The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority

by Max Stirner

What then does on my account mean? There people immediately think of “filthy lucre.” But he who acts from love of filthy lucre does it on his own account indeed, as there is nothing anyhow that one does not do for his own sake—among other things, everything that is done for God’s glory; yet he, for whom he seeks the lucre, is a slave of lucre, not raised above lucre; he is one who belongs to lucre, the money-bag, not to himself; he is not his own. Must not a man whom the passion of avarice rules follow the commands of this master? And, if a weak goodnaturedness once beguiles him, does this not appear as simply an exceptional case of precisely the same sort as when pious believers are sometimes forsaken by their Lord’s guidance and ensnared by the arts of the “devil?” So an avaricious man is not a self-owned man, but a servant; and he can do nothing for his own sake without at the same time doing it for his lord’s sake—precisely like the godly man.