Anarchism: A Criticism and History of the Anarchist Theory

by E. V. Zenker

All progress of public opinion or emancipation of the human mind, as hitherto proceeding, is accordingly for Stirner worthless labour, a mere scene-shifting. As Christianity not only did not free mankind from the power of ancient spectres, but rather strengthened and increased them, so too the Reformation did not remove the chains of mankind a hair's-breadth. "Because Protestantism broke down the medieval hierarchy, the opinion gained ground that hierarchy in general had been broken down by it, while it was quite overlooked that the Reformation was even a restoration of a worn-out hierarchy. The hierarchy of the middle ages had been only a feeble one, since it had to allow all possible barbarity to persons to go on unchecked with it, and the Reformation first steeled the strength of the hierarchy. When Bruno Bauer said: 'As the Reformation was principally the abstract separation of the religious principle from art, government, and science, and thus was its liberation from those powers with which it had been connected in the antiquity of the Church and in the hierarchy of the middle ages, so also the theological and ecclesiastical movements that proceeded from the Reformation were only the logical carrying out of this abstraction or separation of the religious principle from other powers of humanity';—and so I see on the contrary that which is right, and think that rule of the mind or mental freedom (which comes to the same thing) has never been before so comprehensive and powerful as at the present time, because now, instead of separating the religious principle from art, government, and science, it is rather raised entirely from the kingdom of this world into the realm of the spirit and made religious."

From the same point of view he considers the whole of the mental attitude introduced by the Reformation.

"How can one," he says, "maintain of modern philosophy and of the modern period that they have accomplished freedom when it has not freed us from the power of objectivity? Or am I free from despots when I no longer fear a personal tyrant, but am afraid of every outrage upon the loyalty which I owe to him?"

This is just the case in the modern period. It only changes existing objects, the actual ruler and so on, to an imagined one, that is, into ideas for which the old respect not only has not been lost but has increased in intensity. If a piece was taken off the idea of God and the devil in their former gross realism, nevertheless only so much the more attention has been devoted to our conceptions of them. "They are free from devils, but evil has remained." To revolutionise the existing State, to upset the existing laws, was once thought little of, when it had once been determined to allow oneself to be no longer imposed upon by what was tangible and existing; but to sin against the conception of the State and not to submit to the conception of law—who has ventured to do that? So men remained "citizens" and "law-abiding, loyal men"; indeed, men thought themselves all the more law-abiding in proportion as they more rationalistically did away with the previous faulty law in order to do homage to the spirit of law. In all this it is only the objects that have changed but which have remained in their supremacy and authority; in short, men still followed obedience, lived in reflection, and had an object upon which they reflected, which they respected, and for which they felt awe and fear. Men have done nothing else but changed things into ideas of things, into thoughts and conceptions, and thus their dependence became all the more innate and irrevocable. It is, for example, not difficult to emancipate oneself from the commands of one's parents, or to pay no heed to the warnings of an uncle or an aunt, or to refuse the request of a brother or a sister; but the obedience thus given up lies easily upon one's conscience, and the less one gives way to individual sentiments, because one recognises them from a rational point of view, and from our own reason to be unreasonable, the more firmly does one cleave conscientiously to piety and family love, and with greater difficulty does one forgive an offence against the idea which one has conceived of family love and the duty of piety. Released from our dependence upon the existing family life, we fall into the more binding submission to the idea of the family; we are governed by family spirit. And the family, thus raised up to an idea or conception, is now regarded as something "sacred," and its despotism is ten times worse, because its power lies in my conscience. This despotism is only broken when even the ideal conception of the family becomes nothing to me. And as it is with the family, so it is with morality. Many people free themselves from customs, but with difficulty do they get free from the idea of morality. Morality is the "idea" of custom, its spiritual power, its power over the conscience; on the other hand, custom is something too material to have power over the spirit, and does not fetter a man who is independent, a "free spirit."

Humanity strives for independence, and strives to overcome everything which is not a self, says Stirner; but how does this agree with the above-mentioned spread of the power of the mental conception and of the idea? To-day mankind is less free than before; so-called Liberalism only brings other conceptions forward; that is, instead of the divine, the human; instead of ecclesiastical ideas, those of the State; instead of those of faith, those of science; or general statements, instead of the rough phrases and dogmas, actual ideas and everlasting laws.

In the movement for emancipation in modern times Stirner distinguishes three different varieties, the political, social, and humanitarian Liberalism.

Political Liberalism, according to Stirner, culminates in the thought that the State is all in all, and is the true conception of humanity; and that the rights of man for the individual consist in being the citizen of the State. Political Liberalism did away with the inequality of rights of feudal times, and broke the chains of servitude which at that period one man had forced upon another, the privilege upon him who was less privileged. It did away with all special interests and privileges, but it by no means created freedom; it only made one independent of the other, but yet made all the most absolute slaves to the State. It gave all power of right to the State, the individual only becomes something as a citizen, and only has those rights which the State gives him. Political Liberalism, says Stirner, created a few people, but not one free individual. Absolute monarchy only changed its name, being known formerly as "king," now as "people," "State," or "nation."

"Political freedom says that the polis, the State, is free; and religious freedom says that religion is free, just as freedom of conscience means that the conscience is free; but not that I am free from the State, from religion, or from conscience. It does not mean my freedom, but the freedom of some power which governs and compels me; it means that one of my masters, such as State, religion, or conscience, is free. State, religion, and conscience, these despots make me a slave, and their freedom is my slavery." "If the principle is that only facts shall rule mankind, namely, the fact of morality or of legality, and so on, then no personal limitations of one individual by the other can be authorised—that is, there must be free competition. Only by actual fact can one person injure another, as the rich may injure the poor by money—that is, by a fact, but not as a person. There is henceforth only one authority, the authority of the State; personally no one is any longer lord over another. But to the State, all its children stand exactly in the same position; they possess 'civic or political equality,' and how they get on one with another is their own affair; they must compete. Free competition means nothing else than that everyone may stand up against someone else, make himself felt, and fight against him."

At this point (wherein Stirner by no means recognises immediate or economic individualism) social Liberalism—that which we to-day call social Democracy or communal Socialism—separates from the political. With a cleverness which we cannot sufficiently admire, Stirner proceeds to show that these directions which are so totally opposed are essentially the same, and regards the latter merely as the logical outcome from the former.

"The freedom of man is, in political Liberalism, the freedom from persons, from personal rule, from masters; security of any individual person, as regards other persons, is personal freedom. No one can give any commands; the law alone commands. But if persons have become equal, their positions certainly have not. And yet the poor man needs the rich, and the rich man needs the poor; the former needs the money of the rich, the latter the work of the poor. Thus no one needs anyone else as a person; but he needs him as a giver, or as one who has something to give, as a proprietor or possessor. Thus what he has, that makes a man. And in having or in possession people are unequal. Consequently, so social Liberalism concludes, no one must possess, just as, according to political Liberalism, no one must command—that is, as here the State alone has the power of command, so now society alone has the power of possessing." As in political Liberalism, the State is the source of all right; the individual only enjoys so much of it as the State gives him, so the social State, now called society, is also the only master of all possessions, and the individual must only have so much as society lets him share in. "Before the highest Ruler," says Stirner in his rough language, "before the only Commander, we all become equal—equal persons, that is, nonentities. Before the highest owner of property we all become vagabonds alike. And now one person is, in the estimation of another, a vagabond, a 'havenought,' but then this estimate of each other stops, we are all at once vagabonds, and we can only call the totality of communist society 'a conglomeration of vagabonds.'"