Editing Max Stirner (section)

=== Anarchism ===
[[File:Benjamin R Tucker.jpg|thumb|180px|[[Benjamin Tucker]], pioneer of [[individualist anarchism]]]] Stirner proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of [[State (polity)|state]], [[Property#Property in philosophy|property as a right]], [[natural rights]] in general and the very notion of [[society]]—were mere illusions, "spooks" or ghosts in the mind.<ref>Heider, Ulrike. ''Anarchism: Left, Right and Green'', San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1994, pp. 95–96.</ref> He advocated egoism and a form of [[Amorality|amoralism]] in which individuals would unite in Unions of egoists only when it was in their self-interest to do so. For him, property simply comes about through might, saying: "Whoever knows how to take and to defend the thing, to him belongs [property]. [...] What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing." He adds that "I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!"<ref name="Stirner, Max p. 248">Stirner, Max. ''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 248.</ref> Stirner considers the world and everything in it, including other persons, available to one's taking or use without moral constraint and that rights do not exist in regard to objects and people at all. He sees no rationality in taking the interests of others into account unless doing so furthers one's self-interest, which he believes is the only legitimate reason for acting. He denies society as being an actual entity, calling society a "spook" and that "the individuals are its reality."<ref name="Moggach, Douglas p. 194">Moggach, Douglas. ''The New Hegelians''. Cambridge University Press, 2006 p. 194.</ref>

Despite being labeled as anarchist, Stirner was not necessarily one. Separation of Stirner and egoism from anarchism was first done in 1914 by [[Dora Marsden]] in her debate with [[Benjamin Tucker]] in her journals ''The New Freewoman'' and ''The Egoist''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sidparker.com/essays/dora-marsden-benjamin-r-tucker/|title=Dora Marsden & Benjamin R. Tucker – Sidney E. Parker Archives|access-date=28 November 2019|archive-date=28 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128180445/http://www.sidparker.com/essays/dora-marsden-benjamin-r-tucker/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Communism ====
Stirner suggested that communism was tainted with the same idealism as [[Christianity]] and infused with superstitious ideas like morality and justice.<ref>Newman, S. (2013). ''[https://research.gold.ac.uk/17024/1/Stirner%20Political%20Theology.pdf Stirner's Radical Atheism and the Critique of Political Theology]''. p. 10, [[Goldsmiths, University of London|Goldsmiths: University of London]]</ref> Stirner's principal critique of socialism and communism was that they ignored the individual; they aimed to hand ownership over to the abstraction society, which meant that no existing person actually owned anything.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Thomas |first=Matty |date=10 January 2017 |title=The Relevance of Max Stirner to Anarcho-Communists |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/matty-thomas-the-relevance-of-max-stirner-to-anarcho-communists |access-date= |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en}}</ref>

The Anarchist FAQ writes that "[w]hile some may object to our attempt to place egoism and communism together, it is worth pointing out that Stirner rejected 'communism'. Stirner did not subscribe to libertarian communism, because it did not exist when he was writing and so he was directing his critique against the various forms of state communism which did. Moreover, this does not mean that anarcho-communists and others may not find his work of use to them. And Stirner would have approved, for nothing could be more foreign to his ideas than to limit what an individual considers to be in their best interest."<ref name="McKay 2012"/> In summarizing Stirner's main arguments, the writers "indicate why social anarchists have been, and should be, interested in his ideas, saying that, John P. Clark presents a sympathetic and useful social anarchist critique of his work in ''Max Stirner's Egoism''."<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

[[Daniel Guérin]] wrote that "Stirner accepted many of the premises of communism but with the following qualification: the profession of communist faith is a first step toward total emancipation of the victims of our society, but they will become completely 'disalienated,' and truly able to develop their individuality, only by advancing beyond communism."<ref>Guérin, Daniel (1970). ''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice''. Monthly Review Press. pp. 70–71. {{ISBN|978-0853451280}}.</ref>

==== Revolution ====
Stirner criticizes conventional notions of [[revolution]], arguing that [[social movement]]s aimed at overturning established ideals are tacitly idealist because they are implicitly aimed at the establishment of a new ideal thereafter. "Revolution and insurrection must not be looked upon as synonymous. The former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the established condition or status, the State or society, and is accordingly a political or social act; the latter has indeed for its unavoidable consequence a transformation of circumstances, yet does not start from it but from men's discontent with themselves, is not an armed rising, but a rising of individuals, a getting up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution aimed at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on 'institutions'. It is not a fight against the established, since, if it prospers, the established collapses of itself; it is only a working forth of me out of the established. If I leave the established, it is dead and passes into decay."

==== Union of egoists ====
{{main|Union of egoists}}
Stirner's idea of the Union of egoists was first expounded in ''The Unique and Its Property''. The Union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the [[Sovereign state|state]].<ref name=karl>{{cite book|last=Thomas|first=Paul|author-link=Paul Thomas (Marx scholar) |title=[[Karl Marx and the Anarchists]] |publisher=[[Routledge]]/[[Kegan Paul]]|location=London|year=1985|isbn=0-7102-0685-2|page=142}}</ref> Unlike a "community" in which individuals are obliged to participate, Stirner's suggested Union would be voluntary and instrumental under which individuals would freely associate insofar as others within the Union remain useful to each constituent individual.<ref name=Cohn>{{Cite journal |last1=Cohn |first1=Jesse |title=What is Postanarchism 'Post'? |journal=[[Postmodern Culture]] |volume=13 |issue=1 |date=September 2002 |url=http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.902/13.1cohn.html |language=en |doi=10.1353/pmc.2002.0028 |s2cid=145475500 |issn=1053-1920 |via=[[Project MUSE]] |access-date=2 December 2018 |archive-date=25 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160925231231/http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.902/13.1cohn.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The Union relation between egoists is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will.<ref name="nonserviam">{{cite journal|url=http://i-studies.com/journal/n/pdf/nsi-17.pdf#page=13|title=The union of egoists|journal=Non Serviam|volume=1|first=Svein Olav|last=Nyberg|pages=13–14|location=Oslo, Norway|oclc=47758413|access-date=1 September 2012|publisher=Svein Olav Nyberg|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101207042220/http://i-studies.com/journal/n/pdf/nsi-17.pdf|archive-date=7 December 2010}}</ref> Some such as Svein Olav Nyberg argue that the Union requires that all parties participate out of a [[Selfishness|conscious egoism]] while others such as [[Sidney Parker (anarchist)|Sydney E. Parker]] regard the union as a "change of attitude," rejecting its previous conception as an institution.<ref>{{cite web|title=Non Serviam, No. 18, page 6, "Union of Egoists – Comment" by S.E. Parker.|url=http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/18.pdf|access-date=8 May 2020|archive-date=20 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420153648/http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/18.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>