Individualism versus Union in The Anarchist Banker, by Fernando Pessoa

Abstract

In this article, we use the work The Anarchist Banker [1922] by Fernando Pessoa and the Theory of Abjection according to Dostoevsky and Genet for the functional description of the ways in which the concept of Union is used and its pragmatic repercussions. The association of Truth and Reality with Union occurs, in general terms, through the general premise that only with Union is it possible to change Reality (a truth-operation taken as dogma) and that this Union must be True and/or Real to be effective. Its argument is that individual action would be quantitatively irrelevant to social change, which is accurate, but insufficient for understanding the processes of social change. As the anarchist banker himself states – and here the work is taken as a philosophical novel –, individualist actions guided by the anarchist principles of non-creation of new tyranny would be responsible for social change, with Union being just a cut of scientific observation, but not a phenomenon itself.