefers
to mask budgetary figures by using astronomical numbers.
One thing should be clear from this example: nothing is
for nothing. But the Santa Claus myth dies hard, even - or
should I say especially? - among anarchists. The only
encouraging sign to the contrary I have found in the
anarchist press of late was when Ian Sutherland complained
in the columns of "Freedom": "I object, strongly, to having
a large section of my `product', my contribution to society,
forcibly removed from me by a paternalistic state to
dispense to a fool with 10 kids." [85] Unfortunately, I
suspect that Mr Sutherland would only replace the
"paternalistic state" by the "paternalistic commune" - and
in so doing would still end up supporting those 10 kids. My
suspicions were nourished by what he said in the very next
paragraph about "laissez faire" anarchists: "perhaps they
--------------------
* I am usually quite conservative in my use of
exclamation marks. When I used this example in a recent
letter to "Freedom", the editors saw fit to insert one where
I had not. In keeping with their precedent, I will do
likewise.
- 42 -
should join the Powellites." Perhaps Mr Sutherland should
learn what laissez faire means.
Laissez faire is a term coined by the French
physiocrats during the eighteenth century. John Stuart Mill
brought it into popular English usage with the publication
in 1848 of his "Principles of Political Economy," where he
examined the arguments for and against government
intervention in the economy. The "con" side of the argument
he called laissez faire. "The principle of `laissez faire'
in economics calls for perfect freedom in production;
distribution of the returns (or profit) to the factors of
production according to the productivity of each; and
finally, markets in which prices are determined by the free
interplay of forces that satisfy buyers and sellers." [86] I
find it difficult to see how any advocate of freedom could
possibly object to a doctrine like this one. Unfortunately,
what happened in the 19th century was that a handful of
capitalists, who were anything but believers if freedom,
picked up this nice sounding catch phrase and decided to
"improve" upon it. These "improvements" left them with the
freedom to exploit labour but took away labour's freedom to
exploit capital. These capitalists, in perverting the
original meaning of laissez faire, struck a blow against
freedom from which it still suffers to this day. The
capitalist who advocates laissez faire is a hypocrite. If he
really believed in freedom, he could not possibly condone
the greatest invader of freedom known to man: government.
The capitalist necessarily relies on government to protect
his privileged RIGHTS. Let us look at the foremost advocate
of capitalism today, Ayn Rand. Her book "Capitalism: The
Unknown Ideal" has two appendices. The first is on "Man's
Rights" where she say, "INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS ARE THE MEANS OF
SUBORDINATING SOCIETY TO MORAL LAW." [87] (Her emphasis)
Once again we are back to "rights" and "morals" which
Stirner so strongly warned us about. And where does this
lead us? Directly to Appendix Two, "The Nature of
Government," where she says that government is "necessary"
because "men need an institution charged with the task of
protecting [you guessed it] their rights." [88] Let's see
what some of these precious rights are:
I. Chapter 11 of Miss Rand's book is devoted to a
defence of patent and copyright laws. In it she calls upon
government to "certify the origination of an idea and
protect its owner's exclusive right to use and disposal."
[89] Realising the absurdity of PERPETUAL property in ideas
("consider what would happen if, in producing an automobile,
we had to pay royalties to the descendants of all the
inventors involved, starting with the inventor of the wheel
- 43 -
and on up." [90]), she goes into considerable mental
acrobatics to justify intellectual property for a LIMITED
time. But by so doing, she only succeeds in arousing our
suspicion of her motives, for it seems strange that a mere
lapse of time should negate something so precious as a man's
"right" to his property. Admitting that "a patented
invention often tends to hamper or restrict further research
and development in a given area of science [91], our
champion of the unhampered economy nevertheless manages to
justify governmental "protection" to secure the inventor's
"rights." As for copyrights, our millionaire author thinks
"the most rational" length of time for this governmental
protection would be "for the lifetime of the author and
fifty years thereafter." [92] How does she justify all this?
The way she justifies most of her inane arguments - by
quoting herself: "Why should Rearden be the only one
permitted to manufacture Rearden Metal?" [93] Why indeed?
II. Capitalists are fond of proclaiming the "rights" of
private property. One of their favourite property rights is
the right to own land without actually occupying it. The
only way this can possibly be done is, once again, by
government protection of legal pieces of paper called
"titles" and "deeds." Without these scraps of paper, vast
stretches of vacant land would be open to those who could
use them and exorbitant rent could no longer be extracted
from the non-owning user as tribute to the non-using owner.
There is much talk these days of a "population
explosion." It is claimed that land is becoming more and
more scarce and that by the year such and such there will be
38.2 people per square inch of land. But just how scarce is
land? If all the world's land were divided up equally, every
individual would have more than ten acres apiece. Even
"crowded" islands like Britain and Japan have more than an
acre per person on average. [94] When you consider how few
people actually own any of this land, these figures seem
incredible. It's no wonder then that the absentee landlord
is a strong believer in property rights. Without them his
vulnerable land might actually be used to the advantage of
the user.
III. Capitalists have always been great believers in
the sovereign "rights" of nations. Ayn Rand, for example,
thinks it perfectly consistent with her brand of freedom
that the United States government should tax the people
within its borders to support an army which costs tens of
billions of dollars each year. It is true that Miss Rand
opposes the war in Vietnam. But why? Because "IT DOES NOT
SERVE ANY NATIONAL INTEREST OF THE UNITED STATES." [95] (Her
emphasis) So we see that our advocate of "limited
- 44 -
government" wouldn't go so far as to limit its strongest
arm: the military. Eighty billion dollars a year for
national "defence" doesn't seem to phase her in the least -
in fact, she would like to add on a few billion more to make
"an army career comparable to the standards of the civilian
labour market." [96]
As every anarchist knows, a frontier is nothing more
than an imaginary line drawn by a group of men with vested
interests on their side of the line. That "nations" should
exist is an absurdity. That a highwayman (in the uniform of
a customs official) should rob people as they cross these
imaginary lines and turn back others who haven't the proper
pieces of paper is an obscenity too indecent to relate here
- there may be children reading. But if there are children
reading, perhaps they can enlighten their elders about the
obvious - as they did when the emperor went out in his "new"
clothes. The nationalists of the world are strutting about
without a stitch of reason on. Can only a child see this?
IV. The cruelest "right" - and the one least understood
today - is the exclusive right of governments to issue
money. There was a time about a hundred years ago when
nearly everyone was aware of the currency question. For
several decades in the United States it was THE political
issue. Whole political parties formed around it (e.g. the
Greenback and Populist parties). William Jennings Bryan, the
three-time Democratic candidate for the presidency, rose to
fame with his "easy money" speeches; next to Lincoln's
Gettysburg address, his "cross of gold" speech is probably
the best-known public oration of 19th century America. Yet
today virtually everyone accepts the currency question as
settled. Governments issue the money people use and they
never give it a second thought - it's just there, like the
sun and the moon.
The capitalist is vitally interested in the
government's exclusive right to issue money. The capitalist
is, by definition, the holder of capital; and the
government, by making only a certain type of capital (namely
gold) the legal basis of all money, gives to the capitalist
a monopoly power to compel all holders of property other
than the kind thus privileged, as well as all non-
proprietors, to pay tribute to the capitalist for the use of
a circulating medium and instrument of credit which is
absolutely necessary to carry out commerce and reap the
benefits of the division of labour. A crude example of how
this system works is given by the Angolan "native tax." The
Portuguese whites in Angola found it difficult to get black
labour for their coffee plantations, so they struck upon a
rather ingenious scheme: tax the natives and the natives,
- 45 -
having to pay their tax in MONEY, would be forced to sell
their labour to the only people who could give it to them -
the whiteman. [97]
The same thing goes on today on a more sophisticated
level in our more "civilised" societies. The worker needs
money to carry out the business of everyday life. He needs
food, he needs housing, he needs clothing. To get these
things he needs MONEY. And to get money he has to sell the
only thing he's got: his labour. Since he MUST sell his
labour, he is put into a very bad bargaining position with
the buyers of labour: the capitalists. This is how the
capitalist grows rich. He buys labour in a cheap market and
sells his products back to the worker in a dear one. This is
what Marx called the "surplus value theory" of labour. His
analysis (at least here) was right; his solution to the
problem was wrong.
The way Marx saw out of this trap was to abolish money.
The worker would then get the equivalent of his labour by
pooling his products with other workers and taking out what
he needed. I've already exposed the weak points of this
theory. What is the individualist alternative?
-----
REFERENCES
82. Quoted from Charles A. Reich's article in "The New
Yorker" magazine, "The Greening of American," September 26,
1970.
83. G. D. H. Cole, "What Everybody Wants To Know About
Money" (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1933), pp. 526-7.
84. Ken Knudson, "Letters", "Freedom," November 14, 1970.
85. Ian S. Sutherland, "Doomsday & After," "Freedom,"
February 27, 1971.
86. "Laissez Faire," "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 1965, vol.
XIII, p. 606.
87. Ayn Rand, "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" (New York:
Signet Books, 1967), p 320.
88. Ibid., p. 331.
89. Ibid., p. 131.
90. Ibid., pp. 131-2.
91. Ibid., pp. 132-3.
92. Ibid., p, 132.
93. Ibid., p. 134.
94. "Geographical Summaries: Area and Population,"
Encyclopaedia Britannica Atlas," 1965, p. 199.
95. Rand, op. cit., p. 224.
96. Ibid., p. 229.
97. Douglas Marchant, "Angola," "Anarchy 112," June, 1970,
p. 184.
____________________________________________________________________
***********************************************************************
* POSITIVISM, n: A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real *
* and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its *
* longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and *
* its thickest Spencer. *
* *
* "The Devil's Dictionary", Ambrose Bierce *
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Contents: Editor's Word
Sidney Parker: The Egoism of Max Stirner
Ken Knudson: A Critique of Communism and
The Individualist Alternative (serial: 10)
***********************************************************************
Editor's Word:
_____________
Stirner is a philosopher who is easy to misunderstand, as Sidney
Parker shows in his article "The Egoism of Max Stirner" below. Ones
first attention to Stirner very often comes from political or
ideological motivations. And so, with the expectation of finding
an author whose idea is a flaming insurrective rhetoric, one finds
- just that. And if one is a critic, like Camus mentioned by Parker,
or even a contemporary like Moses Hess [1], one is easily led to
believe that Stirner is just advocating a new _idea_ for which to
live and breathe, a new Object which is supposed to be the new centre
of ones attention, a new idea which is to be universalized and put in
the service of a political ideology - the Ego.
But if we read what he has written, we find, like in "The False
Principle of Our Education" that his main focus is the discovery of
the self as truly Subject, and not just an Object. In the False
Principle Stirner makes the distinction between learning as an Object
into whom knowledge is stuffed from without, and learning as
a Subject acquiring knowledge for itself. In "Art and Religion" we
find him speaking of the conception of [future] self set up as an
Ideal: "Here lie all the sufferings and struggles of the centuries,
for it is fearful to be _outside_of_oneself_, having yourself as an
Object set over and against oneself able to annihilate itself and so
oneself."
Further clues can be given in that Stirner speaks of himself as
No-thing [2], "In the Unique One the owner himself returns to his
creative nothing, of which he is born." No thing, neither as some
kind of thought, nor as a percept, am I. [3] So, we conclude that
Stirner's unnameable Unique One is the Subject.
Looking at the consequences of this, one sees that indeed we all
are Subjects, actors who pursue this and that by our own creation. In
this, we are egoists already. However, unless this is a condition of
which we are conscious, it will do us little good, and we might as
well follow this Ideal as that, in that we do not know ourselves from
within, but only as "intimate objects".
The famous formula from Gal. 2.29, "Not I live, but Christ lives in
me" is quoted and paraphrased by Stirner as the basic teaching of the
possessed: "Not I live, but X lives in me." This is where Stirner's
philosophy is of interest. For while Luther may say "Here I stand, I
can do naught else!", Stirner teaches the liberation from fixed ideas
in creating oneself each day anew.
As the quote at the end of this edition of the newsletter shows,
this is also the way to finding a well of love that can be consumed
with all ones selfish desire without ever going dry.
Svein Olav
[1] Hess criticism of Stirner boils down to "Ego[ism] is empty." But
as is evident, Hess' criticism is of Ego as object, and he has
not grasped the subtlety in Stirner's description of the Subject
as no-thing. Thus Hess simply shows his lack of understanding.
[2] I am taking the liberty of utilizing the English language here.
[3] Notice the affinity with some of Buddhism's teachings. In the
teaching of Buddha you are told to seek through the phenomena to
see if you find the Self there, a search that will ultimately
end in failure. Stirner provides the positive side of this coin
by providing the I as he who fails in this search.
____________________________________________________________________
Sidney Parker:
The Egoism of Max Stirner
-------------------------
(The following extracts are taken from my booklet entitled THE
EGOISM OF MAX STIRNER: SOME CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES to be
published by the Mackay Society of New York)
Albert Camus
Camus devotes a section of THE REBEL to Stirner. Despite a fairly
accurate summarization of some of Stirner's ideas he nonetheless
consigns him to dwelling in a desert of isolation and negation
"drunk with destruction". Camus accuses Stirner of going "as far as
he can in blasphemy" as if in some strange way an atheist like
Stirner can "blaspheme" against something he does not believe in. He
proclaims that Stirner is "intoxicated" with the "perspective" of
"justifying" crime without mentioning that Stirner carefully
distinguishes between the ordinary criminal and the "criminal" as
violator of the "sacred". He brands Stirner as the direct ancestor
of "terrorist anarchy" when in fact Stirner regards political
terrorists as acting under the possession of a "spook". He
furthermore misquotes Stirner by asserting that he "specifies" in
relation to other human beings "kill them, do not martyr them" when
in fact he writes "I can kill them, not torture them" - and this in
relation to the moralist who both kills and tortures to serve the
"concept of the 'good'".
Although throughout his book Camus is concerned to present "the
rebel" as a preferred alternative to "the revolutionary" he nowhere
acknowledges that this distinction is taken from the one that
Stirner makes between "the revolutionary" and "the insurrectionist".
That this should occur in a work whose purpose is a somewhat frantic
attempt at rehabilitating "ethics" well illustrates Stirner's ironic
statement that "the hard fist of morality treats the noble nature of
egoism altogether without compassion."
Eugene Fleischmann
Academic treatment of Stirner is often obfuscating even when it is
not downright hostile. A marked contrast is Fleischmann's essay
STIRNER, MARX AND HEGEL which is included in the symposium HEGEL'S
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Clearly preferring Stirner to Marx,
Fleischmann presents a straightforward account of his ideas
unencumbered by "psychiatric" interpretations and _ad_hominem_
arguments. He correctly points out that the "human self" signifies
for Stirner "the individual in all his indefinable, empirical
concreteness. The word 'unique' [einzig] means for Stirner man as he
is in his irreducible individuality, always different from his
fellows, and always thrown back on himself in his dealings with
them. Thus, when he talks of 'egoism' as the ultimate definition os
the human 'essence' it is not at all a question of a moral category
. . . . but of a simple existential fact."
Fleischmann contends that "Marx and Engels' critique of Stirner is
notoriously misleading. It is not just that ridicule of a man's
person is not equivalent to refutation of his ideas, for the reader
is also aware that the authors are not reacting at all to the
problems raised by their adversary." Stirner is not simply "just
another doctrinaire ideologue". His "reality is the world of his
immediate experience" and he wants "to come into his own power now,
not after some remote and hypothetical 'proletarian revolution'.
Marx and Engels had nothing to offer the individual in the present:
Stirner has."
In his conclusion Fleischmann states that Stirner's view that the
individual "must find his entire satisfaction in his own life" is a
reversion "to the resigned attitude of a simple mortal". This is not
a serious criticism. If I cannot find satisfaction in my own life,
where can I find it? Even if it is _my_ satisfaction that I
experience, any satisfaction that the other may have being something
that he or she experiences - not _me_. If this constitutes being a
"simple mortal" then so be it, but that it is a "resigned attitude"
is another matter.
Benedict Lachmann and Herbert Stourzh
Lachmann's and Stourzh's TWO ESSAYS ON EGOISM provide a
stimulating and instructive introduction to Stirner's ideas.
Although both authors give a good summary of his egoism they differ
sufficiently in their approach to allow the reader to enjoy
adjudicating between them.
Lachmann's essay PROTAGORAS - NIETZSCHE - STIRNER traces the
development of relativist thinking as exemplified in the three
philosophers of its title. Protagoras is the originator of
relativism with his dictum "Man (the individual) is the measure of
all things". This in turn is taken up by Stirner and Nietzsche. Of
the two, however, Stirner is by far the most consistent and for this
reason Lachmann places him after Nietzsche in his account. For him
Stirner surpasses Nietzsche by bringing Protagorean relativism to
its logical conclusion in conscious egoism - the fulfilment of one's
own will.
In fact, he views Nietzsche as markedly inferior to Stirner both
in respect to his style and the clarity of his thinking. "In
contrast to Nietzsche's work," he writes, THE EGO AND ITS OWN "is
written in a clear, precise form and language, though it avoids the
pitfalls of a dry academic style. Its sharpness, clarity and passion
make the book truly shattering and overwhelming." Unlike
Nietzsche's, Stirner's philosophy does not lead to the replacement
of one religious "spook" by another, the substitution of the
"Superman" for the Christian "God". On the contrary, it makes "the
individual's interests the centre of the world."
Intelligent, lucid and well-conceived, Lachmann's essay throws new
light on Stirner's ideas.
Its companion essay, Stourzh's MAX STIRNER'S PHILOSOPHY OF THE EGO
is evidently the work of a theist, but it is nonetheless sympathetic
to Stirnerian egoism. Stourzh states that one of his aims in writing
it "is beyond the categories of master and slave to foster an
intellectual and spiritual stand-point different from the
stand-point prescribed by the prophets of mass thinking, the
dogmatists of socialism, who conceive of the individual only as an
insignificant part of the whole, as a number or mere addenda of the
group."
Stourzh draws a valuable distinction between the "imperative"
approach of the moralist and the "indicative" approach of Stirner
towards human behaviour. He also gives an informative outline of the
critical reaction to Stirner of such philosophers as Ludwig
Feuerbach, Kuno Fischer and Eduard von Hartman. Stourzh mars his
interpretation, however, by making the nonsensical claim that
Stirner's egoism "need in no sense mean the destruction of the
divine mystery itself." And in line with his desire to preserve the
"sacredness" of this "divine mystery" he at times patently seeks to
"sweeten" Stirner by avoiding certain of his most challenging
remarks.
References:
Camus, Albert: THE REBEL: AN ESSAY ON MAN IN REVOLT. Knopf, New
York. 1961
Fleischmann, Eugene: THE ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY
SOCIETY: STIRNER, MARX AND HEGEL in HEGEL'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Cambridge University Press, London. 1971
Lachmann, Benedict and Stourzh, Herbert: TWO ESSAYS ON EGOISM. To be
published by The Mackay Society, New York.
____________________________________________________________________
Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(continued)
MUTUALISM: THE ECONOMICS OF FREEDOM
"There is perhaps no business which yields a profit so
certain and liberal as the business of banking and
exchange, and it is proper that it should be open
as far as practicable to the most free competition
and its advantages shared by all classes of people."
- Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, 1837
When it comes to economics, most anarchists reveal an
ignorance verging on the indecent. For example, in the first
piece of the first issue of the new "Anarchy" the California
Libertarian Alliance talks in all seriousness of "Marx's
`labour theory of value,' which causes communist governments
to repress homosexuals." [98] Now, passing over the fact
that Adam Smith developed the principles of this theory long
before Marx was even born, I can't for the life of me see
what the labour theory of value has to do with the
repression of homosexuals - be they communist, capitalist,
or mercantilist. Kropotkin was no better; in his "Conquest
of Bread" he shows a total lack of any economic sense, as he
amply demonstrates by his rejection of the very foundation
of any rational economic system: the division of labour. "A
society that will satisfy the needs of all, and which will
know how to organise production, will also have to make a
clean sweep of several prejudices concerning industry, and
first of all of the theory often preached by economists -
The Division of Labour Theory - which we are going to
discuss in the next chapter....It is this horrible
principle, so noxious to society, so brutalising to the
individual, source of so much harm, that we propose to
discuss in its divers manifestations." [99] He then fills
the next two pages of perhaps the shortest chapter in
history with a discussion of this theory "in its divers
manifestations." In these few paragraphs he fancies himself
as having overturned the economic thought of centuries and
to have struck "a crushing blow at the theory of the
division of labour which was supposed to be so sound." [100]
Let's see just how sound it is.
Primitive man discovered two great advantages to social
life. The first was man's ability to gain knowledge, not
only through personal experience, but also through the
experience of others. By learning from others, man was able
to acquire knowledge which he could never have gained alone.
- 47 -
This knowledge was handed down from generation to generation
- growing with each passing year, until today every
individual has at his fingertips a wealth of information
which took thousands of years to acquire. The second great
advantage of social life was man's discovery of trade. By
being able to exchange goods, man discovered that he was
able to concentrate his efforts on a particular task at
which he was especially good and/or which he especially
liked. He could then trade the products of his labour for
the products of the labour of others who specialised in
other fields. This was found to be mutually beneficial to
all concerned.
That the division of labour is beneficial when A
produces one thing better than B and when B produces another
thing better than A was obvious even to the caveman. Each
produces that which he does best and trades with the other
to their mutual advantage. But what happens when A produces
BOTH things better than B? David Ricardo answered this
question when he expounded his law of association over 150
years ago. This law is best illustrated by a concrete
example. Let us say that Jones can produce one pair of shoes
in 3 hours compared to Smith's 5 hours. Also let us say
that Jones can produce one bushel of wheat in 2 hours
compared to Smith's 4 hours (cf. Table I). If each man is to
work 120 hours, what is the most advantageous way of
dividing up the work? Table II shows three cases: the two
extremes where one man does only one job while the other man
does the other, and the middle road where each man divides
his time equally between jobs. It is clear from Table III
that it is to the advantage of BOTH men that the most
productive man should devote ALL of his energies to the job
which he does best (relative to the other) while the least
productive man concentrates his energies on the other job
(case 3). It is interesting to note that in the reverse
situation (case 1) - which is also the least productive case
- the drop in productivity is only 6% for Jones (the best
worker), while for Smith it's a whopping 11%. So the
division of labour, while helping both men, tends to help
the least productive worker more than his more efficient
workmate - a fact which opponents of this idea should note
well.
These figures show something which is pretty obvious
intuitively. A skilled surgeon, after many years invested
in schooling, internship, practice, etc., may find his time
more productively spent in actually performing operations
than in washing his surgical instruments in preparation for
these operations. It would seem natural, then, for him to
hire a medical student (say for 1 pound per hour) to do the
washing up job while he does the operating (for say 3 pounds
- 48 -
PRODUCTIVITY RATES
------------------
Time Necessary to Produce Time Necessary to Produce
One Pair of Shoes (Hours) One Bushel of Wheat (Hours)
------------------------------------------------------------
Jones: 3 2
Smith: 5 4
------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE I
* * * * * *
PRODUCTIVITY UNDER DIVISION OF LABOUR
-------------------------------------
Hours of Hours of Shoes Bushels
Shoemaking Farming Produced of Wheat
--------------------------------------------------------------
Jones 120 0 40 0
Case 1 Smith 0 120 0 30
Total 120 120 40 30
--------------------------------------------------------------
Jones 60 60 20 30
Case 2 Smith 60 60 12 15
Total 120 120 32 45
--------------------------------------------------------------
Jones 0 120 0 60
Case 3 Smith 120 0 24 0
Total 120 120 24 60
--------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE II
* * * * * *
TIME NECESSARY TO PRODUCE THE SAME AMOUNT
OF GOODS WHILE WORKING ALONE (HOURS)
-----------------------------------------
Jones Smith
--------------------------------------------------------------
Case 1: 120 + 60 = 180 200 + 120 = 320
Case 2: 96 + 90 = 186 160 + 180 = 340
Case 3: 72 + 120 = 192 120 + 240 = 360
--------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE III
- 49 -
per hour). Even if the surgeon could wash his own
instruments twice as fast as the student, this division of
labour would be profitable for all concerned.
If the earth were a homogeneous sphere, equally endowed
with natural resources at each and every point of its
surface, and if each man were equally capable of performing
every task as well as his neighbour, then the division of
labour would have no ECONOMIC meaning. There would be no
material advantage to letting someone else do for you what
you could do equally well yourself. But the division of
labour would have arisen just the same because of the
variety of human tastes. It is a fact of human nature that
not all people like doing the same things. Kropotkin may
think this unfortunate, but I'm afraid that's the way human
beings are built. And as long as this is the case, people
are going to WANT to specialise their labour and trade their
products with one another.
* * * * * *
-----
REFERENCES
98. "Libertarian Message to Gay Liberation," "Anarchy,"
February, 1971, p. 2.
99. Kropotkin, "Conquest of Bread," pp. 245 & 248.
100. Ibid., p. 250.
p. 184.
____________________________________________________________________
*********************************************************************
* *
* "A marriage is only assured of a steady love *
* when the couple discover themselves anew each *
* day, and when each recognizes in the other an *
* inexhaustible spring of life, that is, a mystery, *
* unfathomed and incomprehensible. If they find *
* nothing new in one another, so love dissolves *
* inexorably into boredom and indifference." *
* *
* -- Max Stirner, "Art and Religion" *
* *
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non serviam #11
***************
Contents: Editor's Word
Ken Knudson: A Critique of Communism and
The Individualist Alternative (serial: 11)
***********************************************************************
Editor's Word
_____________
Ken Knudson's article is coming to and end. This is the second part
of the chapter on Mutualism. The next and last chapter is his "after-
word to communist-anarchist readers." And so, his article is complete.
For those who wish, the full article is available by ftp from
uglymouse.css.itd.umich.edu
together with the current and back issues of non serviam and some other
material relevant to Stirner. The files are stored in
/pub/Politics/Non.Serviam.
Paul Southworth (pauls@umich.edu) is responsible for the ftp site. If
you have trouble retrieving files, he is the man to write to.
Svein Olav
____________________________________________________________________
Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(continued)
* * * * * *
Given the advantages of the division of labour, what is
to be the method by which man exchanges his products?
Primitive man devised the barter system for this purpose.
But it wasn't long before the limitations of this system
became apparent:
"Let Peter own a horse; let James own a cow and a pig; let
James's cow and pig, taken together, be worth precisely as
much as Peter's horse; let Peter and James desire to make an
exchange; now, what shall prevent them from making the
exchange by direct barter? Again, let Peter own the horse;
let James own the cow; and let John own the pig. Peter
cannot exchange his horse for the cow, because he would lose
by the transaction; neither - and for the same reason - can
he exchange it for the pig. The division of the horse would
result in the destruction of its value. The hide, it is
true, possesses an intrinsic value; and a dead horse makes
excellent manure for a grapevine; nevertheless, the division
of a horse results in the destruction of its value as a
living animal. But if Peter barters his horse with Paul for
an equivalent in wheat, what shall prevent him from so
dividing his wheat as to qualify himself to offer to James
an equivalent for his cow and to John an equivalent for his
pig? If Peter trades thus with James and John the
transaction is still barter, though the wheat serves as
currency and obviates the difficulty in making change."
[101]
Thus currency (i.e, money) was born. Many things have
served as money throughout the ages: slaves, gunpowder, and
- 50 -
even human skulls, to name but a few. The New Hebrides used
feathers for their money and in Ethiopia salt circulated as
the currency for centuries. But by far the most popular
medium of exchange became the precious metals, gold and
silver. There were several reasons for this: (1) Unlike
feathers or skulls, they have intrinsic value as metals.
(2) They are sufficiently rare as to impose difficulty in
producing them and sufficiently common as to make it not
impossible to do so. (3) Their value fluctuates relatively
little with the passing of time. Even large strikes - such
as those in California and Alaska - failed to devalue gold
to any appreciable extent. (4) They are particularly sturdy
commodities, loosing relatively little due to the wear and
tear of circulation. (5) They are easily divisible into
fractional parts to facilitate small purchases. For these
and other reasons, gold and silver became universally
recognised as standards of value. Certain quantities of
these metals became the units by which man measured the
worth of an object. For example, the pound sterling, lira,
and ruble were originally terms for metallic weight while
the drachma means literally a handful.
As long as these metals served purely as just another
commodity to be bartered - albeit a very useful commodity -
there was no inherent advantage in possessing these metals
as such. It was not until governments declared them the sole
LEGAL medium of exchange that gold and silver became
intrinsically oppressive. Governments, by monetising gold
and silver automatically demonetised every other item of
capital.* It is this monopoly which has been the chief
obstacle in preventing men from obtaining the product of
their labour and which permitted the few men who controlled
the money supply to roll up such large fortunes at the
expense of labour.
As long as the monetary structure was directly tied to
gold and silver, the volume of money was limited by the
amount of gold and silver available for coinage. It is for
this reason that paper money - backed by "hard money" - came
into being. The paper money was simply a promise "to pay the
bearer on demand" its equivalent in specie (i.e. gold or
--------------------
* A natural question arises here: "That may have been
true up until 40 years ago, but haven't governments since
abandoned the gold standard?" The answer is no. As long as
the United States government promises to buy and sell gold
at $35 an ounce and as long as the International Monetary
Fund (which stabilises the exchange rates) is based on gold
and U.S. dollars, the world remains on the gold standard.
- 51 -
silver). Hence the words "note" and "bill," which imply
debt. Governments were at first reluctant to issue paper
money. But the scarcity of money in an increasingly
commercial world soon forced them to recant. The men of
wealth, well aware of the threat that "easy money" posed to
their "hard money," insisted that such money be based solely
on the wealth they already possessed. Governments readily
fell into line. In the United States, from 1866, anyone
issuing circulating notes was slapped with a tax of 10%
until it was completely outlawed in 1936. The British
government was even more severe; it gave the Bank of England
monopoly rights to issue "bank notes" as early as 1844.
[102]
When a man is forced to barter his products for money,
in order to have money to barter for such other products
that he might want, he is put at a disadvantage which the
capitalist is all too ready to exploit. William B. Greene
was one of the first to observe this fact:
"Society established gold and silver as a circulating
medium, in order that exchanges of commodities might be
FACILITATED; but society made a mistake in so doing; for by
this very act it gave to a certain class of men the power of
saying what exchanges shall, and what exchanges shall not,
be FACILITATED by means of this very circulating medium. The
monopolisers of the precious metals have an undue power over
the community; they can say whether money shall, or shall
not, be permitted to exercise its legitimate functions.
These men have a VETO on the action of money, and therefore
on exchanges of commodity; and they will not take off their
VETO until they have received usury, or, as it is more
politely termed, interest on their money. Here is the great
objection to the present currency. Behold the manner in
which the absurdity inherent in a specie currency - or, what
is still worse, in a currency of paper based upon specie -
manifests itself in actual operation! The mediating value
which society hoped would facilitate exchanges becomes an
absolute marketable commodity, itself transcending all reach
of mediation. The great natural difficulty which originally
stood in the way of exchanges is now the private property of
a class, and this class cultivates this difficulty, and make
money out of it, even as a farmer cultivates his farm and
makes money by his labour. But there is a difference between
the farmer and the usurer; for the farmer benefits the
community as well as himself, while every dollar made by the
usurer is a dollar taken from the pocket of some other
individual, since the usurer cultivates nothing but an
actual obstruction." [103]
- 52 -
The legitimate purpose of money is to facilitate
exchange. As Greene shows, specie - or money based on specie
- accomplishes this purpose, but only at a terrible price to
the user. The solution to the problem is to devise a money
which has no value as a COMMODITY, only as a circulating
medium. This money should also be available in such quantity
as not to hamper any exchanges which may be desired. The
organ for creating such a currency Greene called a "mutual
bank."*
Before considering the operations of a mutual bank, I'd
like to look at how an ordinary bank functions. Let us say
that Mr Brown, who owns a farm worth a few thousand pounds,
needs 500 pounds to buy seed and equipment for the coming
year. Not having that kind of money on hand, he goes to the
bank to borrow it. The bank readily agrees - on the
condition that at the end of the year Brown not only pays
back the 500 pounds borrowed, but also 50 pounds which they
call "interest." Farmer Brown has no choice; he needs MONEY
because that is all the seed dealer will accept as "legal
tender." So he agrees to the conditions set down by the
bank. After a year of hard work, and with a bit of luck from
the weather, he harvests his crops and exchanges (i.e.
"sells") his produce - for money. He takes 550 pounds to the
bank and cancels his debt. The net result of all this is
that some banker is 50 pounds richer for doing a minimal
amount of work (perhaps a few hours of bookkeeping) at no
risk to himself (the farm was collateral), while Mr Brown is
50 pounds out of pocket.
Now let's see where Greene's idea leads us. A group of
people get together and decide to set up a mutual bank. The
bank will issue notes which all members of the bank agree to
accept as "money." Taking the above example, Mr Brown could
get five hundred of these notes by mortgaging his farm and
discounting with the bank a mortgage note for that sum. With
the notes, he buys his seed from Smith and some tools from
Jones. Smith and Jones in turn exchange some of these newly
acquired notes for some things they need. And so on until
the end of the year when Brown exchanges his farm produce
and receives for them - mutual bank notes. Does all this
sound familiar? It should, for up until now, from all
outward appearances, there has been no difference between
our mutual bank and an ordinary specie bank. But it's here,
--------------------
* Proudhon's bank, "la banque du peuple," is
essentially the same. For a detailed account of the
workings of each bank see Greene's "Mutual Banking" and
Proudhon's "Solution of the Social Problem" and "Revolution
in the Nineteenth Century."
- 53 -
however, that the change comes in. Mr Brown goes to the
mutual bank with his notes and gives the bank 500 of them
plus ONE OR TWO extra to help pay for the operating expenses
of the bank over the past year. The bank cancels his
mortgage and Mr Brown walks away thinking how nice it is to
be a member of such a wonderful bank.
Now notice that it was never mentioned that Smith and
Jones were members of the bank. They may have been, but it
wasn't necessary. Smith, the seed dealer, might not belong
to the bank and yet be willing to accept its notes. He's in
business, after all, and if the only money Brown has is
mutual money, that's all right with him - as long as he can
get rid of it when HE wants to buy something. And of course
he can because he knows there are other members of the bank
pledged to receiving these notes. Besides, Brown will need
at least 500 of them eventually to pay off his mortgage. So
Smith accepts the money, and he too profits from this novel
scheme. In fact, the only one who seems to be any the worse
is the poor usurous banker. But I'm afraid he will just have
to find himself an honest job and work for his living like
everyone else.
John Stuart Mill defined capital as "wealth
appropriated to reproductive employment." In our example
above, farmer Brown's 500 pounds is capital since he intends
to use it for creating new wealth. But Mr Brown can use his
capital in any number of ways: he may decide to use it to
buy seeds for planting corn; or he may decide that his
ground is better suited for growing wheat, or he may decide
to invest in a new tractor. This 500 pounds, then, is liquid
capital or, as Greene called it, disengaged capital. When Mr
Brown buys his seeds and tools, these things are still
designed for "reproductive employment," and are therefore
still capital. But what kind of capital? Evidently, frozen
or engaged capital. He then plants his seeds and harvests
his crops with the aid of his new tractor. The produce he
grows is no longer capital because it is no longer capable
of being "appropriated to reproductive employment." What is
it, then? Evidently, it is product. Mr Brown then takes his
goods to town and sells them at market value for somewhat
more than the 500 pounds he originally started out with.
This "profit" is entirely due to his labour as a farmer (and
perhaps to some extent his skill as a salesman). The money
he receives for his goods become, once again, liquid
capital. So we have came full circle: liquid capital
becomes frozen capital; frozen capital becomes product;
product becomes liquid capital. And the cycle starts all
over again.
A society is prosperous when money flows freely - that
- 54 -
is when each man is able to easily convert his product into
liquid capital. A society is unprosperous when money is
tight - that is, when exchange is difficult to effect.
Mutual banking makes as much money available as is
necessary. When a man needs money he simply goes to his
friendly mutual bank, mortgages some property, and receives
the notes of the bank in return. What this system does is to
allow a man to circulate his CREDIT. Whoever goes to a
mutual bank and mortgages some of his property will always
receive money, for a mutual bank can issue money to any
extent. This money will always be good because it is all
based on actual property which, if necessary, could be sold
to pay off bad debts. The mutual bank, of course, would
never give PERSONAL credit, for to do so would give the
notes an element of risk and render them unstable. But what
about the man with no property to pledge? Greene answered
this question as follows:
"If we knew of a plan whereby, through an act of the
legislature, every member of the community might be made
rich, we would destroy this petition and draw up another
embodying that plan. Meanwhile, we affirm that no system
was ever devised so beneficial to the poor as the system of
mutual banking; for if a man having nothing to offer in
pledge, has a friend who is a property holder and that
friend is willing to furnish security for him, he can borrow
money at the mutual bank at a rate of 1% interest a year;
whereas, if he should borrow at the existing banks, he would
be obliged to pay 6%. Again as mutual banking will make
money exceedingly plenty, it will cause a rise in the rate
of wages, thus benefiting the man who has no property but
his bodily strength; and it will not cause a proportionate
increase in the price of the necessaries of life: for the
price of provisions, etc., depends on supply and demand; and
mutual banking operates, not directly on supply and demand,
but to the diminution of the rate of interest on the medium
of exchange. But certain mechanics and farmers say, `We
borrow no money, and therefore pay no interest. How, then
does this thing concern us?' Harken, my friends! let us
reason together. I have an impression on my mind that it is
precisely the class who have no dealings with the banks, and
derive no advantages from them, that ultimately pay all the
interest money that is paid. When a manufacturer borrows
money to carry on his business, he counts the interest he
pays as a part of his expenses, and therefore adds the
amount of interest to the price of his goods. The consumer
who buys the goods pays the interest when he pays for the
goods; and who is the consumer, if not the mechanic and the
farmer? If a manufacturer could borrow money at 1%, he could
afford to undersell all his competitors, to the manifest
advantage of the farmer and mechanic. The manufacturer would
- 55 -
neither gain nor lose; the farmer and mechanic, who have no
dealings with the bank, would gain the whole difference; and
the bank - which, were it not for the competition of the
mutual bank, would have loaned the money at 6% interest -
would lose the whole difference. It is the indirect relation
of the bank to the farmer and mechanic, and not its direct
relation to the manufacturer and merchant, that enables it
to make money." [104]
Mutual banking, by broadening the currency base, makes
money plentiful. The resulting stimulus to business would
create an unprecedented demand for labour - a demand which
would always be in excess of the supply. Then, as Benjamin
Tucker observed:
"When two labourers are after one employer, wages fall, but
when two employers are after one labourer, wages rise.
Labour will then be in a position to dictate its wages, and
will thus secure its natural wage, its entire product. Thus
the same blow that strikes interest down will send wages up.
But this is not all. Down will go profits also. For
merchants, instead of buying at high prices on credit, will
borrow money of the banks at less than one percent, buy at
low prices for cash, and correspondingly reduce the prices
of their goods to their customers. And with the rest will go
house-rent. For no one who can borrow capital at one percent
with which to build a house of his own will consent to pay
rent to a landlord at a higher rate than that." [105]
Unlike the "boom and bust" cycles we now experience
under the present system, mutualism would know nothing but
"boom." For the present "busts" come when the economy is
"overheated" and when there is so-called "overproduction."
As long as most of humanity lead lives of abject poverty, we
can never speak realistically of "over-production." And as
long as each hungry belly comes with a pair of hands,
mutualism will be there to give those hands work to fill
that belly.
-----
REFERENCES
101. William B. Greene, "Mutual Banking," from Proudhon's
"Solution of the Social Problem," ed. Henry Cohen (New York:
Vanguard Press, 1927), p. 177.
102. "Money," "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 1965, vol. XV, p.
703.
103. Greene, op. cit., p. 180.
104. Ibid., pp. 196-7.
105. Tucker, "Instead of a Book" p. 12, Reprinted from
"Liberty," March 10, 1888.
____________________________________________________________________
***********************************************************************
* *
* "It is a vulgar mistake to think that *
* most people in Eastern Europe are miserable." *
* *
* -- Paul Samuelson in 1987, *
* Nobel Laureate in Economics *
* *
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From solan@math.uio.no Fri Jan 14 11:05:29 1994
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 08:56:27 +0100
From: "Svein O.G. Nyberg" <solan@math.uio.no>
To: solan@math.uio.no
Subject: non serviam #12
non serviam #12
***************
Contents: Editor's Word
Ken Knudson: A Critique of Communism and
The Individualist Alternative (last: 12)
S.E. Parker: On Revisiting "Saint Max"
***********************************************************************
Editor's Word
_____________
And so the curse is broken. This issue contains the last part of Ken
Knudson's eminent article "A Critique of Communism and The Individualist
Alternative" which has been carriying the weight of the newsletter since
its conception. As Ken stated to me when we agreed to publish it in Non
Serviam, it had a curse on it in that any magazine which had tried to
publish it in its entirety was discontinued before they managed that.
Not only has the article not brought about the discontinuation of Non
Serviam, but it has also been well received. So I say thank you to Ken
for a job well done.
Svein Olav
____________________________________________________________________
Ken Knudson:
A Critique of Communism
and
The Individualist Alternative
(last chapter)
AN AFTERWORD TO COMMUNIST-ANARCHIST READERS
What generally distinguishes you from your communist
brother in some authoritarian sect is your basic lack of
dogmatism. The state socialist is always towing some party
line. When it comes to creative thinking his brain is in a
mental straitjacket, with no more give and take in his mind
than you will find in the mind of a dog watching a rabbit
hole. You, on the contrary, pride yourself on being "your
own man." Having no leaders, prophets, Messiahs, or Popes to
refer to for divine guidance, you can afford to use YOUR
mind to analyse the facts as YOU see them and come up with
YOUR conclusions. You are, in your fundamental metaphysics,
an agnostic. You are broad minded to a fault...how else
could you have read this far?
But when it comes to economics, your mind suddenly
becomes rigid. You forget your sound anarchist principles
and surrender without a struggle the one thing that makes
you an anarchist: your freedom. You suddenly develop an
enormous capacity for believing and especially for believing
what is palpably not true. By invoking a set of second hand
dogmas (Marxist hand-me-downs) which condemn outright the
free market economy, you smuggle in through the back door
authoritarian ideas which you had barred from the main
entrance. In commendably searching for remedies against
poverty, inequality and injustice, you forsake the doctrine
of freedom for the doctrine of authority and in so doing
come step by step to endorse all the fallacies of Marxist
economics. A few years ago S. E. Parker wrote an open
letter to the editors of "Freedom" in which he said:
"The trouble is that what you call `anarchism' is at best
merely a hodge-podge, halfway position precariously
suspended between socialism and anarchism. You yearn for the
ego-sovereignty, the liberating individualism, that is the
essence of anarchism, but remain captives of the
democratic-proletarian-collectivist myths of socialism.
Until you can cut the umbilical cord that still connects you
to the socialist womb you will never be able to come to your
full power as self-owning individuals. You will still be
lured along the path to the lemonade springs and cigarette
trees of the Big Rock Candy Mountains." [106]
This article was written for you in hopes of relieving
you of your schizophrenic condition. The fact that you call
yourself an anarchist shows that you have an instinctual
"feeling" for freedom. I hope that this article will
encourage you to seek to put that feeling on a sound
foundation. I am confident that when you do, you will
reject your communist half.
-----
REFERENCES
106. S..E. Parker, "Enemies of Society: An Open Letter to
the Editors of Freedom," "Minus One," October-December,
1967, p. 4.
____________________________________________________________________
S.E. Parker:
On Revisiting "Saint Max"
-------------------------
Increasing academic attention to the philosophy of Max Stirner has
not meant any greater accuracy in interpretation. A case in point is
an essay by Kathy E. Ferguson which appeared in a recent issue of
the philosophical review IDEALISTIC STUDIES [1] entitled "Saint Max
revisited". Ms Ferguson makes some perceptive remarks. She writes of
Stirner's view of the self as being "not a substantive thing .... but
rather a process" which cannot be confined within any net of concepts
or categorical imperatives. It is "an unbroken unity of temporal
experience that is ontologically prior to any essence later attributed
to [it] .... or any role, function or belief that [it] .... might
embrace." Stirner, she says, calls "the irreducible, temporal,
concrete individual self .... the Unique One; the Unique One is both
nothing, in the sense of having no predicate affixed to it as a
defining essence, and everything, in that it is the source of the
creative power which endows the whole of reality with meaning."
More's the pity then that these suggestive insights are followed
by a whole series of misinterpretations os Stirner's ideas. Some of
these have their origin in that hoary old spook "the human community
as a whole", others in what appears to be a sheer inability to grasp
what Stirner's egoism is about. Here are a few examples.
Ferguson considers that Stirner was an anarchist. As evidence for
this belief she cites John Carroll's "Break Out From The Crystal
Palace" and John P. Clark's "Max Stirner's Egoism". Carroll's
conception of an anarchist, however, embraces not only Stirner but
also Nietzsche (who called anarchists "decadents" and blood-suckers)
and Dostoyevsky, although he admits that the latter's anarchism is
"equivocal".
As for Clark, he certainly regards Stirner as an anarchist and
claims that Stirner's "ideal society is the union of egoists, in
which peaceful egoistic competition would replace the state and
society" (a piece of doubtful extrapolation). However, he does not
appear to be very convinced by his own claim for he comments that
"Stirner's position is a form of anarchism; yet a greatly inadequate
form" because "he opposes domination of the ego by the state, but
advises people to seek to dominate others in any other way they can
manage. Ultimately, might makes right." Since Clark defines
anarchism as being opposed to _all_ domination of man by man (not to
mention the domination of "nature" by human beings) it is clear that
Stirner's "anarchism" is not "greatly inadequate" but, given his
own definition, _not_anarchism_at_all_.
It can be seen, therefore, that Ferguson's effort to include
Stirner in the anarchist tradition is not very plausible. Stirner
did not claim to be an anarchist. Indeed, the one anarchist
theoretician with whose writings he was familiar, Proudhon, is one
of his favourite critical targets. Undoubtedly, there are some
parallels between certain of Stirner's views and those of the
anarchists, but, as I discovered after many years of trying to make
the two fit, in the last analysis they do not and cannot. Anarchism
is basically a theory of _renunciation_ like Christianity:
domination is _evil_ and for "true" relations between individuals to
prevail such a _sin_ must not be committed. Stirner's philosophy has
nothing against domination of another if that is within my power and
in my interest. There are no "sacred principles" in conscious egoism
- not even anarchist ones ....
Ferguson also falls victim to a common mistake made by
commentators on Stirner: that of confusing the account he gives of
ideas he is opposing with his own views. She writes that Stirner
"speaks with great disdain of .... commodity relations" and gives
as an example a passage in THE EGO AND HIS OWN containing the words
"the poor man _needs_the_rich_, the rich the poor .... So no one
needs another as a person, but needs him as a giver." What she
ignores is that this passage occurs in a chapter in which Stirner is
_describing_ the _socialist_ case before subjecting it to his
piercing criticism. It is not possible, therefore, to deduce from
this passage that it reflects his "disdain" for "commodity
relations", any more than it is possible to deduce from his poetic
description of the argument from design that he believes in a god.
Ferguson claims that Stirner does not recognize the "sociality" of
human being and that "anthropologically and psychologically, it must
be acknowledged that human being are born into groups." But Stirner
quite clearly _does_ acknowledge this fact. "Not isolation", he
writes, "or being alone, but society is man's original state ....
Society is our state of nature." To become one's own it is necessary
to dissolve this original state of society, as the child does when
it prefers the company of its playmates to its former "intimate
conjunction" with its mother. It is not, as Ferguson contends, "our
connection with others" that "provides us with our initial
self-definition", but our awareness of _contrast_ to them, our
consciousness of being _separate_ individuals. In other words,
"self-definition" is a product of _individuation_, not
_socialization_.
Nor is Stirner an advocate of "the solitary" as she implies. Both
in THE EGO AND HIS OWN and his REPLY TO CRITICS he rejects such an
interpretation of his ideas. Nor is he a moralist - he is an
amoralist. Presenting as evidence for his belief in "moral choice"
an erroneous statement by John Carroll will not do. Nor does he
reject "all socially (sic) acquired knowledge" if by that is meant
"culture" (acquired by individuals, not by "society"). On the
contrary, he states "_I_ receive with thanks what the centuries of
culture have acquired for me."
Ferguson questions why the conscious egoist should not "wish to be
free" from ownness. Why not "take a leap of faith into something
like Christianity as did St Augustine or Kierkegaard?" Precisely
because ownness is the _condition_ for what she calls "the ontology
of the self as process" - that is, ownness is _me_ possessing _me_.
Were I to abandon it by committing myself to the nonsense of
Christianity, this would not be _my_ self, but a "redeemed self"
shaped according to an image prescribed by others.
In her concluding remark Ferguson backs away from the challenge of
Stirner's egoism. "Ownness is not a sufficient base for human life,"
she claims, because "authentic individual life requires that we have
ties to others." She admits that such ties can become stifling and
that Stirner sees this danger, but contends that "he does not see
the necessity or possibility of a liberating sociality." She thus
ends up indulging in that half-this and half-that waffle that
Stirner so unerringly dissected 140 years ago. Once one begins to
think in terms of "authentic individual life" then that
"authenticity" has to be distinguished from that "inauthentic". Once
it is defined one is once again subjected to that "rule of concepts"
that Stirner is so "startling acute" in rejecting. "Liberating
sociality" based upon "authenticity" is simply a verbalism
disguising the intent on deciding our lives for us. It is a
philosophical confidence trick for which no conscious egoist will
fall.
[1] Vol XII, No. 3, 1982
____________________________________________________________________
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* *
* "You cannot enslave a free man; the most you can do is kill him!" *
* -- Robert A. Heinlein *
* *
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Contents: Editor's Word
S.E. Parker: Preface
John C. Smith: Last and First Words
Frank Jordan: In Praise of Max
Paul Rowlandson: Stirner, Youth and Tradition
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Editor's Word
_____________
This issue of Non Serviam is an end and a beginning. This issue
(#13), and issue 14, do together contain the last issue of Sid Parker's
"Ego", whose place in the world is now taken over by Non Serviam, and
it is also a proper demarcation of the establishing of Stirner in
Cyberspace. As you will see from Sid's preface below, this is the 150th
year that Der Einzige und Sein Eigentum has existed. It is also one of
the first years that the English version of the book is available
electronically [FTP etext.archive.umich.edu, and change directory to
/Pub/Politics/Non.Serviam].
The texts below are invited "appreciations" of Stirner's book,
written for the commemorative issue of "Ego". If it appeals to you,
you might be interested in knowing that Sid Parker will not lay off
totally, but continue with some 1-2 A4 page "viewsletters", and will
send these to interested persons writing to him at 19 St. Stephen's
Gardens, London W2 5QU.
Svein Olav
____________________________________________________________________
PREFACE
S.E. Parker
Although the first edition of the Ego and His Own (Der Einzige und
Sein Eigenthum) bore the date 1845, it in fact appeared towards the end
of October 1844. This year is therefore the 150th anniversary of its
publication.
Otto Wigand, its Leipzig Publisher, was well aware that such a work
might feel the weight of the disapproval of the Saxon Censorship Board
and resorted to a ruse which he hoped would enable the book to be
distributed even if the censors condemned it. As soon as the copy he
was legally obliged to deposit at the Government Office was receipted
Wigand set about delivering the remaining copies to booksellers so that
any confiscators would find his warehouse empty. To a large degree he
succeeded. Nonetheless, the censors still managed to seize 250 copies
of the 1000 printed. After a few days, however, the confiscation order
was withdrawn on the grounds that Stirner's book was "too absurd" to
warrant censorship. In other words, the censors could not understand
it! The Ego and His Own was also banned in Prussia, Kurkessen and
Mecklenburg Schwerin, but although these bans were never lifted, this
did not stop copies being obtained and read by anyone interested.
Since then The Ego and His Own has been reprinted many times and
has been translated into many languages. Throughout its existence it
has provoked outrage and won admiration. All too often, however, both
the outraged and the admiring have tried to fit Stirner's views into
the conceptual imperatives of this or that ideology. He has been
labelled many things, ranging from anarchist to fascist. No doubt
passages can be found in his book that appear to lend support to each
of these extremes, but the more one understands what it is that Stirner
is _actually_ saying, the less these labels can be fixed. The contributors
to this commemoration fortunately do not indulge in such a futile game.
They are content to record their own reactions to The Ego and His Own
and its value for them.
Contributors ...
WM. FLYGARE: "This 1/5.6 billionth: Swedish-American. Boston '17-'46.
Chicago '46-'51. Kyoto '51-the end. BA & MA (philosophy and buddhism)
plus attempts at music and theatre to learn my inabilities. Drafted into
English teaching '51-'90. Some minor publications along the way. Highly
independent ... and dependent, enjoy being alone without loneliness, my
being remarried ('65), with two daughters (25 and 28), two cats, a
love-bird, and a plum-tree. Eclectic: atheist in fact, animist in
fancy, affinity for persons, allergic to people. Own house ('69 at
last) with a window overlooking 'rooves' onto green hills and a variety
of skies. Retired to studying, versing, digesting my haps, and being
glad for my failures-n-good fortune."
FRANK JORDAN: "A life-loving, aesthetically minded outsider, passing
from a 'Nietzschean' into a fully conscious 'Stirnerite'."
SVEIN OLAV NYBERG: "Born 1966; PhD student in mathematics; editor of
Non Serviam; almost as selfish as the two cats that own him; has been
interested in Stirner for the ten years he has known about him."
S.E. PARKER: "Born 1929, Birmingham, England. Now retired after thirty
three years with British Rail. Has worked his way through the Young
Communist League (1944-1946), the British Federation of Young
Co-operators (1946-1947), and virtually all the different varieties of
anarchism (1947-1982), to emerge as his own man, the penny of conscious
egoism having finally dropped. Editor and publisher of Minus One/Ego/
The Egoist/Ego 1963-1994."
PAUL ROWLANDSON: "Currently earns a living as a lecturer in a pseudo-
academic subject at a University College on the North West Frontier of
the United Kingdom."
JOHN C. SMITH: "Needs no introduction."
____________________________________________________________________
LAST AND FIRST WORDS
John C. Smith
The Ego and His Own didn't exactly take the world by storm when it
first appeared in 1844 and hasn't since. But its publication certainly
caused a stir among the Young Hegelian circle in which the author
moved. Karl Marx, for one, was so provoked by Stirner's book that he,
together with Engels, devoted some two thirds of their book, The German
Ideology, to vilifying Stirner, seeing him as a dangerous challenge to
their creed of social salvation.
In this country it is hardly ever mentioned in polite society. Any
new edition is largely ignored by literary editors. Yet it is reprinted
regularly and never lacks readers. Some, like the anarchist Herbert
Read, for example, have to admit "One book in my youth I have never
wholly forgotten. To say that it had great influence on me would not be
correct, for influences are absorbed and become part of one's mind.
This book refused to be digested - to use our vivid English metaphor:
it stuck in the gizzard, and has been in that uncomfortable position
ever since. I refer to Max Stirner's Der Einzige und Sein Eigentum, The
Ego and His Own as it was called in the English translation, published
in 1913." (The Contrary Experience)
The main religio-political ideologies, Christianity and Marxism,
have failed to provide an answer to the world's ills. The human self-
ishness they were meant to triumph over has triumphed over them.
Christianity, which promised individual salvation (freedom from the
sin of selfishness) and brotherhood, has lost out to commerce. Shopping
has replaced going to church. New temples, indoor shopping malls which
are _usually_ ugly and unnecessary, have sprung up all over Britain.
The early Christian churches at least served a useful communal purpose
and were beautiful to look at.
In the Soviet Union the very understandable desire for personal
reward undermined and eventually overthrew the state socialist system.
There have been the inevitable attempts to explain this away by Marxist
purists asserting, as did G.K. Chesterton about Christianity, that
Marxism has not failed because it has never been tried. But, of course,
it _was_ tried, the theories that were espoused in Russia before the
1917 Revolution being more or less the same as what these apologists
would call "real socialism."
It need hardly be said that the lesser religions of anarchism and
national socialism have also failed to deliver the goods. Anarchism,
offering individual autonomy and group solidarity, is also concerned
with a perfect society free from the sin of selfishness. It is,
ostensibly, a morally purer religion than either Marxism or national
socialism since anarchists reject, in theory, involvement in existing
political and social structures. They also complicate matters by
insisting on self rule for the individual. This has ensured that
anarchism has never enjoyed a mass following.
Except for the fact that national socialism originated as a scheme
for the salvation of white Europeans it is, as Roger Scruton has
pointed out, very similar to Marxist socialism. Its famous promoter,
Adolph Hitler, was more than a bit bonkers. This, along with a similar
obsession with a selfishness-free society, ensured that it has suffered
the same fate as that of Marxism.
If the _collectivist_ panaceas have been tried and seriously found
wanting, what about the 'individualist' answers? Of these,
existentialism of the kind propounded by Jean-Paul Sartre in his
earlier, non-political phase appears to have the most in common with
Stirner's ideas. Sartre rejected the Christian God and the Hegelian
Absolute, his central doctrine being that man is what he makes of
himself and "an insistence on the actual _existence_ of the individual
as the basic and important fact instead of a reliance on theories and
abstractions." (Readers' Companion To World Literature)
As Stirner himself was more concerned with the projectionist rather
than what was projected he would not have found too much to disagree
with in this, but a closer examination of Sartre's position reveals
that he and Stirner are worlds apart. For instance, Stirner confidently
abandoned God whereas Sartre found it "extremely embarrassing that God
does not exist ... man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find
anything to depend on either within or outside himself."
(Existentialism and Humanism)
Sartre later sought to overcome this "embarrassing" forlornness by
committing himself to the collectivism of Marxism while still clinging
to the shell of his individualist existentialism. He hovered
uncertainly between the two for the rest of his life. Stirner never
made this mistake. He stubbornly, famously and usefully refused to be
anything other than himself.
The fact is, as Stirner himself could have pointed out, all of the
foregoing answers are based on a flawed analysis - the lack of
understanding of the difference between "egoistic" and "egotistic".
Recently, Brian Walden observed that the utopian mentality reveals a
faulty perception of individuality. And more recently Matt Ridley
commented that most utopians are hopelessly naive about human nature:
"I believe that ... human beings are and always have been driven by
three cardinal ambitions - for wealth, for reputation and for status -
and that you ignore such facts at your peril. Look no further than
Russia for proof. Marxism fails precisely because it indulges a fantasy
that human beings will abandon these three and replace them with the
greatest good of the greatest number."
Nevertheless, Ridley has left out something important. It is the
perennial appetite for self-delusion - to be other than what you are -
that mostly fuel these power drives. Most people, as Nigella Lawson
observes, "need to escape the resented meagreness of their own
existence ... They want magic and mysticism. They want to have others -
other worlds, other beings - dictate what is, what they are and not to
have any responsibility for themselves." Given these facts it is not
therefore surprising that Max Stirner's impassioned defence and
celebration of _his_ individuality is unique. Based as it is on the
revolutionary stance that self interest is the basis of _all_ human
endeavour The Ego and His Own may not be that last word on the subject
of human selfishness, but it contains some essential first words
without which we would be even more in the dark than we are.
____________________________________________________________________
IN PRAISE OF MAX
Frank Jordan
What is arguably the most iconoclastic work of philosophy ever
written was published in the year 1844. This work was entitled The Ego
and His Own (In original German: Der Einzige und Sein Eigenthum). The
author of this seminal work called himself Max Stirner, which was a
pseudonym of Johann Caspar Schmidt. Stirner was a member of the Young
Hegelians, but the ideas he put forward in Der Einzige, his one major
work, easily outstripped and went far beyond anything that his friends
and contemporaries had to say in their criticisms of the various
idealistic trends in society, as they understood it.
Whether the subject be God, Spirit, Family, Morality, The People,
The State, and so on, all of these Stirner ruthlessly and logically
breaks down and shows they are nothing more than idealistic 'spooks,'
falsely created in substitution for the true needs of the ego, and
usually interpreted in altruistic fashion. Only Nietzsche, in his many
writings, approaches anywhere near the same 'dizzying' extremes and
idol-smashing that is a constant theme in Stirner's book. The main
difference between the two thinkers, I believe, is that Stirner's book
is a complete statement, consistent within itself, whereas Nietzsche's
insights have to be dug out from beneath his overall works, and they
are usually aphoristic in style and content.
The impact of Stirner's book provoked a most virulent attack
against it by no less a thinker than Karl Marx, along with Engels. In
their massive work, The German Ideology, they devoted two thirds of it
to attacking line by line, and blow by blow, Stirner's book. They
constantly refer to him as 'Saint Max', 'Don Quixote', and other rather
absurd appellations, all to try to exorcise him and his book. But, in
the end, they fail miserably, after having tried every intellectual
trick they had in their mental store, hoping to promote Marxist
socialism and discredit Stirner's pure egoism.
Various theorists have proven, quite consistently, that Marxism as
it eventually developed would not have been possible without Marx and
Engels psychologically reacting against the egoistic philosophy of
Stirner in the way that they did. As recent history shows, Marxism can
now be seen as a failed attempt at trying to mould the individual
psyche into a social-procrustrean bed of ideology.
Beside the effect Stirner had on Marxism, various other thinkers
and theorists have tried to adapt the views expressed in Der Einzige to
bolster their own causes. For examples: anarchists, fascists
(especially the case of Mussolini), the situationists of the swinging
Sixties, surrealistic and dadaistic artists like Max Ernst,
psychologists like Erich Fromm. Even the very popular science fiction
trilogy of Wilson and Shea called Illuminatus acknowledges a great debt
to Stirner throughout the plot. And we must not forget the
existentialist tag Stirner has been given!
Ultimately, of course, despite the diverse thinkers who are
attracted to, and 'turned on', by Stirner, the uniqueness of The Ego
and His Own stands like a lone mountain which cannot be levelled down
to fulfil some else's rather shallow and hollow-sounding ideals.
As long as men can, and will, think and act for themselves there
will always be a place for Max Stirner's uplifting and stirring book.
His work speaks from the position of a _unique one_ to all other
receptive _unique ones_.
I thank you, Max Stirner.
____________________________________________________________________
STIRNER, YOUTH AND TRADITION
Paul Rowlandson
Young people are subject to the psychological malady of 'militant
enthusiasm'. It strikes between the ages of 16 and 25, the time of life
when we are most keen to sacrifice our all for a Cause, the particular
cause being determined by the fashionable enthusiasms of the day. That
is why young men are useful in armies - they are easily fired up to go
over the top. They are useful too, in religious organizations, because
they will go out and proselytize in the rain, or sign away their lives
to religious orders.
Stirner described this period, when the boy has become a youth:
"One must obey God rather than man ... from this high stand-point
everything 'earthly' recedes into contemptible remoteness; for the
stand-point is the heavenly."
As a youth in the late 60s and early 70s I was influenced by the
passions of the time.
As a child I was packed off to the fire and brimstone "washed in
the blood of the Lamb" Congregational church in Oak Vale, Liverpool, by
my parents, who themselves never went to a church except for weddings
and funerals.
I remember a visiting preacher throttling a live chicken in the
pulpit to make a point I had long forgotten. It was a church parade day
and I was a member of the church scout troop, which I hated. Some of
the Church elders must have thought that the preacher had overdone it
because I remember we were asked by some of them what we thought of the
chicken-throttling. I can't remember being upset by it, which is
surprising. It was shortly after this incident that I was sent off to
the local Anglican church for some civilized religion.
I wasted a lot of time during my school years by my involvement
with CND, the Young Communist League, the Syndicalist Workers
Federation, and other radical organisations. I took part in various
silly demonstrations, including the then obligatory Aldermaston marches
and some sort of anti-Vietnam war demo from Hyde Park to Trafalgar
Square.
Most of my reading was of the radical sort - Marx, Alexander
Berkman, Proudhon, Anarchy magazine, Direct Action, Solidarity, and
such. I left school with two 'O' levels as a result.
The young mind is bombarded by other people's thoughts. From
childhood to adolescence we absorb ideas and viewpoints from other
people, whether in person, through print, or through radio and
television. The selection of what goes in is more or less random,
within certain limits, varying according to time, culture and
geography.
Christianity was perhaps the major ingredient in my case, as it was
(and still is, though less so) with most English youths.
It is an easy thing for an uninformed mind to contrast the
"idealism" of Christianity with the "injustices" of the world. I
remember thinking how like Christianity Marxism was, and how
hypocritical of Christian society to deny us the benefits of communism.
However, there was a growing realisation of a divergence of
interests, an awareness that I had reservations and doubts about the
activities and enthusiasms with which I was then engaged. For example,
as a teenager I was a pirate radio enthusiast, which I found hard to
reconcile with my anarcho-communist beliefs. There were several other
discrepancies. I was a strange sort of anarchist for I always had a
high regard for the Police, and frequently found myself uncomfortable
with my comrades' description of them as 'pigs'.
I have always been an enthusiast for quirky or idiosyncratic
publications. As a youth I favoured the iconoclastic. As an older man I
now seek the reactionary, the traditional, the ultra conservative
publications. Revolutions pleased me then, Tradition pleases me now.
The most unusual journal I ever came across was Minus One (the
precursor of Ego - Ed). I subscribed immediately. Here was something
different.
I very soon thereafter acquired from Minus One a copy of the
Libertarian Book Club 1963 edition of The Ego and His Own. Even the
physical attributes of the book are extraordinary. It is a substantial
book, printed on high quality paper, bound in signatures, with a plain
thick green cover, and a plain typeface. It looks and feels a _serious_
book.
My reading of The Ego and His Own had a powerful and continuing
influence. Here was a mind I connected with straight away. Its effect
was that of a mental spring cleaning. The "wheels in the head", the
ideas and opinions which I had accumulated, lost their power, although,
as Stirner says, "Daily experience confirms the truth that the
understanding may have renounced a thing many years before the heart
has ceased to beat for it." Nevertheless, the effect was that I now
possessed the wheels in the head rather than them possessing me.
Stirner takes no hostages. The demolition is thorough: "the Good
cause, God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of
humanity, of justice, my people, my prince, my fatherland, even the
cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes."
For a time I was cause-less, but eventually started restocking. I
acquired some causes of my own, but this time they belonged to me. I
could run with them or discard them as I wished.
It is probably as difficult to go without causes as it is to do
without interests. A cause is, after all, simply a compelling interest
grown large. But one of the benefits derived from reading Stirner is
the ability to prevent their possession of their owner. My final
authority is myself.
There are occasions in life we think of as watersheds. Nothing is
ever quite the same again. My discovery of The Ego and His Own was such
an event. It became impossible to think again in the way I thought
before I read the book. There is no other book like it.
Pope John Paul II once commented that the faithful have a right not
to be disturbed by the speculations of the so-called radical
theologians. Should the man or woman in the street be exposed to Max
Stirner? I think not. People will go to almost any lengths to avoid
thinking for themselves. The Ego and His Own would no doubt unhinge
many of them, which might make life more difficult for the rest of us.
Fortunately there appears to be a small elite which can absorb and
benefit from Stirner without going off the rails - those who can see
through not just the Emperor's new clothes but the old ones as well.
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Contents: Wm. Flygare: "To My Sweetheart"
Svein Olav Nyberg: The Choice of a New Generation
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"TO MY SWEETHEART" - With an Addition to Bartlett
Wm. Flygare
On this 150th birthday of The Ego and His Own (1844, dated 1845),
what intrigues me is the dedication. What was Mary's contribution to
John-n-Mary's only issue - a book?
Stirner (42.2; p358) speaks of using life up like a burning candle.
In the John-n-Mary romance - a roman candle - their wedded life
(1843-1846) ended in her long-life life-long rancour against a "sly"
man whom she "neither loved nor respected." In affairs of the heart, as
well as in practical affairs, both were losers, the woman more than the
philosopher who had two worlds to live in.
It would seem, then, that the inspiring young Mary deserves a
gratitude that the older embittered one would be loath to accept, her
wound a secret she would not tell.
The Ego and Hos Own appears a vast commentary to the Goethe poem
alluded to at the beginning and end. Its absence in publications of The
Ego is unfortunate. In Stirner's time this poem was "a favourite with
everyone" (Schopenhauer's Councels and Maxim #5) but it is little known
now. Like Smith, Stirner is "in love," certainly with the "tyranny of
words" (43.3; p.389). Unlike elsewhere in his work, there are poetic
parallels and flights, external pattern, redundance, etymological
word-play, elations, and hyperbole, his pen often shouting as if
against the loud-voiced among "The Free Ones". These features have made
the work most variously read and can detract. _Parler sans accent_. But
as to the diagnostic content: Stance is circumscribed by circumstance.
In their desperate drive for impossible certainty and acceptance, and
hope to qualify, the driven drive the driven, mental straight-jackets
nicely laced. In adolescence, the rarely curable brain-smudge received
in childhood festers into visions and conversions that lead to "normal"
madness and its "stealthy malice" (7.2; p.46). Now instead of talk
_about_ the prophylaxis and solace offered by The Ego and His Own,
Stirner himself: I have tried to ferret out his key observations in
sober and concise form as "an addition to Bartlett" since Bartlett's
"Familiar Quotations" is one of a number of well-known reference works
which neglect this exorcist of "spooks", some of whose phrases deserve
to be "familiar." Reference is to a yet unpublished paragraph-numbering
system and to pages in Reclam 3957(6), the only currently stable
publication:
What have we gained, then, when for a variation we have transferred
into ourselves the divine outside us? Are we that which is in us? As
little as we are that which is outside us. I am as little my heart as I
am my sweetheart, this "other self" of mine. (4.20; p.34)
... out of confidence in our grandmothers' honesty we believe in
the existence of spirits.
But had we no grandfathers then, and did they not shrug their shoulders
every time our grandmothers told about their ghosts? (5.1&2; p.36)
... over each minute of your existence a fresh minute of the future
beckons to you, and, developing yourself, you get away "from yourself,"
that is, from the self that was at that moment. (5.13; p.39)
Man, your head is haunted ... You imagine ... a spirit-realm to
which you suppose yourself to be called, an ideal that beckons to you.
You have a fixed idea! (7.1; p.46)
... it is only through the "flesh" that I can break tyranny of
mind; for it is only when a man hears his flesh along with the rest of
him that he hears himself wholly, and it is only when he wholly hears
himself that he is a hearing (vernehmend) or rational (vernunftig)
being. (10.12; p.68)
Because the revolutionary priests or schoolmasters served Man, they
cut off the heads of men. (14.24; p.68)
Many a man renounces morals, but with great difficulty the
conception, "morality." (15.12; p.96)
... every effort arrives at reaction ... a _new master_ set in the
old one's place, and the overturning is a - building up. (17.32&35;
pp.120&121)
... if a "tie" clasps you, you are something only _with another_,
and twelve of you make a dozen, thousands of you a people, millions of
you humanity ... I answer, only when you are single can you have
intercourse with each other as what you are. (21.34&36; p.148)
I do not want to have or be anything especial above others, ... but
- I do not measure myself by others either, ... The equal, the same,
they can neither be nor have. (21.52; p.152)
It is not thinking, but my thoughtlessness (lit.,
thought-rid-ness), or I the unthinkable, incomprehensible, that frees
me from possession. (23.15; p.169)
What the craving for freedom has always come to has been the desire
for a _particular_ freedom ... The craving for a _particular_ freedom
always includes the purpose of a new _dominion_. (24.13&14; p.176)
But the habit of the religious way of thinking has biased our mind
so grievously that we are - terrified at _ourselves_ in our nakedness
and naturalness; it has degraded us so that we deem ourselves depraved
by nature, born devils. (24.21; p.178)
I am present. (24.22; p.180)
Thousands of years of civilization have obscured to you what you
are ... Shake that off! ... and let go your hypocritical endeavours,
your foolish mania to be something else than you are. (24.30; p.181)
You want to be "in the right" as against the rest. That you cannot;
as against them you remain forever "in the wrong". (26.12; p.207)
What is the ordinary criminal but one who has ... sought despicable
_alien_ goods? ... You do not know that an ego who is his own cannot
desist from being a criminal, that crime is his life. (28.6; p.221)
Everything sacred is a tie, a fetter. (31.24; p.239)
For only he who is alive is in the right. (31.24; p.239)
I never believed in myself; I never believed in my present, I saw
myself only in the future ... a proper I ... a "citizen," a "free or
true man" ... an alien I ... An I that is neither an I nor a you, a
_fancied_ I, a spook. (31.5; p.247)
But I love ... because love makes _me_ happy ... because loving is
natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no ''commandment of love."
(39.15; p.324)
I sing because - I am a singer. But I _use_ (gebrauche) you for it
because I - need (gebrauche) ears. (39.37; p.331)
That a society (such as the society of the State) diminishes my
_liberty_ offends me little. Why, I have to let my liberty be limited
by all sorts of powers and by every one who is stronger; nay, by every
fellow-man; and, were I the autocrat of all the R..... , I yet should
not enjoy absolute liberty. But _ownness_ I will not have taken from
me. And ownness is precisely what every society has designs on,
precisely what is to succumb to its power. (41.7; p.342f)
We are equal _only in thoughts_, only when "we" are _thought_, not
as we really and bodily are. I am ego, and you are ego: but I am not
this thought-of ego; this ego in which we are all equal is only my
_thought_. I am man, and you are man: but "man" is only a thought, a
generality; neither I nor you are speakable, we are _unutterable_,
because only _thoughts_ are speakable and consist in speaking. (41.15;
p.348)
Henceforth, the question runs, not how one can acquire life .. but
how one is to dissolve himself, to live himself out. (42.6; p.348)
Possibility and reality always coincide. (42.3; p.368f)
No sheep, no dog, exerts itself to become a "proper sheep, a proper
dog". (42.47; p.372)
I receive with thanks what the centuries of culture have acquired
for me; I am not willing to throw away and give up anything of it ...
But I want still more. (42.53; p.372)
All truth by itself is dead, a corpse; it is alive only in the same
way as my lungs are alive - to wit, in the measure of my own vitality.
[...] The truth is a - creature. (43.64; p.398-399)
No idea has existence, for none is capable of corporeity. [...]
What, am I in the world to realize ideas? (45.5&13; pp.408&411)
____________________________________________________________________
THE EGO AND ITS OWN - The Choice of a New Generation
Svein Olav Nyberg
"Knowledge must die, and rise again
as Will and create itself anew each
day as a free Person."
The False Principle of Our Education
Those of us who have reached adulthood during the eighties have
not avoided noticing all the literature and the ideas about self-
love that has been around. Even the nursery-eyed girls with the
concerned looks sometimes stutter that they think you should be
allowed to love yourself as much as you love your neighbour. Most of
this literature and most of these ideas come from psychology. Wayne
Dwyer reasons that since loving your neighbour as yourself will not
amount to much love of the neighbour unless you love yourself first,
you should therefore love yourself. Psychologically, the link is
claimed that other-love is impossible without self-love. So we
should think we are at a magic time in history; the omni-present
Society gives us permission to love ourselves.
But there are those of us who are not such well-bred rats
conditioned to do whatever we are told benefits our neighbour. We do
not love ourselves to please our abstract or concrete neighbours,
but just love ourselves, plain and simple. Our kind of people see
these trends as nothing other than the old hogwash in a new
disguise. Not only shall you sacrifice yourself to the good of your
neighbour, but you shall do so under the illusion that you do it for
yourself. We penetrate deeper, we go into philosophy.
Philosophically, also, it has been a decade of praising the self.
Why, has not the notorious Ayn Rand sold more books and increased
her organized following more than ever? Has not the libertarian
community accepted selfishness as a rule? Again, ever more illusion!
Randian self-love is the love of Man your Essence within you, and
the hate of the Evil un-Man in you, lurking at the boundaries of the
Omni-Good Rational Thought. Libertarian ideas, furthermore, are in
this respect nothing more than the ghost of departed Objectivists.
It is amidst all this confusion that a young man of today will
find himself as he picks up his first copy of The Ego and Its Own.
Usually, as in my case, he will have a background in libertarian
thought, and smile at the thought that "Here we have the guy who is
even more consistent than Rand. Wow, these ideas will be useful for
my libertarianism!" As the reading of the book proceeds, the young
libertarian will look at the pages in amazed horror; is not this
Stirner guy just picking libertarianism logically apart before his
very eyes? Oh horror! No, this must surely rest on a
misunderstanding. Stirner never knew modern libertarianism, did he?
So, he is really running loose on something else. Yes? But, no,
realisation dawns that libertarianism - after all a very logical and
aesthetic system which even works - given a faint "best of society"
premise - is without the foundation our young libertarian wants.
Rights are spooks, his head is haunted and his pride is hurt.
There are now two possible lessons to learn; either to learn from
Stirner to speak to others about selfishness - universalize that we
are all (and implicitly _ought to be_) selfish, and to use this as a
new basis for libertarian idealism, or - to delve into oneself to
find one's _own_ cause.
Now, what is not supposed to be my cause! From society we learn
that selfishness consists in filling your wallet and emptying your
balls as best as you can. From religion we learn that our _true_
interest lies in the contemplation of ideas and renunciation of the
body. But these are both very one-sided goals, and do violence to
_me_. They are both follies of one and the same type - formal egoism.
Formal egoism is what arises when you conceive of yourself as an
object, a sum of predicates, and not as beyond predicates - as an
Einzige. Modern man hypostatizes - makes objects of - everything,
including himself. For a modern man the choice is only _which_ object
among the objects is to be chosen as the ultimate value. So why not
the object he knows as "me"? But when you serve the interests of an
object, you need a recipe, a guideline - some rules. These might be
explicit, or they might be, as for most people, implicit. The formal
egoist then serves the himself-object as best he can according to
the predications of what selfishness means - and, mind you, he might
even have so much success as to attain some predicated goals that he
thinks a selfish man should attain - but he never gets to the bottom
of _his_ interests. He is formally indistinguishable from the selfish
man, but in reality never attains anything more than being a boy-
scout at satisfying the himself-object.
Stirner is a good teacher of lessons. In A Human Life he shows the
dialectical development towards a full understanding of one's own
cause. One starts out as a child who thinks that all that matters is
- matter. Thereafter the procession goes to the realm of the Mind -
ideas - where all importance and values are to be found in the
relation to the idea. Only thereafter does it dawn that there is
something beyond all the material and spiritual objects, yet more
immediate, namely _I_, myself.
It is easy to come to the protest "Now _what_ is the I?" As Stirner
answers, I am not a "what" but a "who". Grasping this distinction,
and why Stirner emphasises it, is essential to understanding
Stirner, and is why The Ego and Its Own is so different from any
other book about selfishness.
A question that seems to have puzzled both the older and the
younger generation is "If Stirner was such a self-loving man, why
did he bother to write a book that gave him so much trouble and so
little reward?" I do not propose to answer this question in
specifics, but instead look at how he has developed his theory of
relations to other people.
Stirner has been described as a man who has taken the full
consequence of being-alone in the world, and sometimes even a
solipsist. I take these descriptions as coming from people not fully
knowledgeable about Stirner. Stirner does not advocate the life of
the Sole Ego on the hill, out of contact with other people. Rather,
he seems to derive much enjoyment from the company of his peers, and
even babies with their competent smiles. But it is easy to be
intoxicated by a book such as Stirner's, and fail to read what is
written. What Stirner actually writes about, is that there are
basically two (opposite) forms of interaction, namely that of
standing as an _I_ against a _You_, versus meeting one another qua
predicate-filled objects. The understanding of this demands that one
understands the difference between the Einzige that one is, and the
objects we are conditioned by culture to see ourselves as.
The meeting of the I against the You actually comprises more than
half of Stirner's book. This, I propose, is the key to why he wrote
the book. All around him he saw, and met, people whose only mode of
interaction was qua object-to-object. He met "good citizens",
"Christians" and even "Humans", all playing out a social role
according to the predicate of the day. But meeting one another with
that veil of predicates removed was a scarcity, as it is today.
Meeting Einzig to Einzig is scary. The you stand there all for and
by yourself with no predicate to hide behind. That is why people
continually choose to interact via predicates - object-to-object.
But this is nothing different from the mad-man at the asylum who is
unable to face the world as anyone but "Napoleon". We live, as
Stirner put it, in a mad-house among mad-men.
This is why Stirner wrote his book: It is a therapy for all of us
who out of the fear of seeing ourselves as pure and nakedly
ourselves. A therapy so that he might speak and otherwise interact
with us as the Einzige we are, and not as a thousand "Napoleon"s.
Do you dare accept the therapy offered by Stirner?
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non serviam #15
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Contents: Editor's Word
Dora Marsden: Thinking and Thought
S.E. Parker: Comment to Ken Knudson
***********************************************************************
Editor's Word
_____________
I am delighted to include an essay by a female champion of egoism in
this issue of Non Serviam, made available electronically by another
egoist woman, Sunniva Morstad. It first appeared in "The Freewoman",
No. 5, Vol. 1, August 15th 1913. Like Stirner, she builds a case for
egoism through a criticism of the absoluteness of language - a thought
which should not be unfamiliar for the many on Non Serviam who have
adopted Korzybski=B4s "General Semantics" as a guideline. I personally
think this approach to egoism via a criticism of language deserves
more attention, and would therefore be very happy to receive articles
written from different points of view on this relation.
Since Non Serviam is now also going to go on paper to the unprivileged
without email access, I will include some longer good discussion posts
which would otherwise have been most fitting for the discussion list
Nonserv, in Non Serviam. The first such post is a comment by Sid Parker
to Ken Knudson=B4s serial [2] here in Non Serviam.
Svein Olav
[1] Sidney Parker: "Archists, Anarchists and Egoists". Non Serviam #7
[2] Ken Knudson: "A Critique of Communism and The Individualist
Alternative". Non Serviam #1-12
____________________________________________________________________
Dora Marsden:
Thinking and Thought
--------------------
It is strange to find searchers coming here seeking thoughts, followers
after truth seeking new lamps for old, right ideas for wrong. It seems
fruitless to affirm that our business is to annihilate thought, to
shatter the new lamps no less than the old, to dissolve ideas, the
"right" as well as the "wrong". "It is a new play of artistry , some
new paradox," they reflect, not comprehending that artistry and paradox
are left as the defences of power not yet strong enough to comprehend.
If a man has the power that comprehends, what uses has he left for
paradox? If he sees a thing as it is, why must he needs describe it in
terms of that which is not? Paradox is the refuge of the adventurous
guesser: the shield of the oracle whose answer is not ready. Searchers
should not bring their thoughts to us: we have no scruple in destroying
their choicest, and giving them none in return. They would be well able
to repair the depredations elsewhere, however, for nowhere else, save
here, are thoughts not held sacred and in honour. Everywhere, from all
sides, they press in thick upon men, suffocating life. All is thought
and no thinking. _We_ do the thinking: the rest of the world spin
thoughts. If from the operation of thinking one rises up only with
thoughts, not only has the thinking-process gone wrong: it has not
begun. To believe that it has is as though one should imagine the work
of digesting food satisfactorily carried through when the mouth has
been stuffed with sand.
The process of thinking is meant to co-ordinate two things which are
real: the person who thinks and the rest of the phenomenal world, the
world of sense. Any part of the process which can be described in terms
unrelated to these two - and only two - real parties in the process is
redundant and pernicious, an unnecessary by-product which it would be
highly expedient to eliminate. Thoughts, the entire world of ideas and
concepts, are just these intruders and irrelevant excesses. Someone
says, apropos of some change without a difference in the social sphere,
"We are glad to note the triumph of progressive ideas." Another, "We
rejoice in the fact that we are again returning to the ideas of honour
and integrity of an earlier age." We say, leprosy or cholera for
choice. Idea, idea, always the idea. As though the supremacy of the
idea were not the subjection of men, slaves to the idea. Men need no
ideas. They have no use for them ( Unless indeed they are of the
literary breed - then they live upon them by their power to beguile the
simple). What men need is power of being, strength in themselves: and
intellect which in the thinking process goes out as a scout, comparing,
collating, putting like by like, or nearly like, is but the good
servant which the individual being sends afield that he may the better
protect, maintain and augment himself. Thinking, invaluable as it is in
the service of being, is, essentially a very intermittent process. It
works only between whiles. In the nadir and zenith of men's experience
it plays no part, when they are stupid and when they are passionate.
Descartes' maxim "Cogito ergo sum," carried the weight it did and does
merely because the longfelt influence of ideas had taken the virtue out
of men's souls. Stronger men would have met it, not with an argument,
but a laugh. It is philosophy turned turtle. The genesis of knowledge
is not in thinking but in being. Thinking widens the limits of
knowledge, but the base of the latter is in feeling. "I know" because
"I am." The first follows the second and not contrariwise. The base -
and highest reaches - of knowledge lie not in spurious thoughts,
fine-drawn, not yet in the humble and faithful collecting of
correspondences which is thinking, but in experienced emotion. What men
may be, their heights and depths, they can divine only in experienced
emotion. The vitally true things are all personally revealed, and they
are true primarily only for the one to whom they are revealed. For the
rest the revelation is hearsay. Each man is his own prophet. A man's
"god" ( a confusing term, since it has nothing to do with God, the
Absolute - a mere thought) is the utmost emotional reach of himself:
and is in common or rare use according to each individual nature. A
neighbour's "god" is of little use to any man. It represents a wrong
goal, a false direction.
We are accused of "finesse-ing with terms." No accusation could be
wider off the mark. We are analysing terms; we believe, indeed, that
the next work for the lovers of men is just this analysis of naming.
It will go completely against the grain of civilisation, cut straight
across culture: that is why the pseudo-logicians loathe logic - indeed,
it will be a matter for surprise that one should have the temerity to
name the word. So great a fear have the cultured of the probing of
their claims that they are counselling the abandonment of this
necessary instrument. They would prefer to retain inaccurate thinking
which breeds thoughts, to accurate thinking which reveals facts and in
its bright light annihilates the shadows bred of dimness, which are
thoughts. Analysis of the process of naming: inquiry into the impudent
word-trick which goes by the name of "abstraction of qualities":
re-estimation of the form-value of the syllogism; challenging of the
slipshod methods of both induction and deduction; the breaking down of
closed systems of "classification" into what they should be - graded
descriptions; _these_ things are more urgently needed than thinkable in
the intellectual life of today. The settlement of the dispute of the
nominalist and realist schoolmen of the Middle Ages in favour of the
former rather than the latter would have been of infinitely greater
value to the growth of men than the discoveries of Columbus, Galileo
and Kepler. It would have enabled them to shunt off into nothingness
the mountain of culture which in the world of the West they have been
assiduously piling up since the time of the gentle father of lies and
deceit, Plato. It is very easy, however, to understand why the
conceptualists triumphed, and are still triumphing, despite the ravages
they have worked on every hand. The concept begets the idea, and every
idea installs its concrete authority. All who wield authority do it in
the name of an idea: equality, justice, love, right, duty, humanity,
God, the Church, the State. Small wonder, therefore, if those who sit
in the seats of authority look askance at any tampering with names and
ideas. It is a different matter from questioning the of _one_ idea.
Those who, in the name of one idea do battle against the power of
another, can rely upon some support. Indeed, changing new lamps for old
is the favourite form of intellectual excitement inasmuch as while it
is not too risky, is not a forlorn hope, it yet ranges combatants on
opposing sides with all the zest of a fight. But to question _all_
ideas is to leave authoritarians without any foothold whatsoever. Even
opposing authorities will sink differences and combine to crush an
Ishmaelite who dares. Accordingly, after three quarters of a thousand
years, the nominalist position is where it was: nowhere, and all men
are in thrall to ideas - culture. They are still searching for the
Good, the Beautiful and the True. They are no nearer the realisation
that the Good in the actual never is a general term, but always a
specific, i.e. that which is "good for me" (or you, or anyone) varying
with time and person, in kind and substance; that the Beautiful is
likewise "beautiful for me" (or you, or anyone) varying with time and
person, in kind and substance, measured by a standard wholly
subjective; that the True is just that which corresponds: in
certainties, mere verified observation of fact; in doubt, opinion as to
fact and no more, a mere "I think it so" in place of "I find it so." As
specifics, they are real: as generalisations, they are thoughts,
spurious entities, verbiage representing nothing, and as such are
consequently in high repute. The work of purging language is likely to
be a slow one even after the battle of argument in its favour shall
have been won. It is observable that egoists, for instance, use
"should," "ought," and "must" quite regularly in the sense which bears
the implication of an existing underlying "Duty." Denying authority,
they use the language of authority. If the greatest possible
satisfaction of self ( which is a pleasure) is the motive in life, with
whose voice does "Duty" speak? Who or what for instance lays it down
that our actions must not be "invasive" of others? An effete god,
presumably, whose power has deserted him, since most of us would be
hard put to it to find action and attitudes which are not invasive.
Seizing land - the avenue of life - is invasive: loving is invasive,
and so is hating and most of the emotions. The emphasis accurately
belongs on "defence" and not on "invasion" and defence is
self-enjoined.
No, Duty, like the rest, is a thought, powerless in itself, efficient
only when men give it recognition for what it is not and doff their own
power in deference, to set at an advantage those who come armed with
the authority of its name. And likewise with "Right." What is "right"
is what I prefer and what you and the rest prefer. Where these "rights"
overlap men fight is out; their _power_ becomes umpire, their might is
their right. Why keep mere words sacred? Since right is ever swallowed
up in might why speak of right? Why seek to acquire rights when each
right has to be matched by the might which first secures and then
retains it? When men acquire the ability to make and co-ordinate
accurate descriptions, that is, when they learn to think, the empire of
mere words, "thoughts", will be broken, the sacred pedestals shattered,
and the seats of authority cast down. The contests and achievements of
owners of "powers" will remain.
____________________________________________________________________
S.E. Parker:
Comment to Ken Knudson
----------------------
K.K. prefers a "consumer' dicatorship" to a "producers' dictatorship"
on the grounds that "consumers are finicky people - they want the best
possible product at the lowest price. To achieve this end they will use
ruthless means."
I do not know what consumers he is writing about, but they are
certainly not the ones I know. A few, certainly, will use "ruthless
means" to obtain the cheapest and best product. The majority, however,
seem to be quite content not only to buy expensive trash, but even
unwilling to look for shops where theycan get identical products at
cheaper prices. For example, we have two supermarkets where I live.
One, on average, charges higher prices than the other. They are about
three minutes walking time apart. Yet the higher pried one continues to
prosper because most of its customers are not prepared to go round the
corner to what the cheaper priced one is like. Not only this, but a
smaller shop in the neighbourhood, run by a company that are rip-off
merchants of the first order, not only flourishes, but has extended
opening times! So much for the "ruthless customer"!
It is clear to me that K.K. has merely exchanged the idealized
"producer" for the idealized "customer", he has replaced the myth of
the socialist with the myth of the "free marketeer" - and is therefore
just as utopian as the anarcho-communist he criticizes so well.
"The only way to realize anarchy is for a sufficient number of people
to be convinced that their own interests demand it."
This statement does not show _why_ people will find anarchy in their
interests, it only shows that Ken Knudson _thinks_ they should find it
in their interests. (I am reminded of an observation about Ayn Rand
made by an American conservative to the effect that "Miss Rand believes
in people acting according to their self-interest so long as she can
define what that interest is.")
KK claims that people are pragmatists and that until they can be made
to realize that "anarchy actually works for their benefit, it will
remain...anidle pipe-dream." As I understand it, pragmatism is
concerned with what _works_. If anarchy is still a "pipe-dream" it is
plainly _not_ working. So how does one show that it will work? By
convincing people that it will! But, if people are pragmatists, and
will only be convinced by something that "works", then one is in the
invidious position of trying to convince them that what is not working
now will work at some indefinite time in the future if only they will
be convinced that it will, despite the fact that, as pragmatists, they
are only to be convinced by seeing something that actually works!
Methinks that here he has fallen right into the trap that Stirner
pointed out; the belief that because something is conceivable it is
therefore possible.
KK looks to the founding of the mutual banks as a way to achieve his
ideal society, but how many of these have been established and worked
succesfully since Proudhon advocated them over a hundred years ago? If
they were in the interest of a "sufficient number of people" who have
grasped their value as a means to realize anarchy why hasn't that
"sufficient number" been forthcoming? Could it be that most of those
who have had them explained to them did _not_ find them in their
interests? What basis does he have for assuming that even if a large
number of people became consciously self-interested they will find
their interests coincide with those of anarchism? His faith I do not
doubt, but where is the evidense?
The power of the tyrant, KK writes, "comes from the abdicated power
of his subjects". The supposition that at some time or another these
subjects decided to "abdicate" their power to a tyrant smacks
suspiciously of the myth of the "social contract". In any case, he is
assuming that if these subjects had the power to grant to a tyrant and
that they were to repossess it they would then be as powerful as those
whom they granted it. Again, an act of faith. It is plain to me that
since individuals are genetically unequal, so their power - their
competence as Stirner called it - is also unequal. Even were they
tyrant - or democratic governments - thus rendered "powerless" this
inequality of power would soon be expressed in a new hierarchy - of
_function_ if not _formal_status_ - and the division between ruler and
ruled re-established. The "dominant five-percent", like the poor, we
always have with us.
What Stirner wrote about idols is true. I know that, Ken Knudson knows
that, and so do a few others, but why does he believe that everyone
will cometo know that? This is the sort of belief called the "Everest
fallacy" - i.e. because _some_ people have climbed Everest, _all_
people can climb it.
"We egoists raise the banner of free competition." "We" egoists do
nothing of the kind. If I benefit from "unfree" competition why should
I renounce my egoistic satisfaction in that fact in favour of a system
from which I benefit less? Implicit in this kind of assertion is the
assumption that everyone's interest can be served by one way of going
on. If one accepts the Stirnerian concept of "the unique one" this is
manifest nonsense.
KK rejects "frontiers" as absurd. No doubt from a global _anarchist_
perspective they are. But why suppose that an_egoist_ will reject
frontiers out of hand? Making one's "fatherland", "motherland" or
"homeland" _holy_ is, of course, so much spookery. Nonetheless, an
egoist might find the existence of frontiers something of use to him.
I, for example, live on an overcrowded island called Britain. Do I want
this country swamped by hordes of immigrants as the result of doing
away with frontiers? I do not. And if my support, pragmatic support, of
a barrier against such a horde steps on the intellectual/moral toes of
some liberal, libertarian or anarchist dreamers, that is their lookout.
It is _my_ egoism that concerns _me_, not some abstract "egoism"
pressed in the service of some universalistic fantasy. There are more
ways of viewing one's egoistic interests than are dreamed of by
anarchists....
There is more I could write on these topics, but I think I have put the
cat among enough pigeons for the moment.
Sid Parker
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* *
* "What is laid down, ordered, factual, is never *
* enough to embrace the whole truth: life always *
* spills over the rim of every cup." *
* *
* -- Boris Pasternak *
* *
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