1, 2, 3 - Individualist anarchism: Stirner, egoism and markets

The individual and egoism

Stirner asks why an actual living individual should sacrifice themselves to an institution or an abstract ideal.

Individualist anarchism emphasises autonomous, rational, self-interested people who judge what benefits them. Autonomy means directing one's own life rather than being subject to another's will. The individual, rather than the nation, state or community, is the starting point for judging arrangements.

In The Ego and His Own, originally published in 1844 and presented here in Byington's translation, Stirner challenges submission to fixed ideas. Religion, the state and even an ideal of humanity can become objects to which a person is expected to surrender. Replacing religious duty with compulsory service to humanity can therefore reproduce the same relationship of subordination.

The prescribed claim that the individual is the centre of the moral universe and the state should be understood as a challenge to institutional supremacy. It does not mean that Stirner endorses a state governing in the individual's name. He asks individuals to judge claims for themselves rather than treat the state as morally superior to them.

The specification describes a rational, self-interested individual. Rationality here helps explain judging one's interests. It should not be confused with worshipping an abstract ideal of Reason that makes everyone obey the same moral command. Nor does egoism require that everyone always acts wisely or reaches an identical judgement.

Suppose someone helps a friend because the friendship matters to them. An egoist explanation can account for this as an expression of the person's own interests and attachments. Egoism is therefore not simply the claim that a person must live alone, refuse affection or injure others. It rejects a compulsory obligation to sacrifice oneself merely because an external ideal demands it.

This gives a clear disagreement with collectivist approaches. Collectivists emphasise sociability, solidarity and the conditions that allow people to cooperate. Stirner questions any claim by the collective that it has a superior right over the individual. He can choose cooperation, but does not make service to the group an overriding duty.

The union of egoists and order

Stirner's union of egoists offers cooperation whose justification remains the interests of its participants.

A union of egoists is a voluntary association that individuals sustain because it serves their purposes. It is not a sovereign entitled to demand permanent obedience. Its continued existence depends on renewed participation, rather than a superior claim on the member.

For example, several people could share equipment because access benefits each of them. They agree arrangements for its use while the association serves their interests. This is organised cooperation, so egoism does not imply complete isolation. Its basis is each participant's judgement, rather than a command to serve the community as an end in itself.

The contrast with the state is about the character of membership and rule. A state claims authority over everyone within its territory, including those who do not accept its commands. A union rests on individuals' continuing willingness to associate. When an organisation is treated as sacred, permanent or superior to those who created it, it can become another authority over them.

This is Stirner's contribution to anarchy is order. Order can arise from agreements among individuals who recognise benefits in cooperation. It need not be imposed by a political commander or generated by selfless devotion to a community. Self-interest can explain why people cooperate: an arrangement may give each something they could not obtain alone.

The agreement with collectivists is therefore real but limited. Both reject a ruler imposed over participants and both can envisage voluntary associations. Their explanation of the association differs. A collectivist stresses shared human sociability and mutual support; the egoist stresses the purposes of particular individuals and refuses to give a collective an independent entitlement to obedience.

There is also a tension worth investigating. If an association is worthwhile to me only when it serves my interests, what happens when the group needs commitments that are inconvenient now but valuable later? An egoist may judge that continuing cooperation serves a long-term interest. A critic may ask whether that will be enough when some participants benefit from leaving or when people have very unequal alternatives. The theory explains a basis for order, rather than guaranteeing agreement in every circumstance.

Insurrection rather than state revolution

Stirner distinguishes changing the political order from individuals ceasing to submit to it.

Revolution concerns transforming established political or social arrangements. It can aim to replace a government or create a new order. Stirner's insurrection starts with individuals rising above the institutions and ideas that arrange their lives: they cease to regard those institutions as entitled to command them and organise themselves on their own terms.

The important causal difference is the starting point. A political revolution can ask what new constitution everyone should obey. Insurrection asks why the individual should submit to institutions at all. If individuals withdraw their allegiance and no longer organise their lives around the institution's superior claim, its authority is undermined. Stirner's text develops this contrast in the discussion of revolution and insurrection in Part II.

This is not a promise that ignoring a law makes every police force vanish immediately. The political and material difficulties of rejecting institutions still need to be considered. The proposition is that liberation begins with a change in the individual's relation to authority, rather than with the successful capture of a state apparatus.

The future union of egoists follows the same logic. It is formed by people acting on their own purposes, not created by a revolutionary ruler requiring everyone to join an official association. A supposedly liberating institution that demands obedience for its own sake would reproduce the subordination Stirner rejects.

This differs from Bakunin's prescribed revolutionary strategy. Bakunin seeks collective action that abolishes oppressive state and property institutions. Stirner focuses on individuals refusing to let those institutions determine them. Both reject imposed authority, but their accounts of agency and change are not interchangeable. Insurrection in this specific sense should not simply be used as another word for an armed political revolt.