This lapel pin, the size and shape of a .32 S&W round, is emblazoned with the egoist motto “Might is Right.” It is issued as part of the multi-format journal “Stand Alone”.

Available from UNDERWORLD AMUSEMENTS

It was in 1845 that Max Stirner wrote: “Meine Freiheit wird erst vollkommen, wenn sie meine – Gewalt ist; durch diese aber höre Ich auf, ein bloß Freier zu sein, und werde ein Eigener.” (My freedom becomes complete only when it is my — might; but by this I cease to be a merely free man, and become an own man.)

In America, 45 years later, individualist anarchist and publisher of the first English language translation of Stirner’s book articulated the idea: “So far as inherent right is concerned, might is its only measure.” (Liberty, New York, November 15, 1890).

This simple philosophical position that “he who has might ‘stands above the law,’” was taken up by a New Zealander radical pen-named Ragnar Redbeard. His book Might is Right: The Survival of the Fittest (Released in the same year as the first English translations of Nietzsche), was part of a nihilistic undercurrent of the “Gay Nineties“.

A rarely seen period advertisement for Redbeard’s book features an engraved design of a bullet with the words “MIGHT IS RIGHT” inscribed on it. We have taken that image and rendered it in dimensional form of a lapel pin. Small enough to be subtle, but with a message crystal clear when struck at just the right light and angle.