Communism is the economic system characterized by “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

Bizarrely, it has become increasingly popular in recent years to claim that the champion of Egoism, Max Stirner, supported this system or at least that it is compatible with his thought. It’s not, and that should be obvious to anyone who has read him, but since it seems not to be, here we go.

Max Stirner hated Communism, possibly even more than Proudhon did, which is really saying something.

Stirner writes in The Ego and His Own “Communism, by the abolition of all personal property, only presses me back still more into dependence on another, viz., on the generality or collectivity; and, loudly as it always attacks the ‘State,’ what it intends is itself again a State, a status, a condition hindering my free movement, a sovereign power over me. Communism rightly revolts against the pressure that I experience from individual proprietors; but still more horrible is the might that it puts in the hands of the collectivity.”

Please note that far from supporting communism, Stirner writes that communism is “still more horrible” than the present capitalistic society in which he lived.

Stirner wrote “According to the Communists’ opinion the commune should be proprietor. On the contrary, I am proprietor, and I only come to an understanding with others about my property. If the commune does not do what suits me, I rise against it and defend my property… Property, therefore, should not and cannot be abolished; it must rather be torn from ghostly hands and become my property.”

I hope this puts to bed that insane lie that Stirner was a commie.

However, just to cover all our bases, let’s answer the sole objection on which there could be any reasonable ground to think Stirnerism might be compatible with communism.

If the Egoist is an incompetent, perhaps he would desire to live in a communist society. As an incompetent, he would be expected to produce very little, but would nevertheless receive as much as he needs. That’s a pretty good deal! And one he won’t find anywhere else. But if the Egoist is not an incompetent, he would very much not want to live in a communist society as he would be expected to produce very much and receive in return only the fraction that it is determined he needs, his surplus being redistributed to the incompetents.

But what if everyone in a society became an Egoist? Would that result in a Communist society? No. Even if the competent Egoists are outnumbered by the incompetent Egoists, the situation will not result in Communism. Suppose by some accident a society of Egoists finds itself in a communistic economic order. The incompetent Egoists, being incompetent, will be unable to compel the competent Egoists to fork over their products. There then would swiftly form a true Union of Egoists where the competent Egoists all get together to form something like an Agorist gray market where they trade with each other secretly and keep for themselves rather than let themselves be despoiled. Deprived of the contributions of the society’s most productive members, communism would swiftly collapse and some kind of market society would form.

I never want to see another “Egoist-Communist” again.