page_title: Anarchist schools of thought
section_title: Egoist anarchism
hierarchical_section_title: Anarchist schools of thought / Classical anarchism / Individualist anarchism / Egoist anarchism
caption_attribution_description: Sketch of Max Stirner.
context_page_description: Anarchism is the political philosophy which holds ruling classes and the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations.
  Proponents of anarchism, known as anarchists, advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. However, anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete collectivism. Strains of anarchism have often been divided into the categories of social anarchism and individualist anarchism or similar dual classifications, also including green anarchism and post-left anarchism.
  Anarchism is often considered a far-left ideology and much of anarchist economics and legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarian interpretations of radical left-wing and socialist politics such as communism, collectivism, free-market, individualism, mutualism, participism and syndicalism, among other libertarian socialist philosophies.
context_section_description: Egoist anarchism originated in the philosophy of Max Stirner, a 19th-century Hegelian philosopher whose "name appears with familiar regularity in historically orientated surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of individualist anarchism". Stirner's philosophy is usually called "egoism" as he says that the egoist rejects devotion to "a great idea, a  cause, a doctrine, a system, a lofty calling", saying that the egoist has no political calling but rather "lives themselves out" without regard to "how well or ill humanity may fare thereby". Stirner held that the only limitation on the rights of the individual is his power to obtain what he desires. He proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions – including the notion of state, property as a right, natural rights in general and the very notion of society – were mere spooks in the mind. Stirner wanted to "abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members".
  Stirner's idea of the Union of egoists was first expounded in The Ego and Its Own. The Union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the state. The Union is understood as a relation between egoists which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will. The Union requires that all parties participate out of a conscious egoism. If one party silently finds themselves to be suffering, but puts up with it and keeps up appearances, the Union has degenerated into something else. This Union is not seen as an authority above a person's own will. This idea has received interpretations for politics, economic and sex/love.
  Although Stirner's philosophy is individualist, it has influenced anarcho-communists. "For Ourselves Council for Generalized Self-Management" discusses Stirner and speaks of a "communist egoism", which is said to be a "synthesis of individualism and collectivism" and says that "greed in its fullest sense is the only possible basis of communist society". Forms of libertarian communism such as insurrectionary anarchism are influenced by Stirner. Emma Goldman was influenced by both Stirner and Peter Kropotkin and blended their philosophies together in her own.
  The Scottish born German writer John Henry Mackay found out about Stirner while reading a copy of Friedrich Albert Lange's History of Materialism and Critique of its Present Importance. Later, Mackay looked for a copy of The Ego and Its Own and after being fascinated with it he wrote a biography of Stirner (Max Stirner – sein Leben und sein Werk), published in German in 1898. Mackay's propaganda of stirnerist egoism and of male homosexual and bisexual rights affected Adolf Brand, who in 1896 published the world's first ongoing homosexual publication, Der Eigene. Another later German anarchist publication influenced deeply by Stirner was Der Einzige. It appeared in 1919, as a weekly, then sporadically until 1925 and was edited by cousins Anselm Ruest (pseud. for Ernst Samuel) and Mynona (pseudonym for Salomo Friedlaender).
  Stirnerian egoism became a main influence on European individualist anarchism including its main proponents in the early 20th century such as Emile Armand and Han Ryner in France, Renzo Novatore in Italy, Miguel Giménez Igualada in Spain and in Russia Lev Chernyi. Illegalism was an anarchist practice that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland during the early 1900s that found justification in Stirner's philosophy. The illegalists openly embraced criminality as a lifestyle. Some American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker, abandoned natural rights positions and converted to Max Stirner's egoist anarchism. John Beverley Robinson wrote an essay called "Egoism" in which he states that "[m]odern egoism, as propounded by Stirner and Nietzsche, and expounded by Ibsen, Shaw and others, is all these; but it is more. It is the realization by the individual that they are an individual; that, as far as they are concerned, they are the only individual". Anarc
caption: 19th century philosopher Max Stirner, a prominent early individualist anarchist
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