From “Rosa Luxemburg Comics“:
Letter To Keith Preston: No, You’re Not a Stirnerite
So when I was browsing on Anti-Fascist News, I came across a bizarre article about a “left anarchist” named Keith Preston. And the really weird thing about Keith is his version of panarchism, while panarchism was originally defined as a synthesis of different socialist anarchist factions, it was then ruined and twisted by a right-wing “libertarian” known as Kant, but Keith’s panarchism is so different that it can barely be called “anarchism”. He advocates the unification of left-anarchists, “anarcho”-capitalists, national-“anarchists”, and even “anarcho”-feudalists! I’m not going to prove that Keith is obviously not an anarchist because Anti-Fascist News did that already, but I am going to prove that Preston is certainly not a Stirnerite.
To be clear there are many Stirnerites including myself who mix egoist-anarchism with other ideas. There are Marxist-Stirnerites, Luxemburgist-Stirnerites, and Syndicalist-Stirnerites. I, myself identity as a Buddhist-Stirnerite, but I will explain how these two ideas are compatible to me in a future post. How a Stirnerite accepts a different idea or group is by asking him/herself “Does this idea/group actually benefit me?” While Keith does call himself a Stirnerite, but he clearly hasn’t been thinking of his own ego, due to the fact he allies with capitalists, feudalistic, and nationalists. Stirner was very critical of capitalism, feudalism, and nationalism because they all shared one thing in common: to subjugate and exploit the majority of the people while having a small group of powerful privileged minorities. These three ideologies were considered to be extremely authoritarian spooks by Max Stirner because the small privileged minorities create an artificial safety net to preserve their power of exploitation.
That’s why Max Stirner and any real Stirnerite will always fight against capitalism, feudalism, and nationalism. Keith Preston, you’re not a Stirnerite, you’re delusional.
Please like my article. What did you think of my criticism to Keith? Did you guys like the meme I made? And please share this post to any pseudo-“panarchists”.
Interesting. I consider pan-anarchism to be an umbrella for all forms of anarchism, decentralism, libertarianism, anti-statism, or anti-authoritarianism. When it comes to left/right divisions between these, I am for free association, decentralization, federalism, or mutual self-separation. Beyond, that I am for developing society-wide consensuses for pan-decentralization (i.e. cantons, provinces, autonomous regions, statelets, city-states, villages, federations of towns and communes, etc).
I also favor a concept I call pan-secessionism as a means of achieving this, which basically combines secession by regions and communities with something akin to the old syndicalist idea of a general strike.
“Marxist-Stirnerites, Luxemburgist-Stirnerites, and Syndicalist-Stirnerites. I, myself identity as a Buddhist-Stirnerite”
I am familiar with these, and with pan-anarchism there were would communes, homelands, and territories for these along with the same for “left-anarchists, “anarcho”-capitalists, national-“anarchists”, and even “anarcho”-feudalists.”
RLC Replies:
Keith Preston, if you cared about your well being, and individuality, then you would not side with a group that will suppress your freedom through “voluntarism”. I guarantee that the “anarcho”- capitalists, “anarcho”-feudalists, and especially national “anarchists” will stab you in the back and exploit you. Also quit complaining about the “degeneracy” of culture. Culture is a spook.
And My Second Response:
And leftists never do anything like that, right? See the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Spanish, Revolution, Chinese Revolution, Cuban Revolution, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. Look at it this way. If you don’t like what’s going on in the anarcho-capitalist, anarcho-feudalist, anarcho-nationalist, etc communities you can always either migrate elsewhere or organize anarcho-syndicalist unions and peasant revolts, or agitate for more multiculturalism.
