Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard
This is unabridged, original text of this infamous book.
Might Is Right, or The Survival of the Fittest, is a book by
pseudonymous author Ragnar Redbeard. First published in 1890, it heavily
advocates social Darwinism, amoralism, and psychological hedonism. In
Might is Right, Redbeard rejects conventional ideas of human and natural
rights and argues that only strength or physical might can establish
moral right (la Callicles). Libertarian historian James J. Martin called
it “surely one of the most incendiary works ever to be published
anywhere.” Leo Tolstoy discussed the philosophy of Might Is Right in his
1897 essay What Is Art?: “The substance of this book, as it is
expressed in the editor’s preface, is that to measure “right” by the
false philosophy of the Hebrew prophets and “weepful” Messiahs is
madness. Right is not the offspring of doctrine, but of power. All laws,
commandments, or doctrines as to not doing to another what you do not
wish done to you, have no inherent authority whatever, but receive it
only from the club, the gallows, and the sword. A man truly free is
under no obligation to obey any injunction, human or divine. Obedience
is the sign of the degenerate. Disobedience is the stamp of the hero.
Men should not be bound by moral rules invented by their foes. The whole
world is a slippery battlefield. Ideal justice demands that the
vanquished should be exploited, emasculated, and scorned. The free and
brave may seize the world. And, therefore, there should be eternal war
for life, for land, for love, for women, for power, and for gold. The
earth and its treasures is “booty for the bold.” The author has
evidently by himself, independently of Nietzsche, come to the same
conclusions which are professed by the new artists.”
Paperback 128 pages