Self-rule takes precedence over any political obligation regardless of the state's form or the foundation of its claimed authority.

On Stirner’s account, there is a necessary antipathy between the egoistic individual and the state. This inevitable hostility is based on the conflict between Stirner’s conception of autonomy and any obligation to obey the law. “Own will and the state”, he writes, “are powers in deadly hostility, between which no ‘perpetual peace’ is possible” (175). Since self-rule is incompatible with, and valued more highly than, any obligation to obey the law, Stirner rejects the legitimacy of political obli