It is not a single coherent theory, but rather refers to the combined works of any number of post-structuralists such as Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Lacan ; postmodern feminists such as Judith Butler ; and post-Marxists such as Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Rancière ; with those of the classical anarchists, with particular concentration on Emma Goldman, Max Stirner, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

In the hybrid of post-structuralism and anarchism called post-anarchism the British Saul Newman has written a lot on Stirner and his similarities to post-structuralism.

" War on the State: Stirner and Deleuze's Anarchism " and " Empiricism, pluralism, and politics in Deleuze and Stirner " discusses what he sees are similarities between Stirner's thought and that of Gilles Deleuze.

A strong relationship does exist between post-left anarchism and the work of individualist anarchist Max Stirner.

" Although throughout his book Camus is concerned to present " the rebel " as a preferred alternative to " the revolutionary " he nowhere acknowledges that this distinction is taken from the one that Stirner makes between " the revolutionary " and " the insurrectionist ".

According to Stirner, individuals should only entertain temporary associations between themselves, agreeing in mutual aid and cooperation for a period of time, but only when in each individual's interest ( perhaps anticipating cooperative games ):

* Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner

* Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner

It has been argued that ethical egoism can lend itself to individualist anarchism such as that of Benjamin Tucker, or the combined anarcho-communism and egoism of Emma Goldman, both of whom were proponents of many egoist ideas put forward by Max Stirner.

Philosopher Max Stirner, in his book The Ego and Its Own, was the first philosopher to call himself an egoist, though his writing makes clear that he desired not a new idea of morality ( ethical egoism ), but rather a rejection of morality ( amoralism ), as a nonexistent and limiting “ spook ”; for this, Stirner has been described as the first individualist anarchist.

In this way, Max Stirner recommended associations of egoists.

The egoist form of individualist anarchism, derived from 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 he held that society does not exist but " the individuals are its reality "– he supported property by force of might rather than moral right.

Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw " associations of egoists " drawn together by respect for each other's ruthlessness.

This aspect of Godwin's philosophy, minus the utilitarianism, was developed into a more extreme form later by Stirner.

Max Stirner.

Portrait by Friedrich Engels. Johann Kaspar Schmidt ( October 25, 1806 – June 26, 1856 ), better known as Max Stirner ( the nom de plume he adopted from a schoolyard nickname he had acquired as a child because of his high brow, in German ' Stirn '), was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism.

Max Stirner was a Hegelian philosopher whose " name appears with familiar regularity in historically oriented surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of individualist anarchism.

" Stirner does not recommend that the individual try to eliminate the state but simply that they disregard the state when it conflicts with one's autonomous choices and go along with it when doing so is conducive to one's interests.

" Stirner held that the only limitation on the rights of the individual is that individual's power to obtain what he desires.

Stirner wants to " abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members.

" Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw Unions of Egoists, non-systematic associations, which Stirner proposed in as a form of organization in place of the state.

For Stirner, property simply comes about through might: " Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property.

Stirner was opposed to communism, seeing it as a form of authority over the individual.

The Ego and Its Own by Max StirnerIn Russia, individualist anarchism inspired by Stirner combined with an appreciation for Friedrich Nietzsche attracted a small following of bohemian artists and intellectuals such as Lev Chernyi, as well as a few lone wolves who found self-expression in crime and violence.

" For Ourselves Council for Generalized Self-Management " discusses Stirner and speaks of a " communist egoism ," which is said to be a " synthesis of individualism and collectivism ," and says that " greed in its fullest sense is the only possible basis of communist society.

" Forms of libertarian communism such as Situationism are influenced by Stirner.

Anarcho-communist Emma Goldman was influenced by both Stirner and Peter Kropotkin and blended their philosophies together in her own, as shown in books of hers such as Anarchism And Other Essays.

John Beverley Robinson wrote an essay called " Egoism " in which he states that " Modern egoism, as propounded by Stirner and Nietzsche, and expounded by Ibsen, Shaw and others, is all these ; but it is more.

Enrico Arrigoni ( pseudonym: Frank Brand ) was an Italian American individualist anarchist Lathe operator, house painter, bricklayer, dramatist and political activist influenced by the work of Max Stirner.

* Olssen, M. Toward a Global Thin Community: Nietzsche, Foucault and the cosmopolitan commitment, Paradigm Press, Boulder, Colorado, USA, October 2009

* Foucault, M., 1988, “ The Ethic of Care for the Self as a Practice of Freedom ,” in James Bernauer and David Rasmussen, eds., The Final Foucault ( Cambridge, Mass.

* Foucault, M., 1988, “ The Ethic of Care for the Self as a Practice of Freedom ,” in James Bernauer and David Rasmussen, eds., The Final Foucault ( Cambridge, Mass.

* Michel Foucault: The Freedom of Philosophy ( 1985 )

It is this distinction between producing a written work and producing the interpretation or meaning in a written work that both Barthes and Foucault are interested in.

Following an interpretation of power similar to that of Machiavelli, Foucault defines power as immaterial, as a " certain type of relation between individuals " that has to do with complex strategic social positions that relate to the subject's ability to control its environment and influence those around itself.

* Michel Foucault: Critiqued the modern conception of power on the basis of the prison complex and other prohibitive institutions, such as those that designate sexuality, madness and knowledge as the roots of their infrastructure, a critique which then demonstrated that subjection is the power formation of subjects in any linguistic forum and that revolution cannot just be thought as the reversal of power between classes.

", Michel Foucault proposed a concept of critique based on Kant's distinction between " private " and " public " uses of reason.

Foucault was also selected to be among the " Eighteen Man Commission " that assembled between November 1963 and March 1964 to discuss university reforms that were to be implemented by Christian Fouchet, the Gaullist Minister of National Education.

Foucault argues between the 17th and 18th centuries a new, more subtle form of power was being exercised transnationally.

In Security, Territory, Population, Foucault outlines his theory of governmentality, and demonstrates the distinction between sovereignty, discipline, and governmentality as distinct modalities of state power.

It was first given as a lecture on March 4, 1963, at a conference at Wahl's Collège philosophique, which Foucault attended, and caused a rift between the two men that was never fully mended.

In Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, Foucault concentrates on the correlation between knowledge and power.

Political theory concerned with radical democracy, particularly that of such theorists as Michel Foucault, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Ranciere, and Alain Badiou also focus upon deliberation insofar as the process of engagement between disparate positions create the conditions of possibility for a politics.

In September, 1855, he discovered that the force required for the rotation of a copper disc becomes greater when it is made to rotate with its rim between the poles of a magnet, the disc at the same time becoming heated by the eddy current or " Foucault currents " induced in the metal.

Further to this general theme, when one looks at much Social Constructivist discourse ( especially that informed by Michel Foucault ), one finds something of a bifurcation between the theorist and the non-theorist.

The French military attaché at Berlin, Foucault, informed him of a curious conversation he had had with Richard Cuers, a spy who wavered between France and Germany.

These scientists made three claims about race: first, that races are objective, naturally occurring divisions of humanity ; second, that there is a strong relationship between biological races and other human phenomena ( such as forms of activity and interpersonal relations and culture, and by extension the relative material success of cultures ), thus biologizing the notion of " race ", as Foucault demonstrated in his historical analysis ; third, that race is therefore a valid scientific category that can be used to explain and predict individual and group behavior.

A Cholera pandemic devastated Europe between 1829 and 1851, and was first fought by the use of what Foucault called " social medicine ", which focused on flux, circulation of air, location of cemeteries, etc.

Michel Foucault proposed a linkage between linguistic signs and their cultures, stating that language practices help to maintain assumptions in a culture by serving as a tool for knowing and constructing the world.

Governmentality is a concept first developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in the later years of his life, roughly between 1977 and his death in 1984, particularly in his lectures at the Collège de France during this time.

In the second and third volumes of The History of Sexuality, namely, The Use of Pleasure ( 1984 ) and The Care of the Self ( 1984 ), and in his lecture on " Technologies of the Self " ( 1982 ), Foucault elaborated a distinction between subjectivation and forms of subjectification by exploring how selves were fashioned and then lived in ways which were both heteronomously and autonomously determined.

Michel Foucault also notes the similarity ( beyond just historical contemporaneity ) between the Ordo / Freiberg school and the Frankfurt School of critical theory, due to their inheritance from Max Weber.

Some of the " type-writing " machines invented between Burt's 1829 patented machine and Sholes ' 1867 type-writer are " The Projean Machine " ( 1833 ), " The Thurber Machine " ( 1843 ), " The Foucault Machine " ( 1843 ), " O. T. Eddy's machine " ( 1850 ), " The Fairbanks machine " ( 1850 ), " J. M. Jones ' machine " ( 1850 ), " William Hughes ' machine " ( 1851 ), John M. Jones " mechanical Typographer " ( 1852 ), " Thomas ' typograph " ( 1854 ), " The Beach typewriter " ( 1856 ), " The Francis Typewriter " ( 1857 ), " The Hansen Machine " ( 1865 ), " The Livermore Printing Device " ( 1863 ), " Peeler Writing Machine " ( 1866 ), and " The Sholes and Hidden Typewriter " ( 1867 ) invented by three men ( C. Latham Sholes, Samuel W. Soule, Carlos Glidden ).

Thus while Charles Taylor accused Foucault of having " no order of human life, or way we are, or human nature, that one can appeal to in order to judge or evaluate between ways of life ", Foucault nevertheless insists on the need for continuing ethical enquiry without any universal system to appeal to.

Foucault elaborates further in his lecture courses on Biopower entitled Security, Territory, Population delivered at the Collège de France between January and April 1978