Concept
Individualist anarchism in Europe proceeded from the roots laid by William Godwin and soon expanded and diversified through Europe, incorporating influences from individualist anarchism in the United States. Individualist anarchism is a tradition of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. While most American individualist anarchists advocate mutualism, a libertarian socialist form of market socialism, or a free-market socialist form of classical economics, European individualist anarchists are pluralists who advocate anarchism without adjectives and synthesis anarchism, ranging from anarcho-communist to mutualist economic types. Early European individualist anarchism was influenced by many philosophers, including Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Max Stirner and Henry David Thoreau. Proudhon was an early pioneer of anarchism as well as of the important individualist anarchist current of mutualism. Stirner became a central figure of individualist anarchism through the publication of his seminal work The Ego and Its Own which is considered to be "a founding text in the tradition of individualist anarchism". The philosophy of Max Stirner supports the individual doing exactly what he pleases, taking no notice of God, state, or moral rules. To Stirner, rights were spooks in the mind and held that society does not exist but "the individuals are its reality". Stirner supported property by force of might rather than moral right, advocated self-assertion and foresaw union of egoists drawn together by respect for each other's self-ownership. Thoreau's emphasis on the promotion of simple living, environmental stewardship and civil disobedience were influential in European individualist anarchists. Influential European individualist anarchists include Albert Libertad, Anselme Bellegarrigue, Oscar Wilde, Émile Armand, Lev Chernyi, John Henry Mackay, Han Ryner, Adolf Brand, Miguel Giménez Igualada, Renzo Novatore and Michel Onfray.