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Individualist Anarchy

Individualist anarchy refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the needs and the will of the individual over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideology.

Individualist anarchists assert that "individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by any collective body or public authority" and that the state, decreed and legislated law, and "the system of democracy, of majority decision, is held null and void."

Among the early influences on individualist anarchy were William Godwin, Josiah Warren ("sovereignty of the individual"), Max Stirner (egoism), Lysander Spooner ("natural law"), Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (mutualism), Henry David Thoreau (transcendentalism), Herbert Spencer ("law of equal liberty") and Anselme Bellegarrigue.

Benjamin Tucker, a famous 19th century individualist anarchist, held that:

"If the individual has the right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny".

Tucker was the first to publish an English translation of Max Stirner's The Ego and Its Own – which Tucker claimed as his proudest accomplishment. Today, the egoist current of individualist anarchism is perhaps the most dominant, with Max Stirner's writings increasingly influencing social anarchists with egoist communism. Stirner wrote:

“Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.”

“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”

“We do not aspire to communal life but to a life apart.”

Various individualist forms of Green anarchism also have a big impact today, initially inspired by Henry David Thoreau and his book Walden, as well as by Leo Tolstoy and Elisee Reclus in their writings.

Different forms of individualist anarchy have a few things in common:

  1. A focus on the individual and their unique will over any external constructions such as morality, ideology, social custom, religion, metaphysics, ideas or the will of others.

  2. Rejecting, or at least having reservations about the idea of revolution, seeing it as a time of unstable mass uprising which could just as easily bring about new hierarchies and rulers. Instead, individualists favor more evolutionary methods of bringing about anarchy through alternative experiences, experimentation and education. Individualists don't see it as desirable to wait for a violent revolution that may never come to start experimenting with anarchy and having experiences outside of the current 'legitimate' social system. They don't think it feasible to anticipate an anarchist utopia that may never come. Instead, they delve head first into anarchist praxis in the here and now regardless of whatever constructed systems are currently in place around them.

  3. Rejecting democracy, or the will of the majority group to assert their will on the individual and minority groups. From Democracy to Freedom and Against Democracy explain this in more detail.

  4. Individualist anarchists usually reject the notion of sacrifice altogether. Collectivist's ideas of the individual having to give up their personal happiness in service of the 'greater good' is something individualists vehemently reject as being counter to anarchy.

  5. Freedom of Association and loose, informal organizations. To Stirner, the problem with the state and bodies like it was that the state was held up as sacred; an artificial structure that gets placed above the individual and collectively forced upon everyone. Instead, he examined how individuals interact with each other when they don't have the constraints of a sacred state imposed upon them and built his theory "The Union of Egoists" from that.

    This union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the state. The Union is understood as a relation between egoists which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will. The Union requires that all parties participate out of a conscious egoism. If one party silently finds themselves to be suffering, but puts up with it without protest, the Union has degenerated and failed. This Union is not an authority above a person's own will, and ceases to function when this happens. This idea has received interpretations for politics, economics, romance and sexual relations.

    As such, he sees the tearing down of the state, both practically and ideologically, as leaving these informal structures where people associate with each other because they mutually benefit from each other. Rather than the imposed ties of society or the state, he turns to voluntary ties of friendships and play.

    Social anarchists tend to conceive of anarchistic organizations as being formal in nature, with federated structures and methods of recourse for individuals to resolve their problems in large, often monolithic organizations. Unions of egoists, by contrast, would be small, personal affairs which evolve fluidly and without much structure to them. People would be involved in many unions of egoists, some long term, like friendships, and some short term, like getting together to fix specific problems that are affecting multiple people.

    In practical terms for tactical purposes, this means Individualist anarchists call for small anarchist "cells" which are able to act independently from each other, lacking formal ties with each other, but which would still communicate and work together on short term bases where the members all know each other personally, thus trusting each other.


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Individualist anarchy refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the needs and the will of the individual over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideology.

Individualist anarchists assert that "individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by any collective body or public authority" and that the state, decreed and legislated law, and "the system of democracy, of majority decision, is held null and void."

Among the early influences on individualist anarchy were William Godwin, Josiah Warren ("sovereignty of the individual"), Max Stirner (egoism), Lysander Spooner ("natural law"), Pierre-Joseph Proudhon ([mutualism](/w/Mutualism)), Henry David Thoreau (transcendentalism), Herbert Spencer ("law of equal liberty") and Anselme Bellegarrigue.

Benjamin Tucker, a famous 19th century individualist anarchist, held that: 

>"If the individual has the right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny".

Tucker was the first to publish an English translation of Max Stirner's The Ego and Its Own – which Tucker claimed as his proudest accomplishment. Today, the [egoist](/w/egoism) current of individualist anarchism is perhaps the most dominant, with Max Stirner's writings increasingly influencing [social anarchists](/wiki/SocialAnarchism) with [egoist communism](/wiki/egoist_communism). Stirner wrote:

>“Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.” 

>“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”

> “We do not aspire to communal life but to a life apart.” 

Various individualist forms of [Green anarchism](/w/green_anarchism) also have a big impact today, initially inspired by Henry David Thoreau and his book Walden, as well as by Leo Tolstoy and Elisee Reclus in their writings.

Different forms of individualist anarchy have a few things in common:

1. A focus on the individual and their unique will over any external constructions such as morality, ideology, social custom, religion, metaphysics, ideas or the will of others.

2. Rejecting, or at least having reservations about the idea of revolution, seeing it as a time of unstable mass uprising which could just as easily bring about new hierarchies and rulers. Instead, individualists favor more evolutionary methods of bringing about anarchy through alternative experiences, experimentation and education. Individualists don't see it as desirable to wait for a violent revolution that may never come to start experimenting with anarchy and having experiences outside of the current 'legitimate' social system. They don't think it feasible to anticipate an anarchist utopia that may never come. Instead, they delve head first into anarchist praxis in the here and now regardless of whatever constructed systems are currently in place around them.

3. Rejecting democracy, or the will of the majority group to assert their will on the individual and minority groups. [From Democracy to Freedom](https://crimethinc.com/2016/04/29/feature-from-democracy-to-freedom) and [Against Democracy](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/coordination-of-anarchist-groups-against-democracy) explain this in more detail. 

4. Individualist anarchists usually reject the notion of sacrifice altogether. Collectivist's ideas of the individual having to give up their personal happiness in service of the 'greater good' is something individualists vehemently reject as being counter to anarchy.

5. Freedom of Association and loose, informal organizations. To Stirner, the problem with the state and bodies like it was that the state was held up as sacred; an artificial structure that gets placed above the individual and collectively forced upon everyone. Instead, he examined how individuals interact with each other when they don't have the constraints of a sacred state imposed upon them and built his theory "The Union of Egoists" from that.

   This union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the state. The Union is understood as a relation between egoists which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will. The Union requires that all parties participate out of a conscious egoism. If one party silently finds themselves to be suffering, but puts up with it without protest, the Union has degenerated and failed. This Union is not an authority above a person's own will, and ceases to function when this happens. This idea has received interpretations for politics, economics, romance and sexual relations. 

   As such, he sees the tearing down of the state, both practically and ideologically, as leaving these informal structures where people associate with each other because they mutually benefit from each other. Rather than the imposed ties of society or the state, he turns to voluntary ties of friendships and play.

   Social anarchists tend to conceive of anarchistic organizations as being formal in nature, with federated structures and methods of recourse for individuals to resolve their problems in large, often monolithic organizations. Unions of egoists, by contrast, would be small, personal affairs which evolve fluidly and without much structure to them. People would be involved in many unions of egoists, some long term, like friendships, and some short term, like getting together to fix specific problems that are affecting multiple people.

   In practical terms for tactical purposes, this means Individualist anarchists call for small anarchist "cells" which are able to act independently from each other, lacking formal ties with each other, but which would still communicate and work together on short term bases where the members all know each other personally, thus trusting each other.