Discover rare photographic glimpses of pioneering egoists such as Dora Marsden and Benjamin R. Tucker, and delve into the visionary project to produce a Braille edition of Max Stirner’s magnum opus for the indomitable Helen Keller. Unearth a plethora of fascinating artifacts pertaining to Malfew Seklew, and be riveted by the astonishing revelation of Ragnar Redbeard’s brief yet impactful foray as a Canadian Socialist Provocateur.

This sixth issue of Der Geist is sure to delight and offend, but most of all, serve as an essential philosophical reference work for centuries to come.

DER GEIST: The Journal of Egoism from 1845 – 1945 | ISSUE 6 | Winter 2023
Paperback, 212 pages, $15
ISBN 978-1-944651-29-9, ISSN 2639-5339

Der Geist, (Trevor Blake, editor; Kevin I. Slaughter, co-editor) is an English-language journal for an international audience, publishing original scholarship on the philosophy of egoism. The journal is descriptive of the first century of egoism in print (from the 1845 publication of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum by Max Stirner to the end of 1945), not prescriptive in advocacy of egoism.

CONTENTS

Introduction by the Editor  2

1. Max Stirner   7

Max Stirner’s Anarchist Gospel | A Dutch Review of Stirner’s Work | Anarchist Black Dragon | Max Stirner vs. Wahrheit-Sucher | “Celine Adele Marillier” | Pity and the Future | Max Stirner and the Grisette | Steven T. Byington’s Triple Score

2. Malfew Seklew  29

On “Bérnard’s Tour” | Minister Mocks Malfew  | Stern Critique of Christian Socialist  | Seklew Asks: Nietzsche to Blame?  | Social Aristocrat Socialist Secretary | A Freak Among Reformers  | No Guide for Anybody | Proletarians in Purgatory | No Justice for Malfew Seklew  | “We’re All More or Less Nutty” | Not Seeking Work  | Seklew Scolds Simpoleons, Supplies Sample Shilling Sericine Silk Set | No Detail Too Small!

3. Ragnar Redbeard   51

Redbeard in Canada | Desmond Selling George  | Give the New Hand a Show! | A.D. in the O.E.D.  | A Bogus Book | Australian Socialist Drinking Club | Redbeard’s Rough Stuff |“We Understand the Redbeard Philosophy” | Voima On Oikeus | Etc.

4. Dora Marsden  95

Dora Marsden for the Prosecution | The Freewomen of New York | Dora Marsden, unser aller Mutter  | Dora Marsden Ephemera | Rare Portraits

5. Benjamin DeCasseres   107

Emmeline Pankhurst | Pyrrhonism and Acatalepsy | Balzac | The Borrowed Mirror

6. Friedrich Nietzsche   117

Nietzsche and a Braille Stirner for Hellen Keller | “Will Nietzsche Come Into Vogue…” | The Works of Friedrich Nietzsche | Alexander Tille Reads Egoism

7. Enzo Martucci   135

A Sketch of Martucci | An Excerpt from The Red Sect | Martucci on Stirner

8. Free Spirits  159

Peter Lamborn Wilson Has Passed  | Hakim Bey: Real and Unreal | Vox Populi Vox Dei | Thompson at Rudolf Steiner Hall | Speakers’ Corner Anthology | Among the Anarchists | The True Comarade | Is This What You Call “Living?” | The Thirteenth Paragraph | Greeves Fisher, A Sketch | Dominance vs. Egoism | More Individualism | Individualism and Property | Why I am a Right-Wing Anarchist | Opening and Closing the Dil Pickle | Christmas a Joke! | “I” a poem  | “I GO” a poem| A Letter to the Editors of Freedom | Enrico Arrigoni Bibliography | Photo of Benjamin R. Tucker | About the Editors

Individualism and Property

Dear Editors,

I welcome the attempt to distinguish between individualist and communist anarchism, but so far the discussions in your paper have been too general. They spend too much time on generalities—on whether an individualist anarchist lacks altruism and whether the communist anarchist needs more self-expression, etc., etc.

I’m wondering whether others would agree that a major need is to discover the differences these two schools of anarchism have—both in philosophy and practice—toward land, money and goods. How do individualist anarchists propose to handle these basic economic realities; what plan do communist anarchists have? And is either group anywhere in the world actually implementing some anarchist policy regarding land, money and goods?

My friend Laurance Labadie, strong American individualist anarchist, points out the confusion in thought and practice from loosely lumping land, goods and money under the term “property”. Most of us think of property as a thing, and we commonly say, “This house, this land, this car, is my property”. But property correctly expresses a relationship between persons or between persons and objects. Property expresses a social policy, the essential fact of which is exclusion. It is more clear to say, “I have property in this land, in this car or this house”. By which I mean I am protected in excluding others from this land, car or house.

Is it true that individualist anarchists stress this right of exclusion—that they do want to emphasize this right to their land, their houses and their cars? And that communist anarchists prefer to combine with others in the use of land, of goods and of an exchange media? (It goes without saying, of course, that both groups would want an equal access to these things. They would not want a monopolistic or privileged access to land, goods or money as exists in the capitalist world). But granted equal access, and freedom—is it a fact that communist anarchists prefer to hold property jointly and in combination? Is it true, as some individualist anarchists say, our sense of privacy, our individuality, our creativity and responsibility for our own actions is better obtained if we have individual use of land, property and money?

In either case, we all face the crucial questions: What gives us the right to exclude others from our house, land, car? How is land different from houses and cars?

Most people will agree that if an individual puts energy into producing a house or car, or in producing the medium (money) through which he gives value for it—that he thus earns the right to exclude others from them.

But how can you earn, in this fashion, the right to exclude others from land? Since land is a given, nothing you can do will produce it. Is it not in our laws that implement exclusion from land—more than we are actually using—that we find the first need for force? Is it not in granting privilege to persons to “enclose” more land than he actually needs that coercion is needed to exclude others who also “need” this basic source of life and sustenance?

American individualist anarchists have (and are) stressing a difference in the type of exclusion to produced goods from exclusion to land. In houses, cars and goods produced by human labour, this property or exclusion could be permanently at the discretion of the producer, or whoever had given acceptable value in exchange for it. In the case of non-man-made land, this exclusion would be contingent on the person’s occupancy and acceptable use of that land.

These concepts are examined and elaborated in two studies from the School of Living, Brookville, Ohio: a new 200-page book, Go Ahead and Live! ($4) has chapters on it by Werkheiser and Labadie; and Property and Trustery by Ralph Borsodi is $1.00.

Sincerely,

(Mrs.) Mildred J. Loomis
Editor, A Way Out, Brookville, O.