nge
than of pillage. And force, to which he constantly appeals, is rather
the economic force of a producer of commodities freed from the trammels
which the State and "Society" in general impose, or seem to impose, upon
him.

It is the soul of a producer of commodities that speaks through the
mouth of Stirner. If he falls foul of the State, it is because the State
does not seem to respect the "property" of the producers of commodities
sufficiently. He wants _his_ property, his _whole_ property. The State
makes him pay taxes; it ventures to expropriate him for the public good.
He wants a _jus utendi et abutendi_; the State says "agreed"--but adds
that there are abuses and abuses. Then Stirner cries "stop thief!" "I am
the enemy of the State," says he, "which is always fluctuating between
the alternative: He or I.... With the State there is no property,
_i.e._, no individual property, only State property. Only through the
State have I what I have, as it is only through the State that I am what
I am. My private property is only what the State leaves me of its own,
while it deprives other citizens of it: that is State property." So down
with the State and long live full and complete individual property!

Stirner translated into German J. B. Say's "Traite D'Economie Politique
Pratique" (Leipsic, 1845-46). And although he also translated Adam
Smith, he was never able to get beyond the narrow circle of the ordinary
bourgeois economic ideas. His "League of Egoists" is only the Utopia of
a petty bourgeois in revolt. In this sense one may say he has spoken the
last word of bourgeois individualism.

Stirner has also a third merit--that of the courage of his opinions, of
having carried through to the very end his individualist theories. He is
the most intrepid, the most consequent of the Anarchists. By his side
Proudhon, whom Kropotkin, like all the present day Anarchists, takes for
the father of Anarchism, is but a straight-laced Philistine.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] See pages 295-305 of the 1841 edition.

[8] "The Individual and his Property."

[9] "Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum." 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1882, pp. 35-36.
(American translation: "The Ego and his Own." New York: 1907.)

[10] Ibid. Pp. 7-8.

[11] Ibid. pp. 196-197.

[12] Ibid. p. 200.

[13] "The Holy Family, or Criticism of Critical Criticism, against Bruno
Bauer and Company."

[14] Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum.

[15] Ibid. p. 266.

CHAPTER IV

PROUDHON