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   church, school, and all existence. I do not want to make a judgment here as to which is the better of these possibilities; I only want to observe that we have now arrived at a time of slavery to material things. We have discussed the urge to self-preservation as the first counterargument to my thesis. Now we will address the second counter- argument, that of collective egoism. People make the claim: “I do not live for myself at all. I don’t want to keep my property for myself; I want it for my wife and children, or for somebody else. If I go to war, I do not want to defend my own property at all–I am only doing it for the sake of all the others.” But this “for others” is really a delusion. Our extended ego is included in everything we do “for others.” Marriage can easily be nothing more than egoism à deux. Those who love their spouses and children, after all, love their own flesh and blood. It’s not only love to one’s own family that can be a form of collective egoism. So can the solidarity of the clan, the mutual loyalty of a tribe or of pio- neers in a settlement, and the common defense of an ethnicity, of a state, or, even more, of one’s own caste or class in a civil war. In determining whether apparently unselfish actions are really collective egoism, it is not the number of people whom I help that counts, but rather the nature of my help. In other words, it does not depend on whether I am looking after only myself or also those bound together with me; that is a merely arith- metical distinction. Instead, the question is whether I care exclusively for myself and those who belong to me, in contrast to all others. I will say openly: I am an opponent of nationalism and patriotism. I am an opponent of the proletarian class struggle. I am an opponent of the privileges of the ownership class. I am an opponent of the political party system. What is more, I am an opponent of the right of inheritance. I maintain that egoism is to be found wherever a smaller or larger group is defending its common interests. Our whole public life has fallen prey to the curse of property. What is the military there for? Why does the court system exist? Without a doubt, for the sake of property–something that is detached, isolated, and doomed to death. We must burst through this atmosphere of decline and downfall. As long as what guides us is the covetous will, the fight for survival, and our personal claims and rights–as long as privileges still exist–we are lost. Then we have succumbed to a state of fragmentation and fallen away from God. Let me give a small example: When my wife and I used to live in Berlin we learned of a woman who was badly infected with tuberculosis. She lived in a room that got no light the whole day, and she could no longer even stand up by herself. Every day one of the other occupants of the house lifted her out of bed and put her to bed again in the evening. We succeeded, after tremendous effort and by putting together all our funds, in renting a sunny room for her in Thecurse ofourage isthatwe bowour kneesbefore theidolof autonomy.