Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 22:11:03 -0500 (EST)
From: Alex Trotter <uburoi-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Marx vs. Stirner



Just a comment or two regarding R. Dumain's recent posts on this topic:

What emerges from Marx's (and tagging along behind, Engels') long, long 
diatribe against Stirner, loaded down with ad hominems, is evidence that 
Marx felt really threatened by Stirner's egoism. If Stirner was really as 
inconsequential as Marx said he was, why devote more than 300 pages to 
attacking him? Ironically, Engels's initial reaction to _The Ego and His 
Own_ was quite favorable...before the Old Man straightened him out. Many 
of Stirner's (as of Bakunin's) criticisms of the tyranny of the socialist 
state dreamed of by Marx seem today prophetic.
	Rather than replaying these old tussles, however, I think it 
might be more fruitful and interesting to try and synthesize them. How 
about a negative unity arising from the dialectical contradiction between 
Max und Marx? Some have already tried it. In the early 1970s, there was a 
situationist-inspired group in California called For Ourselves that 
published a booklet entitled "The Right to Be Greedy: Theses on the 
Practical Necessity of Demanding Everything," in which they called for a 
"communist egoism." It's a fascinating read, full of food for thought. 
It's published by Loompanics Unlimited in Port Townsend, Washington. And 
then, of course, there's Bob Black, who wrote the Preface... 
	Remember, it may be Marx who called Stirner "Saint Max," but 
whose iconic portrait, larger than life, eventually graced billboards 
around half the world?

Alex Trotter






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