Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84Plough Quarterly • Summer   carriage and horses, since that would damage our credit. So we can only impose restrictions in the daily life of our immediate family circle. To the outside world, we must lie–that is, we must feign wealth.” Similarly, when we go through a city we see elegantly dressed people in fine boots and expensive clothes; often these same persons live in run-down apartments or attics. Further examples are unnecessary to show how such dishonesties feed off private property; without it, they would be rendered quite harmless. Max Stirner’s book The Individual and His Property may well be intended as an ironic statement, though we cannot now explore to what extent this is so.1 Be that as it may, in this book Stirner had the audacity to present the whole of modern life as consisting of nothing more than naked egoism: “Everything that I do, I do for myself.” For Stirner, this principle of egoism applies even to the love between husband and wife: such “love,” he contends, is nothing more than the possessive grasping of another’s body. Likewise, the friendly gestures that we offer here and there to our fellow human beings are merely the result of egoism: we are friendly to others only in order to gain possible advantages for ourselves or to extend our sphere of influence. All my acts of altruism are done only to increase my own prestige. The logical consequence of Stirner’s claim–which he openly states– is that we must recognize property as the visible extension of egoism in the material world. Thus, according to Stirner, if we want to give our children an education that will enable them to come up in the world, the central lesson we must impress on them is respect for property. Egoism and property are so completely identical that property is nothing other than the outward manifestation of egoism. Here some will object: “Human beings, like all other living things, have received from nature, indeed from God, the instinct of self-preservation. This has been an essential force for human existence, as far back into history as we can see. If one has reverence for creation, one must recognize the instinct of self- preservation and foster it. This instinct strives after property, and rightly seeks to acquire and hold on to it. Man must live; that is his moral obligation.” This argument bears exploring. The instinct of self-preservation takes a number of forms. Biologically, it is connected to the sexual instinct: hunger and love! In politics, it comes to expression as the urge for power. In economic life, it takes form as the profit motive. Our entire economy, in fact, is based on greed for profit: it speculates on the egoism of self-preservation and on the desire for increased power in the life of the individual. In this it has been successful. Jesus said: “If the kingdom of Satan were divided against itself, it would have long ago come to ruin.” That is why, because of the unspoken agreement of all who are involved (and of all those who would like to be involved, if only they could), our highly capitalistic 1. Max Stirner (1806–1856) published Der Einzige und sein Eigentum in 1844; it advocated an amoral anarchism. Matt. 12:25–26 From property comes war, competition, and the mutual injuriousness of business life.