That which Stirner, finally, under the name of humanitarian Liberalism, places side by side with the two tendencies just mentioned has nothing to do, generally speaking, with the political and material relations of mankind, and is the philosophical Liberalism of Feuerbach, who places freedom of thought in the same position as his predecessors put freedom of the person. "In the human society which humanitarianism promises," says Stirner, "nothing can be recognised which any person has as something 'special,' nothing shall have any value which bears the mark of a 'private' individual. In this way the circle of Liberalism completes itself, having in humanity its good principle, in the egotist and every 'private' person its evil one; in the former its God, in the latter its devil. If the special or private person lost his value in the State, and if special or private property ceased to be recognised in the community of workers or vagabonds, then in human society everything special or private is left out of consideration, and when pure criticism shall have performed its difficult work, then we shall know what is private, and what one must leave alone in seines Nichts durchbohrendem Gefühle." Political Liberalism regulated the relations of might and right, social Liberalism wishes to regulate those of property and labour, humanitarian Liberalism lays down the ethical principles of modern society.
As may be seen, Stirner does not recognise the efforts and endeavours of all these tendencies to which we ascribe the complete transformation of Europe in the last century, but, on the contrary, is prepared to perceive in them rather an intensification of the servitude in which the free Ego is held. The more spiritual, the more interesting, the more sublime and the more sacred ideas become for men, the greater becomes their respect for them, and the less becomes the freedom of the Ego as regards them. But as these ideas are merely creations of man's own spirit,—fiction and unreal forms,—all the so-called progress made by Liberalism is regarded by Stirner as nothing else than increasing self-delusion and constant retrogression. True progress evidently lies for him only in the complete emancipation of the Ego from this dominion of ideas that is in the triumph of egotism. "For Individualism (egotism) is the creator of everything, just as already genius 'free man,' on the other hand, is he who only looks for freedom, the dreamer, the enthusiast." Freedom is only possible together with the power to acquire it and to maintain it; but this power only resides in the individual. "My power is my property; my power gives me property; I am myself my own power, and am thereby my own property." This is, in a nutshell, Stirner's positive doctrine.
Right is power or might. "What you have the power to be, that you have the right to be. I derive all right and justification from myself alone; for I am entitled to everything which I have power to take or to do. I am entitled to overthrow Zeus, Jehovah or God, if I can; if I can not, these gods will always retain their rights and power over me; but I shall stand in awe of their rights and their power in impotent reverence, and shall keep their commands and believe I am doing right in everything that I do, according to their ideas of right, just as a Russian frontier sentry considers himself justified in shooting dead a suspicious person who runs away, because he relies upon a 'higher authority,' in other words, commits murder legally. But I am justified in committing a murder by myself, if I do not forbid it to myself, if I am not afraid of murder in the abstract as of 'something wrong.' I am only not justified in what I do not do of my own free will, that is, that which I do not give myself the right to do. I decide whether the right resides in me; for there is some right external to myself. If it is right to me, then it is right. It is possible that others may not regard it as right, but that is their affair, not mine, and they must take their own measures against it. And if something was in the eyes of the whole world not right, and yet seemed right to me, that is, if I wished it, even then I should ask nothing from the world: thus does everyone who knows how to value himself, and each does it to the extent that he is an egotist, for might goes before right, and quite rightly too."
All existing right is external to the Ego; no one can give me my right, neither God, nor reason, nor Nature, nor the State; as to whether I am right or not there is only one judge and that is myself; others at most can pass a judgment and decide whether they support my right and whether it also exists as a right for them. Law is the will of the dominating power in a community. Every State is a despotism, whether the dominant power belongs to one, to many, or to all. A despotism would remain then, if, for example, in the national assembly the national will, that is to say, the individual wills of each person, really had overwhelmingly expressed itself, including also my own will; if then this wish becomes law I am bound to-morrow by what I wished yesterday, and then I thus become a servant, even though it be only the servant of myself. How can this be changed? "Only by my recognising no duty, neither letting myself bind nor be bound. If I have no duty then I also know no law." Wrong goes side by side with right, crime with legality. The unfettered Ego of Stirner is the never-ceasing criminal in the State; for only he who denies his "self," and who practises self-denial is acceptable to the State. And thus with the disappearance of right comes also the disappearance of crime.
"The dispute about the right of property is violently waged. The Communists maintain that the earth belongs properly to him who cultivates it; and the products of the same to those who produce them. I maintain it belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken from him or let himself be deprived of it; if he appropriates it, not merely the earth but also the right to it belongs to him. This is the egotistical right, that is, it is right for me, and therefore it is right." How far Stirner is separated from Proudhon is shown most clearly in the question of property. Proudhon denied property because it was incompatible with justice. Stirner denies justice, and maintains property upon the grounds of the right of occupation. Proudhon declared that property was theft, but Stirner entirely reverses the phrase, and answers to the question, What is my property?—"Nothing but what is in my power." To what property am I entitled?—"To that which I entitle myself." "I give myself the right to property by taking property or by giving myself the power of the proprietor, a full power or title."
The theory of occupation or seizure here appears to us in all its brutality. Nevertheless, even here Stirner is not frightened at the most extreme consequences of this theory, nor at the thought that one would have to defend one's property daily and hourly with a weapon in one's hand; and he is therefore inclined to make some concession to a voluntary form of organisation. "If men reach the point of losing respect for property, each will have property; just as all slaves become freemen as soon as they regard their master no longer as master. Union will then multiply the means of the individual, and secure for him the property he has acquired by fighting. In the opinion of the Communists the community should be the only proprietor. The converse of this is, I am the proprietor, and merely come to some agreement with others about my property. If the community does not do right by me, I revolt against it, and defend my property. I am an owner of property, but property is not sacred." The regulation of society by itself is accepted by Stirner just as little as in the question of property, when it comes to the question of obtaining for the labourers a full reward of their labour. "They must rely upon themselves and ask nothing from the State," he answers. Only to a third very difficult question does this thoroughgoing theorist fail in an answer. He declares pauperism to be "lack of value of myself, when I cannot make my value felt; and, therefore, I can only get free from pauperism if I make my value felt as an individual, if I give myself value, and put my own price upon myself. All attempts at making the masses happy, and philanthropic associations arising from the principle of love, must come to grief, for help can only come to the masses through egotism, and this help they must and will procure for themselves. The question of property cannot be solved in such a legal way as the Socialists, and even the Communists, imagine. It can only be solved by the war of all against all. The poor will only become free and be owners of property by revolting, rising, and raising themselves. However much is given them, they will always wish to have more; for they wish nothing less than that, at last, there shall remain nothing more to give. It will be asked: But what will happen then, when those who have nothing take courage and rise? What kind of equalisation will be made? One might just as well ask me to determine a child's nativity; what a slave will do when he has broken his chains one can only wait and see."
Step by step Stirner departs from Proudhon; the latter demands, in order to create his paradise, a balance, the former lays down the principle of natural selection as the highest and only law in social matters. The fight, the struggle for existence, which Proudhon strove to recognise in economic life, here enters upon its rights in all its brutality. The realisation of the self is, for Stirner, the key to the solution of the problems of work, property, and pauperism. He will have no division of goods, no organisation of labour. For Proudhon every piece of work is the result of a collective force, for Stirner the most valuable works are those of "individual" artists, savants, and so on, and their value is always to be determined only from the egoist standpoint.
To the question whether money should be maintained or done away with among egoists, he answers: "If you know a better medium of exchange, all right; but it will always be 'money.' It is not money that does you harm, but your lack of power to take it. Let your power be felt, nerve yourselves, and you will not lack money—your money, the money of your own coining. But working I do not call letting your power be felt. Those who only 'seek for work, and are willing to work hard,' prepare for themselves inextinguishable lack of work." What we now-a-days call free competition, Stirner refuses to regard as free, since everyone has not the means for competing. "To abolish competition only means to favour members of some craft. The distinction is this: in a craft, such as baking, baking is the business of the members of the craft; under a system of competition it is the business of anyone who likes to compete; but in societies it is the business of those who use what is baked; thus, my or your business, not the business of the members of the craft, nor of the baker who has a concession given him, but of those in the union or society." Here for the second time we meet with the idea of a union, without Stirner expressing himself exactly about its character. Only in one other place does he happen to speak about the ideas of this union. He says the end of society is agreement or union. A society also certainly arises through union, but only in the same way as a fixed idea arises from a thought, namely, by the fact that the energy of the thought, thinking itself the restless absorption of all rising thoughts, disappears from thought. When a union has crystallised itself into a society, it has ceased to be an active union; for the act of union is a ceaseless uniting of individuals, it has become a united existence, has come to a standstill, has degenerated into a fixity; it is dead as a union; it is the corpse of union, and of the act of union; that is, it is a society or community. What is known as "party" is a striking example of this.
Stirner admits that union cannot exist without freedom, being limited in all manner of ways. But absolute freedom is merely an ideal, a spectre, and the object of the union is not freedom, which it, on the contrary, sacrifices to individualism, but its object is only individualism. "Union is my creation, my implement, sacred to me, but has no spiritual power over my mind, and does not make me bow down to it; but I make it bow down to me, and use it for my own purposes. As I may not be a slave of my maxims, but without any guarantee expose them to my own continual criticism, and give no guarantee of their continuance, so, still less, do I pledge myself to the union for my future, or bind my soul to it; but I am and remain to myself more than State or Church, and consequently infinitely more than the union."