The "personalist Sociality" of Dühring, as its creator terms it elsewhere, is the conception of arrangements and organisations by means of which every individual person may satisfy all the necessities and luxuries of life, from the lowest to the highest, through the mutual working together and combination with every other individual. This personalist Sociality is, of course, anti-monarchical, and opposed to all privileges of position and birth; it is also "anti-religionist," for it recognises no authorities that are beyond control, except only conformity to nature. It starts from the actual condition of the individual; but this can only be known by its actions, and is not determined by birth. As regards public affairs, positions that are technically prominent should be given by universal, direct, and equal suffrage to persons who have shown by their actions that they possess the necessary qualifications for them. As regards the anti-religious element, which in Dühring's case really implies Anti-Semitism, the place of all religion and everything religious is taken by Dühring's philosophy of actuality or being. Among the just claims of the individual person Dühring reckons not only bodily freedom and immunity from injury, but also immunity from economic injury. Just as on the one hand every kind of slavery or limitation by united action or social forms must be unhesitatingly rejected, so, on the other hand, unlimited power of disposal over the means of production and natural capital must be limited by suitable public laws in such a way that no one can be excluded from the means supplied by nature, and reduced to a condition of starvation. The right to labour, as well as freedom of choice in labour, must everywhere be maintained.
The economic corner-stones of personalist Sociality are, as Dühring's follower, Emil Döle,[49] explains, "metallic currency as the foundation of all economic relationships, and individual property, especially capital, as the necessary and inviolable foundation for every condition that is not based on robbery and violence. The logic and necessity of any form of society rests on private property, and that is also the basis of Dühring's system; but his reforms are directed to rejecting the ingredients of injustice, robbery, and violence towards persons that are commingled with these fundamental forms. To bring this about, the principle under which the merely economic mechanics of values have free play must be rejected; and instead of it, the original personal and political rights of men must be recognised. Dühring therefore regards a general association of workers as far more essential than strikes, and would wish political means (in the narrower sense of politics) brought once more into the foreground, and extended much farther than before. He certainly rejects the trickery of Parliament, but not a representation of the working classes seriously meant and honourably carried out. He also does not yield to that logic of wretchedness which expects every reform to arise from ever-increasing misery, but takes into account material and mental progress and the condition of the masses."
In all this it is easy to recognise Proudhon's views; even sometimes his theory of property. And even if their views are not alike formally, and Dühring does not quite understand Proudhon's "Mutualism," yet he ought to have regarded the French social reformer somewhat less condescendingly and confusedly. But he has also had a very low opinion of Stirner; yet, however persistently he and his followers may deny it, Dühring's "Personalism" is not only exactly the same as Stirner's "individual" (Einziger), but Dühring himself is the most repellent illustration of the egoist-individual of Stirner. Both Stirner and Proudhon have assumed as the necessary pre-supposition of the abolition of government, individuals who are able to govern themselves, i. e., moral individuals, which means "persons."
When, finally, Dühring apparently seeks to limit the Anarchist phrase of the abolition of all government, by saying that Anticratism is the denial of all unrighteous exercise of force and usurpation of authority, this is palpable fencing. Dühring would tell the masses which form of force is right and which wrong; which should be maintained, and which not; and the masses will hasten to follow his dictates. Dühring, the great opponent of all metaphysics and a priori conceptions, at once sets up, just like Jean Jacques Rousseau, "the modern Hebrew," an absolute concept "justice," and transforms the world according to it. Who can help laughing at this?
Dühring has tried to reconcile his prejudice against the Jews with the foregoing doctrine, by distinguishing nations from the standpoint of personalism, and regarding the existence of higher races side by side with lower races as a hindrance—indeed the most serious hindrance—to the realisation of "personalist Sociality."
"Nothing is easier than to make a wise grimace."
Perhaps the most peculiar of the circle of theoretical Anarchists is Herr von Egidy. If Dühring has succeeded in enlivening Anarchism by an admixture of Anti-Jewish persecution, Herr von Egidy has accomplished the far greater success of enlivening Anarchism with a new religious cult, called "United Christianity," added to the spirit of Prussian militarism and squiredom. When the new Apostle stood as a candidate for the Reichstag in 1893, supporting his new Christianity and the military programme rejected by the dissolved Parliament, he was able to secure 3000 votes. This is a piece of statistics that shows the confusion of ideas existing in so-called intelligence.
Moritz von Egidy[50] was born at Mainz on 29th August, 1847, served in the Prussian army, and reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Afterwards he exchanged his military command for an apostleship, after gaining knowledge by private study. His Christianity is a religion without dogma or confession, a lucus a non lucendo, but deserves respect as a social phenomenon in view of conditions in Germany.
The "United Christendom" is to be the union of all men in the idea of time and applied Christianity, in the sense of a humanity that approaches more nearly to God. The new religion only values and lays stress on life, on "morality lived"; doctrine and dogma must be laid aside; and thus Von Egidy arrives at the remarkable paradox of "a religion without dogma or confession." The purpose of religion is practical, and in dogmas he sees forms, among which each individual may choose for himself, forms which (according to the main principle of development which he places in the forefront of all his arguments) are in a state of continual flux and change. What religion has to offer is to be expressed not in dogmas, but only in points of view; not in institutions, but in directions for guidance. For this purpose it is not necessary that Egidy's disciples should form themselves into a church, for that even contradicts the spirit of this religion; their master rather tells them "to organise nothing, to actualise nothing." Not parties, nor unions, but only persons and actions, is what he wants, and these will each in his own way lead men into the earthly paradise of which Egidy speaks with truly prophetic confidence.