STIRNER, Max [pseud. for Johann Kaspar Schmidt.]

Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum.

Leipzig, Otto Wigand, 1845.
8vo, pp. [ii], 491, [1] imprint; occasional light browning, due to paper quality; contemporary moiré cloth, spine lettered and decorated in gilt; a fine copy, with small private library stamp to verso of title.
First edition of Stirner's influential and highly original main work, his proclamation of individualistic anarchy which placed him in the tradition of Godwin, and exerted considerable influence over the modern school of anarchists in Germany and Russia. Max Stirner is frequently cited as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of individual anarchism, because of his rejection of the state, law, and government. His The Ego and Its Own (sometimes translated as 'The Individual and His Property') is considered to be 'a founding text in the tradition of individualist anarchism.' Stirner maintained that society had no responsibility for its members, and that many generally accepted notions, such as the concept of the state, property as a right, natural rights, and the very notion of society, were mere illusions or ghosts in the mind, saying of society that 'the individuals are its reality'. He advocated egoism and a form of amoralism, in which individuals would unite in 'associations of egoists' only when it was in their self interest to do so. For him, property simply comes about through might: 'Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property.' And, '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.' His ideas influenced many anarchists, although interpretations of his thought are diverse, and one of his most prominent disciples was the American anarchist Benjamin Tucker.
Stammhammer I, 241; Borst 2187; Menger c. 368.

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