| 331. Work Councils and Socialization: Fifth Discussion Evening
24 Jun 1919, Stuttgart Rudolf Steiner |
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| Nevertheless, one must repeatedly observe that the idea is still not sufficiently understood. But this is of course understandable, because the threefold social order represents a completely new idea, and as with everything new, this idea is also met with a certain pessimism. |
| Steiner, then we will have to fight hard in the future, because we must be clear about one thing: whatever is done by the workers, it will always be undermined by capitalism. Our greatest opponent is still capitalism today. As soon as you come up with practical proposals, you will find that everything you do is undermined. |
| If the masses of workers were as united internationally as the international capitalists, we would have been spared this terrible ruin. We must try to get the whole economy under control. Dr. Steiner said that many have not yet understood socialization. The workers do not understand what it means. |
| 331. Work Councils and Socialization: Fifth Discussion Evening
24 Jun 1919, Stuttgart Rudolf Steiner |
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Introductory words Rudolf Steiner: Dear attendees! I would like to begin with a brief introduction, as is also customary in these meetings, and hope that everything of importance to be discussed today will come up during the discussion. We have repeatedly gathered here to discuss the question of the election of workers' councils, and we have tried to make clear in these meetings from which point of view the question of workers' councils is to be treated here, from the point of view of the tripartite social organism. This threefold social organism should structure the whole of social life into three parts, namely the economic, the legal or state, and the spiritual sub-organism. So what has until now been chaotically merged into a unified state should be divided into its three natural parts. One may ask why this should actually happen. It should happen because historical development itself has been pressing towards this threefold order. Thus, this historical development of humanity shows us that, especially in the course of the last three to four centuries, but particularly in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, everything that is human relationships has been pushed together into the unitary state, and that it is precisely because economic conditions have been pushed together with state and spiritual conditions that we have ended up in catastrophes. Until one is willing to recognize that it is only possible to make progress in terms of a recovery of the situation and thus also in the development of humanity by dividing this unitary state into the three parts, one will not be able to make any progress at all, neither with socialization nor with democracy. That is why we have approached the question of workers' councils from the point of view of independent economic life. You can most easily understand the necessity of dividing the unitary state, which has so far been a failure, into three parts if you recognize how everything in economic life differs from actual state and intellectual life. In economic life, on the one hand, everything is subject to natural conditions. These change and vary. The size of the population also plays a role. Then, in economic life, everything depends on people organizing themselves into certain professional branches and professional groups. Furthermore, economic life contains an individual and personal factor, which is the sum of human needs. It is easy to see that the sum of human needs would turn people into a kind of machine for social life if the needs of the individual were somehow to be regulated. That is why you also find it clearly stated in the socialist view, and already with Marx, that in the real socialist community there should be no standardization, no regulation of the needs of the individual. One person has these needs, another those, and it cannot be a matter of some central office dictating to people what needs they should have. Instead, it is a matter of fathoming out needs from life and ensuring through production that needs can actually be satisfied. If you look at the whole of economic life, you will see that everything in economic life must be based on the principle of contract. Everything that makes up economic life is, or should be, based on performance and consideration within a social community. This fact also underlies the demands of the proletarians today, since it has been established that this fact is still not taken into account at all today, namely that a service must be reciprocated. Today the principle still prevails that one takes from the labor of others what one needs or believes one needs, without having to give anything in return. That is why the demands of the proletarian masses today express the view that in the future there should no longer be the possibility of satisfying one's needs from the achievements of the working population without the latter receiving something in return. It must be clear that in economic life it always depends on the specific circumstances, that is, on the natural conditions, the type of occupations, the work, the performance. One can only manage if one establishes connections between the different types of services. Not everything that is done today can always be utilized in the same way. Services that will only be provided in the future must also be foreseen. Yes, there is still much to be said if one wanted to fully characterize economic life in this way. Because everything in economic life must be based on performance and consideration, and because these two depend on different things, everything in economic life must be based on the principle of contract. In the future, we must have cooperatives and associations in economic life that base their mutual performances and considerations on the principle of contract, on the contracts they conclude with each other. This contractual principle must govern all of life and particularly life within consumer cooperatives, production cooperatives and professional associations. A contract is always limited in some way. If no more services are provided, then it no longer makes sense, then it loses its value. The whole of economic life is based on this. The legal system is based on something fundamentally different. It is based on the democratic adoption of all those measures by which every human being is equal to every other in terms of human rights. Labor law is also part of human rights. Every person who has come of age can stand up for this. Every person who has come of age can participate – either directly, for example by means of a referendum, or indirectly through elections or a parliament – in determining the rights that are to prevail among equals. Therefore, it is not the contract that prevails on the legal, state or political level, but the law. In the future, laws will also regulate working conditions, for example. Thus, laws will determine the time, extent and type of work, while what is to be achieved within the legally stipulated working hours will be regulated by contracts within the economic body. Intellectual life, on the other hand, is of a completely different nature. Intellectual life is based on the fact that humanity can develop its abilities for state and economic life. However, this is only possible if the foundations are laid in intellectual life for the appropriate development of the human faculties, which are not simply given to a person at birth but must first be developed. It would be a great mistake to believe that mental and physical abilities — the latter are basically equivalent to the mental ones — can be recognized and cultivated in the same way as state and economic matters. What relates to education and teaching, for example, cannot be based on treaties, laws or ordinances, but must be based on advice given for the development of abilities. Yes, these three spheres of life, spiritual life, legal life and economic life, are very different, so that their mixing is not only a complete impossibility, but also means great harm for human development. Our present confusion and social ills have arisen precisely from this mixing. If we now embark on a problem such as the establishment of works councils, we must first understand from which of the three areas of life the appropriate measures are to be taken. You see, you are right to find in Marxism the view that in a social community everyone must be provided for according to their abilities and needs. But here the question arises: what is the way to provide for everyone in human society according to their abilities and needs? The way to let everyone have their rights with regard to their abilities is through a completely free intellectual life, independent of economic and state life, with the education and school system. And the possibility of letting everyone have their rights with regard to their needs is only given in an independent economic life. In between lies what has been forgotten in Marxism: the legal life, which has to do with what is expressed neither in economic life nor in intellectual life, but which simply depends on the fact that one has come of age and develops a relationship with every adult citizen within a self-contained area. What I do in economic life is subject to the laws of commodity production, commodity circulation and commodity consumption. How I work in the economic life is subject to the law. This distinction must be made in a fundamental way from now on. Only in this way can we go beyond what is today called capitalism and what constitutes the present wage system. Because capital and the wage system are components of economic life, everything that could lead the economic life to recovery is actually undermined. But we should not believe that things are really as simple as many people still imagine them to be. But if we start to do some really positive work, first with the workers' councils and then with the economic councils, it will become clear that this work will be a major, comprehensive undertaking. One of the most difficult tasks within the so-called socialization is to find out how, within the social order, performance and consideration can be regulated in the right way. And the works councils will have to make the first start with this regulation, that is, with the true socialization. This means that the works councils have been given a major, fundamental goal, because they will have to take seriously for the first time what others only talk about: socialization. What people today usually imagine by socialization is, for the most part, not only not socialization, but at best a kind of fiscalization. In some cases, there is a complete lack of clear thought and imagination. As I said, many people today have a much too simplistic view of the matter, which is also due to the fact that economics and, in general, the science of human coexistence - forgive the expression - is still in its infancy, or not even that, because it has not yet been born. It is true that people rightly say: in the future, we shall not produce in order to profit, but we shall produce in order to consume. That is quite right, for in saying this people mean that it is important that everyone should receive what corresponds to his needs. But a healthy community would not yet have been created. This is only given when the performance is matched by a return service, when people are willing to provide something of equal value in return for what others work, produce and deliver for them. And this problem is very difficult to deal with, as you can see from the fact that current science has no concrete ideas or suggestions on the matter. At best, you will find the suggestion today that the state should be replaced by the economic state, a kind of large economic cooperative. But you see, this overlooks the fact that it is impossible to centrally manage an economic entity if it goes beyond a certain size and encompasses too many different economic sectors. But people would only realize this when they have actually set up the so-called economic state. Then they would see that it does not work that way. The matter must be settled in a completely different way, namely, in such a way that, even if one adheres to the principle that production must take place in order to consume, nevertheless, the performance must be matched by a corresponding consideration. One can now say: So we do not care about the comparative value of one good with the other. — What some economists say today sounds like this: We only care about needs and then we centrally produce what is necessary to satisfy those needs and distribute them. — Yes, but you see, it turns out that you are forced to introduce the work compulsion. But this is a terrible measure, especially when it is not necessary. And it is not necessary! The compulsion to work is only considered necessary because of the superstition that there is no other means of realizing the principle of performance and reward than the compulsion to work. Furthermore, no consideration is given to the sophisticated means that will be found in the future to avoid work if, for example, the compulsion to work is introduced by law. So, it is not just that the compulsion to work is unnecessary, but it is also that it could not be carried out at all. But, as I said, the main thing remains that it is not necessary if one thoroughly implements the principle that every performance must be matched by a corresponding return. This can now be concretized in the following way. Do people not have to work, that is, perform some service, if they want to live in human society? By doing so, they produce something that has meaning for others. What a person produces must have a certain value. He must be able to exchange what he produces for what he needs in the way of products from the work of others, and he must be able to do so for a certain length of time. He must be able to satisfy his needs with what he exchanges until he has produced another product of the same kind. Let us take a simple example: if I make a pair of boots, this pair of boots must be worth enough so that I can exchange this pair of boots for what I need until I have made a new pair of boots. You only have a real measure of value when you include everything that has to be paid for people who cannot work, for children who need to be educated, for those who are unable to work, for invalids, and so on. It is possible to determine the correct price of a product. But to do so, the following is necessary: the moment too many workers are working on an item, that is, when an item is produced in too large a quantity, it becomes too cheap. I do not get enough to satisfy my needs until I have produced the same product again. At the moment when too few workers are at work, that is, when an article is not produced in sufficient quantity, it becomes too expensive. Only those who have more than a normal income would be able to buy it. It is therefore necessary, in order to make a fair pricing possible, to ensure that the right number of workers – both intellectual and physical workers – are always working on an article. This means that if, for example, now that we are living in a transitional period, it were to emerge that any given article is being produced in too many factories, that is, that it is being produced in excess, then individual factories would have to be closed down and contracts would have to be concluded with the workers of these factories so that they could continue to work in another industry. Only in this way is it possible to ensure that fair prices are set. There is no other way to do it. If too little of a particular article is produced, new factories would have to be set up for the production of that article. That means that it must be constantly ensured in the economic life that production takes place under consideration of certain proportionalities. Then the wage relationship can cease, then the capital relationship can cease; only the contractual relationship between intellectual and physical laborers regarding the just [fixing of the share due to those who jointly create the product] needs to continue to exist. One actually lives towards this ideal, one hopes for this ideal, one must steer towards this ideal, and everything that does not steer towards this ideal, those are unclear ideas. What is basically intended by the threefold social order is that people should not be deceived, but that they should be told what the living conditions of the social organism are, that is, how one can really live. And it is possible for the present sick social organism to become healthy. But then one must also really look at the concrete living conditions. That is what matters. But if that is to happen, if the economy is to be managed in such a way that the right prices are created, then this forms the true basis for socialization. The old wage relationships, where people fight for higher wages, which usually results in higher prices for food, housing, and so on, must be overcome. The function and significance of money today must be changed. In the future, money will be a kind of portable accounting, a record, so to speak, of what one has produced and what one can exchange for it. All this is not something that can only be pursued in decades, but can be pursued immediately, if only enough people understand it. Everything else is basically wishy-washy. Therefore, the first thing to be aware of is that it is essential for the works councils not to be based on a law, but to emerge directly from economic life. And so, in a primary assembly of the works councils, the experiences of economic life must be at the center. Then the functions and tasks of the works councils will emerge. That is what must be understood, namely that this system of works councils must arise out of economic life and not out of the old state life, and that this system of works councils must be the first thing to really show what socialization is. You can only socialize if you have socializing bodies in economic life. And the works councils should be this first body that really socializes out of economic life. You cannot socialize through decrees and laws, but only through people who work out of economic life. Instead of merely fantastic demands, the impulse of the threefold order of the organism wants to put the truth. And that is what matters today. And I believe that today people can learn what is needed. So far, people have imagined various ways of improving the ailing life of the social organism. And how did things turn out? You see, I have mentioned this before and now I want to refrain from talking about what ideas the previous practitioners of life had in January 1914 until August. But I want to talk about what the practitioners imagined when the misfortune occurred that led us into the present catastrophe: Bethmann Hohlkopf, I wanted to say Bethmann Hollweg, said, it will be a violent but short thunderstorm. - So he spoke of the coming war, and others have said something similar, for example: In six to seven weeks, the German armies should be in Paris and so on. The practitioners always said that at the time, and so it has always been in recent years. And now again, in the October-November catastrophe, what was not said then! Everything that was said has ultimately led to yesterday, which has presented us with hardship and misery. It is now time that we no longer listen to what people predict, but that we finally listen to what is being thought out of reality. Today, there is a lot of talk, for example, on the part of economists and political scientists, but it is never mentioned that the principle that performance must be matched by a return service is based on strict principles of reality. This principle amounts to everyone getting what they need to satisfy their needs for their performance until they have provided a new service. We therefore want to set up works councils to which we can explain the specific task of socializing the economy. Legal norms will not help here, nor will general socialist ideals. The only thing that will help is what is honestly and sincerely taken from reality. And that is what should be brought into the works council. The establishment of the works council should really be the first step towards taking the socialization of economic life seriously. If we start somewhere, further steps will follow. Then people will also be found who will try to create equal rights for all people and the necessary institutions in which people's abilities are fostered. Today, oppression still reigns, as does the phrase. I have often referred to the phrase “free rein for the hardworking”. However, these words usually conceal very selfish interests. Only through a truly free spiritual life can human abilities develop in the future. And only in a legal life in which every human being is equal to another can political conditions develop anew. And in economic life, fair prices must prevail. Then everything will not be geared towards competition between capital and wages or competition between individual companies. But for this to happen, it is necessary to replace the competition that culminates in the interaction of supply and demand with sensible resolutions and contracts, which must emerge from bodies such as the works council that is to be established. What do we actually want with the works council? With the works council, we want to make a start on a real, honestly intended socialization of economic life. And it can fill one with deep satisfaction that, despite some resistance, which has of course been amply asserted in certain circles of the local workforce, the idea of works councils has been met with understanding, so that we have already been able to report about twelve works councils and negotiations are to take place regarding the election of further ones. But if something truly fruitful is to come of it, then works councils must be elected in all companies in the Württemberg area. Then the works councils from the most diverse industries must gather, because only through negotiations, through the exchange of experiences and the resulting measures, can what is the beginning of real socialization come about. You can have this socialization tomorrow, but you cannot just talk about it and let theorists make laws; instead, people must be put in place with whom true socialization can be carried out. Because socialization is not something that will be achieved through laws, socialization will come when there are a thousand people in Württemberg industry. We have tried to tackle the issue where the reality is, and the reality for socialization is in the flesh and blood of the people and not in the laws that are written on paper and are then supposed to magically be transformed into reality. What we want to derive from the reality of people of flesh and blood is called utopia. One might ask: Who are the real utopians? We don't want a utopia! Or is it a utopia to elect a thousand people who can achieve something in the economic field? Are a thousand people of flesh and blood a utopia? Yes, just when it was seen that it was not a utopia, but a number of real people who want to carry out socialization, people started talking about us striving for a utopia. We do not want a utopia, we want the purest, truest and most honest reality! That is what matters to us. That is something that one need only recognize. Therefore, regardless of what is being said by those utopians who have always gone wrong with their utopias, that is, by those utopians who are campaigning against the reality represented by the “Federation for Threefolding”, I ask you to make yourself independent, to rely on your own judgment for once. I believe that any rational person can distinguish utopia from reality. And if people accuse me of merely prophesying something, I think that anyone who has heard what I have said today will no longer speak of mere or even false prophecy. I am not prophesying anything, I am only saying: if a thousand people are chosen from all walks of life, then that is not a prophecy, because what they will do, they will do without prophecy, because they will be a living reality. Enough has been prophesied in recent years. Before November 9, what new victories were always prophesied: “We will win because we must win!” — Those who hurl the word “prophecy” like some kind of slander at those who speak from reality should take note of this. The others have done enough prophesying, that is, the leading circles so far. Now one has to speak to the world in a different tone, one that is already present in the hearts and souls of people. And you elect such people to your works council. Then you will be able to put forward the right thing for true socialization in the world. Discussion
Rudolf Steiner: I would like to respond only to the two direct questions. Mr. Müller is concerned, in a sense, that the works councils could not prevail and that, above all, if they approached the employers with what they assumed to be their powers, they might simply be rejected. You see, in such matters we must also take the actual situation into account, and we must bear in mind that something like the works councils envisaged here has basically never faced the business community. Just consider how, in the course of capitalist development in modern times, the protectionist relationship between the state and capitalist entrepreneurship has grown more and more. On the one hand, the capitalist entrepreneurship supported the state, on the other hand, the state supported the entrepreneurship. This is particularly evident in the various causes of war, especially in the West. But a body that has really emerged from economic life itself, from all sectors of economic life, and that is supported by the trust of the entire workforce, such a body has never faced capitalist entrepreneurship. And I ask you not to disregard this fact. I ask you to compare it with what has already happened historically, namely that when such unified rallies took place, something could be achieved through these rallies. As Mr. Müller said, it certainly depends on whether this unity, this unity, really exists. And the election of the works councils can only take place if this unity exists. It should arise from this unity. If the works councils exist, then they will be a revelation for the unification of the current workforce, and then we will see what happens when the united workforce confronts the business community in the form of the works councils. It is not only the 'works councils of the individual company that face the individual entrepreneurship, but the entire works council, which is made up of members from all sectors and companies, faces the entrepreneurs of an entire economic area. The individual works councils return to their companies as representatives of the entire works council and now face the entrepreneur not as individuals, but as representatives of the works council of the corresponding economic area. This is a power that one must only become aware of. You can safely take a chance on such a trial of strength; it will have significant consequences. That is one thing. The other thing is that, as Mr. Müller also said, the works council should not just have an advisory vote. No, it should not even have just a deciding vote, but should be the actual administrator of the company. It should simply manage the companies itself on behalf of the entire workforce. Naturally, certain difficulties arise from this, and they arise in quite different areas than you imagine. For example, initiative within a company must not be paralyzed by the fact that many want to give orders and the like. But all this can be overcome. That is one thing. But then there is something else to consider. I ask you: what is the capital of an economic enterprise basically based on? No matter how much money the capitalists have, this money only has value if people work, nothing else! So, the workers are not opposed to those people who are actually still entrepreneurs, but to those who only have money. And in this context, we must be clear about one thing: if we live in reality, then we do not live outside of time, but we live in a certain time. And I have the feeling that many people from the working class still talk as if things were as they were seven or eight years ago, before we sailed into this catastrophe of war. I don't think many people have thought about what it means economically that when the war ended, some companies were manufacturing all sorts of things and then breaking them up again. Such things were done because no one knew how to maintain production in a natural way. Things have changed, but today we still have the habit of talking about the old conditions from the point of view of capitalism. You see, in many respects the situation is such that old truths are no longer truths at all today. Of course, the truth of surplus value is a sweeping truth, only today it no longer exists for the most part. It has been blown away, and what is so feared today as capitalism is actually based on terribly hollow ground. This is no longer recognized. You can see this from the fact that people are now thinking: for God's sake, if we could only save ourselves to Entente capitalism, so that we can crawl under there; we can't cope on our own anymore. The time will come when the works council will no longer face capitalism in the old way, but will face the collapsing entrepreneurship and take over what has collapsed. And the time will come when you will say: It was good that we had these works councils, because someone has to manage the factories; the others can't do it anymore, because the business community has largely collapsed, it can't do it anymore. That's what these works councils are for. They may not be present everywhere, but that will be the case. For the most part, they will find abandoned battlefields. It will even not infrequently happen that the entrepreneurs will be glad when the works councils come on behalf of a closed economic area. Now they are still doing so because they believe that they can be covered by the protector state and the laws. They would like to have what they themselves can no longer do covered by the protector state. In this case, strange circumstances would arise. Not only would the works councils be decorative pieces, but the channels would also be found again through which the run-down capital could be restored, through which in turn a variety of things would flow back to where they had gone. People have strange views about this. In Tübingen a professor said: We shall become a poor people in the future. People will no longer be able to pay for schools, so the state will have to step in and pay for them. — The professor was afraid that people would no longer be able to pay for schools. He had only forgotten to ask himself: Where will the state get the money? But only out of the pockets of individuals! In this respect, laws very often only mean that things that have some value end up where they are supposed to be. And under certain circumstances, laws can only be a detour to getting the already crumbling capital back on its feet. A workers' council that emerges from economic life and from the working population will not be one of those. It will know how to stand on its own two feet. Then let it come to the showdown. There is no need to tell us that the workers' councils will stand paralyzed before the entrepreneur. The opposite could also occur due to the current situation. We do not live outside of time, but in a particular time, and in this time, we know that capitalism is on the verge of collapse. We have to take this into account. We must also be aware that economic life must be rebuilt from the other side. And socialism is helped by the collapse into which capitalism has run itself. For the world war catastrophe was at the same time the collapse of capitalism and will consequently influence the collapse more and more. I ask you to bear this in mind. When considering things that relate to the future, one must take such factors into account. When quoting something like the sentence about interest, I would ask you to bear in mind that every sentence in my book strives to honestly state what really is the case, and that my book strictly rejects everything that is said to be the result of interest. So, real growth of capital, as is the case today, where capital can double in fifteen years, is impossible if the reality I describe in my book comes to pass. But I am talking about a legitimate interest rate. In this context, I ask you to consider how I talk about capital in my book. Because, you see, it is easy to fool people by telling them: If you abolish all interest, then the right thing will come out. — In all these things, it is only a matter of whether you can do it. And I have only described things that can really be done. Consider the situation. If the things in my book are realized, money will take on a certain character. I have sometimes expressed this rather trivially to friends by saying: money really starts to stink for the first time in the economic order meant in my book. What does that mean? It means the following: When I acquire realities – money itself is not a reality, but only in that the power relations are such that money is a reality – when I acquire realities, these are subject to the law of being consumed. We have capitalism in the real sense not only within the human world, but also in the animal world. When the hamster hoards, when it lays in its winter supplies, then that is its capital for the near future, only it has the property that it can only be used in the near future, otherwise it would perish. And in our capitalist economic system, we have managed to make money lose the character of all other realities, at least for certain short periods of time. What do we do when we calculate the interest? We multiply the money by the percentage rate and by the time period, and then divide by a hundred. That is how we arrive at the interest. As a result, we have been calculating with unreal, illusory constructs! We have been calculating with what we have presented as representations of reality. What was produced by capital may have long since become unusable, may even no longer exist at all, and yet, according to our power relations, we can calculate: capital times interest rate and time divided by one hundred. [...] In the future, it is important to be aware when founding a company or business – and this must happen again and again, otherwise the whole process of human development would come to a standstill – that past labor is always used in future labor. You see, when you set up a new business, you have to employ new workers, regardless of whether it is a society or an individual that does so. In the past it was the individual, in the future it will depend on the structure of society. So you have to employ workers. When you set up a business that cannot yet give anything back to society, these workers need to feed and clothe themselves. So in order for this business to come into being, work must have been done earlier. Therefore, it must be possible for earlier work to be used for later services. But this is only possible if, when my earlier work is incorporated into a later service, I derive some benefit from it. Because in reality, let's say, I work quite hard today, and it doesn't matter how, but in ten years some new business will be built from what I work on today. That's added to it. When I work today, I also have to get something for my work. It's just that the work is saved for the next one. And that is what I call legitimate interest, and I have called it that because I want to be honest in my book, because I do not want to have cheap success by calling white black. In economic life, past work must be used for future services. Just as work in the present has a return service, so must it also have a return service in the future if it is saved. Economic life makes it necessary for past labor to be used in the future. Consider that capital is gradually being depleted. Whereas capital has now doubled in fifteen years, in the future it will more or less cease to exist after fifteen years. The reverse process is taking place! As the other things become stinking, so does the money. Thus, capital does not bear interest, but it must be made possible for what was worked on earlier to be included in a future performance. Then you must also have the reward for it. I could have called it [in my book] reward, but I wanted to be completely honest and wanted to express: The purpose of economic activity is to incorporate past labor into future performance, and that is what I call the fair remuneration for interest. That is why I also said explicitly: there is no interest on interest. There cannot be, nor can there be any arbitrary labor of capital. Money gets stinky. It gets lost just like other things, like meat and the like. It is no longer there, it no longer works. If you take the things as they are presented in my book, you must bear in mind that I start from what is possible and what should really be, and not from demands that arise from saying: We are abolishing this and that. Yes, my dear audience, someone might eventually come up with the crazy idea of saying: We are abolishing the floor. Then we would no longer be able to walk! You cannot abolish things that are simply necessary in real economic life or in other areas. You have to take things as they are, only then can you be honest. I do not promise people the earth, but I want to speak about the real living conditions of the social organism. And so I wanted to speak here of what can really be implemented, and that will already be what also brings about what unconsciously underlies the demands of the broad working masses. And it is better to strive to fulfill these demands out of a knowledge of reality than to lull people with mere promises.
Rudolf Steiner: I have only a little more to say to you, but this little will be necessary. First of all, it has been said that in principle the only practical possibility for solving the socialization question lies in what the threefold social order wants in relation to works councils or similar. But it has been criticized that the “Bund für Dreigliederung” wants to have the works councils elected in a wild way. Yes, I don't really understand what is meant by the fact that this one is a wild election. Under certain circumstances, one might even be of the opinion, if one studies the draft of the law for the works councils quite impartially, which was in the press some time ago, that this one is a wild thing. So it is important to try to see the matter really impartially. Then it will become clear that if what we as works councils envision comes about in economic life, a good deal of what must be conquered in the future as real power will indeed be achieved. When people keep saying that we are not getting anywhere if we don't have this or that, and that economic power is of no use to us if we don't have political power, and the like, then you have to say in response that it's a matter of starting somewhere, and that you can't always be deterred by saying that this is of no use and that is of no use. You see, I can well understand when someone says: Even if a small area like Württemberg elects works councils, not everyone will do so; the whole of Germany should vote. Yes, of course it would be best if the whole world elected works councils. But I think that since we cannot do it all over the world right away, we should start where we can do it. We have to take into account the circumstances that exist, and first of all we have Württemberg as a closed economic area. If we just start somewhere, then if the project is successful, it will also be possible to continue. I think that we should not be deterred by all the objections. If it is not possible to set up works councils throughout Germany right away, then we must think about what would be fruitful for Württemberg. What is important is to recognize this threefold nature, to see that the matter must be taken in hand in each of the three individual, independent areas of the social organism. I must say that the esteemed speaker who spoke of the wild works councils – because they emerged purely from economic life – has not yet fully understood the threefold social order, otherwise he would not have been able to say that this threefold order is actually already there and that the threefold order is just mixed up. Of course these three members of the social organism are there, but the fact that they were mixed up before is what was wrong. Therefore we want to separate them. It is not important that they are there, but how they are formed or should be formed. And the “Federation for the Threefold Social Organism” would certainly not have been formed if it were not important to present these three elements in a correct way, side by side, in their independence. The fact that the three elements are presented in the right way in life is what is important. Some other things have been said, in particular by the gentleman who, with a slight smile, touched again on the subject of the “idealist”. But what he said was entirely informed by a certain abstract idealism. For example, he said: practitioners must arise. Yes, we must bring things to the people as they are, then one is a practitioner, not when one calls idealistically: practitioners must arise. We do not want to wait, but we want to take such measures that the practitioners can assert themselves. That is what we can do. The call “practitioners shall arise” is an abstract idealistic call. Nor should we say, “A struggle will arise.” That will not create practitioners; they will arise through the liberation of intellectual life and the other areas. Because whenever it is said that we need development, and a sense of pessimism is introduced into the whole thing, I would like to draw your attention to the fact - although I have also pointed this out in the relevant places in my book - that certain things cannot be done overnight. But after all, works councils can be set up overnight, so to speak, and then things will move forward. It is not a matter of always just pointing to development, but of getting down to what can really be done in the short term. I would always like to call out to those who talk about development that they seem to me like a person sitting in a room where the air has become bad and who, before he faints, could open the window to improve the air, but he would have to do the next step. He should not wait for development to improve the air. That is what we should finally understand, that where human action is concerned, people must actually take action. We cannot wait until the Entente workers can come to our aid. Let us do what the workers are supposed to do here, then there is a chance that we will make progress and address the most pressing issues. That will do us more good than devoting ourselves to abstract ideals. Now I would like to come back to one point in particular. It is always said that socialization can only arise from the unity of the proletariat. It can just as well be said, and this will be the really practical thing, that the proletariat should try to devote itself to one great task! What causes the disunity? It arises from the fact that one does not set oneself the right tasks, that one talks past things, that one does not talk much about what matters, not about where the shoe pinches, but that one makes party programs that one can vary at will. Then one can say this and that. But in really factual things, the proletarians agree. They need only remember that it depends on the issues. Therefore, try to establish a body that emerges from the trust of the workforce, in which one negotiates on substantive issues and the objectively necessary. You will see that there will be agreement, because you will talk about something that really is, and not about something that is a mere party program and the like. Party programs are mostly there to avoid talking about the real issues. Try to make a start with this works council and use it to talk about the factual things themselves, and perhaps unity will come about as if by magic.
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| 331. Work Councils and Socialization: Sixth Discussion Evening
02 Jul 1919, Stuttgart Rudolf Steiner |
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| It is only necessary for the entrepreneur to learn to understand what it means to be a buyer of labor. It is only because he does not yet understand that there is still damage. |
| If people keep coming to me and saying that they do not understand what is in my book, then I must say that I understand that today, because I would have to be very surprised if, for example, Professor Brentano, whom I have told you about, and his students, who are very numerous, would understand the “Key Points of the Social Question”. |
| Because he does not understand this, but is still a university professor, he must understand everything. Because he does not understand, he makes up his own threefolding. |
| 331. Work Councils and Socialization: Sixth Discussion Evening
02 Jul 1919, Stuttgart Rudolf Steiner |
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The chairman, Mr. Roser, opens the meeting. Introductory words Rudolf Steiner: Dear attendees! I will keep this short today as well and hope that you will make active use of the discussion, so that we might be able to discuss one or two details today. As events are increasingly pushing for a reorganization of the social order, it would not be good if the efforts that are intended to bring about such a reorganization, such as the establishment of works councils, were to be completely abandoned. Because, my dear attendees, there are people who would be quite happy if the works council movement were to die out. All the more reason for us to make an effort not to let it fall asleep. At the last meeting, I spoke about the threefold social order and its connection to the works council question. Today, I would like to say a few words about how an understanding of the works council system can be brought about with regard to the threefold social order. You know that we initially want to create works councils simply from the individual companies. We want works councils to be elected from the individual companies that are simply there and then form a works council for an initially self-contained economic area, say Württemberg. In a general assembly of this council of works councils, everything would then be determined that concerns the tasks, competencies, etc. of the works councils. In this way, economic measures would arise for the first time independently of the other two institutions, i.e., intellectual life and state or legal life, from the personalities involved in economic life. These measures would first be decided upon in the general assembly of the council of works councils. Only then would the tasks arise. Then the individual works councils elected in the companies would return to their companies and take on their tasks there. At the same time, the demands that can only be made for general socialization would then also be on the table. If there were real unanimity - because power lies in that unanimity - any government, whatever it might be, would have to comply. I believe that some people already have a clear sense of what it would mean if these works councils were elected in all companies and formed a general assembly across a unified economic area, and if this general assembly in turn were to adopt resolutions that were then supported by the confidence of the entire workforce in this economic area. That would be real power, because no government, no legislative body, can in the long run contradict a power that is based on its own judgment and on unanimity and trust. In this way, one can think of a very concrete path. But at the same time, this would be the first step towards real socialization, a socialization that can only emerge from the provisions and measures of the people who are managing the economy themselves. Perhaps only when the decisions of such a works council are in place will we know what socialization actually means. Now, however, it must also be clear that the election of the works councils must be handled very sensibly, because this works council will have to take completely new economic measures in many respects and set completely new impulses. I have often said, when speaking about these things in connection with the threefold social order, that what we need most of all at the present time is a real change of thinking. And I imagine that precisely at the moment when, for the first time within a closed economic area, the primary assembly, supported by the confidence of the entire working class, unanimously takes such an economic measure, a change of thinking, a re-learning, could come about. But we must realize how much of today's economic thinking needs to be revised. Therefore, in order for you to be able to orient yourselves regarding the difficult tasks of the works councils, I would like to describe an example of the old way of thinking. You see, this old thinking is not just a collection of thoughts, but it is the expression of the economic order that has existed so far and that has come to an end as a result of the world war catastrophe. But what people thought still extends into more recent times, and that is what must be thoroughly removed from people's minds. I would now like to give a characteristic example of this. An essay has just been published by a very famous teacher of political economy of the old regime, that is, by a man whose ideas reflect much of what the old regime, what the so-called private capital regime that must be overcome, has produced. I would like to cite what is said by Professor Dr. Lujo Brentano as an example of what prevails in the old regime. These thoughts of Brentano's refer to the entrepreneur of the old regime, and he is making a sincere effort, as far as he is able, to form a concept of what the private entrepreneur actually is. You can see from Brentano's closing words that he does not at all regard this private entrepreneur as a superfluous element of the future economic order. He says:
So you see, a true representative of the old economic order says here that private enterprise is not only not at an end, but that it is only now really beginning to flourish, because without it the economic order that is to develop in the future would not be possible at all. We are therefore dealing with an opinion that still dominates many circles today, namely that the abolition of private enterprise is out of the question because it has a future. Therefore, if one approaches the question of the replacement of the old entrepreneurial system by the works councils seriously and not merely in an agitative way, one must deal a little with the thoughts that are haunting people's minds. You have to be prepared, so to speak, you have to know what people are thinking and what they will say when it comes to arguments between the representatives of the past and the representatives of the future, that is, those who want to stand up for the works councils. Now you see, the concept of the entrepreneur is what this economics teacher wants to clarify for himself and present to people. He asks himself the question: What is an entrepreneur? Yes, he now gives three characteristics of the right entrepreneur. First, “that he combines in his hand the right of disposal over the production elements necessary for the manufacture of a product.” But first of all, it must be made clear what this gentleman actually means by “production elements”. What he understands by this is made perfectly clear in one of his sentences. He does not even make this sentence up himself, but borrows it from Emil Kirdorff, one of the most successful men in practice to date. He says: “We directors of joint-stock companies are also employees of the company and have duties and responsibilities towards it.” And now Mr. Brentano has discovered that directors like Privy Councillor Emil Kirdorff are also among the “production elements,” that is, the entrepreneur must have the right of disposal over the “production elements,” which also includes directors. The entire workforce, right up to the directors, are all “production elements.” First, then, an entrepreneur is the one who has the right of disposal over the “production elements”; these also include the directors. And a man like Kirdorff sees quite well that he is actually not a human being, but a “production element” in economic life. You have to realize what kind of ideas are in people's heads. That is why I have repeatedly emphasized that it is necessary to rethink and relearn. So that was the first quality of a real entrepreneur. The second is that “he gives these production elements the purpose of serving a specific production purpose and disposes of them accordingly.” Here one has to bear in mind that all people in production are meant; so he must give them a purpose. That is the second quality. The third is that “he does this at his own risk and expense.” So now we have all three characteristics of a true entrepreneur in the sense of the old regime, that is, the entrepreneur who, in the sense of the old regime, must continue to exist in order to maintain the future economic order and who should have an even greater significance there than he has had so far. You see, if you are not wearing professors' or entrepreneurs' or other blinkers, then you have to admit that people with these three qualities will not tolerate the facts that are now to be created in Europe because after all, we have come so far in our consciousness that the future cannot depend on a small number of entrepreneurs who determine the 'productive elements' of the far greater number of people, that is, the masses. But that is exactly what is required. Now, however, let us follow the train of thought of this representative of the old regime a little further. It is actually extremely interesting. You will probably think I am making a joke, but the following is really in this essay; I am not joking. After initially presenting the vast majority of workers as “production elements,” Brentano strangely includes the workers, the proletarians, among the entrepreneurs! He says: “If the worker is not the producer of a consumer-ready product, he is nonetheless the producer of an independent good that he brings to market at his own risk and expense. He too is an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur of labor services.” So you see, my dear audience, we now have the concept of the entrepreneur before us, as presented by a contemporary economic luminary. This concept of the entrepreneur is so confused, indeed it is just that you are all entrepreneurs as you sit here, namely entrepreneurs of your labor, which you bring to market at your own risk and expense. Yes, and now there is something else. Brentano says that the evil of which people are always talking does not exist at all, since everyone is an entrepreneur. Therefore, he had to find out what it actually is that makes the great masses of people not satisfied with being entrepreneurs at their own risk and expense through their labor. He says: “Once upon a time, the worker was not that, a time when he was absorbed in the business in which he was employed. He was not yet an independent economic unit, but nothing but a cog in the economic enterprise of his master. That was the time of the worker's personal bondage. The master's interest in the progress of his own economy then led him to awaken an interest in his performance in the worker he employed. This brought about the gradual emancipation of the worker, and finally his complete declaration of freedom.” That's nice, except that the damage lies in the following. There is another nice sentence, which reads: “But the capitalist entrepreneur has not yet found his way into this transformation from a gentleman into a mere labor buyer.” So the only harm is that the entrepreneur has not yet found his way into this role, that is, no longer being a gentleman in the old sense, but a buyer of labor. With that, Brentano is actually saying the following: If the worker sells his labor to the entrepreneur for his own account and risk, then everything is in order. It is only necessary for the entrepreneur to learn to understand what it means to be a buyer of labor. It is only because he does not yet understand that there is still damage. So it is only necessary to hammer it into the entrepreneur: you just have to learn to understand how to buy labor on the labor market that the worker sells to you as an entrepreneur of his labor. Yes, it is of course a strange testimony that the gentleman gives to the entrepreneurs. The proletariat is now at the point of saying that it is above all important that labor should no longer be a commodity. But this gentleman gives the entrepreneurs the testimony that they have not even risen to the realization that they are buyers of labor. So this star of political economy thinks that today's entrepreneurship is very backward. But what does all this actually mean? You see, you just have to face the full gravity of this fact. Lujo Brentano is one of the most famous economists of the present day, and one of those who have perhaps put the most ideas into the heads of those who speak as intellectuals about economic life. Yes, we have to look at things clearly today. Today, we often indulge in a belief in authority that is much, much worse than the Catholics' belief in authority towards the princes of the church ever was. People just don't want to admit that. That is why we have to be clear about things, and we have to learn from such things what a great task this works council will have. Above all, it will have to show what economic life really is, because what has emerged from the circles of the intelligentsia as a result of reflecting on economic life was, after all, just cabbage. But what is this cabbage? Let us just look at it in terms of its reality. Why is this cabbage there? People haven't even thought it up. If they had thought it up, they would have come up with something even bigger. They did not even think it up, but simply studied the conditions as they are now, and these conditions are confused, they are a chaos. Very gradually, this thoughtlessness of supply and demand in all areas of economic life has led to chaos. The first act of real socialization must be to start to shape it from scratch. We need, I would say, this sense of the seriousness of what the works council is supposed to be. And I would like to speak of this seriousness again and again and again, because in some circles of the proletariat, too, there is so little of this seriousness and awareness of the magnitude of the task. You see, when one speaks of the threefold social order today, what is one speaking of? We are speaking of what must be done to satisfy the demands of the proletariat, which have been around for decades. But what do we get in return? Yes, there is another article in the Tribüne. It is entitled “Dr. Steiner and the Proletariat”. It says, for example, that the threefold social order is only concerned with ideas and that there are already enough ideas floating around in the air at present. That is what I would call a careless assertion. Then this gentleman should just point out the ideas that are now swarming through the air in such masses. He should just prove the existence of one fruitful idea! It is precisely the lack of ideas that plagues the present day. That is the case, and here it is carelessly asserted that ideas are just swarming around in the air. And then they say: “What helps the worker - I am speaking only of the physically laboring - to improve his life is not sophistry, but an energetic realization of socialism.” But what is the realization of socialism? You see, if you just keep saying socialism, socialism, then you have a phrase, a word! But you have to show the way! When someone says: What helps the worker to improve his life is socialism —– then it seems to me as if someone were to say: I want to go to Tübingen —– and I say to him: Well, you can take the train, there are trains at such and such times. — I tell him exactly how to get to Tübingen, just as the path to the threefold social organism indicates exactly how to achieve socialization. He says: It is sophistry that you give me the minutes of the trains; I say to you, if I want to come to Tübingen, then I only come by moving over to Tübingen. — So roughly one can say: I do not want a certain, concrete, individually characterized way, but I want socialism. — I want to come to Tübingen by moving over. Now, the article continues: “Every individual who is concerned about public life will very often have to deal with political and economic issues together in one sentence.” Yes, but this happens because everything has been mixed up. But it must be separated. Then it says: “Therefore, no ‘threefold social order’, but the realization of socialism!” So again: I want to come to Tübingen by moving across. Yes, we must face the fact that there are obstacles to such a real marking out of the way, as we are trying to do in relation to the now often discussed question of works councils, based on the ideas of the threefold social organism. What really hinders us from marking out the way is that people are always willing to be deceived. But you will achieve nothing by being deceived, however beautifully it may be spun, unless you take definite action, as in the case I mentioned at the beginning of my talk. Let us elect members to the factory councils who are there as human beings and not as ideas whizzing through the air! These people can then decide, on the basis of their economic experience, what is necessary for the recovery of our economic life. Today it is necessary for us to go beyond mere talk and gain insights into economic life and to penetrate from these insights to further development. That we cannot rely on the luminaries, on the authorities, I have shown you today. I have presented one of the most famous to you on the basis of his latest statements. I presented him in such a way that you could see the value of what the followers of tradition say: Yes, the famous Mr. So-and-so said that, you can't counter that with anything else. Of course, if you always point out what this or that person has said about current events, you still don't know what the facts are, even if this or that person is famous. But if you look at things where concepts are in confusion, where concepts are falling apart, then it becomes clear that we have to rethink and relearn in the present. And so I would like to say again and again: if not through something else, then surely the necessity will bring about this rethinking and relearning. Even those who still resist today will have to change their minds, because many things will still happen in this poor Central Europe in the coming years and decades, and many things will have to happen if, for example, one third of the population of Central Europe can no longer be fed, if the old conditions persist in the form they still have as a result of this terrible Treaty of Versailles, the so-called peace. A third of the population of Central Europe would have to die out or be killed if the old conditions were to be maintained. The reason for the reorganization today is, of course, that the old conditions cannot continue at all. But the fact that the imminent prospect is the death or extermination of one-third of the population of Central Europe should convince people today that they can no longer remain in their old, complacent position and say: We are practical people, such ideas are just ideas, you can't get involved in them! — No, people are just too lazy to get involved in something really practical. Today, this practicality must be comprehensive, must not be limited to just one or two areas, but must embrace the whole economic sphere. And if we do not want to abandon this complacency of thought in the face of circumstances, we will not make any progress. Now, with these words I wanted to point out to you how we must move forward, and now we can enter into the discussion. Discussion
Rudolf Steiner: Regarding this document, which is very interesting, I would like to make the comment that there are, after all, employees at present who are able to develop the following idea: the law on works councils is not yet a law, but only a draft. So there is no law on works councils yet. But, according to the four sentences, the gentlemen take the view that it is not just a matter of an overthrow – that could be discussed, but we do not need that – of the existing order and laws if one finds some existing law bad , but the gentlemen take the view that it is already an unlawful subversion if one violates any law that is not yet there, that they do not yet know, or a law that could come out, today. So, the gentlemen undertake to assure all laws that may be imposed on them of their obedience from the outset.
Rudolf Steiner: The workers' committees have their tasks primarily in the individual companies. But the point of setting up works councils is to tackle real socialization. If the works councils are elected now and then come together as a works council, then this original assembly of the works council can take the first steps towards real socialization. Then the workers' committees, if they are to continue to exist, will presumably be able to receive a task for the individual companies, or, which is much more likely, the workers' committees will no longer be needed as such, but the works council will take their place. However, the works council may have to co-opt personalities from the current workers' committees for its further work, since it will not have enough people available to carry out the tasks currently performed by the workers' committees if it only has seven or eight members. These specific questions will only be fully answered when we have a complete works council. The workers' committees were originally set up differently from the works councils. The works councils are intended to be the real leaders of the companies. A real works council would either have the current entrepreneur, if he agrees, as a works councilor, as well as people from the ranks of the employees, the intellectual workers, and the physical workers, or the entrepreneur would have to withdraw. It must be made perfectly clear that the works council is intended to be the real director of the factory, so that all entrepreneurship in the modern sense disappears alongside this works council. The workers' committee, however, is still intended to reflect the old form of entrepreneurship. I ask you to consider this difference carefully, that is, the difference between something that still exists from the old order, such as the workers' committee, and what should now form the first step towards a real reorganization. You must consider this difference, otherwise you will not be able to think about the tasks of the works councils in a truly comprehensive way. Furthermore, it should be borne in mind that the question of the continued existence or reorganization of the workers' committees can only be answered when we have the founding assembly of the works council. Then there is the question of how things should be organized with regard to the works council in a state-owned enterprise. In this regard, I must say – and this has already been mentioned – that there should be no difference in the election of works councils between a private or state-owned company. In a state-owned company, too, an attempt should be made to overcome all prejudices and to elect works councils, so that these works councils will then also have their place in the works council when the so-called statute of the works council is being drafted. Then it will follow that the state's usual absorption of such enterprises will naturally not continue. These enterprises will have to be transformed into independent economic organisms. But this demand will first have to be formulated. You see, the things that underlie the impulse for threefolding are indeed intended as practical demands, but they must first be formulated. They have to be put forward by an individual in his book, and also by a “union” advocating them; but that is not enough. On the economic plane, these demands must be put forward by the economic actors themselves, and they must have the confidence of the entire working population behind them. Furthermore, the question has been raised as to how the socialization of the state railways and the postal and telegraph systems can be carried out from the point of view of threefolding. Of course, people today still have great prejudices in this regard, and it can be readily admitted that the upheaval would be very great indeed if these economic enterprises were also to be transferred from the present state to the administration of an independent economic body. But this must be done, because postal and telegraph services, like the railways, are an integral part of economic life and can only develop properly in economic life if that economic life is independent of state or legal life. | The fact that it is difficult to imagine these things today is due to the following. We have become accustomed to thinking of things as they have always been. We say, “These are facts.” But, my dear audience, facts are things that have been created, created by people, and they can just as easily be re-created, changed. That is what we must bear in mind. It is absolutely essential that everything that belongs to economic life is also really placed on its own free economic ground. The reason why these things are so difficult to imagine today is that today money, which in any case is no longer really money in a large number of European states, is actually based on a very false foundation. Naturally the transition will be difficult because through money humanity is dependent on England as the leading commercial state and because we cannot simply dissuade the English and Americans from the gold standard overnight. In foreign trade with these states, we must of course have the gold standard until, under the pressure of circumstances, the gold standard will also cease. But for the threefold social organism, the aim must be that the state no longer lends value to money, but that money acquires its value within the economic organism. But then money is no longer a commodity, as it is today. Even if it is hidden, today money is in fact a commodity, and only because the state attributes its value to it. But in the threefold social organism, money will only be present as a means of circulation in the sense that it is, so to speak, a flying bookkeeping. You know from what I said eight days ago: everything in the coming economic life will be based on real performance and counter-performance. For the performance, one gets, so to speak, the note, which means nothing other than: on the general credit side, what corresponds to my performance is available to me and I can exchange it for what corresponds to my needs. If I give the note, it means the same as if I were to enter in a small business today what is on the left side to balance what is on the right side. So monetary transactions will be the flying bookkeeping for the economic organism. Such things are actually already in existence today in their beginnings. You know that there is already a kind of credit entry, that is, credit balances that can be transferred without having monetary transactions in certain areas. In fact, most of what the threefold social organism demands is already there in germinal form and present here and there. Those people who today speak of the impracticality of the threefold social organism should see how, here and there – albeit on a small scale, so that it is sometimes not useful but harmful – how, here and there, what exists in combination and stylized on a large scale will give the threefold social organism. Today, the state railways are almost conceived as a state piece of furniture, and one thinks of the upheaval as something terrible. But one must only consider that what matters in the future, namely the administration of economic life by works councils, by transport and economic councils – they are added on top of that – that these changes are entirely related to a real socialization and that all the fears are superfluous. It is therefore important, for example, that the railways are managed in a sensible way and not in such a way that the bureaucratic state is behind them. If you look at things in detail, you will see that practical solutions can be found everywhere. If people keep coming to me and saying that they do not understand what is in my book, then I must say that I understand that today, because I would have to be very surprised if, for example, Professor Brentano, whom I have told you about, and his students, who are very numerous, would understand the “Key Points of the Social Question”. Because I do not think they can understand the book. But it is precisely these people, whose thoughts have not been corrupted by this education, that I believe can understand what is in the “Key Points” if they just overcome their habitual ways of thinking a little.
Rudolf Steiner: There is not much more to say in today's closing remarks either. I will first answer a question that has been asked. This question is: The great mass of the proletariat, still thinking in materialistic terms, expects the activities of the works council to improve its material needs. What measures would have to be taken to quickly and fairly balance needs and wages during the transition period? You see, there are things that cannot be easily achieved from cloud-cuckoo-land. If it were not the case that works councils are absolutely necessary and are finally beginning to do real social work, the proposal to set them up would not be made at all. Therefore, such a view of improving the situation before the works councils start working cannot really be considered very significant. Today, there are many people who come up with strange questions when it comes to asserting the really practical points of view that will now lead humanity to more salutary conditions than we have today. In the last few weeks I have repeatedly experienced people asking: Yes, but now it should be socialized. What will happen to a small shopkeeper on the street after socialization? Or another question: How will the university custodian be socialized if threefolding is to be introduced? Well, if you listen to these questions, they all actually boil down to one, namely, how do we actually bring about the great upheaval in such a way that not everything remains the same? That is what one type of person asks. The other type of people would like to see a great upheaval, but they do not want to do it that way; they do not want to intervene, they want easier measures. And this tendency underlies our question to some extent. One can only answer: With this other, easier form, even for the transition period, nothing can be achieved. Therefore, it is important that those who want improvement are prepared to take the measures that can bring about that improvement. You cannot ask: How do we bring about improvement in the run-up to the establishment of works councils? — But you have to say: In order to bring about improvement, we want to have works councils as soon as possible. I am even afraid that a miracle would not help here either. So don't rely on miracle cures, but take the practical route; the sooner the better. Look, this “Tribune” has just come out, and it contains the essay about me and the proletariat that I mentioned earlier. In the same issue, there is another essay by a university professor who refutes the entire threefold social order point by point. It cannot even be said that what he presents this time is not true, but it is true for a very strange reason. You see, the man does not understand anything about the threefold social order. He is not at all in a position to really understand any of the ideas in my book about the key points of the social question. Because he does not understand this, but is still a university professor, he must understand everything. Because he does not understand, he makes up his own threefolding. That is a terrible mess. If you put together everything he describes as a threefolding, it makes a terrible mess, an unworkable, ridiculous, dreadful mess. And that is what he is now refuting. It is terribly easy to refute what he has concocted. But that is what the essay consists of. It contains nothing of what it is actually about. So the man cannot imagine why this independent economic entity should actually exist. I told you the other day: the independent economic entity must exist in the threefold social organism because everything in the field of economic life must arise out of expertise, out of being involved in economic life, out of the experiences of economic life, and because one cannot decide on economic life in the field of general law, where every mature person has to decide on what makes him equal to every other person. It can only be a blessing for economic life if it is decided by experts. Professor Heck cannot imagine this. He cannot imagine anything different from what he has already seen and experienced and in which his habits of thought are rooted. When it comes to such things, I always think of something I heard recently. Someone — I think it was a professor — said to me: I know the aspirations of the threefold social organism. — I asked him: Does any of it make sense to you? — Not so far, he said. You see, that “not so far” was all he could think of. What has not been so far does not seem to be open to discussion; he could not say anything more about it. You just experience things like that. You encounter objections that are not really objections. Not so long ago, someone even raised the objection: Yes, the idea of the threefold social order is, so to speak, based on a moral point of view, and taking a moral point of view is a big mistake. Yes, this objection has also been raised. The objections are all very strange. One of the most common is: Yes, it would be all very well with this threefold social order, but other people are needed for it. You cannot introduce the threefold social order with the present generation of people. Well, the person who says this does not understand that much of what is expressed in the present generation of people is precisely a consequence of our social conditions and that it will be different the moment our social conditions improve. Well, people never look at things from a truly objective point of view. I will give you a drastic example, which I may have already given here. Was there not a terrible bureaucracy, especially within the civil service in Germany, before this world war? Now, the necessity of not only letting civil servants manage the economy, but also increasingly appointing merchants and industrialists to public offices, so that they could apply their practical wisdom to increasing the war economy, was recognized by the war economy. Then the strange fact arose, which is very interesting. The merchants and industrialists became much more bureaucratic than the bureaucracy had ever been before! So, they have adapted wonderfully to bureaucracy. Anyone who has observed this also knows what it would mean if people were no longer surrounded by unhealthy, i.e. bureaucratic, conditions, but by the kind of conditions that the impulse of the threefold social organism speaks of. In this way, just as industrialists and merchants have been transformed into dyed-in-the-wool bureaucrats within the existing bureaucracy, people would adapt to healthy conditions, and it would no longer be possible to say that one must first have better people in order to establish a better social order. It must be made clear that it is precisely by improving social conditions that people will be given the opportunity to become better people. But if you demand that people must first be better people, then we do not need to improve social conditions at all. If people had not become what they are at present because of social conditions, then social conditions must be good, then they must be all right. You can see from this the necessity of rethinking and relearning. This is what is fundamentally necessary above all else. And if people could only place themselves a little in reality and think from that basis, then we would already be one step further. You see, a very well-meaning young man writes — one would like to help him so much — he writes: Yes, he cannot help but say that perhaps the threefold social order would be a solution if people were different from what they are now. And now I ask you: Don't you think that this man carries in the depths of his soul the view that the others are not better people, but he, who realizes this, is, at least in terms of his nature, this better person? — If you go to the next person who says the same thing, then he in turn sees himself as the better person and a third probably as well. So everyone should say to themselves: if everyone thought like him – and actually, you have to take into account what other people are like – so if everyone thought like him, then the better people would already be there! You see, it is not a matter of thinking in an abstract, logical way, but of being rooted in reality with one's thinking, so that one does not say something that, as a thought, is constantly doing somersaults. But this is precisely what has such a terrible effect in the present and strikes us, that people continually stumble over their own thoughts, which are actually non-thoughts. Therefore, it must be emphasized again and again that not only is a change in our economic life necessary, but also a change in the spiritual structure of our social life. We have been driven by what has happened so far into a crisis of intellectual life in particular. If we look at the world today, what strikes us most? Yes, in the last four to five years, what strikes us most is that basically the truth has not been told about any world affairs, but all world affairs have been distorted, presented in a false light, from reports of battles to the goals of nations. From the motives for war to those for peace, everything has been presented in a distorted way. Everywhere, phrases prevail that do not correspond to the facts in the world. But this lives in everything that has developed from the previous cultural and social conditions. This lives on into the individual activities and institutions of human life. Therefore, we must say that all those who view the social question one-sidedly do not have humanity at heart. One is only honest about humanity when one says to oneself: economic life has led people into crisis, so it must be placed on a different footing. The legal sphere has shown that class privileges and class disadvantages prevail in the individual jurisdictions, so it must be placed on the basis of universal human rights. It has become clear that we call something law that which can only be supported by force, and this has continued to this day. And it has become clear that in the spiritual life, people's thoughts are warped. In the three fundamental spheres of life – economic, legal and spiritual – we see humanity in crisis. Those who are sincere about progress must realize that in each of these three areas, progress must be made independently, because the crises result precisely from the intermingling of these three areas. Therefore, I can only say: If you take decisive measures in any particular area, as you are now doing in connection with the works councils, in the sense of a comprehensive social reorganization, that is, in the sense of the threefold social order, then you are acting in the direction of progress for humanity towards a real social order. Consider this connection between an individual measure and the measures based on an overall view. Only then are you doing your duty today towards humanity and towards yourself. Individual measures have no significance today, only what is conceived in the great social context. The smallest must be thought together with the greatest. Be aware of this: if you succeed in really bringing about the works council, then you will have done something of historical significance for all of humanity that follows, because this is connected with the greatest problems that are posed to humanity today. Therefore, do not ask about small steps, but stand on such ground that really forms the basis for moving forward to action, because action is what matters. And if we add deed to deed to what we understand from the threefold social organism, then we will be able to create what gives us hope of emerging from the terrible situation into which the previous spiritual life, the previous so-called legal life and the previous economic life have led us. |
| 331. Work Councils and Socialization: Seventh Discussion Evening
17 Jul 1919, Stuttgart Rudolf Steiner |
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| Well, excuse me, but that doesn't require much understanding. But a great deal of understanding and insight is needed for what this man wanted to know about the conquest of political power and the like. |
| As proletarians, we have to say: if you don't understand how to lead us, then you have to leave the field. Every movement has the leaders it deserves; so do we. |
| Because the beginning must be made by those people who understand something of what is to happen, regardless of whether they play this or that role in the present order. |
| 331. Work Councils and Socialization: Seventh Discussion Evening
17 Jul 1919, Stuttgart Rudolf Steiner |
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Opening words Rudolf Steiner: Dear attendees, As on the previous evenings, I will also give only a brief introduction today, so that we can then discuss one or the other specific question in detail. But in view of the waning interest in the works council issue, it may be advisable to make some more general comments at the beginning of this evening. You see, on the part of the “Federation for the Tripartite Structure of the Social Organism”, the aim has been to take the first really practical step in the direction that has been outlined by the social movement for more than half a century, by creating a works council. This movement is, after all, like an outcry of the proletariat against its oppression. But this outcry is basically nothing more than a kind of world-historical critique of the capitalist economic order. Due to the world war catastrophe, conditions have now emerged that make it necessary to replace the critique to which the parties of the socialist movement have become accustomed with something else. When people within this movement began to find ways to achieve social renewal, there was hope that, especially among the broad masses of the working class, firstly from their experiences within the capitalist social order, and secondly from the undergrounds that arise because the working class is really much more politically educated than the bourgeoisie as a result of its experiences, an understanding would develop for what should replace the previously merely social criticism of the social order. After the so-called collapse of the German Reich, one could basically only hope for something really decisive from this side, because those who were completely tied to the old state and economic order had nothing to offer that could really lead to a new structure, despite the experiences of the world war catastrophe and its consequences. One gets quite gloomy thoughts today when, on the one hand, one realizes that the intelligentsia is necessary for a new beginning, and when, on the other hand, one considers the mental and political state of this intelligentsia in today's Central Europe, especially the intelligentsia of those who belong to the leading personalities. From all that has been said here so far, those of you who have been here often will have seen that if we really want to make progress, a new social order must also be found from a new spirit. This applies in particular to the present moment, which clearly shows that Central Europe is in the process of collapse. That nothing can be hoped for from certain circles is illustrated by the following example. You see, when one speaks of a new spirit with which the future is to be shaped, then one must first ask oneself: where are the manifestations of this new spirit? Now, the political spirit that dominates today, especially the leading classes, I would like to illustrate with an example that could be multiplied a thousandfold. The following words were spoken in Berlin. Please listen carefully, for today it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the spirit of the people. So listen carefully:
Yes, that's what you think, that it's the Oldenburg Januschau! It would be comforting if it were at least him. But you see, these words were spoken by the leading professor of German language and literature at Berlin University. That is the crucial point! These words, spoken by the representative of German language and literature, the leading representative of this subject at the leading German university, are indeed somewhat indicative of the spirit that prevails among those who today have to inspire our youth for what humanity can expect from the future. Is it any wonder that gloomy thoughts arise when one thinks of this future? Basically, this is mentioned as a characteristic because, after all, those people who are leading the way in journalism today, especially in the journalism of the parties, have learned a great deal from these people in terms of their overall thinking, even if they have adopted individual program points. Above all, they have learned to be short-sighted, not to say dull-witted. In the face of this, it must be emphasized again and again: Unless people can muster the strength to develop a truly new spirit, a comprehensive spirit, things cannot fundamentally improve. That is why it is so regrettable that the idea of founding a works council was drawn from a truly new spirit, that this idea of a works council, which is a truly practical idea, has found so little favor with the masses. Of course, things can move slowly at first, and that wouldn't even be the worst thing, but the way things have happened must be counted among the worst things. We started our work here with the threefold social order in mind. At first, as I have already mentioned, the people who are always listened to said: Well, that's just a little folly, we'll let it go. But then this folly turned out to have found a following of thousands in Stuttgart and the surrounding area. That made people extremely uncomfortable. Then the practical idea of workers' councils emerged in a truly practical form. Then people became even more uncomfortable, and then this strange fact arose, which must be recorded again and again: that the parties are now raising objections to the threefold social order in general and to the works council issue in particular. On the one hand, we hear: Yes, the threefold order is all right. When our friends Gönnewein and Roser spoke at a public meeting in the Dinkelacker Hall recently, for example, one of the various speakers, most of whom were opposed to us, said: Yes, the threefold social order is all very well; it must ultimately prevail, but we are fighting against it! — Well, it is good and must ultimately be realized, but it is being fought against. - We want something completely different to start with, and then, when we have realized this completely different thing, then the threefold social order will come about by itself. Now, there can be no question of the threefold order ever arising by itself; rather, it must be worked hard for. It is, I have to say the word, the biggest swindle when people repeat the old word over and over again: We only need to do this or that, it only needs this or that class to gain power, and then a properly ordered social being will arise by itself. No, the properly ordered social organism must first be recognized and then worked out. And it is characteristic that they keep saying: the threefold social organism is all very well, but that is how a social order must be, as the threefold social organism says, but we are fighting it. But if people are to say what they want, then one hears nothing but slogans and phrases.The only thing I found within the Communist Party with regard to its fight against the threefold order is that they agree – as far as one is confronted with it – that the threefold order is quite good, but that it must be fought. In that they agree. And from the other side it has been shown — do not think that I care about anything, but when it comes to fighting for something, then such things must be looked at — that on the occasion of the publication of the first number of our weekly magazine 'Threefolding of the Social Organism', not a single one of the thoughts contained in this magazine was addressed, but it was all just scathing abuse. This is the result of dullness, of the inability to produce even one real thought of one's own. Therefore one can do nothing but rant. Much has also been said from third and fourth parties that aims in a similar direction. Things were always treated in such a way that it soon became clear that all these critics do not raise any real objections. On the one hand, this reveals an inability, an impotence; on the other hand, it reveals stupidity, in that one says again and again that threefolding is good in itself, but must be fought. Now, if these things are not looked at, if the cancerous damage resulting from party activity is not seen, then nothing healing can come out of the struggle in which we find ourselves. Dear attendees! Today is truly not the time to get lost in such party squabbling, because today we are close to the point where people with the kind of attitude of Professor Gustav Roethe of the University of Berlin, which I have read to you, are gaining the upper hand again in capitalist circles as well. You don't have to be a friend of these ideas, which are only half or quarter ideas and, on top of that, quite impractical, and you don't have to be a friend of Wissell and Moellendorff, but you have to say that from a certain side they had the power to suppress them. If they had been ousted from another side, it would not have been a particular problem, but the fact that they were ousted from that side proves the current seriousness of the situation in Central Europe. It proves that certain circles feel safe again, circles that felt very unsafe relatively recently. A few weeks ago, just as I was coming from Switzerland, from Dornach, to Stuttgart and we were beginning our work, it was still the case that the business community, indeed the leading circles in general, felt insecure in a certain sense. There was still a very strange mood prevailing in these circles. And so one could certainly have the impression that something can be achieved if a vigorous movement with content and meaning comes along. At that time, those who abhorred the planned economy and the framework laws of Moellendorff did not yet have the courage to come forward as boldly as they do today. But because it was possible to foresee how things would turn out, one idea was put forward again and again here and in other meetings at which I spoke, probably to the point of tedium for many, namely: Action should be taken on the idea of works councils before it is too late. In connection with the farewell of Moellendorff and Wissell, it should be noted that the Works Council Constitution Act has now been reintroduced to the National Assembly. You can take all these symptoms together, and you will not find it incredible if today someone who has some insight into these things tells you: all this is the systematic work of the other side, the systematic work of former entrepreneurs who had already felt very close to the abyss and who are now gradually paralyzing the social movement in Central Europe. From this side, no means are spared, including going into partnership with the Entente, if it means paralyzing the social movement in Central Europe. If the ideas of those people who are at work today are fulfilled, and that is no exaggeration, then it is the case that all social striving, as you feel it, is an impossibility for many years. Because then it is not a question of how strong capitalism is in Central Europe, but of how strong Entente capitalism is. That is how things are on the one hand. On the other hand, we have the most savage party infighting, which would have to be swept away in order to arrive at an objective striving. What does this party infighting reveal? Above all, it reveals the necessity for the threefold social organism. In this threefold order, spiritual life should have an independent administration, on the other hand, state or legal life should have its own administration, and on the third hand, economic life. Within economic life, as a purely economic institution, we want to develop the works councils. This works council system would mark the beginning of a real socialization by separating economic administration from spiritual and political life. What would be the safest way to keep economic life at the mercy of capitalism? By continuing to mix economic life with political life! And what is it that squeals out of the foolish party squabbling? It is the wild mixing and merging of economic points of view and political points of view. These modern parties are so harmful because they are based entirely on what has survived as a fusion of political and economic life. That is why we keep hearing from people who understand absolutely nothing about the structure of the social order that you first have to have political power and then economic power. Then they turn it around and so on. All these things show the most chaotic amateurism. The fact that such views are appearing within the parties shows how necessary the threefold social organism is. And in our day, I would say, we should really, as the twelfth hour approaches, consult with ourselves and ask ourselves: Do we really want to be the fools of the rising reaction by blindly following the party slogans more than ever the seemingly well-meaning Catholics follow them? Don't you want to rely on your own judgment? If you had relied on your own sound judgment, then the works council would have been established already. Just think what it would mean if the works council were already a reality and if the economic demands of the proletariat were taken up by the works councils and were to be heard in all that is now happening within the newly strengthened capitalism and entrepreneurship, in what is being driven on the part of the ore mining industry, which is much more damaging than one might think, and in what is connected with the peace treaty. People have repeatedly emphasized that the main thing is to conquer political power. Oh, my dear audience, nothing strikes me as more ridiculous than such phrases. Of course, you can say such phrases, that you first have to have political power. But when the first step should be taken to gain power at all, as it could have happened through the election of the works councils, then this first step is not taken. It is not taken because people love to speak in grand words and phrases. But they do not love to approach the issue in a truly appropriate way. The previous draft of the Works Councils Act has turned out to be impractical and unacceptable. Now a new draft is being presented to the National Assembly, after the timid attempt by Moellendorff and Wissell, which also contained rudiments of a planned economy, was thrown into the underworld, along with the two personalities. All this shows the kind of nonsense being perpetrated by a certain faction, which ultimately will lead nowhere. Imagine if our works councils in Württemberg had been in session for the last fourteen days and had sent tangible proposals for real socialization into the world every day! If that were the case, then one could say: the new spirit necessary for a new beginning arises from this proletariat. If there were a thousand works councils here instead of just a few, then we could say: We laugh at what the big industrialist said after the start of the November Revolution and the outbreak of the strike: “We just have to wait!” Because the time will come when the workers will come whining and begging to our establishment and will be satisfied if they are allowed to work a quarter of what they are asking for now. Well, but today we are not yet in a position to look at things with the necessary seriousness. But it is not enough to express this seriousness only in words; it is important that it is also reflected in actions. If we consider that the Central European industrialists will receive support from the Entente in terms of their power, then we must come to the conclusion that this works council system must be created before it is too late. I am not saying that nothing can be done now. Of course, we must continue to work in the direction we have begun, but it would be playing blind man's bluff to close our eyes to the general world situation. We are in it now, and actually we should not have got into it at all without already having works councils. You see, in times of such upheaval as the ones we are living through, it is of the utmost importance to recognize and seize the right moment. You can't afford to wait four to six weeks for the right thing to happen. Today, many people know that with the great French Revolution at the end of the 18th century and with the following revolutions in the 19th century, only a kind of emancipation of the human being as a citizen was actually achieved. But the fact that individual people have become freer to a certain extent is meaningless for the broad masses of the proletariat. Why? Because those who rose up against the old feudal order may have seized state power, but they failed to remove the economic straitjacket from the workers, even though they were now personally free. Today it is time to realize that merely seizing state power is not enough. As a result of the revolutions, other people came to power, but nothing really new was created. The old framework of the state was retained. And so they continued to work until the catastrophe of the world wars. They squeezed everything into the framework of the old unitary state. Today the time has come to recognize that the proletariat cannot simply imitate the bourgeoisie, which only wanted to conquer state power. The proletariat must develop something new and not cling to the old unitary state. The proletariat must develop the tripartite social organism. Either we understand this tripartite structure or we will end up with an impossible construct like the state of the 19th and early 20th century. It is not enough to keep saying that we want to overthrow the old institutions and replace capitalism with new social forms! One must also know what these new forms should consist of! That is why an attempt has also been made with my book 'The Crux of the Social Question' to present to people something that really gives the longed-for social community an organic structure. It shows how this social community can become possible and how it can develop. What use is it to always say: things must come from themselves! Well, I could imagine that such fanatics of self-origin still believe that the social order came by itself, even when it actually had to be fought for hard. You see, if the cockerel on the dung heap crows before sunrise, when it is still dark, and then the sun rises, the cockerel can imagine that it was his crowing that made the sun rise. It is quite certain that a new social order will not come about just by crowing about socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It will only come about if a sufficiently large number of people think: we have to work to bring about this new social order. We must choose from among ourselves those in whom we have confidence, so that, on the basis of existing economic experience, something beneficial for economic life may come about, which can then eclipse all the bureaucratic proposals for laws and the like that are being sought from other quarters. I ask you: Are you afraid of such work, or why do you refrain from creating such a works council, which would really be a power factor because it would be supported by the trust of the workers? At the moment, you can be sure of that, when such a works council produces new fruitful ideas, in that moment the works council is the greatest power in certain areas. It is not the crowing of a cockerel on the dung heap, who believes that the sun rises because of his crowing. It is a call to action, but to an action that is known to be the right one. You see, I believe that the new spirit could flourish out of such a feeling alone. But as long as this new spirit does not live in people's minds, nothing good will come of it. And the current economic situation is such that, above all, we have to think about how we can get our economic life in Central Europe back on its feet to some extent. Thus, new sources of raw materials of the most diverse kinds will have to be tapped, especially in the East. There will be many a necessity that Central European entrepreneurship has not yet tackled. However, sources of raw materials in Siberia can no longer be tapped, because the course of the world does not allow this today; the Americans and the Japanese no longer allow it. Where we can be effective is in the entire European East. But there it will be a matter of finding the right tone to go along with the Russian national soul. That was precisely the worst thing about the industrial circles that have been leading up to now, that they never found the tone to enter into a corresponding connection with other national souls. That is another reason why a new spirit must enter into our economic life. Otherwise the East will slam the door on us, especially if we come with the spirit that our leading circles have developed so far. Above all, we are dependent on developing a brotherhood, an economic brotherhood, with the East, otherwise we will never get out of the situation we have gotten into. A new spirit is needed in a wide variety of directions! This new spirit may flourish in hearts and minds, for we need it. You will not find the new spirit in what I read to you at the beginning, because it says that “before the revolution, we were generally able to trust in the honest and objective reliability of our government, that we excellent Prussian civil service state, we could spare the need to have a say in it, and it is not least in this that the intellectual superiority that Germany in general, especially in its scientific and technical development, has demonstrated during the nineteenth century, is rooted. ... May the German spirit develop the strength to work its way through the ugly political flood of sin and mud back to the glorious state of trust that Prussia's Hohenzollern gave us. You will understand that one cannot speak in this way today. But, ladies and gentlemen, I will now translate these words into another language and then ask you whether one can speak in this way today: the fact that before the revolution we were able to place our complete trust in the honest and objective reliability of our party leaders, that we the excellent Party bureaucratism we could spare ourselves the need to have a say, and it is not least in this that the intellectual superiority is rooted, which Germany in general, but not in its social-democratic and socialist development, has demonstrated during the nineteenth century. One cannot serve two masters, the Party bureaucrats and the tripartite division. The general politicization is necessarily an enemy of strict concentration and immersion in devotion, in loyalty, in party bonze-hood. May the social spirit develop the strength to work its way through the ugly political flood of sin and mud back to that glorious party system of trust, as the party bigwigs have given it to us Social Democrats. You see, you have applied the same thought forms to something else. Whether you are Professor Roethe and speak about the Hohenzollern in this way or whether you are just an honest party man and speak about the party bigwigs in this way, both are based on the same mental perceptions. It does not make a person freer if he simply worships other idols! One becomes free by relying on one's own judgment, on one's own reason and on one's own perception. It is to this inner perception that we have appealed. I hope that it will yet be shown that we have not appealed in vain, for if we had appealed in vain, then the situation of the proletariat would be dire. Discussion
Rudolf Steiner: I would like to make a few remarks before I return to the words of the previous speaker. First of all, it was said that the working class is strongly opposed to the threefold social order because it is based on philosophers, commercial counsellors and the like. This is not true at all; in fact, the working class was not very prejudiced at the beginning of our work. On the contrary, it turned out that we found thousands and thousands of supporters for what we were spreading, not as a utopian idea, but as something that is directly the germ of action, as I called it at the time. The workers at that time didn't give a damn whether these thoughts came from philosophers or commercial counselors, but they relied on their common sense and listened. And those who were prejudiced whistled from a completely different direction. And they have managed to ensure that this prejudice has only gradually emerged. So the matter is quite different. Although the previous speaker has correctly characterized the movement of commercial employees, which is showing some better traits and deserves to be studied in more detail by the rest of the working class, his words nevertheless show that he is completely unaware of what threefolding is in general and what it specifically seeks to achieve with the founding of a works council. For this is precisely what must be most vigorously combated by the threefolding of the social organism, namely, that this fragmentation occurs. It has never been our aim merely to create works councils for any industry or to individualize within the works council. How often has it been said: If works councils are created for the individual industries, this is the opposite of what must be aimed for in the context of a real socialization. We have always striven for a works council that extends uniformly over a larger, self-contained economic area. And only from such a works council should everything necessary for individualization then emerge. The fact that the matter has taken on the form that more zeal is shown in individual sectors than in others has nothing to do with the works council as it should have arisen from the idea of threefolding. Yes, and then the previous speaker brought up the argument that one would have to start by transferring the means of production and land into the ownership of society. Just try to think through what is actually meant by this nebulous sentence to its logical conclusion! Consider what such a demand means in practice! I would like to take this up again. I once spoke about these things in a town, I think it was Göppingen, and after me spoke a man who actually spoke quite well from a certain point of view. He was probably a communist. He said he was a cobbler. At first he spoke very well, but then something strange happened: he said, “Yes, I already know that since I have not learned a trade, I cannot become a registrar, for that you need intelligence.” Well, excuse me, but that doesn't require much understanding. But a great deal of understanding and insight is needed for what this man wanted to know about the conquest of political power and the like. These things must be faced. Now, the specific question is how to implement the fundamentally correct demand to transfer the means of production and land into the public domain. Of course, there must also be people available who can properly manage the means of production and land. The thing is this: what has been the capitalist form of production up to now has a very specific configuration; a very specific way of handling it was necessary for that. This must be transformed into a different way of handling it, and this must first be created. Today, before you have any concrete ideas about how to manage the means of production and the land, you cannot simply demand that the means of production and so on be transferred into the public domain! That is precisely what the workers' councils are supposed to do in practice. You cannot revolutionize anything with phrases and theories; you can only do it with people, and these people should have been the workers' councils, and I mean the unified workers' councils, not the fragmented ones. That is what it is all about. We shall make no headway if we keep on saying that the proposals of the philosophers and commercial counsellors come from the clouds, and then contrast them with a so-called practice that has arisen from even more nebulous regions, because then it becomes apparent that it is impossible to say how such things can actually be implemented. But it is precisely this “how” that is at issue. This “how” is explained in my book The Essential Points of the Social Question; it is only necessary to understand it, that is what it is about. Yes, and then it has been said repeatedly that we must first change the economic order. The spiritual will then arise by itself. — It will not. We already need this new spirit to change the economic system. And it is precisely then that one speaks impractically and nebulously when one says again and again: We change the economic system, then the new spirit will come by itself. No, you need the new spirit to change the economic system. That is why I say to you: For my sake, you can chase the whole of society away with the words of the esteemed previous speaker – but then also be clear about what you have to do when you have chased away the old society. Do you know what you want to do then? You can't do the same thing, otherwise you wouldn't need to chase them away. If you centralize the entire economy and put super-bonze above super-bonze, do you think that will improve anything? I would like to see if something would be better for the working masses if you were to put the highest-ranking union bonze in the top positions instead of the capitalists and entrepreneurs. That is what you should think about. That is what emerged from practical considerations, however much I liked the tone of the previous speaker's comments. But it has not yet been understood what it is really about, because everything that is happening in the optical industry, in the automotive industry and the like is the opposite of what is being propagated here. And so it is not enough just to point out ways; there must be a real understanding among the broad masses of workers, and then these ways must be developed in concrete practice. That is why I feel I must say, when I hear it said, “Steiner shows us the ways,” Steiner shows us the way – that it will be of no use if I show these ways, as long as large masses are repeatedly kept from understanding by the fact that people keep coming who have not yet understood this way and then speak of the opposite, as has just happened again, and then say: If we are shown the way, we will follow it; I am happy to be taught. – But when something is shown, the objection is that it is nothing. No, as long as this is the case, we will not make any progress. We will only make progress if we develop an instinct for what is right. And that is what we lack from the “Federation for the Threefold Social Order”. At first we found a certain healthy mass instinct, but then we had to learn that there is still a great deal of obedience to the old leaders. I will not doubt the emergence of a healthy instinct, but it will only emerge when those speakers no longer appear before the masses who, without sufficiently penetrating the matter, simply talk and prevent the masses from from taking further steps, but on the contrary, lead them back to their old obedience and to dubious ideas, by saying again and again: “Go ahead and form works councils; they will only fragment again. If what we have been striving for had really been achieved, we would not have fragmentation, but a unified organization of economic concerns within the works council into the future, at least for Württemberg. This would then have a motivating effect on others and could have an impact beyond this economic area.
Rudolf Steiner: That is a snake that bites its own tail. Do you think it is said on the one hand: We can transfer the means of production into the general public. Well, a really concrete body that would represent this generality would be the works councils. But such a body must first be created, it is not there! Certainly, the great mass is weakened by hunger. But should we wait for manna to fall from heaven so that bread can be socialized? This is a snake that bites its own tail. We must, of course, strive for both at the same time, and we will achieve nothing if we do not all work together, because the manna will not just fall from the sky. There is work to be done! We will all have to work, but we will only really want to work if we see what comes out of that work. We will work even with weakened muscles, with hungry stomachs, when we know that tomorrow our work will lead to a result. – But if we are always told that it should be socialized, then we will not be able to work even with an empty stomach, because we know that we will not be full tomorrow if we do not work with practical ideas. So today it is important that we engage with this and also say: Well, the old society was chased away in droves on November 9 [...] The previous speaker, who said very good things in general, then described very well what happened then. I do not want to examine now how much of what happened there can be attributed to incompetence. I attribute more to the incompetence of those in power today than to their ill will. Because of this incompetence, what should actually be overcome keeps coming to the fore. This must be avoided. Whether or not this society, which was discussed today, is chased away with or without violence, is another question. But those who take its place must know what they want. That alone is practical. And that is the aim of the 'Federation for the Threefold Social Organism': to ensure that November 9th is not repeated and that in a few months' time we do not have to say: 'Now you see, now we have a different regime in economic life, but it is doing exactly the same thing as the previous one'. This must be prevented. But it can only be prevented by setting up a works council and then showing that things are done differently under the new regime. Of course, if no people can be found among the working population, among the employees, who really know how to work, then one would indeed have to despair. But that is not the only thing. It is essential that new forms of socialization then become visible. After all, people are all accustomed to working in some way under the old regime. Therefore, now that power has been gained, those who have gained it must really recognize how to deal with that power. So, it's a matter of really taking a practical approach for once. And the sad thing is that there is no understanding of such a practical approach today, and people keep coming up with old phrases. Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that the transfer of the means of production and the land into the community is a phrase as such. That is not what I said. But a phrase, what is a phrase? Something is a phrase for one person because he cannot see anything special behind the words, while for another it is a deep golden truth because he sees something concrete behind it. When, for example, Bethmann-Hohlkopf, I mean Bethmann-Hollweg, says, “Free rein to the efficient!” it is a mere phrase, because he may understand it to mean that, for example, his nephew or someone else is the most efficient. But when someone who has real social insight and a real sense of humanity says, “Free rein to the efficient!” it is not a mere phrase, it is real. If someone simply repeats the old party line about the socialization of the means of production, then it can be a mere catchphrase. But when someone characterizes it as it is in my book, then it is not a catchphrase, then it is an expression of a reality. Therefore, you do not have to believe that when I call something a phrase, it is meant to be absolute. I mean, it is a phrase when there is not the necessary reality behind what has been said. That is what I wanted to say.
Rudolf Steiner: The question has been raised: How can what is healthy in syndicalism be related to the threefold social organism? - Well, it would of course be taking us very far if we were to talk about the essence of syndicalism today at this late hour. But I would like to say that there is much that is genuinely healthy in syndicalism, as there is in other contemporary endeavors. Above all, the healthy aspect of syndicalism is that many syndicalists are dominated by the idea that, regardless of the eternal insistence on the rule of law in the state, economic gains for the broad masses of the working population must be achieved in direct competition with entrepreneurship. The idea that something for the future can arise out of economic life itself through a kind of federal structure lives as a healthy thought within syndicalism. Syndicalism has emerged particularly in recent times within the French labor movement, and it is somehow significant that it has emerged most strongly there. The French have a very strong sense of state. But just at the moment when people in France who were well-disposed towards the state wanted to found a particular labor movement, they came to the conclusion that this could only be useful if it operated exclusively on an economic basis. The federative structure of economic life, as envisaged by syndicalism, even shows certain similarities to what is sought through the associations based on the idea of threefolding. You see, in the threefold social organism we have an independent spiritual life, then an independent state or legal life, and further an independent economic life. This independent economic life, as I have often said, will have to be built on corporate cooperative foundations, that is to say, associations will be formed on the one hand from the various occupational groups and on the other hand from certain connections between production and consumption. One of the objections raised, for example, by Professor Heck in the Tribüne is based on the fact that he says: Yes, but how will it be possible, for example, for craftsmen and small traders to be knowledgeable about the concerns of big industry if economic life is to be structured in the future as Dr. Steiner wants? Well, this shows that Professor Heck has not understood what is meant either. Of course, one cannot be knowledgeable in all fields, nor is it necessary, because if a federal structure is really established and the individual associations work together intensively, something fruitful for economic life will come of it. It is simply not possible for everything that must develop on a purely democratic basis, such as labor law, to be represented or administered in the same way as purely economic matters. This view is also encountered, at least to some extent, in syndicalism. In the Anglo-American labor movement, the principle of Anglo-American parliamentarism still prevails very strongly. Since this is based on a certain system of counterweights, namely power against power, the Anglo-American labor organizations are also aligned according to the same principle, namely, labor power against corporate power is played off against each other, just as the liberal and conservative parties face each other in parliament. We encounter a different form within the labor organizations in Germany. There is a certain centralism, I might even say a certain military system, based on command and obedience. I don't know if you will entirely agree with this, but I can assure you that I have attended several trade union meetings and that I was always unpleasantly affected by the fact that whenever different opinions arose, the chairman of the meeting stood up and said: Children, it's no use! — So, this centralized-military system is the second; and the third is what is meant by the federal structure, by the structure of independent bodies, in which there will be no majorization or centralization, but objective negotiation. In syndicalism, this appears as a good impulse, but here too a further step is necessary, as is aimed at with the idea of the threefold social organism, namely that the progressive factors that have yet to enter into the thinking of contemporary humanity are actually taken into account. And here I believe that an understanding of this may perhaps develop from syndicalism itself. But this should not be understood as if I were only singing the praises of syndicalism. However, I do believe that threefolding can be better understood from this side than from any of the other directions. Now, I have little to add to what the last speakers have said. I would just like to make one comment, namely that I and the friends of threefolding have recently become very aware of what one speaker said about the apathy of the masses. Yes, in the place of the phlegm, one would need fire, because if we really want to make progress in this day and age, we need not only insight – this, of course, in the first place – but also fire. You see, when it is constantly being said that the spirit is not really needed, that it will come with economic transformation, then I ask you: Yes, the possibility of moving forward was there to a certain extent. On November 9, the National Assembly was elected. But is there any sign of a new spirit in this National Assembly? There was now a whole new group of voters who had not previously been entitled to vote: women. But it is strange that the spirit has obviously not yet descended on these women either, because the National Assembly shows absolutely nothing of what we really need for the future. But for that, enthusiasm and fire will be needed. In this context, I ask you whether it is not rather short-sighted to refuse to see that a certain socialization has already begun – and this before the official socialization? Do we want socialization only on paper? Is that what it takes to satisfy you? Imagine if the commercial counsellor who devoted himself to the threefold order had done so like the other commercial counsellors. Then it would have come about that at the moment when socialization was to take place, there would have been no commercial counsellor at all! It would have come about that at some point this Kommerzienrat would have been expropriated like other Kommerzienräte, and then there would have been no more money for real socialization or better schools and the like. And now I ask you: Is it a great sin for someone to take money from another before humanity is ready, to give his money for socialization? Is it a sin if someone does not always trumpet the message that the means of production must be handed over to the general public, but does it of his own accord? I fear that those who always trumpet the phrase that the means of production must be put at the service of the general public will not apply it as sensibly as those who do something out of their own insight beforehand. This is socialization before the official socialization. This is worked out from the spirit that we are currently longing for as the social spirit of the future. And to raise the accusation that someone has the social spirit before, that is, before he is in any constitution, means not being able at all to penetrate into the spirit that can only save humanity, but only shows the longing for the written word. The law you give, you can confidently carry home. We need the spirit out of which socialization is done. Therefore, one should not fall into the trap of saying: The Waldorf School is nice, but it is done by a commercial counselor; we don't want to know anything about that! It would be wiser to say: Take him as an example, and as socializers in the future become like him, then it will be good. The things that are constantly being said from this corner against titles and the like only testify that, despite everything, one clings to words and phrases more than to action. And until we can bring ourselves to act and to acknowledge the deed, no matter where it comes from, we will not move forward; we must be convinced of this. And when we are convinced of this, then we will look only at whether someone is a reasonable person inspired by social feelings, and we will not ask about anything else. As long as we ask about something else, we will not move forward. If this does not become clear, all talk is in vain. Because the beginning must be made by those people who understand something of what is to happen, regardless of whether they play this or that role in the present order. All of us who live today, whether capitalists or laborers, naturally have what we live on out of capitalism. And we cannot change anything if we do not look to what lives in the spirit and must come about out of the spirit. We must finally overcome the phrase, we must move on to what can really become action.
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| 331. Work Councils and Socialization: Meeting for the Formation of the Preparatory Württemberg Works Council
23 Jul 1919, Stuttgart Rudolf Steiner |
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| This works council is therefore a body in which everyone has absolutely equal rights and should count for as much as they understand in economic life in their field. So these works councils emerge from the individual branches of production. |
| Professor Heck, who has said many foolish things, is mainly afraid that if such a form of administration is established in the economic parliament – but there will not be one, there will only be an economic central council – the small tradesman will not understand the big industrialist, the agricultural worker will not understand the scientist. Yes, but such a situation will not arise in the first place because the associations that arise in economic life will join together in a chain and will be properly negotiated from association to association. |
| And I believe that you are now at the stage where you will understand that the way it has been presented here is the only way to create a proper basis for socialization. |
| 331. Work Councils and Socialization: Meeting for the Formation of the Preparatory Württemberg Works Council
23 Jul 1919, Stuttgart Rudolf Steiner |
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Introductory words by Rudolf Steiner Dear attendees, Today, as we have the aforementioned agenda before us, it will be of some importance that we once again fully clarify what is actually meant by a works council in terms of the threefold social order. First of all, we hold to the view that, in the way we are now approaching the setting up of the workers' council, we are striving above all to initiate the actual beginning of a real socialization with this workers' council. When one hears people speak of socialization today, one always gets the feeling that they do not really know what they want with socialization. Most people understand socialization to mean nothing more than the nationalization of existing businesses, existing branches of production, and so on. You know that the threefold social order is about clearly separating the three areas of human social life, so that in the future we will have the overall administration of spiritual life, preferably of education and teaching, as a member of the threefold social organism. Administration will only be carried out by those organs that are part of this spiritual life, in fact by the spiritual life itself. Thus, on the part of those personalities who will be involved in the spiritual life, the bodies will be organized that have to administer the spiritual life. Secondly, there will be the actual state, the political body, which is to be built on a completely democratic basis, so that everything that is to be regulated democratically belongs to the sphere of this second link in the social organism. The third link would be economic life. In this economic life, only economic activity is to be carried out. That is why I have often had to explain that actual legal issues should not be decided within this economic administration. These actual legal issues should be decided within the democratic life of the state. For example, labor law is to be decided within the democratic life of the state; the length of working hours and other rights that one working person has over another working person are to be decided. Everything that relates to such rights is to be regulated on a democratic basis in a kind of parliament, or whatever you want to call it, that emerges from universal suffrage. Economic life is separate from this, and is supposed to be managed entirely by itself, in which it is merely to be managed. And on the basis of this economic life, we are now trying, I would like to say, to set up a kind of works council, as a kind of transitional measure. How do we do that? We have already begun, and some of the members of the works council are already present today. We are proceeding in such a way that first a certain number of members of the works council are elected from the individual enterprises. Who can be elected to the works council? Anyone who is a manual or mental worker can be elected to the works council, and also, since we are in a transitional period, if they join the ranks, the former entrepreneur or the management of an enterprise. It should be noted here, however, that no one has a privilege, so that even an entrepreneur who is elected to the works council joins the other works councils. This works council is therefore a body in which everyone has absolutely equal rights and should count for as much as they understand in economic life in their field. So these works councils emerge from the individual branches of production. But we will only have something fruitful for the reorganization of economic life when we have many more works councils than we have now. Today we only have a small number of works councils, and hopefully after today's meeting they will work in such a way that a works council system will gradually come about. So, as I said, we initially have a small number of works councils. These works councils have emerged from individual companies. What we really need is for works councils to be formed from all companies in a self-contained economic area, that is, initially in a provisionally closed economic area, let's say Württemberg. You see, for the kind of works council that we have to think of, you need works councils from all companies, from all sectors. These works councils then form the works council for a self-contained economic area. And socialization should begin by establishing such a body over a self-contained economic area, with the aim of placing itself on a firm footing in the sense of rebuilding economic life. That is to say, this body should feel that it is the leading economic entity in the area concerned. It should feel that it is the real source of the management of all types of businesses in this economic area. This council should therefore see as its ideal a future in which no individual entrepreneur is responsible for the individual businesses, but rather that everything that is done in the businesses is done, so to speak, on behalf of this body, this original assembly of the council. If we keep this firmly in mind, we will have created for the first time what the demands of the social parties have always, more or less consciously, been striving for. The demands of the parties are usually formulated negatively, for example when one speaks of the abolition of capital and so on. Yes, but little is achieved by abolishing. By abolishing, all we do is gradually disintegrate our economic life! But how the tripartite social organism should work is precisely the opposite: it should build up. But to build up, one needs a constructive body. Whether the works councils are elected or delegated in this or that way in the future is a question that must be decided within the works council itself. Today, we have the task of establishing the works council in the only possible way for the time being, namely through elections in the individual companies. The point is that one step must be taken before further steps can be taken. When the works councils have been elected – smaller companies can, of course, join together for the purpose of the election – then their first task is to create what could be called a complete overview of the entire economy in the self-contained economic area in question. This then means that the first tasks for the works councils will arise from this. These works councils – perhaps five in one company, three in another, and so on – form, so to speak, the atoms of the works council body. This body should already be prepared by the first task. So let us assume that company A has elected its five works councils. These five works councils would now initially have the task of drawing up a kind of inventory of the entire economic operation for their company. This inventory would then have to be brought to the first assembly of the works council. So you would have to know how much capital is in the respective company, how it has worked so far, and so on. You would also have to know what business connections exist in terms of the utilization of products, the procurement of raw materials, and in general with the outside world. At the same time, one would have to ensure that the best possible cooperation is established in the individual companies. Gradually, one would also know which entrepreneurs support the cause and which do not, because in the companies where the entrepreneur refuses to cooperate, the works councils would be prevented from being able to obtain information about the company, or these works councils can only come to the original meeting with as much information as is possible. On the basis of the information that the individual works councils can present from their respective companies, an overview of the economic life of the economic area concerned would first have to be created in the primary assembly. This is the first thing that is needed. Then one can approach the actual tasks. Here, one must first take into account the fact that the structure of the tripartite social organism differs significantly from what is thought within, for example, the parties about the continuation of economic, political and intellectual life. The task at hand must therefore be regarded as an eminently economic one, that is to say, on the basis of what has been obtained as provisional material, what must first be determined is that which leads to a real stipulation of normal prices for the various goods produced. That is the first task in the course of future socialization, that we find out how much, according to the economic situation, for example, a pair of boots, a skirt and so on, may cost. I have often mentioned the basis for the price regulation in my lectures. Accordingly, in the future, each person will receive enough for what he produces himself to be able to satisfy his needs until he has produced an equivalent service. In other words, someone produces a pair of boots – the following also applies to services that cannot be clearly defined – and these boots should have a value comparable to that of other goods, so that what I get for the boots can serve to satisfy my needs until a new pair of boots is finished. That is what the individual price ranges stipulate. Of course, everything that has to be raised for the education of children, for the disabled, for widows and for those unable to work must also be included. The correct price emerges from all this. Setting this is the first act. But this is a very large task. The work of the workers' councils, if it is not to end in wrangling over empty phrases, must begin with the determination of price levels for what is produced, otherwise we will never be able to achieve true socialization. It is self-deception to believe that by setting wages from other bases we will achieve true socialization. That is simply nonsense, because you can increase wages at will according to the principles by which they have been paid so far. You can even double the amount you receive in wage increases, and this will be offset by the fact that housing and food will become more expensive again if you do not have a natural standard for pricing that arises from the economy itself. Once this standard for pricing has been found – the works council will have a few weeks to deal with it – then we will have to move on to finding fair prices. This will then create a basis for what is to be created in the future, and we will know what we can count on. Then the so-called labor contract used up to now can be replaced by a distribution contract between the spiritual and physical workers. Of course, the present employers, with their experience, can also become spiritual workers when they join. Essentially, the contract will be concluded in such a way that it is based on the joint work of the manual and spiritual workers; nothing else comes into consideration. They work together on some product, and this product has a certain price. Taking into account the respective circumstances and possibilities, this price must now be distributed between the spiritual leaders and the workers by contract. So it is no longer a matter of paying the worker somehow, but rather, if one produces goods or manages the production of goods, then one receives the corresponding share according to the distribution contract. This can only be done when everything that is labor law has been established. Now, of course, with the works council, one can only create economic institutions in the sense of the threefold social order. In the future, however, alongside the economic organization, which is primarily concerned with the fair determination of prices, there will be the parliament of rights, in which every person will find the opportunity to determine his or her relationship to other people. Of course, what happens in the legal parliament is not without effect on economic life. Those who now have to run a business in economic life will have to run it in such a way that they observe what is determined in the legal parliament on the basis of democratic principles regarding the value of work and working hours. You can read about what intellectual work is, and how the administration of the means of production will essentially be assigned to the intellectual members of the social organism in the future, in my book “The Core of the Social Question”. However, it is still the case today that those who have so far held the intellectual share of the work have been left behind, that is, they do not want to engage with these matters; therefore, we cannot achieve anything in this field yet. But we have to create the system of works councils on the assumption that in the future there will not only be a right-wing parliament, but also a free administration of intellectual life. The spiritual leaders of the companies will also emerge from this intellectual life, and they will also have a say in the appointment of the works councils, so that the judgment of the spiritual leaders is also taken into account in the works council. This is not yet being considered, but we must remember that it will be considered later. So it is important that this second task is also solved, that is, that a regulation on price relations is found in a general assembly in which all works councils come together. The first task is to be solved by the works councils within the respective company, that is, to inform themselves and take a kind of inventory of what is happening in the company. Many issues will arise that need to be addressed, such as legal questions, questions of operational disposition, and the like. And it will very soon become clear that the works councils and the council of works councils that is then formed will represent the social force from which socialization will then emerge. But the works councils alone will not be able to carry out comprehensive socialization. Above all, there will also have to be transport and economic councils, which will then also be given their tasks. The constituent assembly of the works council will show what steps need to be taken to organize proper administration, proper circulation of goods, the purchase of raw materials, and so on. So various types of councils will have to be formed, but above all the three councils mentioned. The assembly of the works council can then decide on the details. Now, when the works council has fulfilled its initial tasks, it can begin to work out something that the state, which has developed out of the old state and which we now call the 'socialist republic', is currently unjustifiably trying to achieve: the law on works councils. The tripartite social organism would not want a works council law like the one the state has so far proposed, because economic institutions have nothing to do with legal institutions. The legal institutions belong to the continuation of the former state. Economic life has to stand on its own. In today's Abendblatt, it is shown how the current – let us say – 'socialist republic' appears to be working in the opposite direction. It is proposed that the goal should be an ever-closer interpenetration of state and economic life. That is the opposite of what is aimed at with the threefold social order. This interpenetration of state and economic life is precisely what is to be avoided! Economic life in itself and state life in itself, each should administer itself, that is the goal. And in state life only that should be administered that can be administered on a democratic basis, that on which every responsible person can decide. But not every adult can simply decide what is the best way to transport this or that product from one place to another; this requires expertise. And only the people from the respective economic sectors themselves have this expertise. Therefore, the entire economic life must be based on expertise and at the same time have a certain federal structure. Professor Heck, who has said many foolish things, is mainly afraid that if such a form of administration is established in the economic parliament – but there will not be one, there will only be an economic central council – the small tradesman will not understand the big industrialist, the agricultural worker will not understand the scientist. Yes, but such a situation will not arise in the first place because the associations that arise in economic life will join together in a chain and will be properly negotiated from association to association. It is precisely such an objection that testifies that economic life cannot be administered in a democratic way, but only in a federal, associative way. Something can only come about through proper negotiations. So, let's say representatives of the shoe industry, the metal industry or the textile industry are sitting there, and they all have specialized knowledge of their respective fields. And the assembly is there to ensure that everyone gives their expert opinion on setting fair prices. It is quite a different matter when you listen to the various judgments and everyone asserts their demands, than when you simply vote democratically. This would achieve nothing more than certain economic sectors joining forces and outvoting the others. Then the minority would never be able to get their rights. Such a majority is excluded in the case of a constitution that arises from the factual context of economic life itself. Thus what is now to be brought about unjustifiably by the Works Councils Act presented by the state would only come about through the negotiations of the works council. I ask that this be noted as the most important thing, that the tripartite social organism rejects every state law in this context. You see, how this tripartite social organism comes about in detail is not so essential now. We must make a clear distinction in this area between sophistry or phraseology and reality. If you say, as I have always said, that the former state should not continue, but only its middle link should continue, so that the government that takes over the previous state constitutes itself as a liquidation government and is only responsible for public security, hygiene, legal life and the like, then the economic life and the intellectual life remain separate. But if it should turn out that the existing state has already interfered so much in the economy that the existing representatives cannot imagine giving up economic life, it can also happen differently, namely that the existing state says to itself: All right, I will continue to run my affairs as an economic administration, but I will leave out everything that is democratic; the legal and spiritual state should be established alongside me. Then, of course, it would be necessary to throw out all the apparent democracy from this economic administration. That would also mean that, for example, in Germany the National Assembly could no longer function as it has done so far, because the democratic has nothing to do with economic life. So, things can be done either way. In any case, in the future the three elements must coexist. Then, in turn, the constituent assembly of the Württemberg works councils must produce all the necessary regulations with regard to the tasks and functions of the works councils. The works councils then take what has been decided at this original assembly into their respective companies. These people, who are now returning to the companies, act on behalf of the entire works council within their companies. They do not act on behalf of any individual entrepreneur, but feel that they are the representatives of the entire works council of a self-contained economic area. They manage the company according to these principles. Now, it may well prove to be best for a great many businesses during the transition period to keep the old management, but now as a member of the works council, for the time being, in order to avoid sabotage or making the mistakes that were made in Russia. If the present management is not willing to accept that the works council is the real manager of the company, then of course the management in question, that is, the present management, would have to resign. Then the works council would have to take over the entire management of the company. It is, after all, really taking it over, but it will have great difficulties without the involvement of the former management, since it must act expeditiously. But it could also happen, and this would be a further step towards socialization, that each individual company no longer has its own management, but that the management works on behalf of the economic entity of the entire economic area. But above all, care must be taken here – and this should be considered when drawing up the constitution – to ensure that the initiative is not undermined in any way. But the works council should not be structured in the way it is still being thought of today, because some of the proposals, if they were implemented, would lead to something monstrous. Just think that there are even proposals such as: in the future, there must be technical control, economic control and political control in every company. — There are probably even five or six such controls planned in total. The underlying assumption seems to be that everyone is actually a dishonest, a bad guy and therefore must be controlled. If this system of five- to six-fold control is implemented, you will produce nothing at all in the future, because this control system is built in the most eminent sense of mistrust. But if you want to build on it in the future economic life, then you will not move forward. You will only make progress if you build on trust, and this can be built on if the rational operation coincides with the egoism of the individual, so that everyone knows in the future that his work will be best served by the best manager being there. And through this system, the best manager can be delegated. Ordinary voting will gradually change into a kind of delegation. It will be in everyone's interest that the person with the greatest expertise is in charge. This system will reveal who the best leader is, and even those who cannot lead themselves will know it. This system opens up possibilities other than mere democratic voting or a council system, as people imagine it today. Because both would only lead to informers, to pushiness, and in both the worker would not fare better than he does today. The issue at hand is to establish economic life on an appropriate, not on a previous state basis. When the workers' councils return to their factories with mandates and the corresponding tasks, work can begin in the individual factories on a social basis. That would be the first practical step we want to take. The following must be implemented in practice: the election of workers' councils across individual industries. Then information must be provided about the economic situation of all industries. Following on from this, the workers' councils from the entire economic area would have to be convened. Furthermore, a constitution must be drafted on the basis of the factual circumstances. This constitution of the works council would be the beginning of real socialization. Until this happens, there can be no socialization, because the state cannot socialize through laws. Socialization can only come from within economic life itself. Today, people think that they can socialize this or that branch of the economy, such as the pharmacy system. That is, of course, pure nonsense; it is nothing more than state capitalization. A nice thing happened once. Soon after the founding of the socialist republic, a very clever gentleman gave a lecture on socialization in Berlin. First, he pointed out how impossible it would be to achieve socialization from the immediately given circumstances, that is, to achieve socialization as the socialist party had in mind as an ideal. Therefore, he said, we cannot arrive at real socialism today, nor tomorrow or the day after, but we must create a transition. And he characterized the transition he wants to create as follows: We must, he said, create a social capitalism between our present capitalist economic system and the future economic system. Well, that is nothing more than proof that one does not know how to begin socialization. But you cannot start before you first create a certain social structure, a society. How do you want to socialize if there is no such society, no social community? The inauguration of such a social community is precisely where the beginning should be made, by combining the works councils into such a society. They cannot socialize factories or branches of industry, only the whole. So they must base the whole thing on what can be extracted from society in terms of people, and then they must socialize with these people. So those who have been elected as works council members will be able to say that they have a great and important task, and it is they who have to provide the basis for future socialization. And I believe that you are now at the stage where you will understand that the way it has been presented here is the only way to create a proper basis for socialization. It is true that people have the most diverse and at the same time the strangest views about socialization. Yesterday, when I read someone a particular view on socialism, a special thought occurred to him. It was an article by Dr. Georg Wilhelm Schiele, which was headed with the following words: “On true, purified” - then came another epithet, which I will not read now - “socialism”. The article then said:
Now imagine what the ideal of this Dr. G.W. Schiele is!
Then the Lord continues:
The tone remains the same. Then he says:
When I read this to our friend Mr. Molt yesterday, he thought I was reading from a joke magazine. But it is not a joke magazine. It is the latest edition of the “Eisernen Blätter” (“Iron Leaves”), published by the Eisernen Blätter publishing house in Berlin. It is something completely serious; the entire issue is edited by D. Traub. That is the view of socialization held by a large number of people. But if something emerges that is not mere theory, but that extends as a works council over a large, self-contained economic area like Württemberg, and if there are, say, 800 people, not just a few as there are today, and if they join forces, it will be a revelation for the entire working class of Württemberg and thus for a large part of the population. That is not theory, that will be a force. But it is essential that this power is first really created, and that is why the 'Federation for the Threefold Social Organism' would very much like to see progress in the election of works councils, now that there is already a small base for the future works council. If this small base were to make it its business to ensure that works councils are elected everywhere, so that we – and this is so tremendously important – do not let the matter go sour, then we will make progress. You see, it is important that such a thing be done with the necessary speed today, otherwise it will turn sour. In public life, as in the case of certain dishes, things turn sour if they are not enjoyed at the right time. Public affairs should not be left to indifference and lack of interest. They must be carried out with a certain speed. Besides, the Americans and the English will not wait for our slow progress. If we do not get around to saying, by a certain point in the future, which cannot be too far away, “This is how we want to organize things, and we will create a management from those working in the economic sector . Then the Anglo-Americans will pour in funds and join forces with the capitalists still in existence, and they will then run the factories of Central Europe according to the principles of Anglo-American capitalism. Then you will be left empty-handed for a long time. Then you can toil for a new capitalism, which will be much more terrible than the old one. Then you will no longer be able to socialize anything, then you will have to wait until you are so strong that something similarly bloody to what has happened in the last five to six years will give you the opportunity to think of such things. The complete capitalization of the West is already well on its way. In Berlin, the people have issued the slogan: socialization is on the march! It is not on the march. It will only be on the march when the works council system has been established. But the full capitalization is definitely on the march, that is, the penetration of all enterprises in Central Europe by American and British capital. Therefore, what we can risk today does not tolerate a long period of disinterest, but it is important that we act quickly. And if we now succeed in keeping alive the interest that has already arisen here in the tripartite division of the social organism and that has been thwarted, and if we manage to get such a works council to act as a basis for socialization throughout Württemberg, then we will have set an example for our colleagues in the rest of Germany. What the works council is doing here will set an example, and when the others see it, they will follow suit. Make sure that you set up the works councils within two weeks, then hold a constituent assembly that draws up a constitution in a few weeks, which must be ready before the law is passed. But it would be really great for here if we could move forward with this example. That is what I wanted to remind you of today.
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| 332a. The Social Future: The Social Question as a Cultural Question, a Question of Equity, and a Question of Economics
24 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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| This was the case especially because the leading classes, while they watched the development of the modern economic life and familiarized themselves with it, did not understand how to bring intellectual and spiritual life into the growing complexity of the economic system. |
| Woodrow Wilson has clearly stated: “We carry on business under new conditions. We think and legislate for the economic life of the nation from a point of view long out of date, an antiquated standpoint. |
| The cultural life has become more and more one which does not evolve out of its own inner needs and does not follow its own impulses, but which, especially when it is under public administration, as in schools and educational institutions, receives the form most useful to the political authority. |
| 332a. The Social Future: The Social Question as a Cultural Question, a Question of Equity, and a Question of Economics
24 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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The social question should not be regarded as a mere party matter or as a problem resulting from the personal demands of a few individuals. It has arisen in the course of social evolution and belongs to the facts of history. One of these facts is the proletarian socialist movement which has been growing steadily for more than half a century. According to our own views of life or our circumstances, we may regard the conceptions coming to light in this socialist proletarian movement, either critically or approvingly. But whatever be our attitude towards it we can only accept it as an historic fact which must be dealt with as such. And whoever reflects on the terrible years of the so-called World-War, (World-War I) even though one may feel compelled to see causes and motives of different kinds for these horrors, must acknowledge that it is the social demands, the social contrasts which have to a great extent caused them. Especially now that we are at the end, at least for the present, of those terrible events, it must be clearly evident to everyone that over a great part of the civilized world the social question has sprung to life as a result of the World-War. If the social question has sprung to life as a result of the World War there is little doubt that it was already concealed within it. Now it will be impossible for anyone to judge this question rightly who regards it from his own narrow, often personal standpoint as is so frequently done to-day. No one who cannot widen his horizon to take in the events of human life as a whole is able to take an impartial view of the social question, and it is just that widening of our horizon which is aimed at in my book, The Threefold Commonwealth (Die Kernpunkte der Sozialen Frage). We must remember, too, that most people who speak on the social question to-day quite naturally regard it in the first place as a question of economics; it is even looked upon purely as a question of food, or, at best, as facts plainly demonstrate, as one of labor—a question of food and labor. If we are to regard this question merely in the light of a food and labor question, we must remember that the human being is supplied with bread because it is produced for him by the community at large, and that bread can only be produced by labor. But the manner in which that labor should and must be carried on depends in every respect upon the manner in which human society or any separate part of it, for instance a country, is organized. And to anyone who has acquired a wider outlook on life it will be clear that there can be no rise or fall in the price of a piece of bread without the occurrence of great, of immense changes in the whole structure of the social organism. To anyone who observes attentively the manner in which the individual worker plays his part in the social organism, it becomes evident that when a man works but a quarter of an hour more or less, this fact is expressed in the way in which the society of any economic region procures bread and money for the individual. You see from this, that even if we regard the social question merely as one of bread and labor, we at once enlarge our horizon, and it is of this wider horizon in its most varied aspects that I should like to speak to you in these six lectures. To-day, before going further, I should like to make a few introductory remarks. When we survey the later and very latest history of the evolution of the human race, we soon find confirmation of what has been so impressively stated by discriminating observers of social life; of course, this applies only to discriminating observers. There is a publication of the year 1910 which contains, it may be said, the best that has been written on this subject and which is the outcome of a real insight into social conditions. It is the work of Hartley Withers, Money and Credit, 1910. The author acknowledges pretty frankly that everyone who professes to deal with the social question at all at the present day should keep in mind that the manner in which credit, property, and money conditions figure in the social organism is so complicated as to have a bewildering effect. If we try logically to analyze the functions of credit, money, labor, etc., Withers tells us that it is an absolute impossibility to collect the material necessary to follow with understanding the things which arise within the social organism. What has been here stated with so much insight is confirmed by the whole volume of historical thought in modern times on the social problem, and especially on the social and economic cooperation of human beings. What, then, is really the conclusion at which we have arrived? Since the time when the economic life of a country ceased, as one might say, to have institutions of an instinctively patriarchal character, ever since the economic life began to assume a more complicated form, under the influence of modern technical science and modern capitalism, the necessity has been felt to consider the economic side of life scientifically, and to form such ideas with regard to it as are usually applied in scientific research or study. And we have seen how in modern times views have arisen regarding national, or political, economy, (Volkswirtschaft) as it is called, to which the words ‘mercantilistic’ or ‘physiocratic’ have been applied, views such as those of Adam Smith, etc., down to Marx, Engels, Blanc, Fourier, Saint-Simon, and on to the present day. What has come to light in the course of this national-economic thought? Let us look at the school of thought known as the mercantilistic, or at the physiocratic school of national economy, and let us examine what Ricardo, the teacher of Karl Marx, has contributed to the study of national economy. We may also examine what many other economists have said and we shall always find that these men turn their attention to one or another particular line of thought in the phenomena of economics. From this one-sided stand-point they endeavor to arrive at certain laws according to which the economic life of a nation can be molded. The result has always shown that laws which have thus been discovered, according to the methods of scientific thought, can be adapted to some facts of national economy, but that other facts are found to be too far-reaching for comprehension within these laws. It has always been demonstrated that the views of those who, in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and the beginning of the nineteenth century, claimed to have discovered laws, according to which, the economic life of a nation can be constituted, were one-sided. And then something extremely remarkable came to pass. It may be said that national, or political, economy has grown to the status of a science. It has taken its place among the sciences in our universities, and the whole armor of scientific thought has been brought to bear on the investigation of the economic aspect of social life. With what result? What is the answer of Roscher, of Wagner, or others, to this question? They have arrived at a consideration of economic laws in which they do not dare to formulate maxims or give expression to impulses capable of actually grappling with and forming the economic life. We might say that the role which national economy has taken is that of a contemplative spectator; it has retreated more or less before the activity of social life. It has not discovered laws capable of molding human life within the social organism. The very same thing is seen in another way. We have seen that men have arisen, large-hearted, benevolent, humanitarian, with fraternal feelings towards their fellow-men. We need only mention Fourier and Saint-Simon. There are others like them. Model forms of society have been thought out by these distinguished thinkers, the realization of which, they believe, would bring about desirable social conditions in human life. Now we know how those at the present day think concerning such social ideas who feel the social question to be one of vital importance. If we ask those who may be said to hold really modern socialistic views for their opinion of the social ideals of a Fourier, or a Louis Blanc, or a Saint-Simon, they would say: ‘These are Utopias, pictures of social life through which an appeal to the governing classes is made: if they would act in accordance with these pictures, many evils of social misery would disappear. But all such imaginary Utopias,’ it is said, ‘are wanting in the force needed to inspire the human will, they can never be anything but Utopias. However beautiful may be the theories put forward, human instincts—for instance, those of the wealthy classes—will never alter so as to put those theories into practice. Other forces are needed to bring that about.’ In short, an absolute unbelief has arisen in the social ideals born of feeling, sentiment and modern learning which have been presented to humanity. This again hangs together with the general course of events in the cultured life of humanity, as seen in the development of modern history. It has often been expressly stated that what we now recognize as the social question is connected in all essentials with the modern capitalistic organization of economic life, and this, again, in its present special form, is the outcome of the preponderance of modern technical science, and so forth. But there are many points to be considered in this connection and we shall never be able to deal with these unless we take into account that with the capitalist regime, and with the modern application of technical science, an entirely new attitude of mind has arisen among modern civilized humanity. This new conception of the world has produced great, epoch-making results, especially in the fields of technical and natural science. But there is another side to it, of which something must be said. Those of you who are acquainted with my books will not have failed to observe that I am ready to do full justice to, and in no wise deny or criticize unfavorably the discoveries of modern times through scientific methods of research. I fully recognize what has been done for the progress of humanity by the Copernican world-conception, by the science of Galileo, the widening of the horizon of mankind by Giordano Bruno, and much besides. But side by side with modern technical science, with modern capitalism, a gradual change has come about in the old world conception. The new conception of the world has taken on a decidedly intellectual, above all a scientific, character. It is true that some people find it hard to look facts straight in the face, but we need only recall the fact that the scientific world-conception which we now regard with pride has gradually developed, as we can show, out of old religious, artistic, aesthetic, moral conceptions of the world. These views possessed a certain impelling force applicable to life. One truth, especially, was peculiar to them all. They led man to the consciousness of the spirituality of his own nature. However we may regard those old views, we must agree that they spoke to man of the spirit, so that he felt within himself the living spiritual being as a part of the cosmic spiritual being pulsating throughout the world, weaving the web of the universe. In the place of this old conception, with its impelling social force, giving an impulse to life, another appeared, new and more scientific in its orientation. This new conception was concerned with more or less abstract laws of nature, and facts of the senses, outside man himself, abstract ideas and facts. Without detracting in the smallest degree from the value of natural science, we may ask: what does it bestow on humanity, especially what does it bestow on man in order to help him solve the riddle of his own existence? Natural science tells us much about the interdependence of the phenomena of nature, it reveals much regarding the physical constitution of the human being. But when it attempts to tell us anything about man's innermost being, science overreaches itself. It can give no answer to this question, and it shows ignorance of itself when it even attempts to answer it. I do not by any means wish to assert that the common consciousness of humanity already has its source in the teachings of modern science. But it is profoundly true that the scientific mode of thought itself proceeds from a certain definite attitude of the modern human soul. He who can penetrate below the surface of life knows that, since the middle of the fifteenth century, something in the attitude of the human soul has changed. when we compare it with former times, and is still changing more and more, and he also knows that the conception of the world which we find typically expressed in scientific thought has been diffused increasingly over the whole human race, first over the cities, then all over the land. It is, therefore, no mere achievement of theoretic natural science of which we are speaking, but an inner attitude of the soul which has gradually taken possession of humanity as a whole since the dawn of modern times. It is a significant coincidence that this scientific world-conception made its appearance at the same time as capitalism and modern technical culture. Men were called away from their old handiwork and placed at a machine, crowded together in a factory. The machine at which they stand, the factory in which they are crowded together with their fellows, these, governed only by mechanical laws, have nothing to give a man that has any direct relationship to himself as a man. Out of his old handicraft something flowed to him which gave answer to his query regarding human worth and human dignity. The dead machine gives no answer. Modern industrialism is like a mechanical network spun about the man, in the midst of which he stands; it has nothing to give him in which he can joyfully share, as did the work at his old handicraft. In this way an abyss opened between the industrial working-class and the employers of labor, between the capitalist and the working-man of modern times at his machine in the factory. The worker surrounded by machinery, could no longer rise to the old faith, the old world-conception with its impulse for life. He had broken away from it because he could not reconcile it with the actualities of life. He held to that, and to that only, which had become a part of modern thought, viz. the scientific conception of the world. And this scientific conception of the world, what was its effect on industrial working-men? It made them feel more and more strongly that what could be presented to them as a true world conception was mere thought, possessing only the reality of thought. Anyone who has lived among modern working-men and knows the direction taken by social feelings in later times also knows the meaning of a word which occurs repeatedly in proletarian socialist circles—the word ‘ideology.’ Under the influences which I have just described, intellectual life has come to be regarded by the modern working-classes as ideology. They look upon the natural-scientific view of the world as offering food for thoughts only. The old conception had not only thoughts to give; it gave them something which showed them that their own inmost being was one with the whole spiritual world, it confronted them, spirit with spirit. The modern conception had only thoughts to give and above all, it contained no answer to the question regarding man's real nature. It was felt to be ideology. In this way a division arose between the proletariat and the upper classes who had kept the ancient tradition of the time-honored world-conceptions of the aesthetic, artistic, religious, moral beliefs of former times. All this the upper classes retained for the satisfaction of their whole nature., while with their heads they accepted the scientific explanation of the world. The masses of the people, however, had no inclination for the old tradition or sympathy with it. For them the only reasonable conception of the world was the scientific, and this they accepted as ideology; it was to them a mere thought-structure. To them the economic life was the only reality-production, distribution of products, consumption, the manner of acquiring or bequeathing property, etc. Everything else in human life-equity, ethics, science, art, religion, these are all as vapor rising in the form of ideology out of the only reality: the economic life. Thus among the masses, intellectual and spiritual life came to be looked upon as ideology. This was the case especially because the leading classes, while they watched the development of the modern economic life and familiarized themselves with it, did not understand how to bring intellectual and spiritual life into the growing complexity of the economic system. They kept to the old tradition of the intellectual and spiritual life of former days. The masses of the people adopted the new cultural life, but it gave them no comfort or nourishment for heart and soul. A world-conception such as this, felt as an ideology which gives rise to the thought that justice, morality, religion, art, science, are a mere superstructure, a phantom hovering over the only reality, over the conditions of production, the economic order of things, may form a subject for thought, but it gives no support in life. However splendid a world-conception such as this may be in the contemplation of Nature, it leaves the human soul empty and cold. The fruits of the scientific conception of the world are showing themselves in the events of social life in our time. These social facts cannot be understood, if we only take into account the content of human consciousness. People may think consciously: “Why speak to us of the social question as being of a spiritual nature? The truth is that commodities are unevenly distributed. We want equal distribution.” People think like this with the brain. But in the unconscious depths of the soul something very different is stirring. In those depths is stirring that which develops unconsciously, because from the consciousness nothing can flow which could fill the soul with a real spiritual content, for from that source can come only what leaves it dead, only what is felt to be ideology. The emptiness of modern intellectual life is the first aspect of the social question which we have to recognize; the social question is in its first aspect a spiritual question. Since this is true, since an intellectual life has developed which, for instance, in the science of economics as taught in the universities, has reached a merely contemplative stage, and of itself does not evolve principles of social will; since it is true that the greatest philanthropists, such as Saint-Simon, Louis Blanc, Fourier, have conceived social ideas in which no one believes; since everything without exception that arises out of the mind is regarded as Utopian, that is, as mere ideology; since it is a historical fact that a life of thought prevails, which gives the impression of a mere superstructure on top of the economic actuality, which does not really penetrate to the facts and is therefore felt to be ideology—for this reason the social question must in its first aspect be treated as a spiritual-cultural question. One question, above all, stands out before us to-day in letters of flame. How must the human mind be changed, in order that it may learn to master the social question? We have seen that science has applied its best methods to the study of political economy, and that the result is mere observation without power to reach the social will. On the soil of modern intellectual life a type of mind has arisen, powerless to develop national economy as a groundwork for practical social will. How must the mind be constituted from which a kind of national economy can proceed, capable of forming the groundwork of a truly social will? We have seen that the great majority of people, when they hear of the social ideals of well-meaning philanthropists, exclaim ‘Utopia!’ and they cannot believe that the human intelligence is strong enough to master social facts. How must the cultural life of a nation be constituted in order that people may learn again to believe that the mind can grasp ideas capable of creating social institutions which will remove certain evils of social life? We have seen that the scientific view of the world is regarded in wide circles as ideology. But ideology alone empties the soul, and generates in its subconscious depths all that we now observe in the bewildering chaotic facts of the social problem. What new form can we give to cultural life, so that it may cease to appear as ideology, so that it may fill the human soul with strength enabling men to work side by side with their fellowmen in a really social manner? We thus see why the social question must be called a cultural question, we see that the modern intellect has not been able to inspire faith in itself, that it has not been able to fill the soul with a satisfying content, but that, on the contrary, as ideology it has desolated the souls of men. In this introduction, treating the subject historically, I should like to show how out of the circumstances of modern life, the social question must he felt in its three aspects as cultural, legal-political, and economic. Take, for example, what was said not long ago and has often been repeated by a personage actively concerned in the political life, in the statesmanship of our day, himself a product of the intellectual life of the present day. With a deep feeling for the social conditions of America in their development since the War of Secession in the sixties of last century, Woodrow Wilson perceived the relationship between the political and legal conditions and those of the economic life. With a considerable amount of unbiased judgment he watched how the great accumulations of capital have grown in consequence of the complication of modern economic life. He saw the formation of trusts and of the great financial companies. He saw how, even in a democratic state, the principle of democracy has tended more and more to disappear before the secret operations of those companies whose interest was served by secrecy, those companies which with their massed capital acquired great power and obtained influence over enormous numbers of people. He always used his eloquence on the side of freedom in face of the growth of power arising out of economic conditions. He knew from a sentiment of true humanity—this must be said how every single human being has an influence upon the facts of social life, how the social life of the community depends upon the manner in which each individual matures for the duties of social life. He showed how important it is for the health of the social body that in the breast of every human being a freedom-loving heart should beat. He pointed out over and over again that political life must become democratic, that power and the means of power must be taken away from the various trusts, that the individual capacities and powers of every human being who possesses such must have free access to the economic, social and political life as a whole. He emphatically declared that his own Government, which he evidently regarded as the most advanced, was suffering from the prevailing conditions. Why was this? Because the economic conditions were there:—great accumulations of capital, development of economic power, surpassing everything in this domain that had ever existed, even a short time ago. Perfectly new forms of human social life had been brought about by economic changes. An altogether new form of economic life had suddenly been brought into being. These views are not the outcome of any leaning towards a theory of my own; they are the words of this statesman, one may say of this ‘world statesman.’ He has declared that the fundamental evil of modern development lies in the fact that, notwithstanding the progress in economic matters, the latter have been controlled by the secret machinations of certain persons, and the idea of justice, of the political life of the community, has not kept pace with economic progress, but has lingered behind at an earlier stage. Woodrow Wilson has clearly stated: “We carry on business under new conditions. We think and legislate for the economic life of the nation from a point of view long out of date, an antiquated standpoint. Nothing new has been developed in our political life, in our laws. These have stood still. We live in an entirely new economic order, while retaining the out-of-date legal and political ideas.” These are the words, or nearly so, spoken by Woodrow Wilson himself. In earnest words he demands that the individual shall work for the benefit of the community, not for his own. He points out that, as long as the incongruity between the political and the economic life continues to exist, the requirements of human evolution at the present epoch in history cannot be satisfied, and he subjects the life of society around him to a severe criticism. I have taken great pains to examine Woodrow Wilson's criticism of modern social conditions, especially those he has in view, the American, and to compare it with other criticisms. (I am going to say something very paradoxical, but present conditions often urgently demand a paradox, in order to do justice to the realities of our day.) I have tried both as to the outer form and the inner impulses to compare Woodrow Wilson's criticism of society, in the first place as criticism, with that exercised by advanced thinkers and those holding radical, social democratic opinions. Indeed, one may even extend this comparison to the opinions of the most extreme radicals of the Socialist Party in thought and action. If we go no further than the opinions of such men, it may be said that Woodrow Wilson's criticism of the present social order agrees almost word for word with the sentiments expressed even by Lenin and Trotsky, the gravediggers of modern civilization, of whom it may be said that, if their rule continues too long, even in a few places, it will signify the death of modern civilization and must of necessity lead to the destruction of all the attainments of modern civilization. In spite of this we must give expression to the paradox: Woodrow Wilson, who certainly imagined a very different reconstruction of social conditions from that of these destroyers of society, directs almost literally the same criticism against the present order as these others, and he comes to the same conclusion that legal and political conceptions in their present form are obsolete, and are no longer fitted to deal with the economic system. And, strange to say, when we try to find something positive and to test what Woodrow Wilson has produced in order to construct a new social organism, we find hardly any answer, only a few measures here and there, which have even been proposed elsewhere by someone much less scathing in his criticism. But he gives no answer to the question relative to the changes necessary in legal matters, in political conceptions and impulses, in order that these may control the demands of modern economic life and render it possible for them to intervene in its activities. Here we find that out of modern life itself emerges the second aspect of the social question, that of law and equity. A foundation must first be sought for the necessary legal and political conditions for the State which must exist in order to be able to grapple with and dominate modern economic organizations. We ask: how can we attain to a state of rights, to political impulses, which can meet the great demands of the problem? This is the second aspect of the social question. If we contemplate life itself we shall find that the social life of man is threefold. Three aspects are clearly distinguished in him when we consider him as a member of human society. If he is to contribute his share, as he certainly must, to the well-being of the social order in modern society, if he is to add to the welfare of the community by cooperation, in the production of values, of commodities, he must first of all possess individual capacity, individual talent, ability. In the second place, he must be able to live at peace with his fellow-men and to work harmoniously with them. Thirdly, he must be able to find his proper place, from which he can further the interests of the community by his work, by his activity, by his achievements. With respect to the first of these the individual is dependent on human society for the development of his capacities and talents, for the training of his intellect, so that the educated intelligence in him may become at the same time his guide in his physical work. For the second, the individual is dependent on the existence of a social edifice in which he can live in peace and harmony with his fellow-men. The first has to do with the cultural side of life. In the following lectures we shall see the dependence of the intellectual life on the first aspect. The second leads us into the domain of equity, and this can only develop in accordance with its own nature, if a social structure has been established which enables people to work together peacefully and labor for one another. And the economic aspect, this modern economic organization is compared, as I have described it, by Woodrow Wilson to a man who has outgrown his clothes, so that his limbs protrude on all sides. These outgrown garments represent to Woodrow Wilson the old legal and political conceptions which the economic body has long since outgrown. The growth of the economic organization beyond the old cultural and political organizations was always strongly felt by socialist thinkers, and we need only look at one thing in order to find the forces at work there. As we know (we shall go into all these matters more minutely afterwards), the modern proletariat is completely under the influence of Marxism, as it is called. Marxism, or the Marxist doctrine of the conversion of the private ownership of means of production into public ownership, has been much modified by followers and opponents of Karl Marx, but Marxism has, nevertheless, a strong influence on the minds, the views of life, of great masses of people at the present day, and it shows itself distinctly in the chaotic social events of our time. If we take up the undoubtedly remarkable and interesting little book by Friedrich Engels, the friend and collaborator of Karl Marx, Socialism in its Evolution from Utopia to Science, and acquaint ourselves with the whole train of thought in this book, we shall see how a socialist thinker regards economics in its relationship to the political and cultural life of modern times. We must fully understand one sentence, for instance, which occurs in a summary in Engels's little book: ‘In future there must be no more governments over men, over individuals, but only leadership by the branches of economic life and control of production.’ These are weighty words. They mean that the holders of such views desire that something in the economic life should cease, something which, following the modern evolutionary impulses, has become a part of the economic life. The economic aspect of life has to a great extent over-spread everything, because it has outgrown both political and cultural life, and it has acted like a suggestion on the thoughts, feelings, also on the passions of men. And thus it becomes ever more evident that the manner in which the business of a nation is carried on determines, in reality, the cultural and political life of the people. It becomes ever more evident that the commercial and industrial magnates, by their position alone, have acquired the monopoly of culture. The economically weak remain the uneducated. A certain connection has become apparent between the economic and the cultural, and between the cultural and the political organization. The cultural life has become more and more one which does not evolve out of its own inner needs and does not follow its own impulses, but which, especially when it is under public administration, as in schools and educational institutions, receives the form most useful to the political authority. The human being can no longer be judged according to his capacities; he can no longer be developed as his inborn talents demand. But it is asked: ‘What does the State want? What talents are needed for business? How many men are wanted with a particular training?’ The teaching, the schools, the examinations are all directed to this end. The cultural life cannot follow its own laws of development; it is adapted to the political and the economic life. The immediate effect of this tendency, which we have seen especially of late, has been to make the economic system dependent on the political system. Men like Marx and Engels saw this union of economics, politics, and culture; they saw that the new economic life was no longer compatible with the old political form, nor with the old form of culture. They came to the conclusion that the life of rights, the old life of rights, and the cultural life must be excluded from the economic life. But they were led into a singular error of judgment, of which we shall have much to say in. these lectures. They regarded the economic life, which they could see with their own eyes, as. the sole reality. The cultural life and the life of equity they saw as ideology, and they believed that the economic life could bring forth out of itself the new political, and the new cultural conditions. So the belief arose—the most fatal of errors—that the economic system must be carried on in a definitely ordered manner. If this were done, they thought, then out of that economic system the cultural life, laws, state-life and politics must come of themselves. How was it possible for this error of judgment to arise? Only because the real structure of human economy, actual labor in the economic system, was concealed behind what is usually called finance. The financial system made its appearance in Europe as an accompaniment of certain events. If we look more deeply into history we shall see that about the time when the Reformation and the Renaissance brought a new spirit into European civilization, treasures of gold and silver were opened up in America, and caused an influx of gold and silver, especially from Central and South America, into Europe. What was formerly an exchange of natural products was gradually replaced by the financial system. The natural system of economics could be directed to that which the soil yielded, that is to say, to actuality. Under this system the capacity of the individual with his productive powers could be taken into account; that is, his value as a worker and that of the actual substance of the commodity could be seen in proper relationship. We shall see in these lectures how, with the circulation of money, the importance attached to the essential elements in economics gradually disappeared; with the substitution of finance for the system of natural economy, a veil has, as it were, been drawn over the whole economic life; its actual requirements could no longer be perceived. With what does the economic system provide us? With commodities for our consumption. We need not pause to-day to distinguish between mental and physical commodities, for the former may also be included in the economic system and used for human consumption. The economic system, then, provides commodities and these commodities are values, because the individual needs them, because he desires them. The individual must attach a certain value to a commodity, and in this way the latter acquires an objective value within the social body, and this value is closely connected with the subjective valuation resulting from the individual's private judgment. But how is the value of commodities expressed which may be said to represent the importance of these commodities in the social and economic life? It is expressed by the price. We shall have more to say later about value and price; to-day I will only say that in economic intercourse, indeed, in social intercourse generally, in so far as the buying and selling of products is concerned, the value of the products for the consumer is expressed by the price. It is a great error to confound the value of commodities with the money price, and people will find out by degrees, not by theoretical deliberations, but in practice, that the value of commodities produced by the economic body and that which is the result of human, subjective judgment, or of certain social and political conditions, is very different from all that is expressed in the price and in the conditions created by money. But the value of commodities has been concealed in recent times by the conditions governing prices. This lies at the basis of modern social conditions as the third aspect of the social question. People will learn to recognize the social question as an economic question, when they again begin to give due weight to that which fixes the actual value of commodities, as compared with all that finds expression in the mere prices. Price standards cannot be maintained, especially in moments of crisis, except when the State, i.e. the domain of law, guarantees the value of money, that is, the value of a single commodity. Without entering into any theoretical consideration regarding the result of misunderstanding the difference between price and value, we can cite something which has actually taken place of late. We read in the literature of political economy that long ago in Central Europe and until the end of the Middle Ages the old system of natural economy was in use. This was built up on the mere exchange of commodities, and its place was taken by the financial system, in which current coin represents commodities and in which only the commodity value is actually exchanged for money. But there is something new making its appearance in social life which seems likely to take the place of the financial system. This new element is everywhere at work, but it passes unnoticed as yet. Anyone who can see through the mere figures in his cashbook and ledger, and can read the language of these figures, will find that they do not merely represent the value of commodities, but that the figures often express what we may call the conditions of credit in the newest sense of the word. What a man can do, because someone believes him to be capable of it, that which can awaken confidence in the man's capacity, this, strange as it may seem, begins to appear more and more frequently in our dull, dry, business life. Look into business books and you will find that as against the mere money values, mutual confidence, belief in human capacity is beginning to be evident. In modern business books, when we know how to read them, a great change is expressed, a social metamorphosis. When it is said that the old natural economy has given place to the financial system, it must now be added that, in the third place, finance is giving way to credit. With this change the place of an old institution has again been taken by something new. Thereby a new element appears in social life, the value of the human being. The economic body itself, as far as the production of values is concerned, is on the verge of a transformation. It is faced by a problem. This is the third aspect of the social question. In these lectures we shall have to learn to look at the social question (a) as a cultural question, (b) as one of law, of the State or politics, and (c) as an economic question. The spirit must give the answer to the following: How can men be made strong and capable, so that a social structure may arise without the present evils, which are unjustifiable? The second question is: Under the advanced conditions of the present economic life, what is the political system or system of equity which can lead men to live in peace again? The third is: What social structure will enable each individual to find the place from which he can work for the human community and its welfare, as well as his nature, his talents and capacities permit? We shall be led to the answer by the question: What credit can be attached to the personal value of a human being? Here we see the transformation of the economic system out of new conditions. A cultural, a political, and an economic problem are all contained in the social question, and we shall see that the smallest detail of that question can only appear in its true light when we look at it as a whole, fundamentally, in these three aspects cultural, legal-political, and economic. |
| 332a. The Social Future: The Organization of a Practical Economic Life on the Associative Basis.
25 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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| In this way I should like my book, The Threefold Commonwealth, to be understood out of its own inner nature, out of the inner nature of the social conditions described. Emphatically, the whole idea of the Three-Membered Social Organism should be so understood. |
| What may be called the misfortune of our age is that the difference, the radical difference between these two principles is not understood; for, as a matter of fact, everything depends on their being understood. Entirely wanting is the instinct to observe that every abstract community which attempts to control production must undermine the process. |
| It is easy to understand that under the influence of such a theory, the workman should fight about this profit. But it is just as easy to prove on the other hand that wages are paid out of capital, and that modern economic life is altogether regulated by capitalism; that certain products create capital and, according to the capital created, wages are paid, labor purchased. |
| 332a. The Social Future: The Organization of a Practical Economic Life on the Associative Basis.
25 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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The idea of the Three-Membered Social Organism set forth in my book, The Threefold Commonwealth has grown out of perceptions which have ripened in view of the facts of modern social evolution, such as I attempted to describe yesterday. This idea of the threefold ordering of the social body aims at a practical solution of the problems of life and includes nothing Utopian. Hence, before writing my book, I presupposed that it would be received with a common instinct for actual facts, and that it would not be judged out of preconceived theories, preconceived party opinions. If what I said yesterday be correct and it is correct, undoubtedly, namely, that the social facts in the conditions of human life have grown so complicated that it is extremely difficult to survey them, a new method of dealing with the matters under discussion to-day will be necessary in order to enkindle the general social purpose. In view of this complexity of facts, it is only too comprehensible that there should be, for the time being, no understanding of the economic phenomena, except of such as have come within the experience of individual people; but everything of this nature is dependent upon the whole of economic life, and at the present time not only on the economic life of one country, but on that of the entire world. The individual human being will have, quite naturally and comprehensively, to judge the needs of world-economy from the experience of his own immediate circle. He will, of course, go astray. Anyone who knows the demands of thought that are in line with strict reality knows also how important it is to approach the phenomena of the world with a certain amount of instinct for the truth, in order to gain fundamental facts of knowledge. Such facts play the same part in life as fundamental truths in the knowledge gained at school. Were we to try to acquaint ourselves with the whole of economic life in all its details and from it to draw our conclusions concerning the social purpose, we should never come to an end. In fact, we should just as unlikely come to an end as we would were we compelled to review all the details, let us say, of the application of the Pythagorean theorem in the technical field in order to recognize the truth of that theorem. We accept the truths of the Pythagorean theorem through certain inner thought-connections with it, and then we know that wherever it can be applied it must hold good. It is also possible to wrestle with the facts of social knowledge, until certain fundamental facts reveal themselves as truths to our consciousness by their inner nature. Our own sense of truth will then enable us to apply these facts everywhere as the occasion demands. In this way I should like my book, The Threefold Commonwealth, to be understood out of its own inner nature, out of the inner nature of the social conditions described. Emphatically, the whole idea of the Three-Membered Social Organism should be so understood. But I will particularly endeavor in these lectures to show that certain phenomena of social life give force to the conclusions arising from the idea of the threefold membering of the social organism. This idea is a result of the necessities of the present day and of the near future of humanity. I will also show how these confirmations may be arrived at. But first it will be necessary to recall to you, as an introduction to my subject for to-day, the fundamental idea of the threefold membering of the social order. We have seen that our social life has three principal roots or members, from which spring its demands—in other words, that it is a question of culture, of State, law, politics, and of economics. Any one who studies modern evolution will find that these three elements of life, cultural, political, and economic, have intermingled gradually, until they now form a chaotic whole, and out of the amalgamation of these three elements the present evils of society have arisen. If we thoroughly understand this—and these lectures are intended to help us do so—we shall find that the direction evolution must take in the future will be the ordering of public life and of the social organism so that there will be an independent cultural life, especially as regards general culture, education and teaching, an independent political, legal body, and a completely independent economic body. At present, a single administrative body embraces these three elements of life in our States, and when a three-membering is mentioned it is always misunderstood. It is taken to mean that an independent administration is demanded for the cultural life, another for the political life, and a third for the economic body—three parliaments instead of one. This is a complete misunderstanding of the threefold order, for that idea embodies the determination to do full justice to those demands which have shown themselves in the unfolding of history. Those demands, three in number, have come to be regarded as party cries, but if we look for their true meaning we shall find that there is an authentic historical impulse contained in them. These three demands contain the impulse of liberty in human life, the impulse towards democracy, and the impulse towards a social form of community. But if these three demands are taken seriously they cannot be mixed up together under a single administration, because the one must always interfere with the other. If the cry for democracy has any real meaning at all, everyone must acknowledge that it can only flourish in a representative body or parliament, where every single man and woman of full age, being placed on an equality with his fellows, with every other adult in the democratic State, can make decisions from his own judgment. Now, according to the idea of the threefold membering of the social body, there is a great region of life—that of law and equity, the State and politics—in which every adult has the right, out of his own democratic consciousness, to make himself heard. But if democracy is a reality, and all political life is to be entirely democratized, it is impossible either to include, on the one hand, the cultural life or, on the other, the economic life in the democratic sphere of administration. In the democratic administration a parliament is absolutely in its place, but questions belonging to the department of spiritual life, including education and teaching, can never be properly decided in such a democratic parliament. (I will here only touch upon this subject, as I will deal with it fully in my fourth lecture.) The threefold order strives to realize an independent life of thought, especially in public matters and in everything relating to education and the manner of giving instruction, that is, the State shall no longer determine the matter and manner of teaching. Only those who are actually teachers, engaged in practical education, shall be its administrators. This means that from the lowest class in the public schools up to the highest grade of education, the teacher shall be independent of any political or economic authority as regards the subject or manner of his teaching. This is a natural consequence of a feeling for what is appropriate to the life of thought within the independent cultural body. And the individual need only spend so much time in imparting instruction as will leave him leisure to collaborate in the work of education as a whole and the sphere of spiritual and cultural life in general. I will try to show in my fourth lecture how this independence of thought places the whole spiritual constitution of man on quite a different footing, and how such independence will bring about precisely what is now believed, because of prevailing prejudice, to be impossible of realization. Through this independence, the life of thought will itself gain strength to take an active and effective part in the life of the State, especially in economic life. Independent thought, far from giving rise to hazy, theories or unpractical scientific views, will penetrate into human life, so that out of this independent thought-life the individual will permeate himself not with theories, but with knowledge that will fit him to take his place worthily in economic life. Because of its independence, the intellectual life will become practical, so that it may be said: practical and applied knowledge Will rule in the cultural sphere. Not that the opinion of every It person capable of forming a judgment will be authoritative. Parliamentary administration must be deprived of all authority over the cultural body. Whoever believes that it is intended that a democratic parliament should again rule here quite misunderstands the impulse for bringing into existence the social organism consisting of three members. The same holds good in the economic sphere. The economic life has its own roots and must be governed in accordance with the conditions of its own nature. The manner in which business is carried on cannot be allowed to be judged democratically by every grown-up person, but only by someone who is engaged in some branch of economic life, who is capable in his branch and knows the links that connect his own branch with others. Special knowledge and special capacity are the only guarantees of fruitful work in economic life. Economic life, therefore, will have to be detached, on the one hand, from the political and, on the other hand, from the cultural body. It must be placed upon its own basis. This is just what is most of all misunderstood by socialist thinkers of to-day. Such thinkers conceive of some form of economic life whereby certain social evils shall cease in the future. We have seen, as it is easy to see, that under the private capitalist order of the last few centuries, certain evils have arisen. The evils are evident enough: how do people judge them? It is said: It is the private capitalist order which is the cause of these evils; these will disappear as soon as we get rid of the system, when we replace it by the communal system. All the evils that have arisen are caused by the fact that the means of production are in the hands of individual owners. When this private ownership is no longer permitted, and the community is in control of the means of production, the evils will cease. Now it may be said, socialist. thinkers have acquired certain isolated facts of knowledge and it is interesting to see how those isolated facts already have their effect in socialist circles. People are already saying that the means of production, or capital which is its equivalent, should be communally administered. We have seen, however, to what state-control of certain means of production has led, for instance of European post offices, European railways, and so forth. We cannot say that the evils have been removed, because the state has become the capitalist. Thus, neither by nationalization nor communalization, nor by the founding of cooperative societies by people who all need the same kind of articles, can any fruitful result be attained. According to the views of socialist thinkers, the people who regulate this consumption, and wish to regulate also the production of the goods to be consumed, become in their turn, as consumers, tyrants over production. The knowledge has, therefore, penetrated the minds of these socialists that nationalization and communalization, as well as the administration by cooperative societies, leads to tyranny on the part of the consumer. The producer would be subjected to the consumer's tyranny. Many therefore think that workers' productive associations in which everybody should have a voice in the management might be founded. In these the workers would unite and produce for themselves according to their own ideas and principles. Here, again, socialist thinkers have perceived that nothing further would he attained than the replacement of the single capitalist by a number of capitalist working-men producers, who would not be able to do otherwise than the private capitalist. Thus, the Worker-Producers' Associations were also cast aside. But all this fails to convince people that those separate associations cannot lead to fruitful results in the future. Another scheme was that the whole population of a country, or some particular economic region, might be able to form a great federation in which all the members were to he both producers and consumers, so that no single individual could of his own initiative produce anything for the community. The community itself was to decide how the production should be carried on, how products should be distributed and the like. In short, a great federation embracing production and consumption would be substituted for the private administration now found in our present economic system! Now anyone with a little insight into facts knows that the idea of founding this great federation in preference to smaller enterprises only arises from the fact that in a larger scheme the errors are less easily detected than in the schemes which propose to nationalize or communalize production and distribution schemes such as the Worker-Producers' Association and Cooperative Societies. In these latter the field to be surveyed is smaller and the faults committed in founding the enterprises are more easily seen. The great federation embraces a vast social area. Plans are made for the future; and no one sees that the same errors, which were easily discernible in the smaller undertakings, must inevitably again appear. They are not recognized in the larger scheme, because in it the promoters are incapable of taking in the whole matter at a glance. This is the explanation. And we must understand where the fundamental error in this kind of thought lies, an error which leads to the foundation of a great federation in which certain persons presume to take the whole administration of the entire production and consumption into their own hands. What kind of thought leads to the imagination of such a project? This question can easily be answered if we consult the numerous party-programs at the present moment. What gives rise to these party-programs? Someone thinks: Here are certain branches of production; these must be managed by the community; they must then be united in larger branches, in larger administrative districts. Then there must be some kind of central management over the whole, and, above all those, a central board to control the whole consumption and production. What kind of thoughts and representations underlie such an economic scheme as this? Exactly those which are applicable to the political life of modern times. Those who today announce their economic programs have mostly had a purely political training. They have taken part in electioneering campaigns; they know what is expected of them when they are returned to parliament and have to represent their constituents. They are experienced in official and political life. They know the whole routine of political administration and see no reason why it should not be adapted to economic affairs—in a word, economic administration must be altogether modeled on political life. What we are now so terribly in need of is to see for ourselves that the whole of this routine work, plastered on to the economic system, is something absolutely foreign to its nature. But by far the greater number of persons who now talk of reform, or even of a revolution in economic life, are, as a matter of fact, mere politicians, who persist in thinking that what they have learnt in politics can be applied in the management of economic affairs. A healthy condition of the economic system can, however, only prevail if that system be considered by itself and built up out of its own conditions. What do these political reformers of the economic system want to bring about? They demand nothing less than that this hierarchy of the central management shall determine what is to be produced and how production is to be carried on and the whole manner and process of production brought under the control of the administrative offices. They demand that those persons who are to take part in the work of production shall be engaged and appointed to their places by the central office and that the distribution of raw material to the different works shall be effected by the central office. The entire production would therefore be subject to a kind of hierarchy of political administrators. And this is really typical of what is aimed at to-day in the greater part of the patent schemes for the reform of the economic system. The would-be reformers do not see that these measures would leave the economic system just where it is now; they would not remove its evils; on the contrary, they would immeasurably increase them. The reformers see clearly that nationalization, communalization, cooperative societies, worker producers' associations, are all alike useless; but what they do not see is that by their program they would only transfer to the communal administration of the means of production the very powers to which they object so severely in the private capitalist system. It is this, above all, which really must be understood to-day. People must see that such measures and such institutions as those described will of a certainty bring about the conditions we see only too plainly in Eastern Europe to-day. There, certain individuals were able to carry out these ideas of economic reform and to realize them. People who are willing to learn from facts might see from the fate that threatens Eastern Europe and how these measures themselves lead ad absurdum. If people were less dogmatic in their ideas and more willing to learn from actual events, nobody would think of saying that the failure of the economic socialization of Hungary was caused by some unimportant factor or other. They would try to find out why it was bound to fail, and then they would be convinced that every such scheme of socialization can only bring destruction and cannot create anything fruitful for the future. But for vast numbers of people it is still very difficult to learn from facts in this way. This is best seen in things that are really often treated by socialist thinkers as of secondary importance. They say, it is true, that modern economic life has been transformed by modern technical science. But if they were to carry this train of thought further they would have to recognize the relationship between modern technical science and specialized knowledge and expert skill. They could not help seeing how modern technical science everywhere intervenes in industrialism. But they refuse to see it. So they say, in parenthesis, they will have nothing to do with technical science in the processes of production. It can take care of itself. They only wish to occupy themselves with the manner in which those who are engaged in production-processes live socially, what sort of social life they lead. But if people will only open their eyes to facts, nothing can be more evident than the immense importance of the part directly played by technical science in economic affairs. One example, a really typical one, may be given here. By multiplying machines, technical science has, to put it in a few words, succeeded in providing commodities for public consumption and to the existence of this machinery is entirely due the fact that from four hundred to five hundred millions of tons of coal were brought to the surface per annum for industrial purposes before the War. Now if one calculates the amount of economic energy and power required by those machines, which are entirely the result of human thought and can only be worked by human thought, the following interesting result is arrived at. If we reckon an eight-hour day, we get the startling result that by these machines, i.e. through the human thought incorporated in the machines, through the inventive gift of the mind, as much energy and working force are used as could be produced by seven to eight hundred millions of men! Hence, if you picture to yourself that the earth has a working population of about 1500 million men, it has gained, by the inventive genius of human beings in the recent periods of modern civilization, seven hundred to eight hundred millions more. Therefore, two thousand millions of human beings work, that is to say, the seven to eight hundred millions do not themselves actually work, but the machines work for them. What works in these machines? The human intellect. It is of the utmost significance that facts like these, which might easily be multiplied, should be grasped. For they show that technical science cannot be treated with indifference and lightly put aside; but that it cooperates actively and ceaselessly in industrial life and is inseparable from it. Modern economic life is altogether unthinkable without the basis of modern technical science and without special knowledge and expert skill. To overlook these things is to set out with preconceived ideas, inspired by human passions, and to close our eyes to realities. The idea of the Threefold Order of the Social Body is honest in its endeavors to solve the social problem. For that reason its standpoint cannot be the same as that of party-leaders, with catchwords and programs. The Threefold Order must start from facts. Hence, taking its stand on the realities of life, it must recognize that industry, especially in our complicated life, is based on the initiative of the individual. If we try to substitute for individual initiative the abstract community at large,1 we give the death-blow to economic life. Eastern Europe will prove this, if it remains much longer under its present rule. It means extinction and death to the economic body when we deprive the individual of his initiative, which must proceed from his intellect and take part in the ordering of the means of production purely for the benefit of human society. What is the origin of the evils we see to-day? The modern process of production, because of its technical perfection, necessitates the initiative of the individual and therefore necessitates that the individual shall have capital at his disposal, and that he shall be able to carry on production on his own initiative these are the results of the recent development of humanity. And the accompanying evils, as we shall see grow out of very different causes. If we want to know their origin, we must, in the first place, take our stand, not on the company-principle, not even on the great syndicate-principle, but we must take our stand on the principle of Association. What do we mean by taking our stand on the principle of Association rather than on that of companies? We mean that whoever takes his stand on the company-principle2 considers that all that is necessary is for individuals to join together, to confer together, and come to resolutions; then they can control the process of production. Thus the first thing is to join together, and form the company; then from this society, from this community of human beings, to start production. The idea of the Threefold Social Organism starts from realities. It requires, in the first place, that men should be there, who can produce, who have technical knowledge and special skill. On them must depend the business of production. And these experts in technical knowledge and skill must unite and carry on the economic activity founded on the production which springs from individual initiative. This is the true principle of Association. Commodities are first produced and then brought to the consumer on the basis of the union of the producers. What may be called the misfortune of our age is that the difference, the radical difference between these two principles is not understood; for, as a matter of fact, everything depends on their being understood. Entirely wanting is the instinct to observe that every abstract community which attempts to control production must undermine the process. The associative community can only receive what is produced by the initiative of the individual who offers it to the community, to the consumer. The most important aspect of these things is not perceived, for the reason which I gave yesterday. I said then that at about the time of the Renaissance, of the Reformation, at the beginning of modern history, the precious metals began to be introduced into Europe from Central and South America, and that this led to the substitution of the financial for the natural system of economy, up till then almost the only prevailing system. By this change, a very significant economic revolution was accomplished in Europe. Conditions then arose, to the influence of which we are still subject at the present day. These conditions have at the same time shut out the view like a curtain which prevents one from obtaining sight of true realities. Let us look more closely at these conditions. Let us begin with the old system of natural economy, though it is not so much in evidence in our day. The only factor in the economic process is the commodity produced by the individual. This he can exchange for something produced by another; and in this natural economic system, according to which one product is exchanged for another, a certain standard of quality must be attained. For if I wish to barter one commodity for another, I must have something that I can exchange for it and that the other accepts as of equal value. This means that people are forced to produce if they want anything. They are forced to exchange something which has a real, an obviously real, value. In place of this exchange of commodities which have a real value in human life, we have introduced finance, and money has become the medium with which one buys and sells, as one buys and sells with real objects in the natural economic system. We need only recall the fact that money, by becoming a real object in economic transactions, deludes men as to its true nature and, by producing this imaginary effect, at the same time tyrannizes over them. Take an extreme case. Let us assume that the credit system which I mentioned at the close of my lecture yesterday, makes its way into the economy of finance. As a matter of fact, it has done so of late in many cases. The following example shows the result of this. A government or an individual enterprise has for its object the installation of the telegraph. A very considerable amount of credit can be raised and the scheme is successfully carried out. Certain circumstances demand considerable amounts of money, and interest on these amounts must be paid; provision must be made for the payment of interest. And what do we find in many instances within our social structure especially when the state itself does this business? It happens most frequently in state enterprises that the object for which the money was provided and employed has long since become useless; it is no longer there but the public funds still go on paying off what was once demanded as credit. In other words, the object for which the debt was incurred has vanished, but the money is still an object of economic transaction. Such things have a world-economic significance. Napoleon III, who was completely under the spell of modern ideas, took it into his head to embellish Paris and he had many buildings erected. The Ministers who were his willing tools carried out the operations. It occurred to them that the national income might be applied to pay the interest. The result is that Paris has been very much improved, but the people are still paying the old debt. That is to say, long after the thing has ceased to have any real foundation, manipulations are still going on with the money which has itself become an economic object. This had, to be sure, its advantages. When business was carried on in the old natural system of economy, the production of commodities was necessary. These were, of course, liable to spoilage; and people had to work, and to continue working, so as to keep up a supply of goods. This is not necessary with money. A man gives over money, lends it, insures himself; that is, money transactions are carried on quite independently of those who produce commodities. Money emancipates man in a certain sense from the actual economic process, just because it becomes itself an economic process. This is extremely significant. For in the old natural economy, one individual depended on another. Men were forced to work together, to bear with one another. They had to agree on certain arrangements, otherwise the economic life could not go on. Under the financial system the capitalist is, of course, also dependent on those who work. But he is quite a stranger to these workers. How close was the tie between consumer and producer in the old natural economy in which actual commodities were dealt with! How remote is the person who transacts business in money from those who work in order that his money may yield interest! A deep gulf has opened between one human being and another. They do not get near to each other under the financial system of economy. This is one of the first things to be considered, if we wish to understand how the masses of workers (no matter whether they are intellectual or manual workers) can again be brought together with those who also make business possible by lending capital. This, however, can only be done through the principle of Association, by which men will again unite with each other as men. The principle of Association is a demand of social life, but a demand such as I have described it, not one resembling those that often figure in socialistic programs. What else has happened under the ever-increasing influence of modern finance? What is called human labor has become dependent upon it. The regulating of human labor in the social structure is a subject of dispute among socialists themselves, and excellent grounds can be found for and against what is said on both sides. One can understand—especially when one has learnt not to think and feel about the proletariat, but to think and feel with the proletariat—one can well understand why the proletarian says that his labor-power must no longer be a commodity. It must no longer be possible that on the one hand commodities are bought on the market, and on the other hand human labor is also bought on the labor market and paid for in the form of wages. That is easy to understand. It is also easy to understand that Karl Marx had many followers when he calculated that the workman produces a profit and that he is not paid the full value of his labor, but that the profit produced by him goes to the employer. It is easy to understand that under the influence of such a theory, the workman should fight about this profit. But it is just as easy to prove on the other hand that wages are paid out of capital, and that modern economic life is altogether regulated by capitalism; that certain products create capital and, according to the capital created, wages are paid, labor purchased. That means wages are produced by capital. One argument can be proved as clearly as the other. It can be proved that capital is the parasite of labor; it can also be proved that wages are created by capital. In short, the opinions of either party may be defended with the same validity. This fact ought to be once for all thoroughly grasped. Then it will be understood why it is that, at the present day, when people seek to attain something, they do so preferably by fighting for it, not by progressive thought, and by accounting for circumstances. Work is by its nature so entirely different from commodities that it is quite impossible to pay money in the same way for goods and labor with out economic injury. But people do not understand the difference. They still do not see through the economic structure, especially in this section of it. There are countless economists in our day who say: “If money, the currency, either coin or paper money, is increased ad lib., it loses its value, and the necessaries of life, especially the most indispensable, go up in price.” We observe this and see the folly of simply increasing the currency, for the mere increase, as anyone can see, has only the effect of raising the price of the necessaries of life. The well-known endless screw is still turning!3 But there is another thing not understood: as soon as labor is paid for in the same way as commodities or products, it must happen as a matter of course that at that moment labor begins to fight for better and better pay, for higher and higher wages. But the money which labor receives as wages plays the same part in the determining of prices as the mere increase of the money in circulation. This ought to be understood. You may do as many a Minister of Finance has done and, instead of increasing production and taking care to improve it, you may simply issue banknotes and increase the currency. Then there will be more money in circulation, but all commodities, especially those indispensable to life, will be dearer. People see this for themselves; therefore they see how foolish it is simply to increase the money in circulation. But what they do not see is that all the money that is spent in order to pay labor actually has the effect of raising the price of commodities. For sound prices can only be fixed within an independent economic system. Sound prices can only be fixed when they develop in accordance with the true valuation of human activity. Therefore the idea of the Threefold Order of the Social Organism is to detach labor completely from the economic process. It will be my task especially tomorrow to go into this matter in detail. Labor as labor has no place in the economic process. It may seem strange, or even paradoxical, to say what I am about to say, but many things now seem paradoxical which we must nevertheless understand. Consider how far people have fallen away from right thinking! For this reason they often find things absurd which must, nevertheless, be said because they are true. Let us suppose that a man gives himself up to sport from morning till evening; that he makes it his occupation. He expends exactly the same labor-force as one who chops wood, and in exactly the same manner. What is important is to use one's strength in working for the community at large. The sportsman does not do this; the most that can be said of him is that he makes himself strong, only, as a rule, he does not turn his strength to account. As a rule, it is of no importance to the community that a man make a profession of sport by which he tires himself as much as by chopping wood. Chopping wood is of some use. That is to say, the use of labor-power has no importance socially, but what results from such use has a meaning in social life. We must look at the result of the application of labor. That is valuable to the community. Hence, the only thing which can be of value in economic life is the product of labor-power. And the only thing with which the administration of economic life can have any concern is the regulation of the comparative values of products. Labor must lie quite outside the economic circuit. It belongs to the department of equity, of which we shall speak tomorrow, in which every adult human being has a right to make himself heard, on equal terms with every other human being. The manner and duration and the kind of work will be determined by the legal conditions prevailing between man and man. Labor must be lifted out of the economic process. Then there will remain to be regulated by the economic system only the valuation of commodities and of the service which one person should receive from another in exchange for his own service. For this purpose certain persons will withdraw from the Associations composed of producers of various things, or of producers and consumers, and so on. These people will occupy themselves with the fixing of prices.4 Labor will lie entirely outside the sphere to be regulated in the economic process; it will be banished from it. As long as labor is within the economic system, it must be paid out of capital. This is precisely the cause of all that we call striving for mere profit, the race for wealth in modern times. For in this process the man who has commodities to supply is himself part of the process which ends at last in the market. At this point it is very important that a highly erroneous idea should be corrected by all who wish to see things in their true light, We say the capitalist places his commodities on the market to make a profit from them. For a long time socialist thinkers have been saying with a considerable amount of justice that the moral law has nothing whatever to do with this production, but that only economic thought is concerned with it. Today, however, a great deal is said from the ethical standpoint on the subject of profit and gain. Here we are going to speak neither from an ethical, nor from a merely economic point of view; we speak from the point of view of the whole of human society. And the question must be asked: What is it that arises as gain, or profit? It is something which plays the same role in social economy that the rising quicksilver plays in the tube of the thermometer. The rising of the quicksilver shows that the temperature has risen. We know that it is not the quicksilver that has made the room warmer, but that the increased warmth is caused by other factors. The market profit resulting from present conditions of production is only a sign that commodities can be produced which yield a profit. For I should like to know how any one can possibly discover whether a commodity ought to be produced, if not from the fact that, when it has been produced and placed on the market, it yields a profit. This is the only sign showing that one may influence the economic system by bringing out this product. The only way in which we know whether or not a commodity should be produced is that it finds a sale when placed on the market. If there is no demand for it, there is no profit in it. These are the facts, without all the rambling talk about demand and supply, which we find in the theories of so many economists. The consideration that lies at the root of the matter in this sphere is that the yielding of profit is at present the one and only thing that enables a man to produce a certain commodity, because it will have a certain value in the community. The remodeling of the market, which to-day operates in this way, will follow as soon as a real principle of Association finds a place in our social life. Then it will no longer be the impersonal supply and demand having nothing to do with the human being, which will determine whether a commodity shall be produced or not. Then, from those Associations, by the will of those working in them, other persons will be brought in, whose business it will be to find out the relation between the value of a manufactured commodity and its price. We may say that the value of a commodity does not come under consideration. It certainly gives the impulse to the demand. But the demand in our present social conditions is extremely doubtful because there is always the question whether there are sufficient means available to make the demand possible. We may want things; if we do not possess the means to satisfy our wants, we shall not be able to create a demand. What is essential is that a connecting link be formed between human needs, which give the commodities their value, and the value itself. For the commodity which we need acquires its human value always in accordance with that need. Institutions must arise out of the social order which form a link between the value attached to the commodities by human needs, and the right prices. The prices are now fixed by the market in accordance with the known purchasing power of potential buyers. A truly social order must be guided by the fact that those who quite justifiably must have commodities must be able to pay for them, i.e. the prices must fit the value of the commodities and correspond to it. Instead of the present chaotic market, there must be an arrangement by which the tyrannizing over human needs and the interference with consumption is eradicated. The methods of the Worker-Producers' Associations and the Cooperative Societies must cease, and research be made into the scope of consumption, and decisions reached on how consumption needs can be met. For this purpose, and following the principle of Association, it will be possible to produce a supply of commodities corresponding to the needs which have been investigated. That is, arrangements must exist with persons who can study the wants of consumers. Statistics can only give the present state of affairs. They can never be authoritative about the future. The needs for the time being must be studied, and, in accordance with these, measures must be taken to produce what is needed. When a product shows a tendency to become too dear, that is a sign that there are too few workers engaged on it. Negotiations must then be carried on with other branches of production to transfer workers from one branch to another where the need lies, in order that more of the lacking products may be supplied. If a commodity tends to become too cheap, that is to say, to earn too little profit, arrangements must be made to employ fewer workers on that particular product. This means that in the future the satisfaction of the needs of the community will depend on the way in which men are employed in industry. The price of the product is conditional on the number of persons engaged in its production. But, through these arrangements, the price will really correspond to the value attached to the commodity in question by the community in accordance with its requirements. So we see that human reason will take the place of chance, that as the result of the arrangements which will come into existence the price will express the agreements arrived at, the contracts entered into. Thus we shall see a revolution of the market accomplished by the substitution of reason for the chances of the market now prevailing. We see, then, that as soon as we detach the economic body from the two other departments, which we shall discuss in the following lectures when we shall also treat of the relationship of the other departments to the economic body and of many things which must now seem difficult to understand—as soon as the economic body has been detached from the two others, the State or rights body and the spiritual or cultural body, the economic body will find itself on a sound and reasonable basis. For the only thing with which it will have to concern itself will be the manner of carrying on business. It will no longer be necessary to influence the prices of commodities by manipulating them so that these prices will determine how long or how much the people should work and what wages should be paid, and so on. The only thing that need be considered in economic life will be the relative values of commodities. In this way economic life will be placed on a sound basis, and this sound basis must be preserved for the whole economic life. Hence, in such an economic life as this there will be a return to a condition which has now almost ceased to exist because of the financial system in which money itself has become an object of economic business, a condition in which economic life will be re-established on its natural and worthy foundation. It will not be possible in future to carry on business by means of money and for money; for economic institutions will have to deal with the respective values of the commodities. That is to say, society will again return to goodness of quality, excellence of workmanship and the capability of the worker. The granting of credit will no longer depend on the condition that money is available or tight, or on the degree of the risk to be taken; it will depend entirely upon the existence of men capable of starting an enterprise or of producing something. Human ability will command credit. And since human capability will condition the amount of credit to be granted, that amount can never be given in excess of human capability. If you merely give money and allow it to be used, the object to which it has been applied may long have ceased to exist, but the money is still the object of transactions. If the money is given for human capability, when that human capability comes to an end the object for which the money is used also ceases to exist. We shall discuss this in the following lectures. Not until the economic body is supported by the two other departments of social life, the independent political and the independent cultural body, not until then can the economic system be established independently in a sound way on its own foundation. But, to this end, everything within the economic system must grow out of the conditions proper to itself. Material commodities are produced out of these conditions. We need only think of an instance in social life, of something which might be compared to a waste product of economic life, and we shall see how, as a result of true economic thinking, many a thing must be discarded which is now reckoned as a matter of course in the social order and is even defended as a progressive measure of social science. Among all those who at the present day profess to be experts in practical life, there is not a single individual who doubts that an improvement has been made by the transition from all kinds of indirect taxation and other sources of national income to what we call the income tax, especially the graduated income tax. Everyone thinks it is unquestionably right to pay income tax and yet, however paradoxical this may sound to the modern mind, the belief that the imposition of a tax on income is a just measure is only an illusion resulting from the modern financial system of economy. We earn money; we trade with it. By money we detach ourselves from the sound productive process itself. Money is made into an abstraction, so to speak, in the economic process, just as thoughts are in the process of thought. But just as it is impossible to call up by enchantment real ideas and feelings from abstract thought, so it is likewise impossible to bring forth by enchantment something real from money, if that money is not merely a symbol for commodities which are produced. if it is not merely a kind of book-keeping, a currency system of book-keeping, in which every piece of money must represent a commodity. This subject will also be more fully discussed in the following lectures. Today it must be stated that in a period which is only concerned with turning money into an economic object, incomes cannot escape being considered an object of taxation. But by imposing taxes we make ourselves co-responsible with others for the whole system of financial economy. Something is taxed which is not a commodity at all, but only a symbol for a commodity. We are dealing with an abstraction from the economic life. Money only becomes a reality when it is spent for something. It then takes its place in the circuit of economic life, whether I spend it on amusement, or for bodily or mental necessities, or whether I bank it to be used in the economic process. Banking my money is a way of spending it. This must, of course, be kept in mind. But money becomes a reality in the economic process at the moment it passes out of my possession into the process of economic life. If people would reflect, they would see that it is of no use for a man to have a large income. If he hoard it, it may be his; but it is of no use in the economic process. The only thing that benefits a person is the ability to spend a great deal. In public life to-day, in a life fruitful of results, the ability to spend a great deal is just the sign of a large income. Hence, if a system of taxation is to be created which constitutes a real service of the economic process to the good of the general community, instead of a parasitical growth upon it, capital must be taxed at the moment it is transferred to the economic process. And, strange to relate, income tax comes to be transformed into a tax on expenditure, which I beg you not to confound with indirect taxation. Indirect taxation is often the expression of the wishes of rulers at the present day, because the direct taxes and income tax do not ordinarily yield enough. We are not referring to either direct or indirect taxation, in speaking of the tax on expenditure; the point in question is that at the moment my capital passes into the economic process, and becomes productive, it shall be taxed.5 Precisely by this example of taxation, we see how very necessary is a change in our method of thinking, and how the belief that a tax on income is first in importance is an accompaniment of that financial system which has appeared in modern civilization since the Renaissance and Reformation. When the economic system is once placed upon its own basis, the only matter to be considered is that capital actually involved in the production of commodities shall supply the means for the manufacture of the products necessary to the community. It will then be a case of a tax on expenditure, but never one on income. These are things we must relearn, and we must change our method of thinking. In these two lectures I have only been able to give a sketch of the matter with which I shall deal much more exhaustively in the next four lectures. Anyone who gives utterance to such things knows well that he will arouse opposition on all sides, that at first hardly anyone will agree with him; for all such matters are overlaid by party opinion. But no improvement can be hoped for until they are raised out of the sphere of party passions into that of true thought, resulting from close connection with life. How desirable it would be if people, on first hearing of the Three-Membered Social Organism, instead of judging in accordance with their party programs and opinions, would take their own instinct for truth to aid them in forming their judgments. Party opinions and principles have in many cases led people away from that feeling for truth. Hence, one finds over and over again that those who are more or less dependent on the mere consumption of commodities really find it easy, prompted by their own feeling for the truth, to understand what is the aim of such an institution as the Three-Membered Social Organism. But then come the leaders, especially those of the masses of the socialist party, and it cannot be denied that the leaders show no inclination to enter into consideration of reality. One thing, belonging more especially to economic life, is unfortunately evident, and this is one of the most urgent matters belonging to the social question. I found, when speaking to the workers on the Threefold Order, that their own instinct for truth enabled them to understand well what was said. Then came the leaders who told them that what was proposed was only a Utopia. It certainly did not agree with their own thoughts or with all that had been working in their brains for decades. They told their faithful followers that these were Utopian ideas, without reality. And unfortunately blind faith has grown too strong in modern times, a blind following, a terrible feeling of subjection to authority in these circles. It must be said that all the respect for authority once shown to bishops and archbishops of the Catholic Church is nothing as compared with that shown by the masses of modern workers to their leaders. This makes it comparatively easy for those leaders to carry out their intentions. What I wish to do is to point out above all things what is honest and not what merely serves cut and dried party interest. If I should be able to succeed in these lectures in showing that what is sought for in the Threefold Organism is really honestly intended for the general welfare of all humanity, without distinction of class, conditions, and so forth, the main object of these lectures will have been achieved.
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| 332a. The Social Future: Legal Questions. The Task and the Limitations of Democracy. Public Law. Criminal Law.
26 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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| The acquisition of right views on social life depends to a large extent on a clear understanding of the relations existing between human beings who, in their life together, organize the social conditions and the institutions under which they live. |
| All individual interests are of this nature. Such cases fall under the administrative branches of the cultural body. The decisions of justice grow beyond and above the limits of democracy. |
| That error has arisen in consequence of the all-powerful modern development of economic life alone. It is as if people were under the influence of an idea, as if they were under the suggestion that the economic life is the only power. |
| 332a. The Social Future: Legal Questions. The Task and the Limitations of Democracy. Public Law. Criminal Law.
26 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
|---|
The acquisition of right views on social life depends to a large extent on a clear understanding of the relations existing between human beings who, in their life together, organize the social conditions and the institutions under which they live. An unprejudiced onlooker will discover that all the institutions in social life originate in the first place from measures dictated by the will of man. And he who has won his way to this view will come to the conclusion that the factor of decisive importance in social life is the conduct of human beings towards each other, the employment of their forces, their capacities and their feelings towards others in a social or unsocial manner. People imbued with social sentiments and views will mold their institutions so as to make them work socially. And it is true to a very great extent that the ability or inability of any individual to provide himself with the necessities of life out of his income will depend on the manner in which his fellow-creatures furnish him with the means of a livelihood, upon whether they work for him in such a way that he can support himself out of his own means. To put this in the most practical form: the ability of man to procure enough bread for his wants will depend upon the fact that society has taken the needful steps to enable everyone who works, or who performs a service, to have a corresponding quantity of bread in return for his work. The opportunity of really turning his work to account, of bringing it to that point at which he can earn what he needs for his existence, is again determined by the presence of social institutions in his environment, by the aid of which he can find his proper place. Now it really requires only a small amount of unprejudiced insight into social life in order to recognize what has just been said as an axiom, a fundamental principle of the social question. And whoever does not recognize it will hardly acknowledge the truth of the principle, because he has no inclination to look at life with an unprejudiced mind in order to convince himself, as he might from every occurrence in life, that it is so. It is true that this way of viewing life is particularly unpleasant for the average man. For it is a matter of great importance to him that he should be left undisturbed. He is very willing to hear of institutions being improved and transformed into something better, but he regards it as an infringement of his dignity as a man if it is found necessary to tell him that he ought to change his own outlook on life and his own manner of living. He gladly agrees that institutions should be modeled on social lines. He is not at all pleased, however, with the proposal that he should model his own conduct on these lines. Hence, something most remarkable has entered into the modern history of evolution. In the course of the last few centuries, as I have already shown in the first lecture, economic life has developed far beyond all the conceptions which have been formed of it, especially in the spheres of law and of cultural life. I pointed out in the first lecture that the social criticism of Woodrow Wilson himself amounted to nothing more or less than the statement that the economic system has laid down the law: ‘Economic life has made its demands; it has been advancing, and has assumed certain distinct forms. The legal system and cultural life, through which we seek to govern the economic system, have remained stationary at their old points of view. They have not kept pace.’ In these sentiments Woodrow Wilson has undoubtedly expressed a deeply significant fact of modern evolution. With the rise of the complicated conditions of technical industry and of the equally complicated capitalist conditions entailed by the former, with the era of big industrial enterprises, economic life has simultaneously put forward its demands. The facts of economic life have gradually eluded us. They go their own way more or less. We have not found the force within ourselves to govern economic life by our thoughts and ideas. Modern thought regarding the demands of economic life, the consideration of economic matters, as these come under direct observation, have led more and more to adaptation of legal and intellectual conceptions to these immediate facts. Thus we may say that the chief characteristic in the evolution of humanity for centuries has been that the conceptions of law, according to which men strive to live at peace with one another, as well as those of intellectual or spiritual life, according to which they develop and form their capacities, have become to a great extent dependent on economic life. The extent to which in modern times human thought, and the attitude of human beings towards one another, have become dependent on economic matters passes quite unnoticed. Of course, the institutions of the last centuries have been created by human beings themselves, but for the most part they are not based upon new thoughts and ideas; they are, rather, the outcome of unconscious impulses and unconscious instincts. In this way something which we may truly call an element of anarchy has arisen in the structure of the social organism. In the first two lectures of this series, I have described from different points of view this element of anarchy in the social organism. But within this social edifice of modern times, those conditions have arisen which have led to the modern form of the proletarian question. To the workman, called away from his handicraft and placed at the machine, shut up in the factory, what was the most obvious fact as he looked at life around him? Looking at his own life he saw chiefly that all his thoughts, all his rights with regard to other men, in fact, everything is determined by powerful economic conditions, by those economic conditions which he must accept because he is economically weak as against the economically strong. Thus it may be said: In the leading circles, among the governing classes, there is an unconscious denial of the fundamental principle that human institutions should grow out of the conscious life of men themselves. People have forgotten to apply this truth in social life. Gradually these leading, governing classes have given themselves up instinctively to a life in which culture and law are subject to the power of the economic system, even though they may not believe this. This has given rise to a dogmatic conception of life among socialist thinkers and their followers. The conception of life which has resulted from this thought is that such conditions are inevitable in human evolution, that there is no possibility for the individual person to organize legal conditions or a system of culture suitable to himself. They believe that culture and law result naturally as appendages to economic realities, to branches of production and so on. Thus among large numbers of people the social question has adopted as its starting-point a positive demand. Their fundamental belief was that the economic system conditions the life of rights, conditions too, the cultural life of the people. Therefore the economic life must be reformed so as to bring forth a system of laws and culture corresponding to the needs and demands of the masses. The proletariat has learnt from the life and habits of the leading classes to believe consciously that which the latter had carried out instinctively in their lives; it made this a dogma. Today the social question faces us in the following aspect: Among great masses of people there is a widespread conviction that, if only the economic life and institutions were revolutionized, everything else, law and culture, would evolve of themselves; that economically just, good, socially organized legal and cultural institutions would result. Under the influence of this opinion they have failed to recognize the real crux of the modern social problem. The point on which the whole social question turns has been hidden by this dogma through a great deception, a mighty illusion. The fact is that precisely these conditions—the dependence of law and culture on the economic life—are a historical result of evolution. This must be overcome. While in wide socialist circles the belief is current that the economic system must first be changed and everything else will follow of itself, the truth is that each one must ask himself the question: What conditions within the sphere of equity and of culture must first be created in order that a new cultural and a net legal system may give birth to economic conditions which will satisfy the demands of an existence worthy of human beings? Not the question: How can we bring law and culture more and more into dependence on the economic life? But rather: How can we escape from that dependence? That is the question to be asked before any other. This is a very important consideration; for it shows us the obstacle barring an unprejudiced understanding of the present social question. It shows us that one of the chief obstacles is a dogma which has grown up in the course of centuries. And this dogma has become so firmly fixed that at present countless educated and uneducated persons of proletarian and other classes ridicule the idea that the system of equity and of culture could be purified in any other way than by the reformation of the economic system itself. It is my task today to speak of the equity state; the day after tomorrow I will speak of the cultural life. The equity state, due to its particular nature and significance, has often presented to us the question: What is really the origin of rights? What is the origin of that feeling which prompts men to say in their dealings with one another that a thing is just or unjust? This question has always been a very, very important one. Yet it is a strange fact that many social thinkers have entirely lost sight of the actual question of rights. It exists no longer for them. There are certainly many academic-theoretical treatises extant regarding the nature and meaning of law, but what is generally characteristic in the study of social matters is that the question of equity is more or less neglected. In dealing with this subject, I must call your attention to something which at the present time is becoming more and more evident, although a short time ago it was quite unobserved. People have become aware of the approach of untenable social conditions Even those whose own lives have remained more or less untouched by the present unsocial conditions have attempted to find a solution. And though a comparatively short time ago people laughed at the idea of legal and cultural spheres influencing economic affairs, today we encounter more and more frequently the assertion which seems to come from the obscure depths of consciousness: It is quite true that in the relationships of human beings in social life, questions affecting the feelings, and relating to equity, must also be taken into account. Much of the confusion in social conditions has been caused by the want of consideration given to moral and psychic relationships and to conditions of equity on their own ground. Thus there is now a slight indication—so obvious that it can no longer be overlooked—that an improvement in the present conditions must come from a quarter different from that of purely economic interests. But this has as yet little influence on the practical discussion of the question. Like a crimson thread running through all the sentiments of the later socialist thinkers is the belief that a social structure must be built up in which human beings can live in accordance with their capacities and needs. Whether these sentiments are developed in the direction of extreme radicalism, or incline more to conservative thought, is not the point. We hear on all sides that the evils of the existing social order are due, in large measure, to the fact that within that order a man is not in a position to use his full capacities. On the other hand we hear that the social order must be so constituted that he can satisfy his wants within its limits. Here we are brought back to two fundamental elements of human life. Capacities belong to the human power of imagination; for since a man must act consciously, his capacities in the first instance arise out of his power of imagination, his thought-will. Of course, the power of imagination must be continually fired and filled with enthusiasm, by feeling; but feeling alone is powerless, if the fundamental imagination is absent. Therefore, the question of a man's efficiency or practical skill brings us in the last instance to the life of imagination. It became evident to many persons that care must be taken. to enable a man to realize in social life his power of imagination. The other element which has to be allowed free play has more to do with the will in man. Will power, which is connected with desire, the craving for something or other, is a fundamental force in the human being. When it is said that the human being must live within a social structure that can satisfy his wants, it is the will which is under consideration. Thus, unknown to themselves, even the Marxists, in advancing their social theories, consider human beings while they profess to speak only of institutions. They speak of institutions, but they would like to make their institutions such that human ideas and human faculties find scope within them, and that human needs can be satisfied for all alike as they arise. Now there is something very peculiar in this view. It leaves quite out of account one element of human life, and that is the life of feeling. If we put forward a claim to build up a social edifice in which people can live in accordance with their capacities, their feelings, and their needs, then we are taking into consideration the whole man. But curiously enough, although the Marxist theory enters into details as to social aims, it very characteristically omits the life of feeling altogether. And to omit feeling in the study of human nature is to leave out all consideration of the actual conditions of equity in the social organism. For conditions of equity can only develop in a community of human beings in accordance with the feelings which have been trained and refined. As people feel towards each other in their mutual intercourse, so will be the system of public law. And because of the omission of this vital element of feeling in the consideration of the social question the problem of equity was necessarily lost sight of. It is, however, essential that this matter of law should be placed in the proper light. Of course we know that law exists, but the desire exists also to represent it as a mere dependent of the economic system. In what manner is law developed in a community? Attempts have often been made to give a definition of law; but a satisfactory one has not yet been found. Just as little has resulted from the attempt to trace the origin of law, to discover whence it comes. A solution of this problem has been sought in vain. Why is this so? It resembles what would result from an effort to develop language out of human nature alone. It has often been said, and rightly, that a person who grew up on a desert island would never learn to speak; for speech is acquired through communion with other beings within the whole human family. Likewise, out of the interchange of human feelings in public life the desire for law is kindled. We cannot say that the feeling for justice suddenly awakens in some particular part of the human being, or of the human race. We may say that the feelings which human beings mutually develop in their intercourse with one another bring them into certain relationships, and as these relationships express themselves, laws are established. Thus we discover law as a development within, and out of, human society. Herewith we come right up against what has developed in modern history as the demands of democracy. We cannot understand the nature of the democratic demands unless we look at human evolution itself as a kind of organism. But the modern method of study is very, very far removed from this manner of considering the question. No one would deny that it is reasonable to ask: What is the cause of those forces in human nature which bring about the change of teeth in the child about the seventh year? It is not reasonable to look for the cause of this process in the kind of nourishment the child is fed—whether it be beef or cabbage. In like manner we must ask: What is the cause of the development in the human organism which is manifested at the age of puberty? We must look at the inner nature of that which develops. Search as you may among the present-day modes of thought, you will find none which can apply this method to the history of human evolution. None, for instance, is clear on this point, namely, that in the course of the development of humanity on earth certain powers and capacities, certain attributes developed in the succeeding epochs of time out of the inner nature of the human being himself. He who learns to study Nature in accordance with her own laws can transfer this method of observation to the study of history. If this method be followed, it will be found that since the middle of the fifteenth century the longing for democracy, more or less fulfilled in the various regions of the earth, has been growing out of the depths of human nature. This longing is expressed in the demand that in social life the human being can recognize as valid for others only what he feels to be right and best for himself. In modern times the democratic principle has become the sign and seal of human social endeavor and has grown out of the depths of human nature. The demand of modern humanity for this principle of democracy is an elemental force. He who has an insight into these matters must treat them with the greatest seriousness. He must ask himself: What is the significance and what are the limitations of the democratic principle? I have just defined this principle. It consists in the fact that the persons forming a definite social organism adopt resolutions approved by every individual within the community. These resolutions, of course, can only be binding if they are adopted by a majority. The content of such majority resolutions is democratic only if every single individual is on an equal basis with every other single individual. And these resolutions can only be adopted on any matter when every single individual is in reality the equal of every other. That is, democratic resolutions can only be passed when every adult is entitled to vote because he is an adult and therefore capable of judging. Herewith we have defined the limitations of democracy as clearly as possible. On the basis of democracy only such things can be determined as are capable of determination through the fact that a person has reached the years of discretion. All such things as are related to the development of human capacity in public life are excluded from democratic measures. Everything in the nature of education and instruction, of cultural life in general, requires the devotion of the individual human being—in the next lecture this will be more fully dealt with—it demands, above all things, real individual understanding of the human being, special individual capacities in the teacher, in the educator, which by no means belong to a person merely because he is an adult. We must either not take democracy seriously, in which case we submit to its decisions regarding human capacities, or we do take democracy seriously, and then we must exclude from it the administration of the cultural life and the economic life. Everything that I described yesterday in regard to the economic sphere is based on the assumption that individuals actively engaged in one or another special branch are possessed of expert knowledge and efficiency. For instance, mere maturity in age, the mere capacity of judgment possessed by every adult, can never be sufficient qualification for a good farmer or a good industrial worker. Hence, majority resolutions must be kept out of the realm of economic life. And the same applies to the cultural life. Thus there arises between these two realms the actual democratic state-life in which every individual confronts every other as competent to form a judgment, because he is of full age and all are equal as human beings; but in which majority resolutions can be carried only on matters dependent on the same capacity of judgment in all adult persons. If we take the trouble to test the truth of these things by the facts of life and not regard them as mere abstractions, we shall see that people deceive themselves, because these are difficult thoughts and because they have not the courage actually to follow up these ideas to their logical conclusion. But the unwillingness to do so and the substitution of very different things for the universal demand of democracy have had, in the evolution of modern humanity, a very concrete significance. I will exemplify these matters from the historical evolution of mankind itself rather than from abstract principles. During recent years we have witnessed the collapse of a State. We have seen it fall to pieces of itself, we might say, and this State may really serve as an object of experiment in regard to the question of rights and law. It is the old Austria-Hungary, which no longer exists. Anyone who has followed the events of recent war-years knows that at the end the downfall of Austria was brought about by purely military events. But the dissolution of the Austrian State, which followed in the second place, was the result of its inner conditions. This State collapsed and would probably have done so even had the military events in Austria been more creditable. This may be said of the events in Austria by one who has had the opportunity (I have spent thirty years of my life in that country) of following consecutively for decades the conditions there. It was in the ‘sixties’ of last century that the demand for democracy, that is, for a representative Government, arose in Austria. Now how was this representation of the people composed? The representatives of the people in the Austrian Imperial Parliament were recruited from four purely economic sections: 1. The great landowners; 2. The towns, market and industrial centers; 3. Chambers of Commerce; 4. Provincial Councils. But in these last only economic interests were actually represented. Therefore, according to the section to which one belonged, province, or Chamber of Commerce, one voted for the representatives in the Austrian Imperial Parliament. Thus representatives of purely economic interests sat in that Parliament. The resolutions adopted by them were, of course, arrived at by a majority of individual men, but these individuals represented interests which arose out of their identification with the great land-owning class, with the towns, markets and industrial centers, with the Chambers of Commerce or the Provincial Councils. What kind of public measures were adopted by the decisions of a majority? They were legal measures, the result of deliberations by nothing but economic interests in disguise; for when, for instance, the Chambers of Commerce were unanimous with the great landowners about anything that benefited them economically, a majority could be found to vote against the interests of the minority, who were, perhaps, just those most concerned in the matter. When parliaments are composed of representatives of economic interests, majorities can always be found to pass resolutions affecting those interests and to make laws which have nothing whatever to do with that feeling for justice which exists between one man and another. Or let us call to mind that in the old German Imperial Parliament there is a great party, calling itself the Center, representing purely cultural interests, that is, Roman Catholic cultural interests. This party can join with any other in order to gain a majority, and the result is that purely cultural needs are satisfied by the enactment of public laws. It happened countless numbers of times. This peculiarity of the modern Parliament, which passes for a democratic institution, has often been commented on; but no one has discovered how it might be altered, namely, by a clear separation of political interests from all that is concerned with the representation, the administration, of economic interests. The impulse for the organization of the Threefold Order must, therefore, demand in the most emphatic manner, the separation of politics, and the groundwork of the law, from the administration of economic affairs, of the economic circuit. Within the economic circuit, as I explained yesterday, associations must be formed. Representatives of the different occupations should meet; producer and consumer should come together. The purely business operations and measures which take place should be based upon contracts entered into by the association. In the economic world everything should rest on contracts, everything should depend upon mutual service rendered. Corporations should carry on business with other corporations; expert knowledge and efficiency in particular branches should have the decisive voice. My opinion as a manufacturer, let us say, as to the importance of my particular branch of industry in political life will have no weight when the economic department is independent. I shall have to be productive in my own branch, to enter into contracts with the associations of other branches of industry and they will render me reciprocal services. If I am able to get a return of services for mine, I shall be in a position to carry on my work. An association of efficiency will be formed by means of contract. These are the facts of the case. In the sphere of law and equity, affairs will be differently arranged. In that domain of life where one man meets another on equal terms, the only thing to be considered is the making of laws which shall regulate the rights of the public by the decisions of a majority. Of course, many will say: ‘What is really meant by public rights? It is neither more nor less than the spirit, expressed in the words and put into the form of laws, which animates the economic conditions.’ In many respects this is true. But the idea of the Threefold Social Organism does not leave this out of consideration; in fact, it leaves no reality out of consideration. That which results as just and equitable from the resolutions taken on the basis of the democratic State is introduced into the economic sphere by those who are occupied in industry. But it is not their work to initiate this spirit and to make laws. They receive the law and carry it into operation in the economic life. Abstract thinkers raise objections to this Threefold Order. They say that in public life, when one man does business with another, gives a draft to another according to the law of exchange, the whole operation is carried on within the limits of the economic sphere. They ask: ‘Is that not a complete unity?’ and say: ‘The idea of the Threefold Order tries to break up what is already a complete unity, as if there were not many spheres in life in which public opinion is not allowed to function lest it work destructively, many spheres in which forces from all sides meet and form a unity.’ Take the case of a young man. He has various hereditary qualities which cling to him. Then he has other qualities which he has acquired by education. His characteristics come to him from two sides, inheritance and education. Now suppose he does something at fifteen years of age; it cannot be said that such an action is isolated. His action is a unity composed of the result of heredity and education. There is unity in the action just because the forces come together from two sides. Out of the realities of life arises the idea of the Threefold Social Organism. Real unity comes into an economic transaction only in proportion to the conceptions of justice it may contain, through the independent administration of economic measures from an economic standpoint, and through the making of laws by an independent democratic equity state. These two elements are then brought together into one whole. The two work as one. If, however, laws are allowed to arise out of the interests of economic life itself, the laws are turned into a caricature of justice. Law is then like a photograph or an impression of economic interests. There is no equity present. Only when laws are allowed to arise naturally, and from the very beginning on their own independent democratic basis, can they be introduced into economic life. One might think that this must be so obvious to all, that explanation were quite unnecessary. But it is a peculiarity of this age that the most transparent truths are overshadowed by modern life, and that it is just those clearest facts that are most distorted. Many of the socialist views advanced at the present time make the continuation of the dependence of law on the economic life their basic principle. I alluded yesterday to the idea of founding a kind of hierarchy on political lines, according to which the economic life should be governed and administered. In this scheme it is thought that those who administer economic affairs will also, at the same time, develop the laws. This assertion proves an absolute lack of understanding of real life is not the economic system, in which efficiency above all things is necessary to promote production, that can bring forth suitable legal conditions; legal conditions must arise from their own source, side by side with the economic life. Laws can never be the outcome merely of thought. Side by side with the economic circuit exists a political element in which every single individual meets another on equal terms. The essential point is not that out of some vague primitive consciousness a business man can evolve just laws, but that the soil itself should be first prepared, so that human beings might find themselves, through their feelings, in circumstances which they would transform into circumstances governed by law. The essential is to create a reality side by side with the economic life. Law will then no longer be a mere superstructure above the economic life; law will then take its place in a self-molding, independent existence. Then the fundamental error of the social question, the belief that the economic life need only be transformed in order to attain to new conceptions of law, will no longer be met by a theoretic answer. Then reality will be created in the Threefold Social Organism by the preparation of an independent basis for political life, reality by which, through human intercourse and human relationship, the strong impetus towards a system of law and equity arises, capable of keeping the economic life within its proper limits. Finally, a consideration of our age from the historical point of view reveals from another side in what manner all that I have said above can be proved. Look back to the period before the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and think of the incentive given to the men of that period in their handicraft and in all other work. Modern socialist thinkers often emphasize the fact that the worker is separated from his means of production. That this is so to such a high degree at present is caused by modern economic conditions. Most of all he is separated from his products. What part has the factory worker in all that the manufacturer sells? What does he know about it? Often not even to what part of the world it goes. His work is a small part of a great complex, which perhaps he never sees as a whole. Think of the tremendous difference between present conditions and the old handicraft, when each man worked at his own product and took pleasure in his work! Anyone who has studied history can testify to this. Think of the personal relation between a workman and his handiwork, such as a door-key, a lock, and so forth. In primitive regions of the country we can still find this feeling of a man towards his work. Where the customs are less simple, this is no longer possible. Forgive me if I mention a personal experience, it is very characteristic of what I mean. I once entered a barber's shop in an out-of-the-way place and was truly happy to see the real pleasure taken by the barber's assistant in cutting a customer's hair nicely. His work was a real pleasure to him. There is, of course, always less and less of this personal tie between the worker and his work. Its absence is a condition of modern economic life, and it cannot be otherwise in the complicated circumstances arising out of the distribution of labor. If we had not the division of labor, however, neither should we have our modern life with all that is necessary to us. There would be no progress. The old connection between the workman and his work is no longer possible. But man needs a relationship to his work; it is necessary that he should feel joy in his work, that he should feel a certain devotion to it. The old devotion, the immediate companionship with the thing he has made, exists no longer; yet it must be replaced by something else. What can this be? It can only be replaced by enlarging men's horizon, by raising them to a level on which they can come together with their fellow-men in one great circle, eventually with all their fellow-men within the same social organism as themselves, in which they can develop an interest in man as man. It must come to pass that even the man who is working in the most remote corner at a single screw for some great machine need not put his whole self into the contemplation of the screw, but it must come about that he can carry into his workshop the feelings which he entertains for his fellow-men, that when he leaves his workshop he finds the same feelings, that he has a living insight into his connection with human society, that he can work even without actual pleasure in his production, because he feels he is a worthy member in the circle of his fellow-men. Out of this impulse has sprung the modern demand for democracy and the new way of establishing public law on democratic lines. These things are related by their inner nature to the evolution of man. Only he who has the will to look deeply into the realities of human evolution in its progress in social life can really understand such things. The feeling must arise within us that the horizon of human beings must be enlarged, that men ought to be able to express their feelings with regard to their work in words somewhat like these: ‘It is true, I have no idea how my work in making this screw will affect my fellow-men; but I do know that, through the living ties which bind me to them by a common law, I am a worthy member in the social order, and have equal rights with other men.’ This is the principle which must lie at the root of modern democracy, and it must work in the feelings of one man towards another as the fundamental principle of the modern public legal code. Only by understanding the inner nature of the human being can we arrive at really modern conceptions of that common law which must now be developed everywhere. Details will be given on this head in the fifth lecture. In conclusion, I will now show how the sphere of justice passes over from the actual department of equity into that of cultural life. We can see how laws arise on the basis of the democratic state by the refining of feelings among individuals with equal rights; while in the economic sphere of life, contracts are entered into between societies or between individuals. From the moment in which the individual finds himself in a position to seek justice under either civil or penal law, or in a private, or in any other manner, in that moment the decision passes from the purely legal to the cultural domain. Here is another point, similar to that discussed yesterday in dealing with taxation, which will present difficulties. It will take long for modern thinkers to accustom themselves to ideas which would demonstrate their self-evidence, if only their underlying conditions were examined. Now when a case arises in which it has to he decided how an existing law can be applied to a particular person, we have to do with the exercise of an individual judgment. It must be determined whether the elected judge is really qualified by his mental and spiritual capacities to understand the person in question. Administration of punishment, civil justice, cannot rest on the general basis of law. It must be removed to another sphere, the special characteristics of which I will explain in my next lecture on the cultural life. Justice can only he administered when the judge is really able, by virtue of his own capacities, and out of the relationship between himself and the person whom he is trying, to give a verdict out of his own independent capacity of judging. One might perhaps think that this objective could be gained in various ways. In my book, The Threefold Commonwealth, I have pointed out one way in which it might be attained. In the Threefold Social Organism there is (a) the independent economic organization described yesterday; (b) the democratic political foundation which I have sketched today, and which I will develop more fully in my fifth lecture in regard to its interplay with the other members of the organism. But there is also (c) the independent cultural life which controls, above all things, teaching and education as I pointed out yesterday and which I will amplify in my next lecture. Those who control the cultural sphere will be called upon at the same time to appoint the judges; and every human being will be entitled and able to elect from time to time his own judge, should he find himself accused of an offence against civil or penal law. Thus the accused will be able, out of actual specific conditions, to appoint his own judge, and the judge, who will be no bureaucratic lawyer, but a man chosen out of the cultural sphere, through the circumstances in which he is placed in the social environment will be able out of his environment to determine what judgment he must form of the man whom he is to try. It will be important that no judge shall be nominated for political reasons. The reasons for his nomination will be like those which determine the nomination of the best teacher to a particular post. Becoming a judge will be something like becoming a teacher or an educator. Of course, in this way the judicial finding will differ from that laid down by the law which arises from a democratic foundation. By the example of penal law already cited, we see how the personal disposition of the individual human being is outside the sphere of democracy and can only be judged in an individual way. The framing of laws is eminently a social matter. The moment we apply to a judge it is probably because we are concerned, either in a super-social or an anti-social matter, in a matter which has fallen out of the social life. All individual interests are of this nature. Such cases fall under the administrative branches of the cultural body. The decisions of justice grow beyond and above the limits of democracy.1 So we see that what we have to do is to establish in reality conditions under which a genuine system of law can exist among men. Justice will then be no mere superstructure of the economic body; but equity will control economic life. We shall never succeed in doing what is necessary in this domain of life by a merely theoretical examination of the circumstances. It can be done in no other way than by a practical observation of life. This will give us the knowledge that a true system of justice with the necessary impetus can only arise on an independent foundation of law. This foundation has disappeared beneath the inundating flood of economic life. Politics and law have become dependent on the economic life, but they must regain their independence, just as cultural life must also be emancipated from the economic system. In order to see clearly in the social question, the great error must be overcome—the great error: that we need only revolutionize economic conditions and then everything will follow automatically. That error has arisen in consequence of the all-powerful modern development of economic life alone. It is as if people were under the influence of an idea, as if they were under the suggestion that the economic life is the only power. As long as this suggestion holds sway they will never find the solution of the social problem. They will give themselves up to illusions, especially in proletarian circles. They will try to extract from the economic system what they call a just distribution of property. But this will only be effected when there are men in the social organism possessing the ability to promote institutions through which the economic needs can be satisfied. That can only happen when it is understood that the revolutionizing of the economic system is not the only thing necessary to satisfy the requirements of social life. People must first answer the question: Must not something else be there alongside the economic body in order that the economic life may be built up continuously in a social manner by men who have grown social in political and in cultural life? This is the truth which we must oppose to error and dogma; and those who look to the economic life for the means of restoring health to the social organism must look instead to the spirit and to justice. There must be no vague dreams of justice growing out of the economic system; we must cultivate right thought in accordance with realities, and we must do so because justice and the consciousness of justice have retreated in later times before the advancing economic flood. For a social construction of society, we need the creation of a genuine political organism with the social impetus necessary for it.
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| 332a. The Social Future: Cultural Questions. Spiritual Science (Art, Science, Religion). The Nature of Education. Social Art
28 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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| He must acknowledge to himself that, in order to read and understand what is written in the book of nature and the universe, he must do his utmost to develop his inner self, just as the five-year-old child must be taught in order to understand Goethe's lyric poems. |
| The teacher descends artificially to the understanding of the child, and that manner of teaching has already become instinctive. If it is persisted in, and the child is trained in this false clarity of understanding, what is overlooked? |
| Now, looking back, I find that his words have lived on in me; now I can understand them.” A marvellous light is shed on life by such an event, when through inner development we can look back in our thirty-fifth year at the lessons we have learnt out of love for our teacher which we could not understand at the time. |
| 332a. The Social Future: Cultural Questions. Spiritual Science (Art, Science, Religion). The Nature of Education. Social Art
28 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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When we look over the history of the last few years and ask ourselves how the social problems and needs occupying the public mind for more than half a century have been dealt with, we can find only one answer. Although in the greater part of the civilized world, opportunity to carry out in practice their ideas of reconstructing social life was given to people who, after their own fashion, had devoted themselves for decades to the study of social problems, yet it must be regarded as extremely characteristic of the age that all the theories and all the views which are the result of half a century of social work from every quarter have shown themselves powerless to reconstruct the present social conditions. Of late years, much has been destroyed and, in the eyes of all observant persons, little, or probably nothing, built up. Does not the question force itself here upon the human soul: What is the cause of this impotence of so-called advanced views, in the face of some positive task? Shortly before the great catastrophe of the World-War, in the spring of 1914, I ventured to answer this question in a short series of lectures which I delivered in Vienna before a small audience. A larger number of hearers would probably have treated what was said with ridicule. In regard to all the assumptions of the so-called experts in practical affairs as to the immediate future, I ventured to say that an exact observer of the inner life of humanity could see in the social conditions prevailing all over the civilized world something like an abscess, like a social disease, a kind of cancerous growth, which must inevitably very soon break out in a terrible manner over this world. Those practical statesmen, who were then talking of the “improvement in political relations” and the like, looked upon this as the pessimism of an idealist. But that was the utterance of a conviction gained by a study of human evolution from the point of view of spiritual science, which I will describe to you this evening. To this kind of research the building known as the Dornach Building, the Goetheanum, is dedicated. Situated in the corner of the northwest of Switzerland, this building is the outer representative of the movement whose object is the study of the spiritual science of which I speak. You will hear and read all kinds of assertions about the aims and object of this building and the meaning of the movement which it is intended to represent. And it may be said in most cases that the gossip about these things is the very opposite of the truth; mysterious nonsense, false and senseless mysticism, many varieties of obscure nonsense are attached to the work attempted by this movement in the building at Dornach representing it. It cannot be expected that anything but misunderstandings without number should still exist regarding this movement of spiritual life. In reality, the meaning of the movement is to be found in its striving with set purpose to bring about a renewal of our whole civilization, as it is expressed in art, religion, science, education, and other human activities; in fact, it may truly be said that a renewal is sorely needed from the very foundations of social life upwards. This stream of spiritual life leads us to the conviction, already indicated by me. in these lectures, that it is no longer of any use to devise net schemes for world-improvement; from its very nature, human evolution demands a transformation of thoughts and ideas, of the most intimate life of feeling of humanity itself. Such a transformation is the aim of spiritual science, as it is represented in this movement. Spiritual science stimulates the belief that the views of society, of which we have just spoken, proceed from the old habits of thought which have not kept pace with the evolution of humanity and are no longer suited to its present life. These views have been clearly proved useless in aiding the reconstruction of social life. What we need is understanding. What is really the meaning of all the subconscious yearnings, of the demands, which have not yet penetrated into the conscious thought of our present humanity? What do they mean, above all things, with regard to art, with regard to science, religion, and education? Let us look at the new directions followed by art, especially of late! I know well that in giving the following little sketch of the development of art, I must inevitably give offence to many; indeed, what I am going to say will be taken by many as a proof of the most complete lack of understanding of the later schools of art. If we except a few isolated, very commendable efforts of recent years, the chief characteristic in the development of modern art is that it has lost that inner impulse which should drive it to place before the world that which is felt by humanity as a pressing need. The opinion has grown more and more common that, in contemplating a work of art. we must ask: How much of the spirit and significance of outer reality does it express? How far is external nature or human life reflected in art? One need only ask, what meaning has such a criterion with respect to a “Raphael”, or a “Leonardo”, or to any other real work of art? Do we not see in such great works of art that the resemblance to the outer reality surrounding us is by no means the measure of their greatness? Do we not see the measure of their greatness in the creation of something from within that is far removed from the immediate outer reality? What worlds are those that unroll before us as we gaze at the now almost effaced picture at Milan, Leonardo's Last Supper, or when we stand before a “Raphael”? Is it not a matter of secondary importance that those painters have succeeded more or less well in depicting the laws of nature in their work? Is it not their chief aim to tell us something of a, world which we do not see when we only use our eyes, when, we perceive only with our outer senses? And do we not find more and more that the only criterion now applied in judging a, work of art, or in judging anything artistic, is whether the thing is really true, and “true” here is to be understood in the ordinary naturalistic sense of the word. Let us ask ourselves—strange as the question may appear to the holders of certain artistic views—what does an art confer on life, actually on social life, what is an art, which aspires to nothing higher, than the reproduction of a part of external reality? At the time in which modern capitalism and modern technical science became a power, landscape painting began to be developed in the world of art. I know, of course, that landscape painting is justified, fully justified from an artistic point of view. But it is also true, that no artistically perfect landscape painting, however perfect, equals in any sense the scene lying before me, as I stand on a mountain side and contemplate Nature's: own landscape. Precisely the rise of landscape painting shows to what an extent art has taken refuge in the mere imitation of nature, which it can never equal. Art turned to landscape painting because it had lost touch with the spiritual world; it could no longer create out of the spiritual and super-sensible world., What will be the future of art, if it is inspired only by the recent impulses toward naturalistic art? Art such as this can never grow out of life, as a flower grows from its roots; it will be a luxury outside life, an object of desire for those only for whom life has no cares. Is it not comprehensible that people who are absorbed in the pressing cares of life from morning till evening, who are shut off from all culture, the object of which is the understanding of art, should feel themselves separated as by an abyss from art? Though one hardly dare to put the sentiment into words now-a-days, because to many it would stamp the speaker as a philistine, it is distinctly evident in social life that great numbers of people look on art as something remote, and unconsciously feel it to be a luxury of life, something that does not belong to every human life, and to every existence worthy of a human being, although, in truth, it brings completion to every human life worthy of the name. Naturalistic art will always be in one sense a luxury for those whose lives are free from care, and who are able to educate themselves in that art. I felt this when I was teaching for some years in a working-men's college, where I had the opportunity of addressing the workers themselves directly in order to help them understand the socialist theories which were being instilled into their minds, to their ruin, by those who called themselves “leaders of the people.” I learnt to understand—forgive the personal remark—what it means to bring scientific knowledge from a purely human standpoint7 within reach of those unspoiled minds. From a longing to know something also about modern art a request was made by my students that I take them through the museums and picture galleries on Sundays. Though it was possible, of course, to explain a great deal to them, since they had themselves the desire to be educated, I knew quite well that what I said did not at all make the same impression on these minds as did the things that I had told them from the standpoint of universal humanity. I felt that it would be a cultural untruth to tell them about the luxury art of the later naturalistic school, so far removed from actual life. This on the one hand. On the other hand, do we not see, how art has lost its connection with life? Here, too, praiseworthy endeavors have come to light in the last few decades; but these have been by no means decided enough, though much has been done in the direction of industrial art. We see how inartistic our everyday surroundings have become. Art has made an illusory progress. All the buildings around us with which we come in contact in our daily routine are as devoid of artistic beauty as possible. Practical life cannot be raised to artistic form, because art has separated itself from life. Art which merely imitates nature cannot design tables and chairs and other articles of utility in such a manner that when we see them, we at once have the feeling of something artistic. These objects must transcend nature as human life transcends itself. If art merely imitates, it fails in the shaping of practical life, and practical life thereby becomes prosaic, uninteresting and dry, because we are unable to give it an artistic form and to surround ourselves with beautiful objects in our everyday lives. This might be further amplified. I shall only indicate the decided direction which the evolution of our art has nevertheless taken. In like manner we have moved in other domains of modern civilization. Have we not seen that science has gradually ceased to proclaim to us the foundation which lies at the base of all sense-life? Little wonder that art has not found the way out of the world of sense since science itself has lost that way. By degrees science has come to the point of merely registering the outer facts of the senses, or at most to comprise them in natural laws. Intellectualism of the most pronounced type has over-spread all modern scientific activity to an ever increasing degree, and a terrible fear prevails among scientists lest they should be unable to exclude everything but intellectualism in their research, lest something like imaginative or artistic intuitions should perchance find their way into science. It is easy to see by what is said and written on this subject by scientists themselves how great is the terror they experience at the thought that any other means than the dry, sober intellect and the investigation by sense-perception should find entrance into scientific research. In every activity which does not keep strictly to intellectual thought men do not get far enough away from cuter reality to judge it correctly. Thus the modern researcher, the modern scientist, strives to carry on his work by intellectualism only; because he believes he can by this means get away far enough from the reality to judge it, as he says, quite objectively. Here the question might perhaps be asked: Is it not possible through intellectualism to get so far away from reality that we can no longer experience it? And it is this intellectualism, above all, which has made it impossible for us to conquer reality by science, as I have already indicated in these lectures and into which I will enter more fully today. Turning to the religious life: with what mistrust and disapproval is every attempt to penetrate into the spiritual world by means of spiritual science received by the religious communities! On what grounds? People are quite ignorant of the reason of their disapproval. From official quarters we learn of a science which is determined to keep to the mere world of the senses, and we hear that in these official quarters the claim is apparently allowed that it is only in this way that strict and true scientific knowledge can be attained. But the student of historical evolution does not view the matter in this light. To him it appears that for the last few centuries the religious bodies have more and more laid claim to he the only authority in matters relating to the spirit and soul, and have recognized as valid only those opinions which they themselves permit the people to hold. Under the influence of this claim to the monopoly of knowledge by the Church, the sciences have neglected the study of everything except the outer sense-perceptions, or at most they have attempted to penetrate into the higher regions with a few abstract conceptions. They believe they are doing this purely in the interests of exact science, and do not dream that they are influenced by the Church's pretension to the monopoly of knowledge, the knowledge of the spirit and the soul as contained in their religious creeds. What has been forbidden to the sciences for centuries, the sciences themselves now declare to be an absolute condition for the exactness of their research, for the objective truth of their work. Thus it has happened that the religious communities having failed to develop their insight into the world of soul and spirit, and having preserved the old traditions, now see in the new methods of spiritual research, in the new paths of approach to the soul and spirit, an enemy to all religion, whereas they ought to recognize in these new methods the very best friends of religion. We shall now speak of these three regions of culture, art, science, and religion. For it is the mission of Anthroposophy or spiritual science to build up a new structure in these three regions of culture. To explain what I mean, I must indicate in a few words the vital point of spiritual science. Its premises are very different from those of science as it is commonly known today. It fully recognizes the methods of modern science, fully recognizes also the triumphs of modern science. But because spiritual science believes it understands the methods of research of modern science better than the scientists themselves, it feels compelled to take other ways for the attainment of knowledge regarding spirit and soul than those which are still regarded by large numbers of people as the only right ones. In consequence of the enormous prejudice entertained against all research into the higher worlds, great errors and misunderstandings have been spread abroad regarding the aims of the Dornach movement. That here is truly no false mysticism, nothing in any way obscure in this movement, is plainly evident in my endeavors in the beginning of the 'nineties, which formed the starting-point for the spiritual-scientific movement to which I allude, and of which the Building at Dornach is the representative. At that time I collected the material which seemed to me then most necessary for the social enlightenment of today in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. Whoever reads that book will hardly accuse the spiritual science of which I speak of false mysticism; but he may see what a difference there is between the idea of human freedom contained in my book and the idea of freedom as an impulse prevalent in our modern civilization. As an example of the latter, I might give Woodrow Wilson's idea of freedom; an extraordinary one, but very characteristic of the culture, the civilization of our age. He is honest in his demand for freedom for the political life of the present day. But what does he mean by freedom? We arrive at an understanding of his meaning when we read words like the following: ‘A ship moves freely,’ he says, ‘when it is adapted to all the forces which act upon it from the wind, from the waves, and so on. When its construction is exactly adapted to its environment, no hindrance to its progress can arise through the forces of wind or wave. Man must also he able to motive freely through life, by adapting himself to the forces with which he comes in contact in life, so that no hindrance may ever come to him from any direction.’ He also compares the life of a free human being with a part of a machine, saying: ‘We say of a part, built into a machine, that it can move freely when it has no connection with anything anywhere; and when the rest of the machine is so constructed that this part runs freely within it.’ I have just one thing to say to this; we can only speak of freedom with regard to the human being when we see in it the very opposite of such an adaptation to the environment, we can only speak of human freedom when we compare it, not with the freedom of a ship on the sea, perfectly adapted to the forces of wind and weather, but when we compare it with the freedom of a ship that can stop and turn against wind and weather, and can do so without regarding the forces to which it is adapted. That is to say, at the bottom of such an idea of freedom as this lies the whole mechanical conception of the world, yet at the present day it is considered to be the only possible one. This world-conception is the result of the mere intellectualism of modern times. In my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity I have felt compelled to take a stand against views of this kind. I know very well—forgive another personal remark—that this book has fragments of the European philosophical conception of the world, out of which it is born, still clinging to it, as a chicken sometimes retains fragments of the eggshell from which it has emerged. For the book has. of course, grown out of European philosophical world-conceptions. It was necessary to show in that book the erroneous thought in those world-conceptions. For this reason the book may appear to some to be pedantic, though this was by no means my intention. The contents are intended to work as an impulse in the immediate practice of life, so that, through the ideas developed in that book, the impulse thus generated in the human will may flow directly into human life. For this reason, however, I was obliged to state the problem of human freedom quite differently from the usual manner of doing so wherever we turn, throughout the centuries of human evolution, the question regarding the freedom of human will and of the human being has been: Is man free, or is he not free? I was under the necessity of showing that the question in this form was wrongly framed and must be put from a different standpoint. For if we take that which modern science and modern human consciousness look upon as the real self, but which ought to be regarded as the natural self, then, certainly, that being can never he free. That self must act of inner necessity. Were man only that which he is held to be by modern science, then his idea of freedom would be the same as that of Woodrow Wilson's. But this would be no real freedom; it would be only what might be called with every single action the inevitable result of natural causes. But modern human consciousness is not much aware of the other self within the human being where the problem regarding freedom really begins. Modern human consciousness is only aware of the natural self in man; it regards him as a being subject to natural causality. But those who penetrate more deeply into the human being must reflect that man can become something more in the course of his life than that with which nature has endowed him. We first discover what the human being really is, when we recognize that one part of him is that with which he is born, and all that which he has inherited; the other part is that which he does not owe to his bodily nature, but which he can make of himself by awakening the real self slumbering within him. Because these things are true I have not asked: Is man free or not free? I have stated the question in the following way: Can man become a free being through inner development, or can he not? And the answer is: He can become free if he develops within himself that which otherwise slumbers, but can be awakened; he can only then become free. Man's freedom is not a gift of nature. Freedom belongs to that part of man which he can, and must, awaken within himself. But if the ideas contained in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity are to be further developed and applied to external social life, so that these truths may become clear to a larger circle of people, it will be necessary to build a superstructure of the truths of spiritual science on the foundation of that philosophy. It had to be shown that by taking his evolution into his own hands, man is really able to awaken a slumbering being within him. I endeavored to do this in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, and in the other books which I have contributed to the literature of spiritual science. In these books I tried to show that the human being can indeed take his own evolution in hand and that only by so doing, and thus making of it something different from that to which he is born, can he rise to a real knowledge of soul and spirit. It is true that this view is considered by a large part of humanity at the present day to be a most unattractive one. For what does it presuppose? It presupposes that we attain to something like intellectual humility. But few desire this today. I will explain what I mean by this quality of intellectual humility, to which we must attain. Suppose we give a volume of Goethe's lyric poems to a child of five. The child will certainly not treat the book as it deserves; he will tear it to pieces, or spoil it in some other way. In any case he does not know how to value such a book. But suppose the child to have grown ten or twelve years older, that he has been taught. and trained; then he will treat Goethe's lyric poems in a different manner. And yet there is no great difference externally between a child of five and one of twelve or fourteen with a book of Goethe's poems before him. The difference lies within the child. He has developed so that he knows what to do with such a volume. As the child feels towards the volume of Goethe's lyrics, so must the man feel towards nature, the cosmos, the whole universe, when he begins to think seriously of soul and spirit. He must acknowledge to himself that, in order to read and understand what is written in the book of nature and the universe, he must do his utmost to develop his inner self, just as the five-year-old child must be taught in order to understand Goethe's lyric poems. We must acknowledge with intellectual humility our impotence to penetrate the universe with understanding by means of the natural gifts with which we are born; and we must then admit that there may be ways of self-development and of unfolding the inner powers of our being to see in that which lies spread out before the senses the living spirit and the living soul. My writings to which I have referred show that it is possible to put this in practice. This must be said, because intellectualism, the fruit of evolution of the last few centuries, is no longer able to solve the riddles of life. Into one region of life, that of inanimate nature, it is able to penetrate, but it is compelled to halt before human reality, more especially social reality. That quality which I have called intellectual humility must be the groundwork of every true modern conception of the impulse towards freedom. It must also be the groundwork of all real insight into the transformation necessary in art, religion, and science. Here intellectuality has plainly, only too plainly, shown that it can attain no real knowledge which truly perceives and attains to the things of the soul and spirit. As I leave already pointed out, it has confined itself to the outer world of the senses and to the combining and systematizing of perceptions Hence it has been unable to prevail against the pretensions of the religious bodies, which have also not attained to a new knowledge of matters pertaining to the soul and spirit, but have on this account carried into modern times an antiquated view, unsuited to the age. But one thing must be conquered, that is the fear I have already described, the fear that we might become too much involved in the objects of the senses, in our endeavors to gain a spiritual knowledge of them. It is so easy to call oneself a follower of intellectualism, because, when we occupy ourselves merely with abstract ideas, even of modern science, we are so far removed from the reality that we only view it in perspective, and there is no danger of our being in any way influenced by the reality. But with the knowledge that is meant here, which we gain for ourselves when we take our own evolution in hand, with such knowledge we must descend into the realities of life, we must plunge into the profoundest depths of our own nature, deeper than those reached by mere self-training in intellectualism. Within the bounds of intellectualism, we only reach the upper strata of our own life. If with the help of the knowledge here spoken of, we descend into the depths of our own inner nature, we find there not only thoughts and feelings, a mere reflection of the outer world, we find there happenings, facts of our inner being, from which the merely intellectual thinker would recoil in horror; but which are of the same kind as those within nature herself, of the same kind as those which happen in the world. Then, within our own nature, we learn to know the nature of the world. We cannot learn to know that life of the world if we go no further than mere abstract conceptions or the laws of nature. We must penetrate so far that our own inmost being becomes one with reality. We must not fear to approach reality; our inner development must carry us so far that we can stand firm in the presence of reality, without being consumed, or scorched, or suffocated. When we stand in the presence of reality, no longer held at a distance by the intellect, we are able to grasp the truth of things. Thus we find described in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, the inner development of the human being to the stage of spiritual knowledge at which he becomes one with reality, but in such wise that, being merged in reality, he can imbibe from it knowledge which is not a distant perception by means of the intellect, but is instead saturated with reality itself and for this reason can merge with it. You will find that one characteristic feature of the spiritual science which occupies us here is that it can plunge into reality, that it does not merely speak of an abstract spirit, but of the real, tangible spirit, living in our environment surrounding us just as the things of the sense-world surround us. Abstract observations are the fruit of modern intellectualism. Take up any new work, with the exception of pure natural science or pure philosophy, and you will find the conception of life it contains, often a would-be philosophical view, is far removed from actual life or from a real knowledge of things. Read what is said about the will in one of the newer books on psychology, and you will find that there is no profound meaning underlying the words. The ideas of those who devote themselves to such studies have not the power actually to penetrate to the core, even of nature herself. To them matter is a thing outside, because they cannot penetrate it in spirit. I should like to elucidate this by an example. In one of my last books, Riddles of the Soul, Von Seelenraetseln, I have shown how an opinion of long standing, prevailing in natural science, must be overcome by modern spiritual science. I know how very paradoxical my words must sound to many. But it is just those truths which are able to satisfy the demands—already making themselves heard and becoming more and more insistent as time goes on—for a new kind of thought which will often appear paradoxical, when compared with all that is still looked upon as authoritative. Every modern scientist who has occupied himself with the subject maintains that there are two kinds of nerves8 in human and animal life (we are now only concerned with human life, one set, leading from the sense organs to the central organ, is the sensory nerves, which are stimulated by sense-perceptions, the stimulus communicating itself to the nerve center. The second kind of nerves, the so-called motor nerves, pass from the center out to the limbs. These motor-nerves enable us to use our limbs. They are said to be the nerves of volition, while the others are called the sensory nerves. Now I have shown in my book, Riddles of the Soul, though only in outline, that there is no fundamental difference between the sensory and the so-called motor nerves or nerves of volition, and that the latter are not subject to the will. The instances brought forward to support the statement that these nerves are obedient to the will as is shown by the terrible disease of locomotor ataxia really prove the exact opposite, which can easily be shown. They, indeed, prove the truth of my contention. These so-called voluntary nerves are also sensitive nerves. While the other sensitive nerves pass from the sense organs to the central organ, so that the outer sense-perceptions may be transmitted to it, the voluntary nerves, as they are called, which do not differ from the other set, perceive that which is movement within ourselves. They are endowed with the perception of movement. There are no voluntary nerves. The will is of a purely spiritual nature, purely spirit and soul, and functions directly as spirit and soul. We use the so-called voluntary nerves, because they are the sensory nerves for the limb which is going to move and must be perceived if the will is to move it. For what reason do I give this example? Because countless treatises on the will exist at the present day, or may be read and heard, in which the will is dealt with. But the ideas developed have not the impelling power to advance to real knowledge, to press forward to the sight of will in its working. Such knowledge remains abstract and foreign to life. While such ideas are current, modern science will continue to tell us of motor nerves, of nerves of volition. Spiritual science evolves ideas regarding the will which at the same time show us the nature of the physical human nervous system. Spiritual science will penetrate the phenomena and facts of nature. Instead of remaining in regions foreign to life, it will find its way into reality. It will have the courage to permeate material things with the spirit, not to leave them outside as things apart. For spiritual science everything is spiritual. Spiritual science will be able to pierce the surface and penetrate into the social order, and will work for a reality in social life, which baffles our abstract, intellectual natural science. And thus, spiritual science will again proclaim a spiritual knowledge, a new way of penetrating into the psychic and the spiritual in the universe. It will proclaim boldly that those spiritual worlds, represented in pictures envisioned by artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci, can no longer suffice for us. In accordance with the progress of human evolution, we must find a new way into the spiritual world. But if we learn to understand the spiritual world anew, if we penetrate into that world, not in the nebulous manner of pantheism, by a continual repetition of the word “spirit”, a universal, abstract, vague spirit which “must he there”: if we pierce through to the real phenomena of the spiritual world not by spiritualism, but by the development of the human forces of spirit and soul in the manner described above, then again we shall know of a spiritual world in the only way adapted to the present development of humanity. Then the mysteries of the spiritual world will reveal themselves to us, and then something will happen of which Goethe spoke. Although he was only a beginner in the things which modern spiritual science goes on developing in accordance with his own spirit, but of which he had a premonition, Goethe beautifully expressed that which will happen in the words: “He to whom nature begins to reveal her open secrets, experiences a profound longing for her worthiest exponent—art.” Once more will the artist receive a revelation from the spiritual world; he will then no longer be led astray in the belief that his portrayal of spiritual things in a material picture is an abstract, symbolic, lifeless allegory; he will know the living spirit and will be able to express that living spirit through material means. No longer will the perfect imitation of nature be considered the best part of a work of art, but the manifestation of that which the spirit has revealed to the artist. Once more an art will arise, filled with spirit, an art which is in no way symbolical, in no way allegorical, which also does not betray its luxurious character by attempting to rival nature, to the perfection of which it can never attain. It demonstrates its necessity, its justification, in human life by proclaiming the existence of something of which the ordinary, direct beholding of nature, naturalism, can give us no information. And even if the artist's attempt to give expression to something spiritual be but a clumsy effort, he is giving form to something which has a significance, apart from nature, because it transcends nature. He makes no bungling attempts at that which nature can do better than he. A way opens here to that art in which a beginning has been made in the external structure and the external decoration of the Goetheanum at Dornach. The attempt has been made there to create a University of Spiritual Science for the work to be carried on within it. In all the paintings on the ceilings, the wood carvings, etc., an attempt has been made to give form to all that spiritual science reveals in that building. Hence the building itself is a natural development. No old architectural style could be followed here, because the spirit will be spoken of in a new way within it. Let us look at nature and consider the shell of a nut; the kernel within determines the form of it; in nature every sheath is formed in accordance with the requirements of the inner core. So the whole of the building at Dornach is formed in consonance with that which as music will one day resound within it; with those mystery dramas which will one day be presented there; with those revelations of spiritual science which will one day be uttered within its walls. Everything described here will echo in the wood carvings, in the pillars, and in the capitals. An art as yet only in its beginnings, which is really horn of a new spirit, altogether born of the spirit, is there represented. The artists who are working there are themselves their own severest critics. In such an undertaking one is, of course, exposed to misunderstandings; this is only natural. Objections are raised against the Dornach Building by visitors, who say: “These anthroposophists have filled their building with symbols and allegories.” Other visitors who increase in number from day to day, understand what they see here. Now the characteristic of the building is that it does not contain a single symbol or allegory; in the work attempted here the spirit has flowed into the immediate artistic form. That which is expressed here has nothing of symbolism, nothing of allegory, but everything is something in its own form. Up to the present we have only been able to build a covering for a spiritual center of work; for external social conditions do not yet permit us to erect a railway station or even a bank building. For reasons, which may perhaps be easily comprehensible to you, we have not yet been able to find the style of a modern bank or of a modern department store; but they must also he found. Above all things, the way must be found along these lines to an artistic shaping of actual practical life. Just think of the social importance of art, even for our daily bread; for the preparation of bread depends on the manner in which people think and feel. It is a matter of great and social significance to men, that everything by which they are immediately surrounded in life should take on an artistic form; that every spoon, every glass, should have a form well adapted to its use, instead of a form chosen at random to serve the purpose; that one should see at a glance, from its form, what service a thing performs in life, and at the same time recognize its beauty. Then for the first time large numbers of people will feel spiritual life to be a vital necessity, when spiritual life and practical life are brought into direct connection with each other. As spiritual science is able to throw light on the nature of matter, as I have shown in the example of the sensory and motor nerves, so will art, born of spiritual science, attain to the power of giving direct form to every chair, every table, to every man-created object. Since it is plainly evident that the gravest prejudices and misunderstandings come from the churches, we may ask: What is the position finally reached by the religious creeds? If they have any justification at all, they must have a connection by their very nature with the spiritual world. But they have preserved into our period of time old traditions of these worlds, grown out of very different conditions of the human soul. Spiritual science strives to advance to the spiritual world, in accordance with the new mode of thought, with the new life of the soul. Should this be condemned by the religious sentiment of humanity, if it understands itself aright? Is such a thing possible? Never! What is the real aim of religious sentiment and of all religious work? Certainly not the proclamation of theories and dogmas pertaining to the higher worlds. The aim of all religious work should be to give all men an opportunity to look up with reverence to higher worlds. The work of religion is to inculcate reverence for the super-sensible. Human nature needs this reverence. It needs to look up in reverence to the sublime in the spiritual worlds. If human nature is denied the present mode of entrance, then, of course, the old way must still be kept open. But since this way is no longer suited to the thoughts of our day, it must be enforced, its recognition must be imposed by authority. Hence the external character of religious teaching as applied to modern human nature. An antiquated outlook on the higher worlds is imposed by the religious teachers. Let us suppose that there are communities in which an understanding exists of the true nature of religion consisting in reverence for spiritual things. Must it not be to the highest interest of, such communities that their members should develop a living knowledge of the unseen world? Will not those whose souls contain a vision of the super-sensible, whose knowledge gives them a familiarity with those worlds be the most likely to reverence them? Since the middle of the fifteenth century human evolution has taken the line of development of the individuality, of the personality. To expect of anyone today that he should attain a vision or an understanding of the higher worlds on authority, or in any other way than by the force of his own individuality or personality, is to expect of him something which is against his nature. If he is allowed freedom of thought with respect to his knowledge of the super-sensible he will unite with his fellow-men in order that reverence for the spiritual world, which everyone recognizes in his own personal way, may be encouraged in the community. When men have attained freedom of thought to approach knowledge of the spiritual world through their own individuality, then the common service of the higher worlds, true religion, will flourish. This will show itself especially in the conception of the Christ Himself. This conception was very different in earlier centuries from that even of many theologians of the later centuries, especially of the nineteenth. How greatly has humanity fallen away from the perception of the true super-sensible nature of the Christ, who lived in the man Jesus! How far is it removed from the understanding of that union of a super-sensible being with a human body, through the Mystery of Golgotha, in order that the earth in its development might have a deeper meaning! That union of the super-sensible with the things of the senses, which was consummated in the Mystery of Golgotha, how little has it been understood even by theologians of a certain type in recent times! The man of Nazareth has been designated “the simple man of Nazareth”, the conception of religion has become more and more materialistic. Since no one was able to find a way into the higher worlds, suited to modern humanity, the super-sensible path to the Christ-Being was lost. Many who now believe that they are in communion with the Christ, only believe this. They do not dream how little their thought of Christ and their words concerning Him correspond to the experiences of those who draw near to the great Mystery of Humanity with a spiritual knowledge that is suited to our time. It must be said that spiritual science makes absolutely no pretension of founding a new religion. It is a science, a source of knowledge; but we ought to recognize in it the means for a rejuvenescence of the religious life of humanity. As it can rejuvenate science and art, so can it also renew religious life, the very great importance of which must lie apparent to anyone who can appreciate the extreme gravity of the social future. Much, very much has been said recently on the subject of education, yet it must be acknowledged that a large part of the discussion does not touch the chief problem. I endeavored to deal with this problem in a series of educational lectures which I was asked to deliver to the teachers who are to form the staff of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, which was founded last September [1919], in conformity with ideas underlying the Threefold Social Order. At the foundation of the school I not only endeavored to give shape to externals, corresponding to the requirements and the impulse of the Threefold Order; I also strove to present pedagogy and didactics to the teaching-staff of this new kind of school in such a light that the human being would be educated to face life and be able to bring about a social future in accordance with certain unconquerable instincts in human nature. It is evident that the old-fashioned system of normal training, with its stereotyped rules and methods of teaching, must be superseded. It is true nowadays that many people agree that the individuality of the pupil ought to be taken into account in teaching. All sorts of rules are produced for the proper consideration of the child's individuality. But the pedagogy of the future will not be a normal science; it will be a true art, the art of developing the human being. It will rest upon a knowledge of the whole man. The teacher of the future will know that in the human being before him, who carries on development from birth through all the years of life, a spirit and soul element is working through the organs out to the surface. From the first year of school, he will see how every year new forces evolve from the depths of the child's nature. No abstract normal training can confirm this sight; only a living perception of human nature itself. Much has been said of late on the subject of instruction through observation and, within certain limits, this kind of tuition is justified. But there are things which cannot be communicated through external observation, yet which must be communicated to the growing child; but they can only be so communicated when the teacher, the educator, is animated by a true understanding of the growing human being, when he is able to see the inner growth of the child as it changes with every succeeding year; when he knows what the inner nature of the human being requires in the seventh, ninth, and twelfth years of his life. For only when education is carried on in accordance with nature, can the child grow strong for the battle of life. One comes in contact with many shattered lives at the present day, many who do not know what to make of life, to whom it has nothing to offer. There are many more people who suffer from such disrupted lives than is commonly known. What is the reason.? It is because the teacher is unable to take note of important laws of the evolving human being. I will give only one instance of what I mean. How very often do we hear well-meaning teachers say emphatically that one should develop in the child a clear understanding of what is being offered him as mental food. The result of this method in practice is banality, triviality! The teacher descends artificially to the understanding of the child, and that manner of teaching has already become instinctive. If it is persisted in, and the child is trained in this false clarity of understanding, what is overlooked? A teacher of this kind does not know what it means to a man, say thirty-five years of age, who looks back to his childhood and remembers: “My teacher told me such and such a thing when I was nine or ten years old; I believed it because I looked up with reverence to the authority of my teacher, and because there was a living force in his personality through which I was impressed by his words. Now, looking back, I find that his words have lived on in me; now I can understand them.” A marvellous light is shed on life by such an event, when through inner development we can look back in our thirty-fifth year at the lessons we have learnt out of love for our teacher which we could not understand at the time. That light, which is a force in life, is lost when the teacher descends to the banality of the object-lesson, which is praised as an ideal method. The teacher must know what forces should be developed in the child, in order that the forces which are already in his nature, may remain with him throughout his life. Then the child need not merely recall to memory what he learnt between his seventh and fifteenth years; what he then learnt is renewed again and again, and wears a new aspect in each successive stage of life. What the child learnt is renewed at every later epoch of life. The foregoing is an effort to place before you an idea of the fundamental character of a system of pedagogy which, if followed, may truly grow into an art; by its practice the human being may take his place in life and find himself equal to all the demands of the social future. However much people may vaunt their social ideals, there are few who are at all capable of surveying life as a whole. But in the carrying out of social ideals, a wide outlook on life is indispensable. People speak, for instance, of transferring the means of production to the ownership of the community and believe that by withdrawing them from the administration of the individual human being, much would be accomplished. I have already spoken on this point, and will go into the subject again more thoroughly in the following lectures. But assuming for a moment that it is possible to transfer the means of production to the ownership of the community at once, do you suppose that the community of the next generation would still own them? No! For even if the means of production were transmitted to the next generation, it would be done without taking into account the fact that this next generation would develop new and fruitful forces, which would transform the whole system of production, and thus render the old means useless. If we have any idea of molding social life. we must take part in life in its fullness, in all its phases. From a conception of man as a being composed of body, soul, and spirit, and from a real understanding of body, soul, and spirit, a new art of education will arise, an art which may truly be regarded as a necessity in social life. Arising from this way of thinking, something has developed within the spiritual movement, centered at Dornach, which has to a great extent met with misunderstanding. There are a number of persons who have learnt in the course of years to think not unfavorably of our spiritual-scientific movement. But when we recently began, in Zurich and elsewhere, to give representations of the art known as eurythmy, an art springing naturally out of spiritual science itself, but, as we are fully aware, as yet only in its infancy, people began to exclaim that after all, spiritual science cannot be worth much, for to introduce such antics as an accompaniment to spiritual science only shows that the latter is completely crazy. In such a matter as this, people do not consider how paradoxical anything must appear which works towards reconstituting the world on the basis of spiritual science. This art of eurythmy is a social art in the best sense; for its aim is, above all things, to communicate to us the mysteries of human nature. It uses the capacities for movement latent in the human being, bringing to expression these movements in a manner to be explained at the next representation of the eurythmic art. I will only mention here that eurythmy is a true art; for it reveals the deepest secrets of human art itself by bringing to evidence a true speech, a visible speech expressed by the whole human being. But beside the mere movements of the body, founder on physiological science and a study of the structure of the human form, eurythmy presents to us at the same time a capacity of movement through which man, ensouled and inspired, yields himself up to movement. The purely physiological, gymnastic exercises of our materialistic age may also be taught to children, and they are now taught in the Waldorf School of which I have spoken. Ensouled movement, however, actually employs the whole being, while gymnastics on physiological, merely material lines employs only a part of the whole nature of the human being, and therefore, unless supplemented by eurythmy, allows much to degenerate in the growing human being Out of the depths of human nature spiritual life in a new form must enter into the most important branches of life. It will be my task in the next few days to show how external life may really be given a new form in the present and for the future, when the impulse for the change comes from such a new spirit. Many people of all sorts, noteworthy people, feel today the necessity of understanding spiritually the modern pressing demands of social life. It is painful to see the number of people who are still asleep as regards these demands, and the many others who approach them in a confused way as agitators. We find faint indications of a feeling that none of the mere superficial programs can be of any use without a change of thought, of ideas, a new mode of learning from the spirit. But in many cases how superficial is the expression of that longing for a new spirit! We may say that the yearning for a new spirit is dimly and imperceptibly felt here and there in remarkable men, who most certainly have no idea of that which the Dornach Building represents in the outer world. But the expression of a longing for this new spirit can be heard. I will give one out of many examples of this. In addition to the numerous memoirs published in connection with the disaster of the World War just ended, those of the Austrian Statesman, Czernin, will soon appear. This book promises to be extremely interesting. It is difficult to express what I wish to say without the risk of being misunderstood; I mean that it is interesting, because Czernin was a good deal less pretentious than the others who up to now have given expression to their opinions on the War, and he should therefore be leniently judged. In this book of Czernin's we may read something like the following passage:
Even this man speaks of a new spirit, but this new spirit is only a shadowy conception, a dim presentiment in heads like his. In order that this new spirit may take hold of the hearts, of the minds, of the souls of men in a really concrete form, the spiritual science and the art of education of which I wished to speak today in connection with human evolution, will labor for the social future of humanity.
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| 332a. The Social Future: The Cooperation of the Spiritual, Political, and Economic Departments of Life
29 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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| How can that which is united in the commodity be separated and come under the administration of three departments, all concerned with the commodity and interested in its circulation? |
| This content is there merely to appeal to the understanding and to feelings; it is there to play a part in the inner life of men, to fill the soul with inner comfort and well-being. |
| Yet this is hung by the lady in question round her neck! Anybody can understand this, and in the present-day attitude of mind one can seek a remedy for such things. The esteemed thinker whom I have in mind thinks it necessary for the state (of course, everybody is now under the obsession of the state) to impose high taxes on luxuries; so high, indeed, that people would cease buying them. |
| 332a. The Social Future: The Cooperation of the Spiritual, Political, and Economic Departments of Life
29 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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In the second of this series of lectures I have sketched for you the method of constructing the spiritual, the political, and the economic life. I have then endeavored in the succeeding lectures to describe in detail these three members of the body social and disentangle what has heretofore been considered a strict unity. (a) All that related to law, politics, and affairs of state should be administered in a democratic parliament. (b) Everything relating to the spiritual and intellectual department of life should be detached from the political or equity state, and the spiritual organization should be independently administered in freedom. (c) The economic organization, separated from the political and legal body, should form its own administration, instead of its own conditions and necessities, founded upon expert knowledge and technical capacity and skill. Now the objection is always raised that such an arrangement of the social organism denies the necessity of building up social lilac as a unity. For every single institution, every separate work which can be achieved by the individual within the social organism, should endeavor to attain to such a unity; and this unity would be broken up, it is said, if any attempt were made to split the social organism into three parts. This objection is quite reasonable and comprehensible, judged by the habits of thought of the present day. But, as we all see today it can by no means be justified. Yet it is comprehensible, because in the first place we need only glance at economic life itself in order to see how to the smallest details spiritual, political, and purely economic affairs overlap. In view of this state of things it may well he asked: How could a splitting-up, a dismemberment, bring about any improvement? Let us begin by taking the problem of the origin of merchandise, of actual commodities. We shall find that the value of a commodity, of merchandise, is already possessed of a threefold nature, in that the commodity is produced, distributed, and consumed within the social organism; yet this value gives the appearance of a unity bound to the commodity, as we shall see. What determines the value of a commodity which can satisfy our requirements? In the first place we must have some personal need for the commodity in question. But let us examine how the need is determined. To begin with, it has, of course, to do with our bodily nature. For the bodily nature determines the value of the various material commodities. But even material goods are variously valued, according to the kind of education and requirements of the individual person. But where spiritual and intellectual products are concerned—and these are often inseparable from the sphere of the material, physical goods—we shall find that the method of valuing any commodity whatever is absolutely determined by the whole make-up of the human being, and the amount and kind of work he is willing to perform in order to possess that commodity. Here we see that it is the spiritual or intellectual element in man that determines the value of a commodity, or of any sort of merchandise. Secondly, we see that the goods being exchanged between one man and another are limited by the conditions of ownership. and that means neither more nor less than that they are limited by legal conditions. Whenever one man tries to obtain a commodity from another, he touches in some way the other's rights to the commodity in question. So that economic life with its circulation of commodities is permeated throughout by all sorts of legal conditions. And in the third place, a commodity has not merely the value which we attach to it through our requirements and the personal importance we give to these requirements, which is then transferred to the commodity, it has also an objective value in itself. It has an objective value, to the degree that it is durable or the reverse, lasting or perishable; to the degree that by its nature it is more or less serviceable, plentiful, or scarce. All these things condition an objective, actual economic value, the determination of which demands an objective expert knowledge, and the production of which requires an objective technical capacity. But these three determinations of value are brought together into a unity in the commodity. Hence it may be said with reason. How can that which is united in the commodity be separated and come under the administration of three departments, all concerned with the commodity and interested in its circulation? Looking merely at the idea, it is certainly true that in life things can and do unite which are administered from the most diverse directions. On the one hand, why should not the subjective value which a man personally attaches to a commodity be determined by his education which has its own independent administration? On the other hand, why should not legal conditions be given a place in the economic organizations? And why should not all the objective value that accrues to the commodity from expert knowledge and technical skill be added to the rest and unite in the object, in a unity? But all this is idea only and has no special value. That which the threefold order of the social organism aims at in this direction must have a much deeper foundation. Here it must be said that the threefold order of the social organism is not an idea conceived out of personal inclinations by one or more persons; it is an impulse resulting from an impartial observation of the historical development of humanity in modern times. We may say that actually for centuries the most important impulses of humanity have been tending unconsciously in the direction of this threefold membering; only they have never gained sufficient force to carry it through. The failure to develop this force is the cause of the present state of things, and of the misery in our surroundings. The time is ripe to say that the work must now be taken in hand for which preparation has been made for centuries, the work of bringing order into the social organism. The first thing we see is that the really free spiritual and intellectual life has broken away from the political and economic bodies. For that spiritual life which is dependent on the economic, legal-political organizations is by no means free. It is a portion of the spiritual life, torn away from the really fertile, free life of the spirit. It would be more exact to say that at the beginning of the period in which capitalism appeared with its division of labor on a grand scale, the really free spiritual life in certain spheres of art, of philosophy, and of religious conviction tore itself away from the economic organization and the political life, and was to a certain extent carried on unnoticed. That free spiritual life, forming only a part of all spiritual life, acts creatively only out of man's own impulses. In my lecture of yesterday I claimed that freedom for the whole of spiritual life. Detached from the free spiritual life, which is the outcome of man's own impulses, exists all that man finds necessary for the administration of the economic life, and for the administration of law and order. What is necessary for the administration of economic affairs has become dependent upon the economic forces themselves. In the positions and circles in which economic power exists, the possibility also exists to train the next generation in economic science, so that it may be able in its turn to attain economic power. But the science which has arisen out of economic life itself is only a part of all that might flow into the economic organization, were the whole of spiritual life to be drawn upon for economic life. But actually, it is commercial risk alone, and everything resulting from it, that is made the object of study; this is worked up into a science of economics. In regard to political life, the state requires functionaries and even learned men to fill its appointments, and these have been educated according to the stereotyped pattern prescribed for them by the state. The state, in its appointments, wishes and expects that qualities should be cultivated in individuals which can be used to its own advantage. But that brings about intellectual and spiritual enslavement, even if a man imagines himself to be free. He is not aware of his dependence, does not see that he is confined within the limits of the stereotyped model held up to him. But the truly free spiritual and intellectual life has won for itself a certain position in the world, independent of the economic and the political organizations. What is this position? I have already characterized it in part. That spiritual and intellectual life which has preserved its independence has become foreign to life; in one sense it has acquired an abstract character. We need only glance at the content of the philosophies of the free spiritual life, whether aesthetic, religious, or even scientific, in order to see that although very much is said, it amounts to little more than admonitions to society. This content is there merely to appeal to the understanding and to feelings; it is there to play a part in the inner life of men, to fill the soul with inner comfort and well-being. But it has not the power or the impetus actually to enter and influence external life. Hence the unbelief in that spiritual life, to which I have already referred, proceeding from socialist quarters and expressed in the words: No social idea however well-intended, if it is a purely spiritual one, can ever transform social life. To transform social life, real forces are necessary. But this abstract spiritual life is not reckoned as a real force. How far are the things that make up the inner life of the business man or civil servant in his religion, or even his scientific convictions, removed from the laws which he applies in business, in his position in life, in the administration of public affairs! It is absolutely a double outlook on life. On the one hand, principles which are entirely the outcome of economic and political life; on the other, a remnant of freedom, of spiritual life, condemned to impotence as regards inner affairs. Thus it may be said that a unitary, free, spiritual life came into being centuries ago, but because this was not recognized in the ordering of public life, it has become abstract, devoid of reality. Now, because the influence of the spirit is needed in external social life, spiritual life reclaims its might, its power. That is the situation which now faces us. Political life has followed another direction. Whereas spiritual life has partly emancipated itself, the political organization has completely merged itself in the course of recent centuries in the powerful interests of the economic body. It has happened unnoticed, but in reality the two have become one. Economic interests and needs have found expression in public laws, and these are often held to be human rights. But when scrutinized, they are found to be only economic and political interests and wants in the guise of laws. While, on the one hand, spiritual life demands its power, we find, on the other, that confusion has arisen in regard to the relation between legal and economic conditions. Large masses of the population throughout the civilized world include in their demands for the solution of the social problem a further fusion of the legal and economic organization. The whole of economic life is to be molded according to political and legal conceptions. If we examine today's favorite catchwords, what do we find but the last consequences of the fusion of political and economic life. We find that the radical socialist party, which influences wide circles of the population, demands that a political system, centralized, and graded as to administration, be tacked on to the economic life, and the economic life be hedged in on all sides by legal measures. The power of the law is to extend over economic processes. This is the other aspect of the crisis which has arisen in our time, and we may say: Through the demands for the increase of political and legal power over the economic life, tyranny of the state, of the legal system, over the economic system will arise. We see that the changes demanded for the recovery of economic life are not such as arise naturally out of economic conditions themselves; rather this demand arises out of the quest for political power, which aims to take possession of and dominate economic life. Proletarian dictatorship—what is it but the last consequence of the fusion of legal and political with economic life. Thus we see the necessity of thoroughly investigating the connection between law and politics, and the economic life at present On the one hand, free spiritual life has partly emancipated itself and demands restitution of its original powers; on the other hand, if the legal system continues to be more and more closely bound up with the economic system, the whole social organism will be thrown into disorder. The subordination of thought to the suggestion that the state is a unity, and therefore the social body is also a unity, has lasted long enough. The time has now come for us to realize the consequence of that thought in the social chaos existing over a large part of the civilized world. Economic conditions demand complete separation from legal control, because of the evident abuses which the political system would bring into economic affairs, were the developments of the last centuries to be carried to their final consequence. The impulse of the threefold social organism takes cognizance of these facts; and I should like to give you a striking example of something which ought to work as a unity in life, but which is torn asunder owing to these very facts. It is said now that the aim of the threefold order is to break up the unity of social life. In the future, however, it will be said that the threefold order truly lays the foundation for that unity. A striking example will show us that an abstract endeavor to bring about unity has had just the effect of destroying unity. At present there are some superficial people who are extremely proud of the theoretic distinction they draw between law and morality. These people say that morality is the valuation of human action judged purely from the inner stand-point of the soul; that the judgement of an action, whether good or bad, is guided only by that inner stand-point; and precisely in questions of philosophy the moral judgment is very carefully distinguished from the legal judgment, which belongs to outer, public life, and should be determined by the decrees and measures of political and social public life. Of this separation of morality and law nothing was known up to the time of the rise of modern technical science and the later capitalism. Only within the last few centuries have the impulses of law and morality been torn asunder. And why? Because the moral judgment was diverted into that free spiritual life which has emancipated itself, but which has become powerless with regard to external life. The free spiritual life might be said to exist only for the purpose of exhortation or judgment. It has lost the power really to lay hold on life. Those maxims which might lay hold on life require economic impulses, because they can no longer find purely human impulses, these having been relegated to the sphere of morality. These economic impulses are then turned into laws. Thus the activities of life, the determination of justice and the warmth infused into it by human morals are torn asunder. That which ought to be a unity is torn apart into a duality. A close study of the development of modern states will show that by insisting on the unitary character of the state, we have hastened the disunion of those very forces which should combine to produce a unity. The impulse of the three-membered social organism is in opposition to this separation. If we regard in its true light the actual principle of that impulse we shall see there can be no question of any splitting up of life. The spiritual life should have its own administration. And has not every human being a connection with it, when it develops—as I have described it—in perfect freedom? Everybody is educated in that free spiritual life, our children are brought up in it, we find our immediate spiritual interests in it, we are united with it. And the very people who are thus united with that spiritual life and draw their strength from it, those very same people live within the legal and political life, and determine the legal order governing their relations with one another. They establish that legal order by the help of the spiritual impulses which they take in from the spiritual life; and this legal order is the direct result of what has been acquired through contact with the spiritual life. Again, the tie which is developed, binding man to man democratically on the basis of the legal order, the impulse which he receives as the basis of his relationship to other men, he carries into economic life, because there are again the same human beings who have a connection with the spiritual life, occupy a legal position, and carry on business. On the one hand, the measures which the human being takes, the manner in which he associates with others, the way in which he transacts business, all that is permeated with what he has developed in his spiritual life, and with the legal order he has established in economic life; for they are the same men who work in the threefold organism and the unity is not effected by any abstract regulation, but by the living human beings themselves. Each member of the community, however, can develop his own nature and individuality in independence and can thus work for unity in the most effective manner. This applies to every member. On the other hand, we can see how, under the suggestion of the state as the principal of unity, precisely what is inseparable in life becomes separated, even what is so intimately connected as law and morality. Therefore the impulse to establish the threefold social organism is not to bring about the separation of what belongs together, but actually the cooperation of factors which ought to work together. The spiritual life can only develop on its own free and independent basis. But when allowed to develop in this way, and granted an equal right to subsist side by side with the two other departments of the social organism, it will no longer be an abstract formation, like the spiritual life which has actually been developing for centuries apart from the realities of life; it will develop an impetus to play a direct part in the active, real life of the legal-political and the economic organizations. It might seem to be an absurd contradiction, a paradox, to assert, on the one hand, that spiritual life should be fully independent and develop from its own foundations, as I showed yesterday, and, an the other hand, to claim that it shall play a part in the practical fields. But precisely when the spirit is left to itself does it develop impulses capable of embracing all spheres. For there is no reason why the free spirit in man should defer to any stereotyped pattern in the interest of the state; it is not to be limited by the condition that only those shall receive education who can command economic resources; but it will he able to develop human individuality in any generation through the observation of human capacities. The force, however, which strives to find expression in any one generation will not only embrace the phenomena and facts of nature; it will include, especially, human life itself, because the spirit extends its interests over all life. We have been condemned to be unpractical in the sphere of spiritual matters, because only these regions were left to the free spiritual life; we were denied the right to enter into external reality. As soon as the spirit is allowed not only to register parliamentary measures, but of itself to determine the laws of the state in freedom, in that moment it will make the legal code its own creation. The spirit will enter into the machinery and into the order of the law, as soon as the present mechanical system, which functions without thought according to certain maxims and points of view for the economic life, has been relinquished. As soon as the human spirit is free to play its part in the economic life it will at once prove its capacity in the practice of life within the economic circuit. All that is needed is to admit its power to enter actively into the practical realm. Then it will play its part. This true view of reality is a necessity. The spirit in man must not be hermetically sealed up in abstractions; it must be allowed to influence life. Then at every moment it will fructify the economic sphere, which otherwise must remain sterile, or must be dependent on mere chance for its fructification. Now all this must be taken into account, if we wish to arrive at a clear understanding of the manner in which the spiritual, the legal-political, and the economic system should work together within the threefold social organism. There are very clear-sighted persons to whom these things are still quite obscure. They often see that under present economic conditions, from which, we may say, the spirit has been banished, circumstances have arisen which are now socially untenable. There is, for instance, a highly respected economic thinker whose opinion is as follows. He says: Looking at economic life today, what strikes us most is a system of consumption by which social evils are promoted in the highest degree. Those who possess the economic means today consume various things which are really only luxuries. He points out the role played by what he considers luxuries in the life of society and in economic life. Certainly this is not difficult. We need seek no further than the common occurrence of the purchase of a string of pearls by a lady. Many people would regard this as a very harmless luxury. They do not consider the actual present economic value of a string of pearls. On the equivalent of its value, five working-class families can live for six months. Yet this is hung by the lady in question round her neck! Anybody can understand this, and in the present-day attitude of mind one can seek a remedy for such things. The esteemed thinker whom I have in mind thinks it necessary for the state (of course, everybody is now under the obsession of the state) to impose high taxes on luxuries; so high, indeed, that people would cease buying them. He does not admit the validity of the argument that if luxuries were taxed in this way, they would decrease, and the state then would lose the benefit of the taxation. He argues that this is just what should happen, and that the taxation has a moral aim. Taxation would then have the effect of promoting morality! Such is the way of thinking today. So small is the belief in the power of the human spirit, that it is proposed to establish the morality, which should spring from the human soul and spirit, by means of taxation, namely, by law! No wonder that here, at any rate, no unity of life can be reached. The same thinker points out that the acquisition of property is a wrong, for the reason that monopolies are possible in our social life; that, for instance, social life still labors under the burden of the right of inheritance. And again he proposes to regulate all these things by taxation. If inherited property were taxed as highly as possible, he thinks that justice as regards property would result. It would also be possible to oppose monopolies and other evils of the same kind by law, by legal promulgations of the state. What strikes one in this thinker is that he says it is not of such importance that all these proposals should be determined by state laws, taxation, and so on; for it is plain that the value of such measures is by no means beyond dispute, because state laws do not always produce the intended result. But then he says: ‘The essential point is not that these laws should actually raise the level of morality, or hinder monopolies; what matters are the feelings which prompt such laws.’ But this is an absolutely complete example of turning in a circle! A famous political thinker of our day does almost exactly the same thing. He proposes to call forth an ethical mode of thought and feeling by legislation; but, he says, it is not necessary that this legislation should actually be in force; the main thing is that people should have a feeling for such legislation. It is a clear case of the Chinaman who tries to catch himself by his own pigtail! It is a strange closing of the circle; but one which works most effectually in our present social life. For public life is now molded under the influence of this mode of thought. And no one sees that all these things must lead in the end to the recognition of the fact that the basis for a really new construction of social life is the activity of the spiritual life in complete independence; likewise, the independence of the legal organization and its detachment from the economic system; and, finally, the untrammeled development of the economic organization. Such things strike us very forcibly today when we see how people, who are more than commonly well-intentioned, whose ethical sense for the need of a reconstruction of social life is beyond doubt, show at least a faint indication in their works of the absolute necessity for a spiritual foundation to the social edifice, and yet give evidence everywhere of a lack of understanding of the means by which that spiritual foundation can be attained. Such a person is Robert Wilbrand, who has just written a book on the social problem. Robert Wilbrand is no mere theorist. In the first place, he speaks from a warm heart and enthusiastic for social things. Secondly, he has traveled all over the world in order to acquaint himself with social conditions, and in his book, which appeared a few weeks ago, he faithfully depicts the terrible misery of the human being that prevails everywhere today. He gives graphic pictures of the misery of the proletariat, the wretchedness of the civilized world. He shows also from his own standpoint how, in the most diverse regions in which the social question has now become acute, people have striven to build up a new social structure, but how they have been, or must be, frustrated, as may be plainly seen in present-day Middle Europe (1919). And Robert Wilbrand is quite certain that every attempt made in the temper of the present day must fail. Having given expression to this sentiment in various cadences in the course of his book, he concludes in the following remarkable manner. He says: ‘These attempts which are being made must fail; they will never succeed in any reconstruction, because the social organism lacks a soul, and until it has a soul, it can accomplish no fruitful work.’ The most interesting part is that the book doses on this note, but does not indicate how this soul is to be found. The aim of the impulse for the threefold social organism is not to announce theoretically that the soul is lacking, and wait till it appears of itself; but to point out how it will develop. It will develop when the spiritual life has been liberated from the political and economic organizations. The spiritual life, if it can only follow the impulses which man evolves from his spiritual nature, will then be strong enough to take its part in all the rest of practical life. Then spiritual life will take that form which I endeavored to describe yesterday; it will contain reality. We can say that in the present and in the future this spiritual life will be strong enough to bear the burden laid upon it, which, for example, is mentioned in my book, The Threefold Commonwealth. It is true, we can now point out, as it has been clone in my second lecture, the way in which capital works today in the social economic process. But those who simply say that capital should be abolished or transformed into common property have no idea how capital works in the economic system, especially under the present conditions of production. They do not know that accumulations of capital are needed in order that through the control of capital men may work for the public good. For this reason in my book, The Threefold Commonwealth, the administration of capital was made, on the whole, dependent on the spiritual organization in cooperation with the independent political and legal organization. Whereas we now say that capital makes business, the impulse for the threefold order of the social organism requires that, although it should always be possible to accumulate capital, provision must be made for capital to be administered by some one who has developed out of the spiritual life the necessary capacity for business; and that this accumulation of capital may be administered by the person to whom it belongs only as long as he is able to administer it himself. When the capitalist can no longer put his own capacities into the administration of the capital, he must see—or if he should feel himself incapable of such a task, a corporation of the spiritual organization must assume the responsibility of seeing—that the management of the business shall pass to a highly capable successor, able to carry it on for the benefit of the community. That is to say: The transference of a business concern to any person or group of persons is not dependent on purchase or any other displacement of capital, but is determined by the capacity of individuals themselves; it is a matter of transfer from the capable to the capable, from those who can work in the service of the community to those who can also work in the best way far the common good. On this kind of transference the social safety of the future depends. It will not be an economic transference, as is now the case; this transference will result from the impulses of the human being, received from the independent spiritual-intellectual life and from the independent legal-political life. There will even be corporations within the cultural organization, united with all other departments of the cultural life, on. which the administration of capital will devolve. Thus, instead of handing over the means of production to the community, we transfer it from one capable person to another equally capable, that is, the means of production is circulated within the community; this circulation depends on the freedom of the cultural life by which it is effected and upheld. So that we may say: the main factor in the circuit of economic life is the impulse which is at work in the spiritual, and in the equity life. It would be impossible to imagine any unity more complete than that effected in economic life by such measures. But the stream which unites itself with the economic organization flows from the free spiritual and the free political organizations. No longer will society be exposed to the chance which is expressed in supply and demand; or in the other factors in our present economic organization. Reasonable and just relations between man and man will enter into this new economic life. So that the spiritual, legal, and economic organizations will work together as one, even though they are administered separately; man will carry over from one sphere into another—since he belongs to all three—what each one needs. It is true that we must free ourselves from many a prejudice if these things are gradually to be brought to pass. Today we are absolutely convinced that the means of production and land are matters belonging to economic life. The impulse of the threefold order requires that only the reciprocal values of things shall come under the economic administration, and that prices shall approximate values, so that ultimately what finally proceeds from the economic administration is merely the determination of price. But it is impossible to reach a just determination of price as long as the means of production and land function as they now do within the economic system. The disposal of land, systematized in the laws relating to its ownership, and the disposal of the finished means of production (for example, a factory with its machinery and equipment), should be no matter for the economic organization; they must belong partly to the spiritual and partly to the legal. That is to say, the transference of land from one person or group of persons to another must not be carried out by purchase or through inheritance, but by transference through the legal means, on the principles of the spiritual organization. The means of production through which something is manufactured—a process which lies at the basis of the creation of capital—can only be looked at from the viewpoint of its commodity-cost while it is being built up. Once it is ready for operation, the creator of it takes over the management because he understands it best. He has charge of it as long as he can personally use his capacities. But the finished means of production is no longer a commodity to be bought and sold; it can only be transferred by one person or group of persons to another person or group of persons by law, or rather, by spiritual decisions confirmed by law. Thus, what at present forms part of the economic life, such as the laws relating to the disposal of property, to the sale of land, and to the right of disposal of the means of production, will he placed on the basis of the independent legal organization working in conjunction with the independent spiritual organization. These ideas may appear to the present-day world strange and unfamiliar. But this fact is just what is so sad and bitter. Only when these things find entrance into the minds and souls and hearts of men, so that the human being orders his social life accordingly, only then can be fulfilled what so many try to bring about in other ways, but always without success. It is a truth which must now at last be recognized, that much which at present appears paradoxical will seem a matter of course when social life is really on the way to recovery. The impulse for the three-membered social organism makes no social demands on the basis of passion, or impelled by motives and emotions which often underlie these social demands. It puts forward its demands from a study of the actual evolution of humanity in recent times up to the present day. It sees how, in the course of long centuries, one form of social life has given place to another. Let us go back to a time before the end of the Middle Ages. We find a condition of things extending into the latter part of medieval times, especially in civilized Europe. We find society in a condition which we may call a social order of might. This society of might or despotism arose in the following way, to give one example of the manner in which such changes are brought about. Some conqueror, with his train of followers, settled in some locality and these became his workmen. Then, since the leader was looked up to an account of his individual qualities, his abilities, a social relationship was brought about between his power and that of those whom he had once led, and who afterwards became his servants or his workmen. Here the model for the social organism, which took its rise in one person or in one aristocratic group, passed on to the community at large, and lived on in that community. The will of the community was to a certain extent only the reproduction or the projection of the single will in that society of might, of despotism. Under the influence of modern times, of the division of labor, of capitalism, of technical culture, this despotic order of society gave place to the system of trade, of exchange, which, however, carries on the same impulses among individuals and in the whole life of the community. The commodity produced by the individual becomes merchandise, which is exchanged for something else. For financial economy is, in reality, so far as it consists in a transaction between individuals or groups, neither more nor less than a system of trading. Social life is a system of trading. Whereas under the old despotic system, the whole community had to do with the will of a single individual, which it accepted, the system of trading, under which we are still living, and from which a great part of the population of the world is striving to extricate itself, has to do with the will of one individual opposed to the will of another. And only out of the cooperation of one single member with another arises, as if by chance, the collective will of the community. Springing from intercourse between one individual and another the economic community takes shape, together with wealth, and the element which we recognize in plutocracy. In all this there is something at work which has to do with the clashing of individual interests with one another. It is no wonder that the old despotic order of society could not aspire to the smallest emancipation of the spiritual life. For on account of his superior capacity their leader was also recognized as the authority in the spiritual, and in the legal order. But it is quite comprehensible that the legal, the state, the political principle has gained the upper hand, especially in the trading system of society, for have we not seen on what foundation law actually wills to rest, even though that will does not find its true expression in the present social order? Law is really concerned with all that the individual man has to regulate with other individual men who are his equals. The trading system is an order in which one person has to do with another. It was, therefore, to the interest of the society based on the trading system to transform its economic system, in which one person has to do with another, into a legal system; that is to say, to change economic interests into legal statutes. Just as the old despotic system was transformed into a society of trading, this latter system now strives, out of the innermost impulses of human evolution, to take a new social form, especially in the domain of economies. For the system of trading, having appropriated to itself the spiritual life, having enslaved it and turned it away from real life, has gradually grown into a mere economic system of society, the form demanded by certain radical socialists. But, out of the deepest human impulses of our day, this trading system strives to pass, especially in the domain of economic life, into that form which I might call, even if the term is inadequate, the Commonwealth. The Society of Traders must be transformed into the Commonwealth. What form will the Commonwealth take Just as the individual will, or the will of an aristocracy, which is also a kind of individual will, continues in a sense to work in the whole community, so that the impulses of the individuals only represent an extension of the will of the one; just as the trading system had to do with the clashing of one individual will with another, so the economic order of the Commonwealth will have to do with a kind of collective will, which then in reverse fashion works back on the individual will. I explained in the second lecture how associations of the various branches of production with the consumers will be called into existence in the sphere of economic life, so that everywhere there will be a combination of the producers with the consumers. These associations will enter into contracts with other associations. A kind of collective will then arises, within larger or smaller groups. This collective will is an ideal for which many socialists yearn; but they visualize the matter in a very confused, by no means reasonable, manner. Just as in the society of despotism, of power, the single will worked in the community, so there must work in the future Commonwealth a common will, a collective will. But how will that be possible? As we know, it must arise through the cooperation of single wills. The single wills must give a result which is no tyranny for the individual, but within which everyone must be able to feel himself free. What must be the content of this collective will? In it must he contained what every soul and every human body can accept, something with which they are in agreement, with which they can grow familiar. That means that the spirit and soul which live in the individual human being must also live in the collective will of the Commonwealth. This is possible only when those who build up the collective will carry in themselves of their own will, in their intentions, in their feelings, and in their thoughts, a complete understanding of the individual man. Into that collective will must flow all that is felt by the individual man, as his own spiritual, moral, and bodily nature. This is imperative. This was not so in the society of might, which acted instinctively, in which a single person was looked up to by the community, because the individual persons forming the community could not make their individual will felt. Nor was it so in the trading system of society, in which a single individual will clashed with others, and a chance kind of common life arose from it. But it must be otherwise when an organized collective will influences the individual. Then, no one who shares in the forming of that collective will must lack understanding of what is truly human. There no one who is equipped only with abstract modern science, which applies merely to external nature, and which can never explain the whole man, must presume to decide questions on the philosophy of life. Men will approach the philosophy of life with spiritual science which embraces the whole man, body, soul, and spirit, and provides understanding in regard to the feeling and will of every single person. Hence. it will only be possible to establish an economic order of the community, when the economic organization can be inspired by the independent spiritual life. It will thus not be possible to bring about a sound future unless what is thought in the free life of the spirit is reflected back from the economic life. That free spiritual life will not prove itself unpractical, but on the contrary, prove itself very practical. Only he who lives in an atmosphere of spiritual slavery can be content just to reflect on Good and Evil, on the True and the False, the Beautiful and the Ugly within his own soul. But anyone who, through spiritual science, has learnt to behold the spirit as a living force, and who grasps it by the aid of spiritual science, will be practical in all his actions, especially in everything relating to human life. That which he absorbs from his spiritual vision passes immediately into every function of life; it actually puts on a form which enables it to live in the immediate practice of life. Only a spiritual culture that has been banished from practical life can become foreign to life. A spiritual culture which is allowed to influence practical life develops in the practice. He who really knows what spiritual life is, knows how close to practical life that spirit element is, when it is allowed to follow its own impulses unhindered. The man who desires to found a new philosophy, and who does not know even how to chop wood, should the occasion arise, is no really good philosopher. For he who would found a philosophy, without the ability to turn his hand to anything in the direct practice of life, can found no philosophy of life, but only one foreign to all life. True spiritual life is practical. Under the influences which have made themselves felt for centuries, it is comprehensible that there should be persons belonging to the present civilization—among them the leaders of our intellectual life—who are of the same opinion as Robert Wilbrand. In his book on social reconstruction, with the best intentions, from a feeling prompted by true ethics, he says: “No practical work of reconstruction can be accomplished because the soul is lacking.” But people cannot bring themselves to ask about the reality of soul-development, of soul-building, they cannot make up their minds to ask: What is the effect of a truly free spiritual life on the political and economic life? That free spiritual life will, as I have shown, rightly cooperate with the economic life. Then the economic life, which can cooperate with the political and spiritual life, can at all times train men who will in their turn give stimulus to the spiritual life. Through the three-membered social organism a free, absolutely real life of the community will be brought about. Then those persons who now, out of instinct rather than out of a true courage in life, seek a vague something which they call soul or spirit, may be answered in these words: Learn to recognize the reality of your spiritual nature. Give to the spirit the things of the spirit, and to the soul the things of the soul; and it will then be plain also what belongs to the economic life. |
| 332a. The Social Future: National and International Life in the Threefold Social Organism
30 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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| They work on us indirectly through our knowledge of them, our understanding of them. We learn little by little to love them with understanding; and in proportion to our learning to love and to understand mankind in its different peoples in their various countries, does our feeling grow for internationalism. |
| And it is important that this fact should be properly understood. If it is understood, no one will feel impelled to ask with regard to the economic life: “How can we overcome egoism?” |
| The internationality of the spirit must furnish the understanding, must permeate with love that understanding of other nationalities, and must be able to expand that love to internationalism, in the sense already indicated. |
| 332a. The Social Future: National and International Life in the Threefold Social Organism
30 Oct 1919, Zürich Translated by Harry Collison Rudolf Steiner |
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It is quite possible that to some among my audience my manner of dealing with the subject of these lectures may have appeared somewhat singular. Singular, inasmuch as it might possibly be said that these are isolated ideas and thoughts on a possible way of building the social structure, and that the catchwords so common in the social movements of today are noticeably lacking in these lectures. Certainly, thoughts and ideas must be a foundation, but I think it has been made clear that these thoughts and ideas differ considerably from much else that has been said on the subject. For instance, we often hear it said that there is no equal distribution of wealth, and that some evil is the cause of this; that such evils must be abolished, and so on. We often hear such remarks at the present day. It appears to me more important to act in this sphere just as in practical life. If we have to do with some commodity needed by human beings, and produced by a machine, it is not enough to draw up a program and announce that a meeting must be called and an organization founded in order that the commodity in question may be produced. This is the way modern social programs come into being. It seems to me far more important to indicate the way in which the machine, in the present instance the social organism, should be put together and utilized in order that it bring forth something which will meet the more or less conscious social demands of the present day. And I think no one can say that these lectures have not dealt with the means by which bread, coal, or other necessities are produced. In my opinion they have dealt with such matters. They have dealt with the actual foundations of the social organism, with the manner in which men must live and work together within that social organism, in order to bring about the fulfilment of social demands. I wish to preface my lecture with these remarks, because such a reproach might possibly be made in regard to this, my concluding lecture. Only those who see why the price of bread which appears on every table is connected with the economy of the entire world, and why the events taking place in Australia or America and the commodities these countries produce are related to the price paid here for bread or coal, will recognize the presence of an international problem which involves the whole social question. In view of the many prevailing opinions and prejudices, however, it is not exactly easy to speak of the international problem at the present moment. Have we not seen to what unheard of conditions international intercourse has led us during the last five years? Did not the belief prevail within the widest circles—pre 1919—that international feeling, international understanding had been established in modern humanity? To what has this international feeling, this international understanding led? It has led to the fact that over a large part of the civilized world the people have torn one another to pieces! (Twenty-six years later—1945—finds the condition even worse. Ed.) And even those ideas and idealistic aims whose greatest value lay in their international character have proved a failure, as their promoters themselves acknowledge. We need only recall the words, the pronouncements and views of international Christianity, for this is what it claimed to be, as it joined in so many cases in the chorus of international chauvinism. And we might cite many an instance of the shipwrecking of international impulses in late years. Also, when we speak of the international life of mankind, perhaps more particularly in reference to its economic aspect, we shall find it necessary to revise our thoughts and our judgments in this respect. It will be necessary to penetrate to these sources of human nature which can only be found when we look towards the spirit and the soul. To do so, to avoid the mere repetition of the words ‘spirit’ and ‘soul,’ to give heed instead to the actual dominance of the spirit and soul, this, in my opinion, has at least been attempted in these lectures. All over the world the relations existing among human beings in their common work are governed by two impulses, about which it is of the highest importance that the truth should prevail among us, a true unvarnished conception, not disfigured by hackneyed phrases. Two impulses dwell in the human soul, which are related just as the north and south poles of a magnetic compass are related to one another. These two impulses are egoism and love. It is a widespread opinion that ethical law requires that egoism be conquered by love, and that in the progress of human evolution pure love should supplant egoism. This claim is put forward by many on the ground of ethics, and to-day also as a social need. But an understanding of the kind of opposition which actually exists between the two forces of egoism and love is certainly less evident in our day. In speaking of egoism, we should recognize that it begins with the bodily needs of the human being. We cannot understand that which arises from the bodily needs of the human being, unless we regard it as belonging to the sphere of egoism. The needs of the human being proceed from egoism. Now we must believe that it is possible to ennoble the feeling of egoism; and, therefore, it is not a good thing to form one's opinions from the phrases current on this subject. To say that egoism must be overcome by love does not help us much to understand egoism. For the point is, that he who meets his fellowmen with a purely human interest and understanding acts differently from one whose interests are narrow, and who gives no thought to all that fills the hearts and souls of his fellow creatures, and who is without interest for his surroundings. On this account, the former, who is truly interested in his fellowmen, need not be less egoistic in life than the other; for his egoism may be precisely his desire to serve human beings. It may call forth in him a feeling of inner well-being, of inner bliss, even of ecstasy, to devote himself to the service of his fellowmen. Then, as far as the outer life is concerned, deeds which are absolutely altruistic to all appearance may proceed from egoism; in the life of feeling they cannot be appraised otherwise than as egoism. But the question of egoism must be extended much further. We must follow it through the whole life of the human soul and spirit. We must see clearly how the spirit and soul-nature arise out of man's inner being in various manifestations, just as the bodily wants arise. Thus, everything in the nature of creative fantasy, of imaginative creation arises out of the inner being; likewise all creations in the sphere of art. If we proceed in our investigations without bias and seek a right understanding of such things, we shall find that which is the creator of man's imagination. All that rises out of the unknown depths of his being has the same source, but at a higher stage than the bodily wants. The life of imagination, of fantasy, which is developed in art, viewed subjectively, reposes on a feeling of inward satisfaction, more refined, nobler than the satisfaction of hunger, for instance, but not different in quality for the individual himself, even if what is produced thereby may have a different significance for the world. But all human egoism is directed by the fact that man must agree with his fellows, that he should live and work together with them. Egoism itself requires that he should live and work with other men. Much of what we carry out in common with other men is absolutely founded on egoism, and still may be credited to the noblest human virtues. If we contemplate maternal love, we find that it is absolutely founded on the egoism of the mother; yet it manifests itself most nobly in the common life of humanity. But that which is actually founded on egoism, because man needs his fellowmen for egoistic reasons, extends over the common family life, over the common life of the tribe, over the common life of the nation, of the people; and the manner in which a man conducts himself among his people and in his nation is nothing but the reflection of his own egoism. In the love of country, in patriotism, egoism doubtless rises to a high level; it is ennobled; it takes the form of an ideal and rightly so. But that ideal is, nevertheless, rooted in human egoism. Now this ideal must spring from human egoism, and it must be realized in order that the productivity of a people may be able to pass on something to humanity. And so we see how from that single impulse of the human soul—egoism, all that ultimately finds expression in nationalism is developed. Nationalism is egoism experienced by the whole nation in common. Nationalism is egoism carried into the spiritual region of life. Nationalism, for instance, is saturated with, glows with, the imagination of the people in which it finds expression. But this life of imagination itself is the higher spiritual development of all that constitutes human wants. We must go back to this root, in order to gain a clear understanding of it by right contemplation. Of a very different species is that characteristic of human nature which develops as internationalism. We become national, because the feeling of nationalism arises out of our own nature. Nationalism is a blossom on the growth of the individual human being who is of the same blood as his tribe, or is bound by other ties to his people. Nationalism grows with the man. It grows into him as a certain bodily growth. He does not possess internationalism in this way. Internationalism is rather comparable to the feeling we acquire when we contemplate the beauties of nature; through this contemplation we are impelled to love, to reverence, to understanding, because it has become a reality to us, because it impresses itself on us, because we give ourselves up to it freely. Whereas we grow into our own nation because we are, so to speak, members of it, we learn to know other nations. They work on us indirectly through our knowledge of them, our understanding of them. We learn little by little to love them with understanding; and in proportion to our learning to love and to understand mankind in its different peoples in their various countries, does our feeling grow for internationalism. There are two absolutely distinct sources in human nature from which arise, respectively, nationalism and internationalism. Nationalism is the highest development of egoism. Internationalism is that which permeates us more and more, as we give ourselves to a wide understanding of human nature. We must regard the common life of human beings all over the civilized globe in this light, especially if we wish to come to a clear understanding of the conflicting element in these impulses, nationalism and internationalism. Even if the economic life were governed by its own conditions, and an attempt were made to understand it, it would still be necessary to point to the two impulses in the human soul just mentioned. What we have called the threefold human life element in these lectures leads us back to these two impulses in the human soul. Think of the economic system, for instance; consider how it pervades the whole national and international life of humanity. Let us examine this economic system. We are compelled to recognize its origin in human wants, in consumption. The satisfaction of these wants is really the whole task of economic life. Production and distribution of commodities, administration, human intercourse, and so on, are necessary to supply human requirements. And here again we may ask: What element of human nature lies at the root of requirement, of consumption? Egoism is at their root. And it is important that this fact should be properly understood. If it is understood, no one will feel impelled to ask with regard to the economic life: “How can we overcome egoism?” but rather: “How is it possible for altruism to meet the just demands of egoism?” Perhaps this question may sound less idealistic, but it is the true one. When we turn our attention to production by which consumption is satisfied, we see at once that something else is necessary, The producer is of course at the same time the consumer. He whose business it is to produce must have an understanding not only of the process of production, but also of the life of his fellowmen, so that he can devote himself to the work of production in a manner corresponding to their needs. The producer must be able, indirectly or directly through institutions of which we have spoken, to see what men need for their consumption. He must then devote himself unselfishly and with understanding to some kind of production for which he has the capability. It is only necessary to describe this, and people will be forced to see that the real motive-power of production is self-sacrificing love towards human society, even though the sphere in which it manifests may appear dry and uninteresting. And nothing constructive will ever be said regarding the actual solution of the social problem, until it is understood that production can only be regulated in a social manner by the creation, through the spiritual and equity organizations, of a source from which unselfish love for the various branches of production can flow into the human soul, because of the producers' interest in their fellowmen and in life. Between these two—consumption governed by egoism, and production in which love is the ruling principle—there is the distribution of commodities, holding the balance between them. Today this is brought about through the rise and fall of the market, through supply and demand, but in future times an association of men will substitute intelligence for the fluctuation of the market. Men will be there who will make it their task to regulate production in conformity with their observation of the needs of the consumer. So that the market will consist in commodities which the associations, already mentioned, will be able to produce; these associations having first studied and observed intelligently the needs of consumption. All catchwords in this department of life will be discarded, and the attention will be wholly given to realities. Who has not seen that in modern times something has arisen which was bound to appear as a result of the continual widening of man's horizon all over the world? Instead of the former national economy, limited to small territories, we have a world-economy. It is true that so far this world-economy is only in the stage of a sort of demand; though it has developed to such an extent that in almost every part of the world commodities are consumed which are produced in other parts of the world. Here again human ideals and the feelings of the human soul have not kept pace with the world requirements which have become evident. Everywhere we see how urgent is the demand of modern times for a world-economy, for arrangements by which a world-economy could be rendered possible. What are the conditions under which world-economy (Cf. World Economy, by Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophic Press, New York.) is alone possible? Of a truth, this question can only be answered after we have first turned our attention to the form which the social order of the future must take from the present time on, if the order of the Commonwealth takes the place of the old despotic order—that of might—and of the present method of trade. The Commonwealth is the social order in which production will be carried on by associations, through contracts with other associations. If this should really come about, where would the real difference lie between such a community, and the mere trading system of society, the ruling system today? The difference shows itself in the fact that in the trading system the individual or the single group has, for the most part, to do with another individual or another group. What are the common interests of individuals or groups in their mutual relations? At present, whether they are producers or consumers, their production and consumption are divided from one another, as if by a chasm, by the chances of the market. And the chances of the market are the means of bringing about the distribution of commodities and of facilitating commerce. Whatever may be our opinion as to the justification or otherwise of the domination of capital, or of labor, and the like; as to the significance of capital and the significance of labor; it must be admitted that the essential fact in our system of exchange is that the distribution of commodities should be the ruling factor. Distribution is the link between production and consumption; when these are sundered from each other by the abyss of the market, there is no means of communication between them through the exercise of intelligence. What will take the place in the Commonwealth of the system of distribution now prevailing? The whole domain of economic life will be drawn into the sphere of interest of every producer. Whereas it is now the interest of the producer to find out how he can procure and dispose of his products, which, however, he does out of self-interest, it will be necessary for every producer in the Commonwealth to have a full interest in consumption, distribution, and production. That is to say, it will be necessary that the entire economic process be reflected in the economic interests of the individual man. This must be the essential point in the social order of the Commonwealth. Let us see what would be the position of this commonwealth, (which also in the single State today is undoubtedly a demand of the future,) with regard to the international problem. How does this international problem present itself to us, especially with regard to the economic system? We can see that though a universal demand exists for a world-economy, the single nations stand separate within the circuit of the whole world-economy. These separate nations, apart from the other historical causes of their existence, are held together for a time by the feelings arising out of the egoism of the community. Even in the highest part of the life of a nation, in literature, art, science, religion, it is the imagination arising out of egoism which holds the groups of people together. The groups thus held together take their place in the sphere of world-economy, and in the course of the 19th century they have asserted themselves with particular energy, and ever more and more decidedly up to the beginning of the 20th century, when the climax was reached. We might describe what really happened by saying that while other interests which bore a much greater resemblance to those of the old despotic order of society formerly prevailed between the nations, the principle of exchange and barter became even more prominent, precisely in the mutual intercourse of nations. This condition of things, therefore, reached its height at the beginning of the 20th century. Just as production and consumption were carried on in the various states, so what was supplied, to other states or was derived from them was absorbed into the egoism of the various states. Thus value was attached only to that in which the single state, as a nation, was interested. The reciprocal economic relations established between the states were absolutely dependent upon the commercial principle, ruling the system of trade in regard to the distribution of commodities. In this sphere, but on a large scale, it was especially evident how the, mere system of trade must lead ad absurdum; and the fact that this actually came to pass was one of the chief causes that led to the disaster of the World-War. (World-War I. Ed.) That this great opposition existed between the demand for a world-economy and the influence of the various states against its realization is now becoming ever more and more evident. Instead of promoting a world-economy, these states closed their frontiers, shut themselves off by imposing customs and duties and by other measures, and laid claim to every advantage that might result from a world-economy, seizing all for themselves. This led to the crisis which we call the catastrophe of the World-War. There were, of course, other causes of the disaster but this is one of the chief causes. Therefore it is important to understand that the very first step towards the improvement of international relations is to be able to carry on commerce across, frontiers, but on different principles from those on which the present system of exchange is based. Just as every single person, if he wishes to share in the work of the community, must take an interest in production and consumption wherever it is carried on, just as every member of the community must be interested in the whole sphere of economy, consumption, production and distribution, so in every country in the world impulses must prevail which would lead to a genuine interest in every other country; so that nothing resembling the chance conditions of the present market could prevail among the peoples of the earth, but a real inner understanding would prevail among them. And here we come to the deeper sources of that which is bring sought through the abstract ideals of the so-called League of Nations, the avowed object of which is the correction of certain evils in the common life of nations. But the principle underlying it is the same as that on which many other schemes are now founded. Many of those who at the present day ponder over the evils of life seize upon the first means at hand to carry out some reform or other. Some one sees that a certain luxury has wide distribution and feels impelled to impose a tax on it, and so forth. Such a reformer never thinks of going to the source of the evil in question, of devising a social structure for the community in which an undesirable luxury could not come into existence. But this is precisely what is necessary in the life of nations. Therefore we shall never attain sincere international social relations by regulations of a merely corrective character. There is no other way than by finding the source of a common understanding among the various peoples. There can be no understanding of other nations as long as we keep to one thing which is as natural to the human being as his growth, so long as we look only to that which must lead to nationalism, to the division of peoples among themselves. What is there in the spiritual life of our day which is the only thing that bears an international character, and alone has not been lost during the War because it was impossible for men to take this character away from it? (For had this been done, the field itself would have been annihilated.) What is there that is truly international on the earth? Nothing but the field of modern science which is concerned only with the outer world of the senses. Abstract science has acquired an international character. It has been easy to see in these times, when there has been so much falsehood in the world, that, whenever anybody did science the injury of misusing it in the service of nationalism, he robbed it of its true character. On the other hand, do we not see by this fact which I have quoted that this kind of spiritual life which expresses itself in intellectualism was not able to establish international understanding? I think it may be seen clearly enough that the powerlessness of this abstract trend of thought, which I have described from so many different points of view, has shown itself most distinctly in the relation of this abstract spiritual life to internationalism. Science was not able to pour into the human soul international impulses deep enough to resist the terrible influences of these last years. And where science attempted to evoke social impulses, such as those in the international socialist movement, it was found that international socialism was also unable to hold its own, and that it mostly flowed away into national channels. Why did this happen? Just because from among the old heirlooms of humanity it had only inherited intellectuality, and intellectuality is not powerful enough to work creatively in life. Thus we see how, on the one hand, this new scientific mode of thought, which arose simultaneously with capitalism and technical science, contains within it an international element, and yet at the same time proves its impotence to establish a true international relationship among men. In contrast to this, we must call to mind and apply here what I said in my fourth lecture regarding the mode of thought known as spiritual science, which is founded on perception and knowledge of the spirit. This spiritual perception does not rest on outer sense perception; it is the result of the individual development of human nature. It springs from the same soil as imagination; but it is rooted in profounder depths of human nature. For this reason it rises not only to subjective, imaginative forms, but reaches to the objective knowledge of the realities of the spiritual world. This kind of spiritual perception is today very often misunderstood. Those who have no knowledge of it say what can be found in this way by spiritual perception is merely subjective, and cannot be proved. Mathematical truths are also subjective and incapable of being proved! No agreement among individuals can confirm the truths of mathematics. Anyone acquainted with the Pythagorean theorem knows that it is true, even if a million others contradict it. Thus, spiritual science is also presented as an objective aim. It takes the same way as imagination, and rises higher; it is rooted in the objective depths of human nature, and ascends to objective heights. Hence this spiritual perception rises above all that which, as imagination, inspires the nations. It is sought equally by one people or another, in one language or another. It is one and the same in the experience of all human beings all over the earth, if it is only sought deeply enough. Hence that spiritual perception which, as I have indicated, can actually enter into and inform practical social life, can, at the same time, enter actively into international life and form a bond of union between one people and another. The poetry of a people, its peculiarities in other branches of art, will be produced by it in its own individual way. To spiritual perception something arises out of the individuality of a people which is similar to that which arises elsewhere. The roots from which things spring are in various places. The final source of all results is the same over the whole earth. Many people speak of the spirit today who do not know that the spirit must be interpreted. When the spirit is understood, it is found to be something which does not separate, but unites men, because it can be traced back to the inmost being of man, and because one human being brings forth the same as another, and because he fully understands that other. So that when we actually spiritualize that which otherwise finds expression as individualism in the imagination of one people, the single peoples will become simply the manifold expression of that which, to spiritual perception, is one. Then, over the whole earth, people will find it possible to tolerate the different national peculiarities, because there will be no need for an abstract uniformity everywhere; the concrete one, found through spiritual perception, will find means of expression in manifold ways. By this means the many will be able to understand each other in the spiritual unity. Then, from the many kinds of understanding of the unity, they will be able to frame articles for a League of Nations, and then, out of the spiritual conditions, out of the spiritual understanding, legal statutes can arise which will unite the nations. Then in the individual peoples that will appear which is possible to every people, namely, interest in the production and consumption carried on by other peoples. Then through the spiritual life, the legal and judicial life of the peoples, one nation will really be able to develop an understanding of other nations and peoples over the whole earth. People must make up their minds to recognize the spirit in this department of life, or they will be obliged to renounce all hope of bringing about any improvement, no matter how well-intentioned their statutes may be. It is true, large numbers of people now express their disbelief in the working of this spiritual element; this is comprehensible, because they have not the courage to approach this spiritual truth. It is truly hard for the spirit to gain a hearing; but when it can unfold, even in a small circle, in spite of hindrances, it shows itself to be all that I have just said of it. If only the feelings of the people in some of the belligerent states could have been known, if their thoughts about their enemies, their hatred towards each other, could have been seen, and the absence of international feeling existing in the countries at war been realized, you would understand why he who now addresses you returned again and again to the place which he has already mentioned in these lectures, in north-west Switzerland, where spiritual science has erected the Goetheanum, the University of Spiritual Science. What sort of place was that during the years of the War? It was a place where, during the whole War, people of all nations worked together without intermission, without any lessening of understanding each other, in spite of many a discussion which may or may not have been necessary. This mutual understanding, since it was the result of a common grasp of a spiritual conception of life, has already become a reality, even though for the present only in a small circle. We may say that we have been able to make the experiment in this sphere. We have been able to show that those who met there from time to time were able to understand others. This understanding must not be sought by vague allusions to the spirit. It must be sought through the most intense, sincere self-conquest, by means of the impulse of the spirit. Men and women of today do not wish to hear that the spirit must be striven for by each one personally. There is much talk nowadays about the spirit, that the spirit must come and must permeate the purely materialistic social demands; but, beyond this appeal to the spirit, we hear little! If such people, who in other respects are well-meaning, full of insight and permeated by social ethics, would only reflect that we have indeed had the spirit! Can we appeal today to that same spirit which has been with us? It is that very spirit which has brought us into our present circumstances. Therefore, what we want is not a new situation created by the old spirit. An old spirit cannot bring us anything new! This has been proved to us. We need a new spirit. We must strive for this new spirit and it can only be won in an independent spiritual life. Therefore, if we picture to ourselves how the demand for a world-economy will be fulfilled—for fulfilled it will be, out of its own inner necessity—we shall find that within its scope one social form will take its place beside another, everywhere producing spiritual and legal conditions out of the human beings who live together in those social bodies. That which is brought forth in this individual manner will be precisely the means for the understanding of other social bodies, and will thus become the means by which true world-economy will be carried on. Unless such means are created, the old so-called national interests will arise again and again in world-economy, and will claim for themselves all that they can extract. And as every social body has the same desire, and will be void of understanding for the others, disharmony must of necessity again make its appearance. How, then, can a world-economy be carried on? Only in so far as political and intellectual organizations do not dominate the individual forms of the economic system; for they must have an individual form. They attain universality and unity in spiritual understanding alone, which over the whole earth is the other unity. In order that the earth may be freed from individualism that other unity must be everywhere recognized. Even as it is true that, if we only descend deeply enough into human nature, we may develop to objective heights in which we find, as a spiritual perception, that which may also be found by anyone of any other nation, so it is also true that the needs of human consumption all over the earth are not affected by variations in nationality. Human wants are international; only they are the opposite pole of that which is spiritually international. The internationality of the spirit must furnish the understanding, must permeate with love that understanding of other nationalities, and must be able to expand that love to internationalism, in the sense already indicated. But egoism is equally international. Internationalism will only be able to establish a connection with world-production when the latter springs from a common spiritual understanding, from a common spiritual conception of unity. Never out of the egoism of the peoples will understanding of universal consumption arise. From a universal spiritual perception alone can that develop which proceeds not from egoism, but from love, and which, therefore, can govern production. What is the cause of the demand for world-economy? Owing to the growing complexity in the conditions of human life everywhere, and the consequent increasing similarity of human needs, it becomes ever more evident that human beings everywhere have the same wants. How can a uniform principle of production be created to meet this uniform demand, one which will actively promote a world-economy? It can be created through our upward striving to the spiritual life, to a true spiritual perception, which is powerful enough to create a common world-production, for the common world-consumption. Then the balance can be struck, because unity in the spirit will work towards unity of consumption, towards unity of substance. Then the balance will be struck in the distribution of goods as mediator between production and consumption. Thus we must be able to look into the human soul, if we would understand how, over the whole civilized world—in reality out of many organisms—one uniform organism may arise. In no other way can this uniform organism be built up, this uniform organism which must be such that, in accordance with social demands all over the world, a true organic bond may be created between production and consumption, so that the piece of bread, or the coal required for the single household, or for the single person, may truly correspond with the social demands which are now making themselves felt in the subconsciousness of the human race. I know very well that when such subjects are raised to this sphere of observation, many will say: But this is the height of sheer idealism! Nevertheless, in that sphere alone is to be found the impelling force for manifold things outside that sphere. And it is just because men have not sought that driving force, which can only be found in this way, that the present social and political conditions now prevail over the whole civilised world. People must come to realize that those who make it their task to create the inner impelling forces for the single social organism, such as the state, and for the social organism of the world, are the truly practical workers. They must come to see that many workers who are often called “practical” have only a rudimentary and merely abstract knowledge of their true sphere. Not until these two facts are recognized will the social question be placed on a healthy foundation. One of those to whom all this has been a matter of most serious thought for a long time, when he was lecturing on a particular aspect of human life, pointed out that the so-called idealists are by no means the most ignorant concerning the connection of ideals with real life. He was conscious of the folly of those who call themselves practical, and who consider that the thoughts of the idealist are very beautiful, but that practical life demands something quite different. The truth is that practicality actually demands these ideals, if it is ever to become true practicality. And the would-be practical people hinder the realization of these ideals, because they are either too lazy to understand them or have an interest in preventing their realization. The same man of whom I have spoken said: The idealist knows just as well as anyone that ideals are not directly applicable in practice; but he knows too that life must be shaped in conformity with those ideals. People who cannot convince themselves of this truth only show that their help has not been called upon in the shaping of events! One can, therefore, only wish them rain and sunshine in due season and—if possible—good digestion! This is intended to show the relationship between idealism and actual practical life, which is called into service, for example, in the building of a bridge. The art of engineering which brings a bridge into being is certainly not controlled by ideas which originate in matter. As the finished bridge must first exist ideally and can only become a real practical bridge after it has been well worked out in thought, so must idealism be something practical, springing from inner practical perception. We must have the instinct, the feeling, which will enable us to carry into actual practical life such objective laws, for instance, as govern the art of engineering. Then it will no longer be asked: ‘How can these things be carried out in practical life?’ For when enough people understand these ideas, they will forthwith put them into practice in actions and deeds. We often hear people say that these ideas are beautiful in many respects, and if realized would be very fine; but humanity is not yet ready for them. The masses, they say, are not yet ripe. Let us see what is really meant by such an assertion. He who knows the relationship of idea to actuality, who understands practical life according to the character of its reality, judges the masses differently. He knows that there are enough people now who, if they only go deeply enough into their own inner nature, can bring full understanding to bear on the matters with which we have dealt. The greatest hindrance is the lack of courage. The energy is lacking to urge them forward to what they might attain, if they could only develop in themselves full self-consciousness. Above all,. we need to correct something within ourselves; of this practically every human being is capable, if he only gives heed to reality. While, on the one hand, people fall into materialism and even take a delight in it, on the other hand, they fall a prey to abstractions, and will not penetrate to reality. Even in external life people are convinced that they are of a practical turn of mind, but they take no trouble to see things so as to recognize their real character. For instance, suppose that someone comes across a new assertion and believes it. He accepts only its abstract content, and in doing so he may become estranged from life, instead of understanding it better. The writing of a fine editorial presents no great difficulty nowadays. For there is so much commonplace in modern civilization that only a small amount of routine is required to enable a person to write phrase after phrase. It is not the point whether or not we agree with the literal meaning of an article nowadays, but it is important that we should be able to judge the extent to which this meaning accords with reality. In this respect there is much to be corrected in the present day. One is impelled to say: That which people should demand today above all things is truth which they should courageously unite with reality. Here are two examples of what is meant. You may read statistical reports, perhaps of the Balkan States; for it has become usual to acquaint oneself with the conditions prevailing in the world, to pass judgments on political situations, and similar matters. We can judge of the way in which people gain their information by reading statistics, let us say, of the Balkan States. We read that there are so many Greeks, so many Bulgarians, and then we can calculate how far the claims of the various elements, Greeks, Bulgarians, or Serbians, can be justified. If we then examine more closely into the details, and compare what we have gained through abstract knowledge about the number of Bulgarians, Serbians, and Greeks in Macedonia, we often find that the father of a family is registered as a Greek, one son as a Bulgarian, and another as a Serb. Now one would like to know how this agrees with the truth. Can the family be really so constituted that the father is a Greek, one son a Bulgarian, and another a Serb?* Can we learn anything as to the reality from statistics made in this way? Most of the statistical reports in the world are made after this fashion, especially in commercial life. Because people do not always feel the necessity of pressing forward through the actual words to the truth of what they hear, they commonly misjudge things. They do not examine closely enough into facts. They are content with the mere surface of life, which is only a covering for the true reality. Today, the first necessity is not to waste time in discussing whether humanity is ripe or unripe, but to point out where the principal evils lie. Once discover and take the trouble to disclose these evils and indicate with sufficient energy the way to deal with them, then people will realize them quickly enough! A second example: At the beginning of June 1917 the world could read the speech pronounced by the then Emperor Karl of Austria, on his accession to the throne. In that speech from the throne there was a great deal said, very appropriately at that time, about democracy. Again and again democracy was the theme. Now I have read a good deal about this speech, about the enthusiasm with which it was received by the people, and how splendid it was to proclaim democracy to the world at such a time. Taking this speech from beginning to end and looking merely at its literal content, from the journalistic standpoint it was a fine achievement, if we confine ourselves to the style and composition of the sentences, calculated to call forth feelings of he pleasure and gratification. Very good! But let us look at the truth! Let us place this speech in its milieu. Then we must ask: Who is speaking thus and in what surroundings? There we may see standing in the medieval splendor of his coronation robes, glittering with jewels, the despotic ruler of bygone days, making no attempt to hide his magnificence, surrounded by his brilliant gold-laced paladins. The Middle Ages, complete in all the ceremonial, which, had it spoken truly, would have chosen another subject than democracy! What is a speech on democracy, however beautiful the words, delivered in the midst of such medieval magnificence? A world-historical lie. From the literal content of the things of the present, we must go back to a perception of the reality. It is not enough to grasp things with the intellect; one must see things as they really are. This is just what spiritual science demands. We cannot deceive ourselves as to the outer reality without paying the penalty. He who would know the spiritual reality in the true sense of spiritual science, as it is taught here, he who would behold the spiritual world, must, above all things, accustom himself to the most absolute truth in the world of the senses; he must yield to no deception regarding all that takes place around him in the world of his five senses. Especially he who would penetrate into the spiritual world must use his five senses in a true and sane manner, and must not give himself up to fantastic thought, as do the many business men, the so-called practical people, so much admired, to whom the whole world defers. What we want is not a lamentation over the immaturity of the people, but to show them that we must be true in our inmost soul. Then we should cease to hear continually that untrue talk about the spirit, the spirit. Then will these falsehoods about the difference between right and might be no longer heard throughout the world, but we shall hear of work being done which consists in striving to attain the spirit. Then we shall hear that the spirit so striven after has been won and that men are living together a common life, in which they find equal rights for everyone. Only then can we speak of the manner in which an economic system, spiritualized throughout and pervaded with the spirit of equity, will be able to establish the true and real Commonwealth. It is much more essential that we should recognize the fact that a sufficient number of people are here who at least look within and take themselves in hand, who can have an inner understanding of such hints as I have given. We must never weary of emphasizing these things. We must not, however, think that the mere repetition of phrases to the effect that the spirit must govern the world will bring about, as by enchantment, the coming of the spirit. No! By the work of the human spirit alone can that spirit come into the world. In this respect also we must be true. We must not allow the falsehood to ring through the world, that the spirit must come. The truth must be proclaimed that the spirit will not appear until there are places in which not only the materialistic study of outer nature will be carried on, but in which a spiritual conception of life will be striven after. Out of that spiritual conception of the world must proceed a real social understanding of the habits of life of all humanity in the present and the near future. Everything depends on the fact that people become true with regard to the spirit and to their spiritual endeavor. For the spirit can only be found on the path of truth. It is no excuse, or, rather, it is only an excuse, to say that people are ignorant. In spiritual striving it is important to know that a lie, unconsciously persisted in, causes just as much harm as a lie, consciously repeated. For it is the duty of man at the present day to elevate his subconsciousness, in order to root out falsehood in every realm, even in that of the subconscious. For this reason I should like to conclude with words that are, indeed, truly and earnestly meant. I can well imagine that even after I have attempted to describe the structure of the social organism from the most varied points of view, as it must appear to the eye of the spiritual scientist in its relation to its threefoldness, I can well imagine that there may still be people who will say: ‘these are only ideas.’ How is it possible, they ask, that people can now rise to such ideas? A gulf yawns between these ideas and those generally understood at the present day. I would only remark that, with regard to such opinions, our answer must be: It need not concern us how advanced or otherwise people are. We need only speak out over and over again what we hold to be the truth, and what we think is likely to bear fruit, and then wait till they have understood. If we do so, if we never tire of repeating this again and again, then people will advance more rapidly than if they are continually told of their individuality. I believe that the world may very soon be ready for such things. I would, therefore, never tire of repeating over and over again that which I believe would hasten the advancement of humanity to maturity.
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