The I.W.W., popularly known as the Wobblies, stood alone among radical organizations of the era in openly rallying under the slogan “Might is Right.” This stark rejection of moralistic or legalistic appeals in favor of raw power permeated their literature, songs, speeches, and organizing efforts—and left a lasting imprint on those they influenced. Prominent Wobbly voices of the period expressed the idea directly:

• “Might Makes Right” —Walker C. Smith, Industrial Worker, Sat, Jun 04, 1910
• “It isn’t right that wins victories. It’s might that is required. Might only makes right possible.” —Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, The Spokesman-Review, Mon, Dec 20, 1909 · Page 8
• “We won in Missoula, we can win in Spokane. Might makes right.” —Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Industrial Worker, Volume 1 Issue 34, Nov. 10, 1909
• “Whatever is against the strongest class in society is wrong. In other words, ‘might makes right.’” —Oscar Ameringer, “Oscar Wants the Whole Cheese”, The Miners Magazine, Vol. 13 No. 502, Feb 6, 1913

This philosophy of class power over abstract “right” aligned closely with the revolutionary sabotage propaganda Desmond advanced in the essay.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SABOTAGE (By Gerald O. Desmond.)

How many, even among revolutionists, recognize the deep significance, the real meaning of the propaganda and practice of sabotage? How many realize its educative power?

Sabotage is the forerunner of the revolution. It is the smashup of slave religion, morality and ethics. It shows a clear conception of a class struggle. It is a repudiation of the ‘community of interests’ dogma. It demonstrates that the workers have lost their fear of hell and their faith in heaven—that the proletariat is getting its fighting clothes on.

In any class society all things partake of a class nature. When one class rules industrially it impresses certain religions, codes of ethics and morality on the whole. Today the capitalist class rules. The religions, morality and ethic of today are such as the capitalist class decree to be taught and practiced by the workers—such as will perpetuate capitalist rule and exploitation. They are religious teachings of obedience, humility, submission—of workers to masters. Religions belittling our misery here. Religions promising a wonderful reward hereafter. Religions commanding a respect for property—their property by us. Religions defending property work—by us for their benefit. To be “moral”, to be “ethically” correct today is to deny ourselves, to toil hard, little, to bow down to our superiors, etc.

So long as the working class practice or are bound in any way by these things, the masters are safe. A working class hampered by such ideas and superstitions cannot fight intelligently. It cannot emancipate itself from slavery. But suppose the slaves wake up from slavery? What if they begin to think and go after the good things of life now—and to hell with the idea of “pie in the sky” by and by? What if they “can” the idea that the boss is their “natural superior” and benefactor; and realize instead that he is an enemy, an exploiter, and a parasite? Suppose they create and practice a code of ethics wherein the thing which is for their benefit is “good” and “right” and that which benefits the boss is “bad” and “wrong”? How long could a ruling class stand before this? How long?

So we come back to sabotage, its significance and its educative value. Every time an act of sabotage is practiced it is a negation of slave morality, ethic and religion. It is the act of an individual, of a class, already, or becoming, mentally emancipated—they realize the power. The plutes are frightened. The Utopians, the “parlor socialists,” the pink tea “rebels”—prating of revolution with their minds still befogged, decry sabotage and pass condemnatory resolutions.

But despite plute rage and “red-yellow” howls it will not go down. Its propaganda becomes more general, its practice more common and more consciously effective. Sabotage is here to stay—the greatest educative force, the most powerful weapon yet shaped by evolution for a rebellious, mentally-emancipated proletariat.

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

Paperback | 5.5 x 8.5”, 128 pages | Price: $16.95 | ISBN: 978-1-943687-28-2
Hardback | 5.75 x 8.75”, 128 pages | Price: $66 | ISBN: 978-1-943687-29-9

Buy the Paperback: Amazon.com or Underworld Amusements

Buy the Hardback: Underworld Amusements

Step into the history of The Radical Book Shop of Chicago, a forgotten hub of anarchist, unionist, socialist, and communist literature. From its humble beginnings in 1914, this bookstore inspired revolutionaries and welcomed poets, novelists, roughnecks, and even would-be assassins around its iron stove. Despite police and political harassment, for over a decade the Radical Book Shop remained a beloved destination for rebels and intellectuals alike.

Howard and Lillian H. Udell founded this “shoebox-sized” bookstore out of desperation using their personal library. The curious and precocious Udell daughters helped them run the tiny outlet, where they grew up with habitués such as union tough guy Big Bill Haywood and his Wobblies; literary luminaries Kenneth Rexroth, Sherwood Anderson, Ralph Chaplin, and Carl Sandburg; the wild hobohemians of the Dil Pickle Club and Bughouse Square; artist Stanisław Szukalski;  and notorious outsiders like Arthur “Ragnar Redbeard” Desmond (author of Might is Right) and Nestor “Jean Crones” Dondoglio (mastermind behind the infamous 1916 “soup-poison plot”).

The Radical Book Shop of Chicago by Kevin I. Slaughter is a thoroughly researched and prolifically illustrated history of this incredible hub of political and artistic dynamite. With an appendix of all known writings by Lillian H. Udell, including a biographical sketch of Voltairine De Cleyre, and reviews of several books published by Charles H. Kerr. Whether you’re interested in the hidden history of radical politics and literature, or simply curious about the influential figures who frequented the store, this book is a must-read.

More information available at the website TheRadicalBookShop.com

His article “Immorality as a Philosophic Principle” is reprinted here in facsimile from the July 1899 issue of The Monist. In it, Carus introduces the reader to Nietzsche’s ideas and this “aristocratic individualism”. “It is a consistent anarchism, a courageous immoralism, and a proud aristocratism, the ruthless shout of triumph of the victor who hails the doctrine of the survival of the strongest and craftiest as a ‘joyful science.'”

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In a section titled “Nietzsche’s Disciples”, Carus covers some of the work of egoists of the time, including the journal The Eagle and The Serpent in England and Der Eigene in Germany. Strangely enough, he refers to Max Stirner as being an “expounder of Niteche’s philosophy even though he predated him by decades. Further, Ragnar Redbeard and his book Might is Right are touched upon, as well as Clarence L. Swartz and Elbert Hubbard. Readers of Der Geist and the Stand Alone series will be well familiar with all the names mentioned in this section.

The Bulletin for June 16 1900 announced:

A new god for Victoria! The Melb. Hegemony Club, a fortuitous collection of unattached Stunners and Drangers of the guerilla red-democrat persuasion, who conduct proceedings very successfully without the assistance of chairman, officers, objects, or rules…

In a July 19 1900, a column on the group that appeared in The Tocsin, had the following note:

HEGEMONY CLUB.
Last Thursday’s meeting was mainly occupied with saddling Mac with the worry of arranging for the catering, etc., for our Bastille shivoo.

On Saturday, the 14th, this duly took place at the Hibernian Hall to the delight of a large and enthusiastically rebellious company.

The room was neatly ornamented with the device “1789-1900, Liberty, Equality Fraternity,” argent upon gules. The meeting was international in character, there being present French, Germans,. Austrians, an Outlander champion of the Transvaal, and the “Consul for South America.” Among, other songs we had the Marseillaise in English, then in French; a verse from ‘ The Oarmaguole,’ in French; a tenderly sweet Slav sigh for home and country, in a language alien to the Russian (this was a sort of Slavonic ‘Esile of Erin’); a beautiful song in Italian; a song from Goethe, in German; a verse of a Taal satire on Cecil Rhodes in Taal itself; ‘The March of the Workers,’ by Morris; “The Leader of the Future,” by Desmond; a Collingwood song, by Anon; several recitations of a hair-raising type; a few stirring speeches, including a wonderful impromptu, rising to genius, to the sublime, in parts, from J. A. Andrews (author also of several rousing songs sung during the evening), and a lightning sketch of the Transvaal by our visitor’ from South Africa. Victor Daley’s Tocsin song was also recited. We were so embarrassed with our riches that we had very regretfully to turn out the gas before ‘The Death of Joubert’ and Robert Burns’ ‘Tree of Liberty’ were reached. The proceedings conducted themselves admirably, Hegemonywise; without chairman, toastmaster, waiter, or programme It was a night to be remembered — one of those rare foregatherings of irreconcilables and rebels, talked of for years and years after, and sowing new and greater rebellions in the tyros fortunate enough to have been present. We hope that the fruits of the evening, as far as Australia is concerned, will show that the taking of the Paris Bastille in 1789 was worthily and appropriately celebrated by the Melbourne Hegemony Club in 1900.

Additionally, in a section for meeting notes provided by members, is this item:

Arthur Desmond, New Zealander and Australian, author of ‘The Leader of the Future,’ and other stirring verses, was also the author of that remarkable much talked of American brochure, known as ‘Might is Right; or, the Survival of the Fittest,’ by Dr. Ragnar Redbeard.

All of this is significant for two reasons: 1. It was never a secret in Australia that Arthur Desmond wrote under the name Ragnar Redbeard, 2. socialists still sang his revolutionary verses at their meetings after the publication of Might is Right. It was only in America that Desmond was truly successful at hiding his real name and keeping it separate from his many pseudonyms, and it is only in the past few decades that there has been any real attempt of radical socialists, communists and anarchists to separate themselves from Desmond’s magnum opus Might is Right. Desmond and his writing have always been part of and celebrated by revolutionaries and radicals, with only infrequent dissents. For over 100 years his writing was promoted by the vanguard of radical left politics, and not just on the fringes, but central, significant figures, in every country he spent any time in.

Available from: Underworld Amusements | Amazon.com | Amazon.UK | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org

DER GEIST issue five features the first publication of original research, and archival materials thought lost. Steven T. Byington (first English translation of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum by Max Stirner); Thomas Common (first English translation of Friedrich Nietzsche); Georgia Replogle (first English-language journal on egoism); Malfew Seklew (the Laughing Philosopher); Arthur Desmond (author of a notorious book); Dora Marsden, S. E. Parker and more.

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.

DER GEIST, The Journal of Egoism from 1845 – 1945
ISSUE 5
Spring 2022
Paperback, 206 pages, fifteen dollars
ISBN 978-1944651244
ISSN 2639-5339

CONTENTS

Introduction by the Editor

1. Steven T. Byington

A Proofreader Looks Back | The Human Cutworm | Photo of Steven T. Byington | Biographical Note | Selected Bibliography

2. Thomas Common

Review of Survival of the Fittest | The Silent Isle: Finding the Gravesite of Thomas Common | A Memorial | Selected Bibliography

3. Ragnar Redbeard

Bertha McNamara’s Reflections on Arthur Desmond | Illustration from The Worker | John Ploughman and His Letter | The Brutalitarian: A Journal for the Sane and the Strong | Lion’s Paw Banned | Confessions of an Anarchist

4. Max Stirner / The Ego And His Own

Donald Rooum’s “Eigenheit” | An Early Literary Portrait of Max Stirner

5. Dora Marsden

Brainy Beauties | Private Places | Lover of Freedom

6. Malfew Seklew

Dan O’Brien, Social Supercrat | Victor Grayson, M.P.: A Rhapsody on a Reality | Spencella Wilkesbarre’s What Women Ought to Know | Stanley Simpoleon Says Seklew Stand-In | William Henry Powell and Malfew Seklew | Poetic Beer Drinker | A Remarkable Character | Two from Day Book

7. Free Spirits

Photo of Georgia Replogle | Photo of S. E. Parker | Letter from Denise Juin | Interview with S. E. Parker | Sophie Leppel’s “Pig Eaters Challenge” | Herbert Roseman on Laurance Labadie | Leedz Anarkyst: Greevz Fisher (1845-1931) | Holbrook Jackson on Nietzsche | Index of Der Geist | From the Library | Index to The Lumberjack / Voice of the People | A Thank-You to Patrons | Select Titles Available | About the Editors

Cook. Co Jail
Chicago, Ill.
Jan. 10th 1918

John Grave,
Pellow worker
I see your name and address in the “Worker” so w1ll drop you a line, to let you know how things are at this winter health resort. There are quite a bunch or us here and the conditions are fairly rotten, but in spite or all the drawbacks, the bunch all seem to be enjoying their vacation pretty well. It ie sure interesting to meet the boys from all the different parts of the country, and hear how the movement is going ahead in the different sections. The boys from the west compare favorably with the rest, and it seems they have a better understanding of the movement. The spittoon philosopher element and the anarchists seem to be pretty numerous in the east.

Well John we sure gave the lumber trust a wallopin last summer. That was the first time they were ever whipped and they were eure whipped to a finish, the lumber jacks are lining up to boat hell. Last month over thirteen hundred joined. It looks like we will soon controll the lumber induetry. They are still fighting us in despearation but we have got a strangle hold on them and their case is hopeless. Of course we expect nothing else than to be jailed after taking part in a strike like that for we know that a rebellious slave is the worst criminal in the eyes ot the masters but what the hell of it. When we understand the Redbeard philosophy, as you and I do, we only laugh at an old sissified can like this. It is pretty feeble institution to try to break up a strong job organization with. It shows how feeble are the minds ot the rulers, and how little they grasp the significance of this movement. What do you think of the Bolaheviki? What they can do in Russia, we can
do in this “land of the Free.”

Well, John I hope to hear from you soon.

Will cut her ahort now as I am not sure whether you will get this or not. I know you fellows have trouble of your own down there. None of the Edmonton fellows have arrived here yet but we expect Jim Manning any time. The other Manning was turned loose today. Also expect Turner in near future.

With best wishes
Yours for the One Big Union
James Rowan.

TYPE is a lost Nineteenth Century poem by antipodean radical Arthur Desmond, praising the power of the printed word to rally downtrodden men to rise up against their oppressors. Stabbed in dark crimson with the leaden slugs of an infernal machine onto heavy aged-ivory stock, courtesy of an anarchist printer in the Twenty-first Century.

Available exclusively from Underworld Amusements

In 1890, Desmond launched The Tribune in New Zealand as a national newspaper of liberation for all. It was in that journal he published this verse. As a polemicist and publisher, Desmond was a thorn in the side of the government of wherever he lived. His “little blocks and leaden” would eventually force him to flee the country ahead of charges of sedition. He landed in Chicago in 1896, where, as Ragnar Redbeard, he wrote Might is Right.

Broadside measures seven by seven inches, numbered in an edition of sixty-six and released as part of the Stand Alone journal project of the Union of Egoists. Printed with hot metal type on an 1930s Linotype letterpress by Michael E. Coughlin, editor publisher of the anarchist journal the dandelion and co-editor of Benjamin R. Tucker and the Champions of Liberty (1987).

Stand Alone is a mixed medium and format journal produced at irregular intervals. The focus is Egoism and the individuals associated with it. Produced by the Union Of Egoists with individual issues published by different sources.

Available from Underworld Amusements.

Originally published uncredited in Charles Dickens’ journal All the Year Round Number 868 (July 18, 1885), “Man-eating and Man-sacrificing” was discovered while researching the reference material used by Arthur Desmond in writing his infamous book Might is Right. It heavily informs Chapter 4, “Man—The Carnivore!”

While Might is Right is often dismissed as a mere “rant” or “screed,” it was only in tearing the book apart sentence-by-sentence that the actual depth of literary references and allusions was discovered. Many sources were tracked down for innumerate, often uncited, references. All of these have been documented in Might is Right: The Authoritative Edition, and this booklet, featuring a short Afterword by Trevor Blake and Kevin I. Slaughter, is a means to provide the curious with the full context of one of those uncredited citations, first noted in AMiR 4.1:3n2*.

Stand Alone is a mixed medium and format journal produced at irregular intervals. The focus is Egoism and the individuals associated with it. Produced by the Union Of Egoists with individual issues published by different sources.

*Might is Right: The Authoritative Edition, Chapter four, section one, paragraph three, note two.

A BOGUS BOOK.

‘THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF POWER. ‘

From Chicago. Addressed,
“The Editors,
“‘Tocsin,’
“Chief Justice Madden and others,”
has come along a book entitled as above by Ragnar Redbeard, L.L.D .which Tolstoi is reported to have stated, ‘ has positively filled him with alarm and dread.’ The Tocsin is sorry for Tolstoi.

The book is a wordy, windy exposition of Individualism. It is described as “No ordinary book. Nothing like it has ever been permitted to see the light since A.D. 300.” Which is tommyrot, as the volume is but a garish hotchpotch of many books issued since that date and before this precious work. For scientific criticism of them, nothing is more concise and comprehensive than Renan’s fine essay on “Intolerance in Scepticism,” published about fifty years ago.

The author, Gingerbeered Redrag, commences by proclaiming “Death to the weakling, wealth to the strong.” Wealth is his ideal, and in his advocacy of its pursuit he challenges “the wisdom of the world,” and “stands forth to interrogate the ‘laws’ of man and God.'” All of which he does on the principle that the weakest shall go to the wall and the fittest shall survive.