James L. Walker

James L. Walker (June 1845 – April 2, 1904), sometimes known by the pen name Tak Kak, was an American individualist anarchist of the Egoist school, born in Manchester.

Walker was one of the main contributors to Benjamin Tucker's Liberty. He worked out Egoism on his own some years before encountering the Egoist writings of Max Stirner, and was surprised with the similarities. He published the first twelve chapters of Philosophy of Egoism in the May 1890 to September 1891 issues of Egoism.

Walker´s philosophy is mainly put forward in his The Philosophy of Egoism. Walker's initial essays on egoism advocated egoism as a practical philosophy for how people can live their lives. However, he also believed that egoism can be reconciled with altruistic, or "other regarding" behavior. In Walker's case, egoism is the negation of "moralism." Walker´s egoism "implies a rethinking of the self-other relationship, nothing less than "a complete revolution in the relations of mankind" that avoids both the "archist" principle that legitimates domination and the "moralist" notion that elevates self-renunciation to a virtue. Walker describes himself a s an "egoistic anarchist" who believed in both contract and cooperation as practical principles to guide everyday interactions." Walker thought that the main problems confronting human beings are all related in some way to bigotry and fanaticism, or "the determination of mankind to interfere with each others' actions...Egoism for Walker is "the "seed-bed" of a policy and habit of noninterference and tolerance. Ultimately, the egoist promotion of a laissez-faire attitude toward others supports and reinforces an anarchist social system . In its "strict and proper sense," anarchy means "no tyranny" and implies the regulation and coordination of social interaction by voluntary contract."

For Walker the egoist rejects notions of duty and is indifferent to the hardships of the oppressed whose consent to their oppression enslaves not only them, but those who do not consent. The egoist comes to self-consciousness, not for the God's sake, not for humanity's sake, but for his or her own sake. For him "Cooperation and reciprocity are possible only among those who are unwilling to appeal to fixed patterns of justice in human relationships and instead focus on a form of reciprocity, a union of egoists, in which person each finds pleasure and fulfillment in doing things for others." Walker is most interested in the relationship of the person to the social world "especially how the self navigates encounters with "groups variously cemented together by controlling ideas; such groups are families, tribes, states, and churches."

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