Max Stirner (25 October 1806-26 June 1856) was a German anarchist thinker whose ideas influenced Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Biography[]
Max Stirner was born on 25 October 1806 in Bayreuth, Bavaria, and he studied philosophy, philology, and theology at the University of Berlin. Stirner was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel, and he met with other "Young Hegelians" such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, sharing ideas with each other. Stirner argued that the state, inalienable rights, and the right to property were all ghosts in the mind, and he advocated egoism and amoralism, saying that he was the proprietor of an object as long as he asserted control over it. Stirner also opposed revolutionaries, as they sought to create a new state to replace old ones, rather than destroying the state. Stirner died in 1856, and his views would influence communism.