Individualism and egoism

Individualism and egoism are presented not as a single doctrine but as competing ways of responding to political ideas and material life. Willi treats personal appetite as a sufficient rule for action; an elderly joiner, by contrast, distrusts ideological abstractions while insisting that ordinary people can recognize injustice through what they endure. The contrast makes self-interest look both predatory and, in another register, inseparable from the struggle to meet daily needs.

Willi’s Egoism as a License

Willi, a novice pickpocket who has little money, is sharp enough to cheat Franz Biberkopf. He says he learned about communism in an orphanage, but came to regard it as nonsense: the sensible person, in his view, believes in Nietzsche and Stirner and simply does what he wants. This version of individualism dispenses with collective obligation and turns personal desire into its own justification.

Willi’s conduct gives that principle a practical, opportunistic shape. He takes pleasure in heckling at political meetings, but does not attend chiefly to debate ideas. He identifies people with whom he can do business or whom he can make fools of, treating the gathering as a field for private advantage. His exploitation of Franz links the doctrine of unrestricted self-interest to an actual act of deception. Franz goes along with him a little longer, then leaves politics behind without Mieze or Eva having to intervene.

The Joiner’s Material Test

An elderly joiner Franz meets at a political meeting offers a sharply different perspective. He is there not from conviction but because his ill wife needs quiet at home in the evenings, leaving him to find somewhere else to go. His presence in political life begins in an ordinary domestic circumstance, not in an abstract commitment.

The joiner says he understands little about Marxism and does not claim expertise in the competing doctrines voiced by Willi or others. Instead, he measures society through immediate experience: the daily cost of what he needs, the violence of being beaten, and the insecurity of being dismissed while the foreman and boss keep their positions. With three children, an eldest daughter suffering from rickets, a sick wife who otherwise sells smoked herrings, and no money for even a modest outing to Tegel, his account grounds social inequality in household consequences.

Self-Interest and Social Inequality

The joiner’s examples extend from deprivation at home to unequal access to health and opportunity. He sees other families able to teach their children foreign languages and take them to the seaside, while his own family cannot afford a trip nearby. He describes crowded medical waiting rooms, disbelief from doctors, and the difficulty of obtaining a rest cure through public health insurance. His knowledge of injustice comes from these repeated encounters, not from mastery of political theory.

The passage therefore distinguishes Willi’s egoism, which turns freedom from obligation into permission to exploit others, from the joiner’s practical attention to personal need. The joiner does not present himself as a theorist or resolve the political arguments around him; he insists that his experience is enough to recognize that the inequalities he describes are real. Individual judgment remains important, but the episode tests it against social conditions that no individual can simply choose away.