According to Stirner the change which every one's own welfare requires is to come about in this way,—that men in sufficient number first undergo an inward change and recognize their own welfare as their highest law, and that these men then bring to pass by force the outward change also: to wit, the abrogation of law, State, and property, and the introduction of the new condition.

I. The first and most important thing is the inward change of men.

"Revolution and insurrection must not be regarded as synonymous. The former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the existing condition or state, the State or society, and so is a political or social act; the latter has indeed a transformation of conditions as its inevitable consequence, but starts not from this but from men's discontent with themselves, is not a lifting of shields but a lifting of individuals, a coming up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution aimed at new arrangements: the Insurrection leads to no longer having ourselves arranged but arranging ourselves, and sets no brilliant hope on 'institutions.' It is not a fight against the existing order, since, if it prospers, the existing order collapses of itself; it is only a working my way out of the existing order. If I leave the existing order, it is dead and passes into decay. Now, since my purpose is not the upsetting of an existing order but the lifting of myself above it, my aim and act are not political or social, but, as directed upon myself and my ownness alone, egoistic."[300]

Why was the founder of Christianity "not a revolutionist, not a demagogue as the Jews would have liked to see him; why was he not a Liberal? Because he expected no salvation from a change of conditions, and this whole business was indifferent to him. He was not a revolutionist, like CÆsar for instance, but an insurgent; not an overturner of the State, but one who straightened himself up. He waged no Liberal or political war against the existing authorities, but wanted to go his own way regardless of these authorities and undisturbed by them."[301]

"Everything sacred is a bond, a fetter. Everything sacred will be, must be, perverted by perverters of law; therefore our present time has such perverters by the quantity in all spheres. They are preparing for the break of the law, for lawlessness."[302] "Regard yourself as more powerful than they allege you to be, and you have more power; regard yourself as more, and you are more."[303] "The poor become free and proprietors only when they—'rise'."[304] "Only from egoism can the lower classes get help, and this help they must give to themselves and—will give to themselves. If they do not let themselves be constrained into fear, they are a power."[305]

II. Furthermore, in order to bring about the "transformation of conditions"[306] and put the new condition in the place of law, State, and property, violent insurrection against the condition that has hitherto existed is requisite.

1. "The State can be overcome only by a violent arbitrariness."[307] "The individual's violence [Gewalt] is called crime [Verbrechen], and only by crime does he break [brechen] the State's authority [Gewalt] when he opines that the State is not above him, but he above the State."[308] "Here too the result is that the thinkers' combat against the government is wrong, viz. in impotence, so far as it cannot bring into the field anything but thoughts against a personal power (the egoistic power stops the mouths of the thinkers). The theoretical combat cannot complete the victory, and the sacred power of thought succumbs to the might of egoism. It is only the egoistic combat, the combat of egoists on both sides, that clears up everything."[309]

"The property question cannot be solved so gently as the Socialists, even the Communists, dream. It is solved only by the war of all against all."[310] "Let me then retract the might which I have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my own might! Let me say to myself, 'Whatever my might reaches to is my property,' and then claim as property all that I feel myself strong enough to attain; and let me make my real property extend as far as I entitle (i. e. empower) myself to take."[311] "In order to extirpate the unpossessing rabble, egoism does not say, 'Wait and see what the Board of Equity will—donate to you in the name of the collectivity', but 'Put your hand to it and take what you need!'"[312]

In this combat Stirner agrees to all methods. "I will not draw back with a shudder from any act because there dwells in it a spirit of godlessness, immorality, wrongfulness, as little as St. Boniface was disposed to abstain from chopping down the heathens' sacred oak on account of religious scruples."[313] "The power over life and death, which Church and State reserved to themselves, this too I call—mine."[314] "The life of the individual man I rate only at what it is worth. His goods, the material and the spiritual alike, are mine, and I dispose of them as proprietor to the extent of my—might."[315]

2. Stirner depicts for us a single event in this violent transformation of conditions. He assumes that certain men come to realize that they occupy a disproportionately unfavorable position in the State as compared with others who receive the preference.

"Those who are in the unfavorable position take courage to ask the question, 'By what, then, is your property secure, you favored ones?' and give themselves the answer, 'By our refraining from interference! By our protection, therefore! And what do you give us for it? Kicks and contempt you give the "common people"; police oversight, and a catechism with the chief sentence "Respect what is not yours, what belongs to others! respect others, and especially superiors!" But we reply, "If you want our respect, buy it for a price that shall be acceptable to us." We will leave you your property, if you pay duly for this leaving. With what, indeed, does the general in time of peace pay for the many thousands of his yearly income? or Another for the sheer hundred-thousands and millions? With what do you pay us for chewing potatoes and looking quietly on while you swallow oysters? Only buy the oysters from us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes from you, and you may go on eating them. Or do you suppose the oysters do not belong to us as much as to you? You will make an outcry about violence if we take hold and help eat them, and you are right. Without violence we do not get them, as you no less have them by doing violence to us.

"'But take the oysters and done with it, and let us come to what is in a closer way our property (for this other is only possession)—to labor. We toil twelve hours in the sweat of our foreheads, and you offer us a few groschen for it. Then take the like for your labor too. We will come to terms all right if only we have first agreed on the point that neither any longer needs to—donate anything to the other. For centuries we have offered you alms in our kindly—stupidity, have given the mite of the poor and rendered to the masters what is—not the masters'; now just open your bags, for henceforth there is a tremendous rise in the price of our ware. We will take nothing away from you, nothing at all, only you shall pay better for what you want to have. What have you then? "I have an estate of a thousand acres." And I am your plowman, and will hereafter do your plowing only for a thaler a day wages. "Then I'll get another." You will not find one, for we plowmen are no longer doing anything different, and if one presents himself who takes less, let him beware of us.'"[316]