[1289] This is how we find it appraised in Le Mouvement socialiste: “The development of solidarism is one of the most disquieting features of the present time. It affords a proof as well as being a cause of a considerable slackening of energy.” (Issue for July 1907; Paul Olivier in a review of Bouglé’s book on solidarism.)
[1290] Association, even when the object in view is purely mercenary, has a moral value superior to exchange:
(1) Inasmuch as it always implies, in addition to money payment, a certain sacrifice of time and trouble, perhaps even of independence. It involves something more than the obligation to attend meetings and to conform to rules.
(2) It implies something more than a mere act of exchange which is completed in an instant and at one stroke. It implies the indefinite collaboration of the parties concerned.
[1291] The solidarist régime must be distinguished from the exchange régime on the one hand and from charity on the other. Exchange implies giving something with a view to obtaining the exact equivalent. Charity, on the other hand, implies giving without expecting any return; hence it involves a sacrifice. Solidarity also implies a sacrifice: every appeal on behalf of solidarity is based upon the consciousness of a certain amount of sacrifice, but a sacrifice that is not entirely disinterested—it is the sacrifice of a part of the individual self in order to gain an equal share in the collective being.
[1292] See his article on Government in the Dictionnaire of Coquelin and Guillaumin.
[1293] Œuvres, vol. i, p. 59 (Fédéralisme, Socialisme, et Antithéologisme).
[1294] Adler in his article Anarchismus in the Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, and in his Geschichte des Sozialismus und Kommunismus (1899), shows the indebtedness of the anarchist ideal to Greek philosophy.
[1295] The work was republished in 1882 and again in 1893, and translated into French in 1902. There are also a few translations from the writings of Smith and Say from his pen. A very interesting account of his life, to which we must acknowledge our indebtedness for some of the information given here, is to be found in J.H. Mackay’s Max Stirner, sein Leben und sein Werk (Berlin, 1898). Stirner’s real name was Kaspar Schmidt. Born in 1806 at Bayreuth, in Bavaria, he died at Berlin in extreme poverty and wretchedness in 1856. For an account of the “left Hegelian school” and of Stirner himself see the very interesting articles of Saint-René Taillandier published in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 1842-50.
[1296] Some may perhaps wonder why Nietzsche is not included, especially as he was a successor of Stirner’s. But Nietzsche’s interests were always exclusively philosophical and ethical. Stirner’s work, on the other hand, is mainly social and political. We have already pointed out that even Stirner’s book has only a rather remote connection with economics, and a detailed study of it would be more in keeping with a history of political ideas. Nietzsche’s work would lead us still farther afield, and would force us to examine every individualistic doctrine as it cropped up.