The Rudolf Steiner Archive

on the occasion of the first anthroposophical university course

The two lectures by Arnold Ith on October 4 and 5, 1920, on “Banking and pricing in their current and future significance for the economy” serve as the basis for the evening. The discussion will be opened:

Rudolf Toepel starts from two passages in the “Key Points”. He comments on the problem of ascertaining needs and, linked to this, on the question of pricing.

Roman Boos: I must refute Dr. Toepel's view; the two passages from the “key points” are taken out of context. Dr. Toepel's presentation lacks an anthroposophical basis. This is not the way to move forward. The state cannot prescribe administrative measures for the economy; we will not advance in economic life if we cannot embrace other ways of thinking. People who live in such an economic system rebel against it, because statistics are used to determine people's needs.

And there is another danger to be considered. Perhaps new needs could arise the day after tomorrow that are not yet known today. As Dr. Steiner always emphasized, it is important that we do not interfere with needs as such. The state should not interfere, nor should statistics in the question of needs as such, otherwise we are still in the old way of thinking. It is precisely this old way of thinking that seems to me to be partly alive in Director Ich's remarks.

I would therefore like to refer once more explicitly to Dr. Steiner's basic idea of the economic primordium: the price set should enable the person who has produced a particular economic product to be able to produce the same again afterwards. Price policy as such is something that the state should not simply interfere with, otherwise it will destroy economic life altogether.

Werner Zimmermann speaks as a representative of the free money and free land theory of Silvio Gesell.

Roman Boos interrupts the speaker: What is important is not the goal, but the beginning. And there it is about creating associations; we must create associations.

Arnold Ith: There are several points on which I would like to have greater clarity and which need to be discussed in more detail. Firstly, what role does trade play in the threefold social organism? Secondly, how does capital arise in the threefold social organism? Thirdly, can factories and real estate also be sold? Is private capital even possible after the introduction of threefolding? Fourthly: Is there still money in the threefolded social organism? Money is then only an order for goods. And now to what the previous speakers said. What Mr. Zimmermann said about the free money theory cannot be understood or followed at all. Some objections must also be raised regarding the comments of Dr. Toepel; the same applies to Dr. Boos and his presentation of the economic primal cell. And in this context, returning to Dr. Boos' objection to my remarks, I would like to ask: to what extent should this relate to the remarks I have made here, and to what extent should something appear to be incorrect in them? That as a specific question.

Roman Boos: I would like to ask a counter-question: what role do you think the state should play in setting prices?

Arnold Ith: I only wanted to show with this breakdown of the price how some of the price goes to the laborers and the other part is distributed among the producers. In this respect, the state will have a say in prices by determining what the individual needs for his or her livelihood.

Interjection: Senseless.

Roman Boos: I actually just picked up on this point and felt compelled to object. I have always been of the opinion that in the tripartite social organism the state has something to determine only with regard to the type of work and the time, but does not have any kind of price to determine or needs to assess; the state should only create the facts from the outside, with which economic life has to reckon as with given facts.

Arnold Ith: It is not a matter of the state fixing the nominal price level, but of a proportionate, real distribution, a percentage allocation. Perhaps I may ask Dr. Steiner about this question.

Rudolf Steiner: Dear ladies and gentlemen! I would very much like to speak about some of the individual matters that have been touched on here. However, it is hardly possible to speak about them briefly, and it is especially difficult to do so when a number of people have already clashed with each other. This usually complicates even those things that are otherwise simple. I would therefore just like to make a few brief comments that answer some of the questions or at least attempt to point in the right direction.

I would like to point out that in economic life it really matters to think economically. But thinking economically means having ideas about production and consumption that have certain effects in one direction or the other in the course of their development; and we are part of this economic process with our physical well-being and woe. Favorite opinions are of no use here. Anyone who thinks, for example, that something can be achieved simply by reducing [or expanding] the money supply, depending on whether prices are rising or falling, shows that he has little real understanding of the economic process. Nothing is achieved by such a fixing of the value of money, by a reduction, as it were, of the money supply or by a very specific expansion or the like. Because the moment money can no longer be used for speculation, speculation shifts to commodities. You see, only now are we getting close to reality with our ideas. We have to be able to look at reality. And there is absolutely no need to change the money supply. , but it can very easily be brought about by all sorts of machinations that the prices of a particular type of product fall or rise, while other products need not give any cause for such a fall or rise. In any case, the whole idea of indexing money – apart from the fact that as long as there is a gold standard in any of the countries involved, there can be no question of it – the whole idea is a purely utopian one. I will only hint at this, it would have to be discussed in detail, but the whole of Gesell's idea is nothing but an idea born out of a complete ignorance of economic life as such. If you really want to intervene in economic life in a way that yields results, then you have to intervene not in money but in consumption and production in a living way. What is needed is the formation of associations that have the opportunity to exert a real effect on the economic process. Of course, if associations form here and there, they may be right in principle, but they will not be able to exert a favorable influence; they can only exert a favorable influence when the associative principle can really take effect through the threefold social order. But people keep asking: How do associations form?

Dear attendees, as long as people are still arguing about whether, on the one hand, producers should join together to form associations and, on the other hand, consumers should form cooperatives, and as long as they are stipulating something to each other, the idea of association will not be remotely realized. Of course, the idea of an association is not about some kind of commission getting together to form associations and the like, but about these associations emerging from economic life itself. I would like to give two examples that I have given before.

Some time before the war, there was a member of ours who was a kind of baker; he baked bread, so he produced bread, with all that that entails, of course. Now, it occurred to them to make something that could initially be a kind of model example. We had the Anthroposophical Society, Anthroposophists also eat bread, they were already united, and nothing was easier than to put the bread producer together with the Anthroposophists. This gave him consumers, and an association was ready. Of course, when such a thing stands alone, it can have all kinds of shortcomings. In this case, it had shortcomings because the producer also had quirks and eccentricities, and this put the whole thing on an uneven footing. But that is not what ultimately matters. An association arises by itself out of an organic connection between consumers and producers, whereby, of course, the producer usually has to take the initiative – and then this association will prove itself all by itself.

And then I often give the example of a different kind of work, that created by the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House in Berlin. It consists in this publishing house not working like other publishing houses. How do the other publishing houses work? They work by concluding contracts for books with as many authors as possible, good and bad. Right, then they set about printing these books. But when books are printed, paper has to be available, typesetters have to be employed, and so on. Now try to imagine how many books are printed each year, let's say just in Germany, that are not sold, for which there are no consumers at all. Just do the math, just add up how much poetry is printed in Germany and how much poetry is bought, and you will get an idea of how much human labor has to be expended to produce paper that is wasted, how many typesetters work for the corresponding books and so on – all work that is done for nothing. That is what matters: we have to enter economic life by thinking economically, that is, by thinking in such a way that we avoid unnecessary work, wasted labor. In the case of the association between the Anthroposophical Society and the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press, this is not possible because the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press does not print a single book that is not sold. There are consumers. Why? Because work is done so that consumers are there? On the contrary, the publishing house does not have the necessary means to produce enough for the consumers. But at least no work is wasted. We do not have paper produced in which wasted work is involved; we do not have typesetters employed who work for nothing, and so on.

And exactly the same thing that you have seen in these two examples can be done in all possible fields. That is what it is about, that the association is thought about correctly. If it is thought about correctly, then above all unnecessary labor is avoided. And that is what matters. The aim is to create the right relationship between production and consumption in all possible areas through real measures. Then this original cell of economic life comes about, then a price comes about that will be appropriate for the whole of life, so that the person who produces something, any product, let's say a pair of boots, gets as much for it as he needs for his needs, until he has manufactured an equally good pair of boots again. It is not a matter of somehow stipulating the price, of drawing up statistics and the like, but rather of working in such a way that consumption is commensurate with production. And that can only happen if consumption determines production. If examples are given, this can be seen quite clearly. What matters is not to talk in circles about wants and needs and the like, but to be grounded in needs. What matters is to be related to [consumption] on the one hand and on the other hand to be able to intervene in production in such a way that it leads directly to the satisfaction of needs. What is important is not creating so-and-so many numbers and moving them from one place to another, but having active people in the association who can see how they have to mediate between consumption and production.

We have caused such terrible damage to our economic life precisely because we have dumped everything on the value measure of money. But money has only the value that it has, depending on the nature of the economic process. Of course you cannot start with the most abstract thing of all, with money, and introduce any kind of reforms. You don't even need to discuss whether money should be an order for goods or something else. I would like to know what the money I have in my wallet is other than an order for goods. And if I didn't have it in my wallet, the payment for a job I did could also be written in a book somewhere; you could always look it up for my sake; but instead of just being written in there, it could also be written out to me. All these things must be thought of not as secondary and partial, but as primary, and it must be clear to oneself that money by itself becomes a kind of walking bookkeeping in economic life when one thinks economically — not theoretically, but economically — that is, when one is able to dynamically relate economic conditions to one another.

Interjection: Very rich!

That's it. But this practical thinking, which should be thrown into the cultural development of the present day by the “core issues”, this practical thinking, is terribly far removed from today's people. They immediately fall back into theorizing, they immediately have everything possible to schematize and theorize, while it is important to approach people in such a way that they are fully involved in life, that is, in economic life - then the right conditions will be able to develop in this economic life. Of course, we were not allowed to found other associations because we were not allowed to found any other associations than those with the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House. But please consider in an hour of quiet reflection, my dear attendees, what this means as an effect for the whole economic life, if there is anything that prevents unnecessary work from being done - that affects the whole economic life. The typesetters, whom we have spared by not keeping them unnecessarily busy, have done other work in the meantime, and the people who worked in paper production have done other work in the meantime. So we are involved in the whole economic process. You can't think so briefly that you only think of one company, but you have to be clear about the effect it has on the whole economy. That is what matters.

I just wanted to point out that we have to try to think in truly economic terms. And if questions are raised about how it will work with the economic associations, it is the case that everyone would find sufficient reason in their own position to form such economic associations if they wanted to, based on the matter at hand. Of course, you can't say to me or to Dr. Boos or to others: How should I form associations? – and then assume that an empire should be created for the purpose of forming associations.

What is important is not that, but that we finally try to think and reflect objectively – that is what is important. Of course, the old way of thinking sometimes still strikes you in the neck a little; and even though Mr. Ith undoubtedly understood the issues extremely well and presented them quite well in essence, we still had to hear, for example, that he had included wages among his accounting costs. Of course, there is no question of wages when drawing up balance sheets in line with the threefold order – there can be no question of wages, nor of any kind of valuation of raw materials; after all, it is merely a matter of somehow accounting for the difference between what are work products and what are raw materials, and the like. So it is not true that sometimes the old way of thinking comes through; but that does not matter if one only has the will to think one's way into positive economic life, then the right thing comes out.

It is also self-evident that such enterprises as Futurum or the Coming Day cannot be built in all respects according to the “core principles” in the same way; one is, after all, in the middle of a different economic life, which makes its waves everywhere. But in that such enterprises are established, in which, on the one hand, the one-sided banking principle is overcome, on the other hand, the one-sided commercial or industrial principle – that is, on the one hand, the principle of lending money from the bank, on the other hand, the principle of the bank lending – that is, the divergence of the bank and the industrial, commercial enterprise – these are combined into one, and in doing so, the path to the associative principle is taken. For the time being, it is only a path. The real associative principle would be achieved if you could implement it in reality as I have shown in the two examples. Of course it would be necessary for the producers alone, that is, people who understand how to create a particular article, to take the initiative to do so; that is, the initiative cannot of course come from the consumers if an association is to be formed. But on the other hand, whoever takes the initiative to establish an association will essentially depend on the needs of consumers to shape the association; after all, they can only address certain needs that no one has to regulate. If, for example, there are luxury needs and so on for my sake, they will take care of themselves.

Recently I was asked: It was said of me that one should take needs into account; but now there are strange needs; for example, one person has a need for particularly high riding boots, riding boots and so on; [how to behave towards them].- Yes, my dear audience, all this takes into account only a very small part in his thinking. What is needed is to really think our way into economic life; and when you think your way into it, you move away from these details, because a healthy economic life also regulates needs to a certain extent. We can wait and see what these needs will be when a healthy economic life comes about under the associative principle, when, above all, unnecessary employment, unnecessary work that goes nowhere, is prevented. That is what it is all about.

Of course, these few hints do not yet say anything very substantial; but I want to point out at least that one can only understand the “key points” correctly if one understands them in a practical sense, if one thinks about how to bring about such an association in concrete terms, in life, that is built on combining consumption and production in the most organic way possible. If we know how such an economic structure, which is economically based on the principle of association, has an economizing effect on the whole of economic life, then we can actually create economic foundations where some no longer have to do so much unnecessary work and where others can no longer satisfy so many needs. In the world, it is already the case – this could be explained in great detail and even presented as a kind of axiom – that in the life of the world, it is already the case that certain things, if one does not take away the possibility of following their own laws, regulate themselves in a very strange way.

Dear attendees, if tomorrow someone were to come up with a way of seriously influencing the birth of a boy or girl in embryonic development, then, I am firmly convinced, the most terrible chaos would result. The ratio between the number of girls and boys that are born would create a terrible, catastrophic situation; crises and catastrophes would occur in a truly horrific manner. Only by keeping this, so to speak, from people's rational judgment, only in this way does the strangely wonderful relationship arise – which is, of course, approximate, like everything in nature – that every woman can find her man and every man his woman. And if a man remains unmarried, then a woman must also remain unmarried for him. Of course, where human will comes into play, disastrous results occur; but if we have a social life, we must look with a certain interest at that which works to a certain extent through its own laws. And you can be quite sure that when associations with real understanding are able to shape economic entities in which consumption and production take place in such a way that only the necessary work is done in the most rational way, then, as far as possible, people's needs will also be able to be satisfied, because one thing leads to the other. Real thinking makes this clear.

I would also like to point out that when discussing such questions, one must think in real terms above all and get rid of abstractions. In the scientific field, it is also bad when people think up all kinds of theories. If, for example, someone in the scientific field were to develop a theory as Gesell does in the economic field, then facts would soon become too much for him; he would only have to belittle the value of theories a little. In the economic sphere, the aim is to intervene in real life and to think practically. Practical thinking is precisely what spiritual science demands. Spiritual science thinks practically in the spiritual realm; it teaches people to think practically. This does not result in complicated theories. It educates people, and it will also educate them to think practically in economic life. And this practical thinking is the task.

The seminar evening is based on the three previous lectures by Roman Boos on “Phenomenological Social Science” from October 4, 5 and 6, 1920. The discussion will be opened.

Hermann Eichenberger: I would like to ask the speaker a question. If we strive to transform public life in the spirit of threefolding, then we have to consider in which area we can begin. So I would like to ask: Can one start with the transformation of public life in the political and legal sphere? More precisely: Is it correct to think of the legal leadership in such a way that people place their trust in a certain leadership - or not? It concerns the way the legislative body is elected, the electoral system. In the “Key Points” this is described as a fundamental issue.

Eugen Kolisko is of the opinion that it is necessary to ensure that there is a base in parliament from which one can work for threefolding. For example, an appeal has been circulated by Dr. Thomastik calling for Austria to be combined into a single constituency, albeit without reference to the threefolding idea. But it is not possible to keep quiet about threefolding.

Roman Boos shares Dr. Kolisko's view. Above all, a national educational program is needed on a large scale; lectures must be given so that the idea of threefolding pervades people's minds. The matter that Dr. Thomastik has raised is only a surrogate, no matter how beautifully conceived and well-intentioned it may be.

Hermann Eichenberger emphasized that Mr. Thomastik had shown courage; he had also given lectures on the threefold social order.

Rudolf Steiner: Dearly beloved! I do not have much to say about this matter, after what I have heard about it. You can imagine from my previous work that at the moment I stood up for the threefold social organism, I considered it a necessity to introduce this threefold social organism into the public life of modern civilization first. And since then, I have repeatedly stated on a wide variety of occasions that, after a thorough examination of the conditions of modern life, the situation is as follows: either we manage to make the impulse of threefolding truly popular, so that it comes to life – it is not utopian, it must come to life – or we will not make any progress at all. You can read about this again in my collected essays on the threefold social order, which have just been published by the Stuttgart publishing house of Kommenden Tages; the book is called “In Ausführung der Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus”.

And so perhaps I may say that every such comment, that one should present the threefold order in a disguised way, reminds me of what I have experienced with anthroposophy for 20 years, namely that very clever people have come again and again and said: Yes, somehow presenting anthroposophy, we can't do that, we first have to somehow make it more palatable in some other way and the like. I myself have never chosen any other path than to present Anthroposophy to the world in an absolutely true and unadorned way, and I have always rejected everything that did not openly advocate for Anthroposophy, thereby incurring sufficient enmity, which is of no concern to me in essence. And so I can only say, my dear assembled guests, that when it comes to seeking the most direct and rapid way to work for the threefold social order, I am quite happy to speak wherever I am invited. If people want to come up with all kinds of secondary proposals, for example, with proposals for modifications to this or that electoral law, which would only be considered if we were in the process of implementing the threefold social order and had political-legal link had been crystallized out of the social organism. When people come up with such things, I have to say that they seem to me – and I say this entirely without emotion – like a renewal of old political wheeling and dealing, and I am not interested in that. I am not interested in it! Now the question is being asked:

I would like to ask Dr. Steiner about how one should imagine the organization of a free spiritual life. Experience shows that artists, scientists and other intellectual workers are the hardest to bring to reasonable cooperation. How can one think of such an organization? Can it even be an organization in the usual sense?

Dear attendees, I would like to start by emphasizing one thing in response to this question: The threefold order of the social organism, as presented in my Key Points of the Social Question and elsewhere, is very often spoken of as if it were some kind of utopia, whereas everything that is presented in it comes from a thoroughly practical way of thinking and also pursues the goal of being taken up in a practical way. On the other hand, however, the character of utopianism, of utopia, is being stamped on this threefold social order movement through numerous questions, even from well-meaning people. It really cannot be a matter of taking the fifth and sixth steps today if one wants to be a practical person without first taking the first step. Now, however, this question points to a difficulty in taking the first step. In the case of the life of the spirit, which in the direction of the impulse of threefolding must be a free life of the spirit, one can of course least of all expect that it can somehow be reorganized overnight. But one could realize threefolding overnight, realize it immediately. One can really do it. One would have to do nothing else but realize it in the same way as the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. And I must, if only to bring the whole discussion down from the abstract heights at which it has been conducted today, to something more concrete, point to this concrete manifestation of the Waldorf School, which has now been in existence for a year.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, when a number of people sit down to make decisions based on principle, for example, regulations for the school system with regard to curricula and teaching times, then – and I mean this quite seriously – these people are basically always very clever, of course. And if you put it together, paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 can be made in such a way that you say: the teacher should teach in a certain way, this or that subject must be taught according to these or those principles, and so on. And I am convinced that, in their abstract content, these dozens of paragraphs could contain something extraordinarily beautiful and powerful, but only in abstract form. Whether they can be applied depends entirely on whether the people are available to do so. Let us assume the most extreme case: let us assume that in a particular age and territory, due to some conditions, we only have people who cannot rise above a certain level of education because, in a particular territory and in a particular period of time, no geniuses are born, only 200 people of average intelligence. Now, one can be quite convinced – if one has real thinking, one sees this immediately – that even then these moderately clever people will elect their best representatives, and when these meet, that they will still make their best paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 and so on, for example, that teachers should teach in this or that subject in this or that way. But all that is not what matters in the world at all. If we really want to take account of the available forces, then it is first of all important to bring together those who are considered capable from among the people.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is what has been attempted, for example, at the Waldorf School. And no paragraphs have been drawn up; at most, I have given a lecture course and held seminars before we opened the school. We also had many discussions together during the school year. I have also held a short seminar course again before the opening of the second school year. But everything that is done in the Waldorf School is done by the community of those personalities who are there, that is, out of their abilities, out of their strengths; without any [paragraphs] being put in place, everyone does their best according to their abilities. And there we have a small circle of what you will now call it, an organization of the free spiritual life, there you have a small circle that is completely self-sufficient, that works entirely from its own abilities and intentions. At some point, something like a section had to be taken out of the other states. It was possible in Württemberg because there was still a gap in the school law, and this gap could be used to bring in this Waldorf school. Here in the canton of Solothurn, it could not be done, as is well known. The thing is, therefore, not to go to abstractions, but to people and let people do what they can really do. Now, however, a difficulty is indicated here. It would, of course, be possible if the impulse of threefolding were properly understood, that the representatives of intellectual life would simply find themselves in some territories, which have already been given from previous history, in a wide circle, wanting nothing more than to understand the to understand the self-sufficiency of intellectual life; that is to say, that these representatives of intellectual life – the majority will, after all, consist of the various teachers of the various institutions – that these various representatives of intellectual life would really find the courage to stand on their own.

We have begun in Stuttgart to found a so-called cultural council – I have already pointed this out here on another occasion – and of course we first had to approach those who are concerned. Now, my dear attendees, you cannot suddenly want to place other people in the cultural life than are already there. It is self-evident that anyone who thinks practically will first say to themselves: We want to realize the threefold social order, not create some utopia in a cloud cuckoo land. - So, of course, the first step is to take into account those workers in the spiritual life who are already there. And it is important to realize that this intellectual life is now on its own, that it has detached itself from the unified state. Just by doing that, something is really happening. But it was not very well received, because the university professors in particular said: Well, if the universities were to administer themselves, then my colleague would be the one to help administer it - no, I still prefer to have a minister on the outside. - Because no colleague actually trusts the other. Of course, this is something that must be overcome. But when it comes to real thinking, the situation is as follows: No matter how many artists, scientists and intellectual workers want to go their own way for my sake, the decisive thing is that the spiritual life is self-contained, so that in education and teaching, from the lowest school class to the university professor, nothing but the voice of those who are actively involved in this spiritual life is decisive. Whatever needs to be decided within the spiritual life must be decided on the grand scale, as it is decided in our Waldorf school, that is, only by those who are involved in this spiritual life, not by some parliament or the like or by some ministry that is outside, or at most by a consultant who, because he has grown too old for the teaching profession, has to take care of the department in the Ministry of Education afterwards.

What is important everywhere is that the idea of the threefold social order enters people's minds in its true form. Then it will be seen that it is not a matter of reflecting on these details, but of ensuring that spiritual life is truly externalized simply by the representatives of this spiritual life feeling that they are on their own, and of course being on their own, in that no state can do anything about it. When they feel they have to rely on themselves, a completely different kind of work will be done in this spiritual life. And then, out of this spiritual life, there will arise that which is progress in the sense of the threefold social order and of a true humanity. So it is a matter of not thinking that you have to line up and do something, like lining up lead soldiers in columns, but you have to take life as it is and just bring threefolding into it, and of course you have to take the people who are there now. But it is also a matter of nothing more than these people understanding what is really in the idea of threefolding. So this can be said in answer to such a question.

Yes, my dear audience, there is an organization in spiritual life, things are organized: primary schools are there, and secondary schools and universities are there; an organization, a certain fabric of spiritual life is there. It is not a matter of remelting it all, but of freeing the spiritual life and then letting things happen - and a great deal will certainly happen when the spiritual life is free and left to its own devices. Then those who are fools outside will not be heard. We have a great many complaints about our Waldorf School; we have a great many complaints, in all areas, including here in Dornach, that no one gives us money; but we really have no complaints that the Waldorf School is not heard. They are very gladly heard, one would like to hear the teachers everywhere, they cannot do enough and they are almost torn apart. Those who have something to say will be heard. But that is what it is about; I will also talk about it.

Now the second question:

How does the association present itself in comparison to corporate organizations?

Well, my dear attendees, I would like to tell you, again starting from something concrete: in economic life, too, it is important, as I said on another evening, to really think economically, that is to say, one can think economically in economic life and not think economically in the sense of legal or in the sense of how one has to think in the spiritual organism, but one can really think economically in economic life. Of course, difficulties still arise today; but that is not the point, because these difficulties could gradually be overcome in a very specific way, which I will indicate in a moment. But the point is not to see how the difficulties arise, but rather that one should first of all really take up the associative impulse.

Now, what did we do in Stuttgart after we started working there in April of last year? You see, we didn't just make some kind of abstract attempt and then declaim how the associations should be formed, for example among shoemakers. Instead, we took up a thought that was popular at the time. At the time we took it up, it was not only popular in the proletariat, but was even popular in the business world: the concept of works councils. But we wanted to have the concept of works councils, the institution of works councils, in the sense of threefolding. What did we do? We tried to make the following point to those people who were interested in it – and there were a great many of them at a certain point in time: if the institution of works councils is introduced in an economic area, then it is, of course, foolish to impose legislation in the factories, whereby works councils are introduced in the individual factories, which work there, supervise and the like – that is not the point. That this cannot be the case was most clearly demonstrated when the Soviet Republic was introduced in Hungary – please read the extremely interesting book by Varga, who, I might add, was at the cradle, where he was People's Commissar for Economic Affairs and President of the Supreme Economic Council.

The aim is not to introduce works councils in the way that has now been done in the completely absurd German laws, but to form a works council from the economic life and its individual situations itself. And the idea of allowing a council to emerge from the various branches of economic life, be they branches that are more oriented towards consumption or production, be they members of this or that class, in short, to allow the council members to emerge from economic life, this idea was also popularized among the proletarians. The electoral procedure would have been worked out, once it had been established that business personalities should emerge, who would then come together to form a kind of economic constituent assembly, which would have been a body to be formed across a closed economic area and which would have worked first of all. This was always my message at every discussion evening with the Stuttgart workers' committees, at which this matter was discussed – which had actually progressed quite a bit before it was made impossible. The next thing to be done is for the proletarian to stop talking out of habit in empty phrases and thinking he knows everything. This has been emphasized over and over again.

Now I will give an example, one I have always liked to give to proletarians: After the threefold social order had been discussed, a man stood up for discussion who spoke from a communist point of view and declared that he could say better than anyone else everything that was said about the threefold social order. And so he rattled off a few Communist phrases, and then he said that he was only a cobbler. Now, of course, there was no need to hold that against him, because it is truly not a matter of whether someone is a cobbler or something else. He meant that as a cobbler he could not be a civil servant, but he implied that he could very well be a minister, for example. Well, you see, above all, it was made clear to the people of us that it would be about working; and anyone who thinks practically knows that, through the community, if things are managed properly, a higher level can actually be achieved, at least a higher level than that which each individual, even the most ingenious in the community, has; more can be achieved in the community. The first task of this association of workers' councils as a community should be explained.

So what is the first step towards this association? Not asking all kinds of detailed questions before we have even taken the first step, before we have properly examined life and then, on the basis of this examination, formed an idea of how we can come to associations. But this is possible for everyone, at whatever point in life they are, if they are truly immersed in life, if life strikes them, they can in some way see how they can come together with those closest to them in an associative way – as long as they are not a mere rentier who is not immersed in real life, namely not in [real] economic life. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what must be considered the first step in economic life: that one must come to associations at all – just as in the spiritual realm, the main thing is that people understand what it means to become independent within the spiritual realm. That is what needs to be said about these two areas for the time being. And when these two areas now understand how to stand on the ground that must be recognized by their own essence as theirs, then the political and legal area remains in the end. Then this will already be found, because the first thing to do is to properly form these two wings: intellectual life and economic life. The other thing remains. That will only be found when order has been created in these two wings. That is what must be said about the political and legal life from the idea of threefolding.

Now to an objection:

In Mr. Ith's lecture, it was said that the relationship between the price of goods and the individual production costs should be regulated by the legal system.

Now, if that had really been said, it would of course be a mistake, because the legal field has nothing to do with the price of goods. The price of goods can essentially only arise from that which is determined by the associations as the mutual value according to the principle of the economic primal cell, which has already been mentioned here.

It has not been clearly stated that these relationships are not established in the legal sphere, but only in the economic sphere.

Now, the essential thing is this: that both the distribution of what is produced in the product of labor, which is of course a matter for the economic sphere, and the other thing, [prices], that is quite clear.

Another question:

Will the price of goods have to be fixed?

Dear attendees, if you think in real terms, then it cannot be a matter of setting the price of goods, and it is precisely the threefold social order that must be thought of in real terms and not in abstract terms. If you think in real terms, then you will come to the conclusion that the price of goods is something that arises simply in a particular territory due to the fact that a certain number of people within that territory need certain things in a certain quantity. And it will be necessary to know: only if this price cannot be maintained at a certain level, if the price becomes too high and if this is noticed, then it is necessary that the associations ensure that this product is not produced too little. After all, the aim is to organize economic life in such a way that a price that results from needs can really be maintained at its level. This cannot be achieved by setting a price, because it is clear that if the price of any product is too low, then too much of that product will be produced. And then it is a matter of regulating this production by redirecting the workers who work on it to another area. But if a price that is too high is paid for it, the opposite is the case.

It is not a matter of making laws. The associations will not have the power to make laws; the associations will have to work continuously to ensure that, firstly, unnecessary work is not actually done, with much being wasted, as I have already described here, and, secondly, that everyone is actually placed in the position where they can work best, but in the interest of the whole. These associations will have to work in just such a way as to give economic life its appropriate configuration. So it will be a matter of thinking about the first step first, about the formation of the associations, and then simply getting these associations started; they can simply start working as soon as they are in place. Then there is another question:

Is the distribution of the profit share determined only within the company?

This cannot be the issue at all. Rather, the question of the needs of the individual in an economic area will depend on the entire economic area. And this fact, which is being looked at here – the distribution of the profit share within the company – does not actually become a real fact at all, because it simply has to be brought out of the associative realm. Whoever works this or that must receive this or that for his product of labor. It cannot be a matter of determining one's share of the profits within the enterprise; rather, it is inherent in the whole structure of economic life that one must receive one's corresponding share of the profits.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to summarize, because it is already half past ten and we cannot go on talking until midnight. I would have liked to say a lot more; of course, one always arrives a little late at the actual specific questions. I would like to summarize by saying the following: You see, the impulse of the threefold social order has been brought into the world on condition that people are found to take it up.

What do we need today? We do not need quackery, such as how to best arrange this or that, for example, lesson plans. Oh, I am convinced that even people who are not very talented, when they sit down and work out beautiful lesson plans for themselves, the lesson plans will be very beautiful. I do not mean that humorously at all, but quite seriously. The point is to have an understanding of reality so that you know what you can do with reality.

Now, of course, you can say: You tackled the cultural council, you tackled the works council, nothing came of it. — But things failed precisely because people got carried away and asked: Yes, what will become of my sewing machine in the tripartite social organism? My dear ladies and gentlemen, that is only a detail, a detail that has actually occurred; I could give you thousands of such examples. It should be clear that one should first understand the threefold nature of the social organism in much the same way that one understands the Pythagorean theorem in mathematics. Do you think that someone understands the Pythagorean theorem by approaching all right-angled triangles and trying out whether the theorem is correct? No, he knows that once he has understood it, it is only a matter of applying it in the right way in practice in each individual case. And so it is also a matter of seeing through the things of the “key points of the social question” in themselves. One must know that they can be applied in reality if one only acquires the practical hand and the practical attitude. That is what matters. The fact that things were not carried out was due to something that I do not want to discuss now, my dear audience. But I am not afraid to say what I have tried to do, and it will be the same with another step: you just have to keep trying until the matter is understood. You will just have to try everything – I know that the matter is still subject to misunderstandings and ambiguities – you will just have to try everything as long as this matter is not understood. And it has not been understood so far.

When I saw that I could not make headway with the illustrious representatives of intellectual life, that I could not make headway with the proletariat, which is turning to a belief in authority that is much worse than was ever the belief in authority in the Catholic Church. When it became clear that nothing could be done with the representatives of intellectual life and the proletariat, the question was not to discuss it, but to do something real. And so I thought that one should at least see if, in the wide area of Central Europe, which is truly suffering enough from misery and hardship, fifty people could be found who could simply be summoned to Stuttgart and taught the real foundations for working in public life. For today, most people in public life speak without any basis, without knowing anything about what has happened and is still happening, otherwise there could never have been a National Assembly like the one that met in Weimar; they speak out of some emotions that they form from experiences that are not even the very latest, but which are the expression of old historical and old political views. That is the essential feature of our present-day parties: what is represented within a present-day party has no objectivity at all, it is only a shadow of what once existed. The point was to find these fifty people so that we could initially develop real public activity in this way. They did not find each other, my dear attendees, these fifty people did not find each other!

What we are dealing with today is not that we are discussing election laws in an abstract way and whether an association can be compared to a corporation and so on, but what we are dealing with today is that we get as many people as possible with initiative, because today it is not about how we vote, but about the right people getting into the right places. And today, too, those who are inwardly imbued with understanding, imbued with insight, imbued with the practical sense of the threefold social organism, will, if there are only a sufficient number of them (you can't do anything with a small number), these people with initiative, they will work. They will be elected to the right places, no matter what the electoral laws, and what is to be will come about. Therefore, it is of primary importance that we have a sufficient number of people with insight into the necessities of the time and with the necessary initiative. If we were able to follow those who have led the world into ruin because they at least developed some learned initiative, we will certainly also follow those who develop healthy initiative. That is why we need people with initiative and insight today. And if we succeed in winning people with initiative and insight, then the threefold social order will march forward, which it did not do before. But we must work towards this goal openly and honestly, without masks or embellishment.

Dear assembled guests! A wish has been expressed that I should say something here about more economic questions, that is, about the economic realm of the threefold social organism. Actually, my intention during this School of Spiritual Science course has been to devote my energies to showing how spiritual science can have a fertilizing effect on the most diverse scientific fields and on life in general. The field of economic life is precisely that which most urgently requires the insightful collaboration of those active within the anthroposophical movement. And above all, it is necessary that what these practitioners can gain from their practical experience be brought to the spiritual scientific field, just as the scientific knowledge from many different fields has been so beautifully brought to it from so many different sides. We shall be speaking about these matters in greater detail in a moment. Since the wish has been expressed that I should also say something about the third link of the social organism, I thought it best to put down on paper the wishes that have been expressed by the honored audiences themselves, so that I could, as it were, work them into today's lecture. Today, however, was so busy that this could not be done in the way I would have liked, because the most diverse wishes were formulated in 39 questions, which really could not be studied in the short time available to me today. But in addition, I have seen from the way in which these questions were asked how much still needs to be done in this area in particular, and so it will be necessary for me to discuss some of this today, which to a certain extent emerges from the general impression created by these questions. And I will then take the opportunity to continue today's reflections in more detail next Tuesday at 8 a.m., so that perhaps those asking the questions and others who would like to learn more about these questions will get their money's worth. Today, I would like to speak only preliminarily, so to speak, so that on Tuesday we can go into the details in a very practical way. But such preliminary speaking is necessary for a healthier mutual understanding. Then, perhaps, on Tuesday evening, a kind of general discussion, a kind of discussion, can be added to what I will have to say, and in this way we will perhaps be able to cope with the matter.

Dear attendees, although I have already done so here in the late evening hours, I would like to emphasize once again that my book “The Key Points of the Social Question” and, in connection with it, the other book , which has now been published by the Stuttgart publishing house “Der Kommende Tag”, “In Ausführung der Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus” (The Threefold Order of the Social Organism), that these two books are intended to be read in a practical way and that those who take them theoretically misunderstand them. They are intended for those people who, as it were, have a vivid and lively sense of social life and are able to grasp it. It will hardly be possible to substantially advance what is today called the social question through other people as such. Above all, I have already emphasized that nothing utopian should be sought in these two books. But I have noticed that many people who approach these two books, basically translate the matter into utopianism out of a certain tendency of our time, that they form ideas according to their own taste, which then appear utopian. I would like to draw your attention to a remark that you will find on some page of my “Key Points”. There I say explicitly: In a matter that is conceived in practical terms, conceived as a challenge for our time, one can think differently about the details of the implementation. And that is why in the book “The Core Points of the Social Question” I only give examples of the details. What is said about one or the other detailed question concerns things that can be carried out in the most diverse ways in practical life. The fact that I also speak about these things in the sense that I present a [possible] realization [happens, therefore,] so that one can see vividly how the whole impulse of the threefold social organism is put into practice. Above all, it was my opinion that after this book was published, people who are practical in their lives would set about letting the results of their practical life enter into the stream of the social question, inspired by this book.

From the questions that have been put to me again today, I can see how much thoroughly impractical thinking lives in our time and how difficult it is for people in the present day to think practically. This is precisely the tragedy of our time, this is the great difficulty that does not really allow us to approach life, that on the one hand we are completely immersed in materialistic views and ideas that we have absorbed through the one-sided pursuit of natural science, that we have become accustomed to looking at all things as we necessarily have to look at external natural things - including things that have to be looked at differently from these external natural things, things that above all necessitate that one penetrates more deeply than one has to in relation to external natural things - that we have actually lost all feeling for the appropriate treatment of these things. And so, on the one hand, one thinks in a completely materialistic way and, on the other hand, in a completely abstract way, especially when it comes to social issues. Thoughts are expressed that have no prospect whatsoever of having any real impact on real life. Or one also finds that people who believe they are putting forward something quite real simply indulge in generalities. We are accustomed to hearing practitioners expound in generalities when discussing something as specific as the social question. It is simply the case that through centuries of education within Western civilization, we have not been brought closer to life, but have actually been alienated from life. And I would like to say: this realization leaps out of everything, how much one has actually been alienated from life, but how one misjudges the nature and character of this alienation. This is misjudged within the most diverse parties, and each party always blames the other. This was particularly evident to me from the questions that were asked.

There were questions that reminded me of some of the bitterness I have felt in dedicating myself to the study of modern, contemporary social conditions over the decades. For example, the question arises in several forms, which suggests the almost impossibility of an understanding that should play a role between the proletariat on the one hand and the other classes of humanity on the other. On the proletarian side, there is a question that is actually couched in the form of an accusation, a bitter accusation. I may, so that nothing remains in the background, but so that we face each other in full sincerity, honesty and truth, I may read this question, which actually involves an accusation, here:

The workers gathered here have found that it is not possible to work together with anthroposophists, with bourgeois circles; in particular, the student body seems to lack the impulse to be able to think its way into the cooperation of all people, otherwise it would be impossible to continue here as fellow students.

That, on the one hand, my dear attendees: no knowledge at all of how much there is a struggle within the student body to come to terms with the social demands of our time! A terrible mistrust has taken hold, especially in the circles of the proletariat. And anyone who is able to look at the social question with open eyes cannot ignore this mistrust, because it is one of the most real factors. But it actually concerns less the student body, which, it seems to me, is wrongly accused by the proletariat, at least it does not concern part of the student body. But, ladies and gentlemen, in general it must be said that in our time, especially in the circles of the bourgeoisie and those just above and below the bourgeoisie, there is little inclination to really look at the social question from its proletarian aspect, to really gain an understanding of how the proletarian question is intimately connected with the entire social question and thus with the fate of our modern civilization in general. As I said, I am only speaking preliminarily today, so that we can then understand each other better, because one can only present these things sympathetically if one knows the background to them.

You see, my dear audience, when we began last year to work from April onwards from Württemberg in the sense of the “Appeal” I had written and my “Key Points of the Social Question” for a recovery of our social life, there was the time, which in a was still, in a certain sense – let us say, overshadowed by the one or illuminated by the other – overshadowed or illuminated by what was like a kind of revolutionary wave sweeping over Europe; and at that time one met above all the big bourgeois and their followers, the entrepreneurial class, in the stage of fear. They were terribly afraid of what could arise from the depths of proletarian social existence, and in April and May one came into a social wave where socialism, or at least socialization, was dreamed of, or rather, dreamed up in wide circles. But then came different times. It turned out how little the proletariat is actually trained in the first place to arrive at any clear formulation of its demands in such a way that something socially positive could arise from it. Certainly, the broadest circles of the proletariat would be sympathetic to the impulse towards threefolding in particular if it were possible to overcome that which is the leadership of this proletariat. And we must not deceive ourselves about this, as can be clearly seen from the experience we have just had with our efforts: the proletariat will only come to a clear understanding when all the leaders are gone and when it can rely on its own instincts and reason. One will be able to speak to them. One can speak to the instincts of the proletarians, one can speak to the reason of the proletarians, but one cannot speak to the leaders, who combine two characteristics: firstly, a terrible parroting of what the bourgeois have thought out for them, and secondly, in all their behavior, an exaggeration of the most vulgar philistinism. But that, as I said, is directed only against the leadership.

But it must be recognized, as it is necessary in our time in general, to take it very seriously and radically into account that everything that stands out from the old times and would like to bring up what was before 1914, that it is not suitable for further development – that must be recognized. And as long as people in all parts of the civilized world think of nothing but how to get so-and-so back into this or that office because he was in such an office before, before 1914 or during the war, as long as people think like that, as long as they do, practically nothing can be worked out that can lead to progress. We absolutely need new people who emerge from a new way of thinking. We have no use for those who want to fall back on the old ways because they are too lazy to develop ideas that will lead to the appreciation of new people. I said that different times were coming. The proletariat proved that it could not come to any clarity on its own. The panic gradually turned into a kind of certainty, certainty to the extent that people said to themselves: Now we can try to continue along the old lines. I would like to say that at the time, from week to week, one could see how everything that was previously entrepreneurial fell back into the old ways of thinking; and now it is basically back on track, but just doesn't realize that it is dancing on a volcano. That was the first experience, that the complete uselessness of the leaders of the proletariat had emerged, so to speak, and that on the other hand the complete impotence of those who had previously held leading positions in the economic field had emerged. Yes, in these circles and in the entourage of these circles there is really no inclination to get to know what is actually pulsating in the present, what often wants to work its way to the surface from the proletariat in an unclear way. They simply do not want to get involved in what is important.

That is why so little of the first third of my “Key Points of the Social Question” has been understood, that first third, which is mainly concerned with presenting that “double bookkeeping”. I am not talking about the one Mr. Leinhas spoke about here in a historical context, but I am talking about another one that he even hinted at. It is that double bookkeeping that has gradually been consists in regarding the world, so to speak, only in terms of its material, mechanical context, in thinking only within this material, mechanical context, in, as I once put it, turning the practice of life into a routine, and then, on the other hand, wanting to develop all kinds of beautiful, all kinds of spiritual, all kinds of moral things.

We know how much the aim of practical people is to have their practice inside the factory, but then, when they have closed the door of the office in the evening, their aim is to be able to indulge themselves somewhere where thoughts can live freely, where the soul can develop, where one can become inwardly warm in thoughts that finally free one from what is behind the office door and so on; there should be a spiritual life outside of the factory – that will be such a motto [for these people], and my book actually wanted to reverse this motto. In this book I wanted to draw attention to the fact that it is not a matter of closing the factory behind you to find spiritual life outside, but that it is a matter of carrying your mind into the factory in the morning when you go into the factory so that reason, spirit and so on might permeate the material, mechanical life, so that the spirit does not develop alongside real life as a luxury, which it has gradually become through this double accounting. On the one hand, there is the business practice, which I don't need to describe to you further, as it is often found today; on the other hand, there is the church, there are the folded hands, there is the asking for a happy, eternal life, the interweaving of the two.

What is needed, this thinking together, is highly inconvenient for many people. On the one hand, they want a spiritless routine that they can adopt without really being present to it, and on the other hand, they want a mystical haziness through which they can satisfy the lust of their souls. How often have we experienced, especially at the time when the transition should be made from anthroposophical spiritual striving to practical striving, that people of practical life approached us who wanted to become successful in practical life from the practices that have arisen in recent decades. How do these people want to become successful? Discussions that have been held, when it came to recruiting people, say for the future or for the coming day - people who were supposed to work with the real spiritual, but who conquer the material - these discussions have shown: Such people are extremely difficult to find today for the simple reason that out of economic life, the practice has developed that the young person actually allows himself to be trained from the outside. He lets himself be brought into a business somewhere, and while his thoughts are actually somewhere else, on a spiritual level, sometimes on a very good one, he does not carry the spirit into his business. He is not there with his soul, he lets himself be trained from the outside, he lets himself be made business-savvy; then he lets himself be sent somewhere, to America or London, and there he is trained further. Afterwards he knows how to do it, and then he goes back, and then he does this or that.

Yes, my dear attendees, this leads to the social question, because we cannot make progress with such people; if we do not decide to shine a light into these things and work on them, nothing can be done. We need people who are educated, even through school, to intervene with their initiative when it comes to preparing themselves in the right way for practical life, so that, as it were, the initiative wants to come from within. To do this, however, it is necessary that the school does not stifle this initiative. I would like to say that, especially when viewed from the human side, this is the case.

A completely different spirit must enter into our economic life. Above all, this spirit will invigorate the connection that must exist between the human being and what he or she produces directly or indirectly in the world. For many branches of our lives, this connection no longer really exists. Many people are utterly indifferent to what they work on and how what they work on fits into the social context. They are only interested in how much they will acquire through their labor, that is, they reduce all interest they have in the outer material world to the interest they may have in the amount of money that can come to them from this outer world through their particular constellation in relation to this outer world. This reduction to the interest in acquiring, not in the thing that is being made, is what basically poisons our entire economic life. But here also lie the serious obstacles to understanding the impulse of the threefold social order.

As I said, I am speaking preliminarily, but I would like to refer to a few aphorisms today. It has been mentioned again and again – and rightly so – that we must work towards an economic life that is governed by the impulse of association. Associations – I have had a strange experience. I once spoke about associations in a circle of proletarians in Stuttgart. They said to me: We have heard of all kinds of things, of cooperatives, of trusts, of cartels, of syndicates, but we have not heard anything about associations. - One must be able to grasp the novelty of this concept quite practically, especially from the point of view of economic life, quite practically, I would say quite vividly, if one wants to find one's way around in these matters. Associations are not cooperatives, associations are not cartels, associations are not syndicates; above all, associations are unions, or rather, federations that work towards a specific goal. What can this goal be?

We will gradually approach a practical understanding of economic life: what can this goal be? My dear audience, this goal can be none other than working towards a very specific pricing of individual goods. It will not be possible to think correctly in terms of political economy until one is able to place the price problem at the center of this economic thinking, as the third third of my book “The Core of the Social Question” does, perhaps not always pedantically with theories, but certainly in the spirit of the whole.

What is important about the price problem? It is important to realize that each good can only have one specific price, at most there should be small fluctuations up and down. Each good corresponds to a specific price, because, dear attendees, the price of a good is – now let go of the money, I will also talk about that the day after tomorrow – the price of a good is nothing other than what represents its value in comparison to the value of the other goods that a person needs. The price expresses a ratio, for example the ratio between the value of a skirt and a loaf of bread or a boot and a hat. This proportionality is what ultimately leads to the price problem. But this proportionality cannot be solved by any ordinary arithmetic, nor can it be determined by law, by any body at all, but can only be achieved through associative work.

What is it in today's economic life that works against the healthy formation of prices, and what is it that has led us into such economic misery? It is that the price of commodities is not formed out of economic life, but that something intervenes between the commodities – the goods that correspond to needs – that cannot be a commodity, that can only serve as a means of equalization for the mutual value relationships of the commodity: money. As I said, we will discuss all of this in more detail, but I would like to touch on a few general points now. Money has been endowed with a commodity character, namely through the emergence of the real ambiguity between paper money and gold money, which is now at its culmination. Thus it has become possible not only to exchange commodities, with money serving merely as a means of facilitating exchange in a large area with a rich division of labor and employment, but also for money itself to become a commodity. And this is simply demonstrated by the fact that one can trade in money, that one can buy and sell money, that the value of money changes through speculation, changes through what one accomplishes on the money market. But now something is coming into play here that very clearly shows how the unitary state still holds together today what wants to become tripartite. Money as we have it today: its value is, so to speak, determined by the state in accordance with the law. It is the state that sets the impulse that essentially determines the value of this 'commodity'. And through this interaction of two things, the exchange of goods and the determination of the monetary value on the part of the state, our entire economic life is made confusing, so that it is no longer comprehensible to the person who is in it today.

If only the people who are involved in economic life would honestly admit to themselves that, on the one hand, any amount of money that is circulating is a complete economic abstraction – circulating like the most abstract concept in our thinking, and that on the other hand there is the production, exchange and consumption of goods, which is so closely connected with human weal and woe, and that, to a certain extent, the present monetary value, like a great forgery, drowns out everything that is supposed to be alive. These things, however, must not be viewed in an inflammatory way, but must be considered soberly and soberly, quite objectively, otherwise one cannot get to the bottom of them. It is ideal, in the first place, that every kind of commodity within economic life should be based, in a very real sense, on having a very definite value. Some kind of commodity X must have a definite relationship to the other kinds of commodities in terms of its value.

But for this value to emerge, various things are necessary. First, it is necessary that the knowledge be available, the real technical-universal knowledge, to be able to produce the relevant goods in the best possible condition and in a rational way, that is, with the least labor and without harming the human being, for any particular age. And secondly, it is necessary that no more people are employed in the [whole production process] than are necessary to ensure that this one commodity, in particular, receives the one specific price, the clearly defined price, based on its production costs and so on. If too many workers are employed in the direction leading to a particular type of goods, the goods will receive a price that is too low; if too few workers are employed, the goods will receive a price that is too high; and it is therefore necessary to understand how many people must be employed in a particular area of goods production in order to be successful in economic life.

This knowledge of the number of people employed in the production of a particular type of goods intended for consumption is necessary in order to arrive at the culmination of economic life, the price problem. This is done by working positively, by negotiating with people in economic life how they are to be placed in their jobs. Of course, this must not be understood in a pedantic or bureaucratic sense. You will notice that complete freedom, including economic freedom, is secured for the human being precisely through the means that The Core Problems of the Social Question propose. It is not a matter of a bureaucratic or mechanistic Leninization or Trotskyization, but of an association through which, on the one hand, industrial life in particular is considered in the right way and through which, on the other hand, the freedom of the individual is fully preserved. So you see what ultimately matters. But how money comes into it: we will see that the day after tomorrow.

What matters first, despite the intervention of money, is the mutual value of the goods, that is, the mutual value of the products of human labor. That is what matters, and the associations must work to extract this value through their actions in economic life, through their negotiations, through their mutual contracts, and so on. Yes, but how do such negotiations come about that deal with the mutual value of goods? Never through an organization of equals, through a corporation of equals, but only through associations. How are you supposed to figure out what the ratio of the price of a boot to the price of a hat should be if you don't let the hatmakers and cobblers work together associatively, if there is no association, if no associations are formed? Associations within a branch do not exist, because these are not associations, but associations go from branch to branch, and above all go from the producers to the consumers. Associations are the exact opposite of what leads to trusts, syndicates and the like. We shall then also see how certain connections between the entrepreneurs of a product category are necessary; but these then have a completely different function. But the process by which the right price comes into being – I do not say is fixed, but comes into being – can only develop through associative life, passing from branch to branch; only when the associations work together with their experiences can the right price be fixed on the basis of experience. It will not be more complicated than, for example, life in our police states or in our democracies; on the contrary, although it goes from industry to industry, it will be much simpler.

Now, it must be clear to everyone that life thinks quite differently, if I may put it this way, than the abstract thinkers, even if they are practitioners. These abstract thinkers will think above all: So, it depends either on the associations of the producers [with each other] or on the associations of the producers with the consumers. Yes, but, ladies and gentlemen, that is only a matter of time. Just imagine (it is drawn on the board) that you associate the producers of industry A with some number of consumers of B, these with the producers of industry C and these in turn somehow with some number of consumers of D – well, then an association arises.

But it arises in such a way that initially one only looked at the producer or only looked at the consumer; but the consumer is, after all, a producer of another article, unless he is a rentier or a loafer. It is not at all important that you proceed according to [abstract] categories; if you think about the matter in a more universal way and make associations out of all the connections, then you also have the consumers in the connections. But the way things are today, you can't even start with the producers among themselves, because only trusts or cartels would arise that only want to have business interests, I don't even want to say, but can only have.

Today, the main task is to form these associations according to the model that I once mentioned as a very primitive model. We wanted to establish a consumer association for bread in the Anthroposophical Society and associate a bread manufacturer with it, so that a relationship would arise between all those who could pay a certain price the Anthroposophists, by producing something else at the same time; and for the value of what they produced, they received what the baker in question produced. So, it actually came down to influencing the price in mutual business transactions. That will be the essence of these associations, that they gradually, by actually functioning properly, strive towards the correct, economically justified price.

If you consider this carefully, you will see that it does not contradict practical experience, insofar as it can still be gained at all in today's perverse economic life. Because take the simplest economy: in the simplest economy, the person who knows how to manage ultimately also has to find the right prices, and he develops the right prices based on his conditions. He determines the right prices from two specific components: firstly, from what he would like to get for his products, and secondly, from what he gets; that is, even if it is still so vague, he enters into an association with the consumer. It is always there, even if it is not externally closed. It is just that our lives have become so complicated that we have to bring these things to full consciousness and external form. If you don't think your way into these things, then something utopian always comes out. But above all, it would be necessary to bring together the experiences that are related to production and consumption. And in those circles that work with us, we would need, above all, practitioners who could, so to speak, synthesize the experiences of life into a science of experience about economic life, so that - and this could well be - it would start from experience.

But today, my dear attendees, you can read about economists in the following style: For any given territory, let's say Germany, they calculate how much of the total wealth, or let's say of the total annual income generated in that territory, is made up of entrepreneurial profits, and how much is made up of the sums that have to be used for intermediate trade in the broadest sense. And those who talk about these things as economists usually reduce everything to the abstract monetary relationship. But that does not give any insight into the real course of economic conditions. One would only get an insight if one heard from those who are involved in economic life how they work in intermediate trade. One would have to be told, for example, how lives are ruined in intermediate trade. And one would also learn, for example, the interesting fact that in a closed economic area, approximately as much entrepreneurial profit is reaped as unnecessary stocks of goods are brought onto the market. Quite curiously, the number given for any territory as the sum of entrepreneurial profits roughly corresponds to the market price of those goods that are unnecessarily in stock on the market and are not sold. You see a connection there that you can see, look at together, but which would only be interestingly illuminated if the practitioners, who basically don't understand the real practice, if these practitioners would come and show you how things really work for them, so that it comes out exactly how the connections are between what is worked and not sold on the market and the entrepreneurial profit that now comes from surplus labor, I mean the pure capital profit. It is quite natural that people who have no idea of how such connections are in economic life are also not in a position today to talk about the actual composition of associations. For what is the task of these associations? Their task is to use the very knowledge that is still lacking in order to arrive at the economically justified price. When association and association exchange their experiences, when these experiences are exchanged in a lively way, instead of being calculated, the price problem can be solved simply and practically in the end. There is no theory to solve the price problem. It cannot be formulated, but only by starting with any given product and really experiencing in life which other products are exchanged with it. Only then can you practically determine how much this product should cost, but practically and with almost complete accuracy. This cannot be done with numbers, but by having a group of people who have experience in one industry, another group who have experience in a different industry, a third in a third industry, and so on, so that these groups can pool their experiences. The matter is not as complicated as one might imagine today; and you can be quite certain that the number of people needed to get the associations up and running in this way and solve the price problem is not as high as the number of people that certain states have used for their militarism and policing. And that is the most important thing in economic life. Then, in a sense, everyone has a standard; they can see from the price how much they need to work. There is no need to think about how to get people to work, because they can see from the price-determining factor how much they have to work; they will be able to act accordingly, and they will be able to negotiate on a completely different basis with other people, on a reciprocal basis, about the amount of work they do, the time they work, and so on.

I would just like to say this today: What is the most important thing in economic life? The price of goods. If you look beyond economic life, in the sense of the “key points of the social question”, you will also find what is most important in state life – but we must think of a living state life. In the life of the state, the most important thing is the rights and duties that can be established through democratic coexistence, which people set for each other. We must bear in mind how, in economic life, experiences are gathered through the activity of associations, in order to arrive at the price of goods that ultimately dominates economic life; we must bear in mind how everything that does not tend towards this price fixing must be removed from economic life. In the life of the state, democracy, or, when it comes to the life of the mind, the free integration of the spiritual element into the social organism; in the life of the mind it is trust that founds the constitution, in the life of the state it is the intuitive sense of rights and duties. The associative principle works towards the right price. Economic life needs trust as a force of spiritual life, needs a sense of right and duty. With this rhythm of right and duty, we have a duality, just as we have exhalation and inhalation in human life. This is what should pulsate in state life, and trust is what should pulsate in spiritual life.

Regarding the questions – as I said, today I have only taken the general impression from the various questions – there is, for example, something that comes into question in relation to such a general impression: it is the question of how this spiritual life should actually work on the other two limbs of the social organism, how it should be constituted in itself. But we will talk about that the day after tomorrow. But just let your soul be filled — intuitively and without prejudice, not influenced by what is already there and has been constantly brought into the spiritual life from the state side — let your soul be filled with what the self-contained spiritual life is. Now, my dear audience, I think you will all be able to understand me quite well in this: When spiritual life is free, then the first thing to take effect in it will be the steadfastness that is born of trust; this steadfastness will take effect to the same extent that this spiritual life is emancipated from the state. And with all those “pigtails” who wanted nothing to do with our cultural advice, it was quite clear – I have already hinted at this from a different angle – that if it came down to the efficiency borne by trust, not the efficiency stamped by the state, then they would very soon no longer be sitting on their curule chairs. That is why the people fled so quickly from our call for a cultural council on all sides that, figuratively speaking, the tails of the tails and coats flew far, far in the wind from the speed with which they fled when we called on them to join us in a free intellectual life.

Now, I wanted to speak today, my dear attendees, about some preliminary matters that may lead us to address individual issues in response to the questions raised. Above all, because I see that there is an urgent need for it, I would like to address the specific question regarding the organization of the individual members of the social organism and their interaction. But I want to be understood, and to do so I want to study and process the questions thoroughly for next Tuesday. But you will see from studying the “Key Points of the Social Question” as well as from everything else I have said in this regard, based on our spiritual scientific work, that it is truly not utopian. But perhaps this also gives me a certain right to say that what is meant by the “key points of the social question” should not be translated into utopianism. I hear this utopianism in many of the ways people talk to me, for example, when someone comes and asks: “If we have the threefold social organism, what will happen to this or that?” — That is precisely how the utopian thinks. The practical person, however, thinks above all about whether something positive will be established. It really does not matter what should happen to the banker A, the milliner F, the sewing machine owner C - all these questions are raised - but something else is essential. What is important is that steps be taken that are in line with one or other of the three impulses for the threefold social order.

It is important that some kind of start be made with associations. It must be shown how neither the productive cooperatives nor the consumer cooperatives can work well for the future. We must turn away from the productive cooperatives because they have shown in practice that people with real personal initiative do not devote themselves to them, nor could they. But we must also turn away from the consumer cooperatives, although they are still the best, especially when they start producing for themselves; but they cannot achieve the necessary goal for the future for the simple reason that they do not arise from the association of what is there, ation of what is already there, but because they are still rooted in the most ordinary capitalism – at least in one corner of it, in that they initially organize consumption only on one side and actually incorporate production only into the organization of consumption, if they incorporate it at all. Even less indicative of real progress are cooperatives such as the raw materials cooperative and so on; such cooperatives have no sense of associative life at all, but instead they actually only amount to doing something in a partial area of economic life, in any old corner, while the raw materials question is closely related to the consumption question. One might say, but this is a somewhat figurative way of putting it: within the whole of economic life, it is actually the smokers who should have the greatest interest in the work of processing tobacco raw materials in tobacco-producing areas. Now I would like to know how, in our decadent, perverse economy, the interest that the smoker has in the raw materials question, in the raw materials economy, is connected to the product that he finally vaporizes into the air; after all, he only considers the very outermost periphery. I have chosen only one example, which seems a bit strange because it is so far away; in other examples, the connection is much more noticeable. The necessary associative connection between the procurement of raw materials and consumption is not noticed at all today.

It is simply the case that this abstract thinking always translates what is actually meant in a practical way in the “key points” into a theoretical one. And I found the most theory, the most bare business mysticism, if I dare use the term, when today's practitioners translate the practical ideas of the “key points” into their language, because they usually think only from a very tiny corner; and everything that is outside of this corner, which they, as routiniers, dominate, becomes blurred for them in a nebulous business mysticism. But that is precisely against the associative principle. The associative principle must work towards the value of the goods being determined by their mutual relationship. However, this can only happen if the most diverse sectors associate, because the more sectors that are directly or indirectly associated, the more sectors tend to work out the economically appropriate price of the goods through their activity. You can't calculate the price, but you can combine economic sectors associatively, and if they combine in such a way that the result of this combination is the number of people who have to be employed in each individual sector in the economy as a whole, according to production and consumption, then it comes out all by itself: you give me your boots for so many hats, which I give you. - Money is then only the mediator. But behind what is mediated by money, however much money is inserted as an intermediate product, there is still the value of the boot that determines the value of the hat, the value of bread that determines the value of butter, and so on. But this only comes about as a result of branch rubbing against branch in associative life. To believe that associations can only be established between producers in one branch is to fail to recognize reality. We shall see what that means next time, the day after tomorrow. Association is the union, the uniting, so that this uniting can produce that common exponent which then lives in the price. That is the living development of economic life, and only in this way does this economic life come close to a proper satisfaction of human needs. This can only happen when people place themselves with full interest in economic life, not just asking: What are the interests of my industry? What do I acquire in my industry? How do I employ the people in my industry? - This can only happen when people care about: How my industry must relate to the other industries, so that the mutual values of goods are determined in the right way?

As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, it is not just a cliché when I say that it is a matter of changing the way we think. Anyone who believes that they can get ahead by continuing to bubble along in the old way of thinking is only leading people further into decadence. We must believe today that we really do need to relearn most of all in economic life.

So I'll talk about that the day after tomorrow.

at the end of a meeting of members of the Anthroposophical Society at the first Anthroposophical College

Rudolf Steiner: I just want to say a few words at this moment, my dear friends. Speaking too much at general meetings or general assemblies is not something I am particularly known for. There have been quite a number of general assemblies over the years, until the war made that impossible, and I have said many a thing at these general assemblies –– it has basically never been taken into account. And then a number of proposals were made as to how things should actually be done and the like. So basically there is not much reason for me to speak at general meetings, only to say things that are not actually heard. But here I would just like to say a few words about something positive. Because, you see, it won't do much good to have big plans; it's all well and good to have big plans, but you should consider the immediate first. We are here together now, and it seems to me that this is the best opportunity to do something so that we don't go our separate ways again without having done necessary, positive things, things that can be done here and now. Let us talk about something positive for a change.

Above all, I would like to draw your attention to the fact, my dear friends, that when the threefold social order movement emerged quite organically from the anthroposophical movement, it was expected that those who were to work in this or that field would really do so, because a practical impulse had been given with the threefold social order question. Now, from a certain quarter,

A lot of work has been put into creating these Anthroposophical College courses here in Dornach, and the success of these college courses will essentially depend on us as Anthroposophists leaning a little on what these college courses have brought and carrying it out into the world in the future – that will take some work. But perhaps – we still have eight days left for these college courses – perhaps something can be done here to remedy the situation, which has brought us, especially in a certain direction, at least for those who really want to work, a nasty disappointment. That is the following.

You see, my dear friends, it was really meant very seriously that the time should finally come to an end when what was supposed to work together with practice was constantly rejected by so-called practice, so that we could finally make progress; it was calculated that we - in contrast to the routiniers - would find real practitioners precisely in the anthroposophical movement. We have been together for a fortnight now, and it might have been possible for something to have happened, especially in relation to economic thinking, to correct economic thinking on the part of the practitioners among us. We have, however, had various seminar papers. The fact that there have of course been some minor lapses is of no interest to us, because it is simply absolutely necessary. But, my dear friends, what has happened through a co-worker and practitioner, in order to achieve something favorable for the world in the sense of the work of our college courses, has unfortunately so far only resulted in the fact that this morning another envelope arrived with this pack of questions, all of which relate solely to the threefold order. I do not know whether these questions can be formed into at least one lecture by this evening, given the day's other commitments, which will then deal with real economic thinking. I have been told that a few

A Mr. Male at 7 o'clock in the morning, or at some other hour that was perhaps even more impossible - I don't know - meetings were held under the motto that only the practitioners, to the exclusion of the theorists, would come together for once, so that something more sensible would be said - I am only referring to it as a rumor, but it has been said to me. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it would be important that when the student body comes here, they do not leave with the impression that they are all beating each other up because they all have different opinions and cannot express what an association is and the like. It would be much more important to ensure that practitioners really work together in an anthroposophical sense, so that we can present ourselves to the outside world as a real force. You see, this is a positive task that can perhaps be solved in the next eight days: that the practitioners do not isolate themselves because each person says something that the other does not understand. We must therefore try to present ourselves to the world as a society and to build up such a force that the practitioners will actually come together to present something of practical economic thinking. Only in this way can the people who have come here today to learn something really learn something. What will become of our economic endeavors if the students leave with the feeling that they themselves don't know anything? So we need a thorough change in this direction in the next eight days to fulfill our task.

I just wanted to try to bring something positive into the debate for a change.

Roman Boos would like to discuss how, in the opinion of those in the economic world, we can arrive at a point in economic terms where the work done here during the college course can have fruitful consequences.

Carl Unger: I would like to suggest that people with economic experience, skills and knowledge try to reach out from the various centers, so that the experiences can penetrate to where there is a possibility of establishing real economic relationships. A list has already been set up at “Futurum” where economists can sign up so that economic issues can be addressed in real terms.

I would like to cite certain typical phenomena from economic life itself, taking a small company in the machine industry as an example. The company was founded by me in 1906 to manufacture certain machine parts that were in high demand at the time. After opening, there was a major crisis in 1907, when sales slowed. Then large amounts of capital had to be invested to create the technical basis to meet demand. 1914 was initially a high point; with the outbreak of the war, everything came to a complete standstill; the war itself then led to a kind of stormy demand; raw material difficulties arose, and premises had to be created. And so large capital entered the scene, in particular large bank capital interest had to be created. With the end of the war, a seemingly favorable economic situation set in; there was an abnormally high level of economic activity. It was necessary to seek new ways of working with the labor force, to incorporate new points of view; the threefold social order proved itself in practice. I can only hint at all this. There was a great need for capital. The demand set in without it being possible to counteract it on the other side. In this situation, it became apparent that the industrial plant was a capital guzzler, and one had to ask oneself: Is such a plant viable in the sense of a self-organizing economic life in the future or not? One was faced with various alternatives: either one had to seek affiliation with some neighboring plants in order to have something to offer the economy instead of the overwhelming need for capital, which had to be covered from elsewhere, something that would give hope for the future. Or, in order to avoid being crushed by capitalism, one had to sell to industrial collectives. Or, thirdly, there was the possibility of tearing the business out of the whole economy and tearing it down, letting the plow go over the land. But this was not feasible because of the people working in it.

Out of this situation developed the necessity for an associative enterprise; the real connection to an association proved to be absolutely necessary, so that the enterprise is now affiliated to the Coming Day. Naturally, this is only the beginning of what is to be developed out of the Coming Day. But at least it is possible to keep such a business going in an economically sound way and, by joining forces with the Coming Day and forming a center, to survive the impending crises. In this way, the experiences of individuals can be exchanged with the operating results and so on, which will certainly lead to real economic relationships arising between people who come together from different sides. This is an example from real economic life as it presents itself today.

Roman Boos gives the floor to the banker Adolf Koch.

Adolf Koch: Dear Sirs and Madams! After Dr. Steiner's impressive presentation yesterday, there is no need to dwell on the how and the possibility of associations spreading. The question is, firstly, what can we put into such an associative economy today? For example, the artificial flower industry? It is also forced to take on capital and so on. For us it is necessary to recognize what needs of the German people are to be satisfied at all. When we look at life in a practical way and see that on the one hand we have to eat rotten bread and on the other hand the luxury industry is flourishing and enormous amounts of raw materials are being used for it, then we, who want to rebuild, have to ask ourselves everywhere: What do we include in our association economy first? If the coming day is able to incorporate farms, that is certainly desirable; but we must see to it that we can incorporate machine or other industries as well. This is the foundation on which all of humanity can build. Today in Germany, we are dependent on ourselves, and we have to get back on our feet; food, clothing, coal, and so on are necessary. Secondly: The Coming Day as such. I speak here as a banking expert and, as I said, without any real connection to the Coming Day; I speak here in fact quite objectively from my experiences. If we want to free ourselves from the corrupt state of affairs in Germany, then an enterprise like the Coming Day, as it is conceived, is the given to free us from all the rotten stuff that now has the upper hand in Germany. Everyone who has to do with capital must get out of the old and into the threefold order.

German paper money is ultimately nothing more than a claim on the great corrupt state itself. If we withdraw from it, we free ourselves from this paper money, which annoys everyone because of its dirtiness, not only on the outside but also on the inside. The big banks in Berlin have about 40 billion foreign savings; they sit there like a big spider and suck out what free money is available. Of these 40 billion, about 60% are invested in government treasury bonds, to which municipalities and cities contribute a further 15%, so that theoretically every person is 'married' to the state to the tune of 750 marks. How do we get out of this? – It is passed on to the next day, on the condition that the next day will invest it in productive enterprises. This provides the possibility that in the event of an overall collapse, people can say to themselves: then I have the connection to productive enterprises. So the egoism of capitalism helps; with capitalism, you also have a means of educating people. It is not at all reprehensible, as the situation stands today. I speak as a banking expert. I have no connections with either side that would lead me to speak in favor of one or the other. If you put people in charge who actually want what is beneficial, then this is the nucleus for reconstruction, the original cell for reconstruction. I speak as a practitioner to people from whom I assume that they want to hear about banking practice.

I would ask the gentlemen with whom I sat in Stuttgart in January of this year and with whom I negotiated to remain at the end. I have a few personal remarks to make.

Rudolf Steiner: You have now heard in a very clear and appropriate way what can be said about a certain problem from the point of view of economic thinking. And I would also like to contribute something to this.

Today, as time teaches us, we have to approach every economic problem from two sides. One side has been very appropriately presented here, and the other side is the social side. Even enterprises such as the Kommende Tag or the Futurum, even if they are managed skillfully and appropriately, depend on being supported by the social side when the situation increasingly prepares the ground for a time when we will no longer be able to work. Because, of course, no matter how much money we can put into productive enterprises, if we cannot work more, we will not be able to overcome the economic crisis. What can be done on one side must also be supported on the other by social action. At the very least, they must go hand in hand. You only have to hint at what could happen today. Let us assume that a factory owner is as philanthropic as possible and does as much as possible for his workers. But when it comes to a general strike, the workers either go on strike or not?

Interjection: Yes!

And as long as we do not get beyond this question, it is not possible to have any prospect of a real recovery of economic life. Here the social question must be brought in without fail.

Now, that is precisely the mistake that has always been made; one has thought economically in such a way that one has actually thought only within production and not to the actual manual laborer. In our present economic system, the manual laborer actually receives deductions from capital, not wages. You just have to think about it, it's true. That is the real state of affairs, but it is something we cannot make progress with. And that is why it is necessary to tackle the associative principle energetically and objectively, immediately, after we have gained the experience that we have been able to gain since April last year. It is necessary that we finally abandon the old fallacy that, on the one hand, there is big business, which at most acts in a patriarchal sense, and that, on the other hand, there is the working class, tightly organized in trade unions, so that the individual worker is under terrible pressure. This gap must first be bridged, and that cannot happen otherwise than if you prepare real associations. Real associations, which consist of an association of people from one side – from the business side, the leadership side, the side of intellectual workers – and on the other side, people from the workforce. Initially, an economic, a truly social economic association, which must inherently bear the character of [a collaboration between] consumers and producers, will not be able to be formed. Well, the associations must have this goal, and this goal must be pursued with rigorous agitation. Otherwise we will not make any progress. And this goal must consist of dissolving the trade unions and the current one-sided proletarian and labor associations in order to allow the associations to emerge between the one and the other side, so that in the economic crisis we have companies in which we workers can maintain ourselves. You may say: This is not possible, if the economic life is not to collapse altogether. But it must be tried. Without setting ourselves the goal of breaking up the unions and keeping it in mind, we will not make any progress in economic life. And organizations must be founded. And this practical approach could be discussed much more usefully than by drawing up utopian plans about how associations could be formed in the state of the future. It is always a matter of seizing the next task. The next task is the dissolution, the breaking up of the entire trade union life.

Oskar Schmiedel: It is very difficult to speak after Dr. Steiner, because he has already expressed the best thoughts.

It is quite true that we will not move forward unless the trade union organizations are broken up. But how do we achieve that? That is the question. The coming day should be the sponge to absorb the 40 billion savings. I am convinced of the excellence of Mr. Koch's idea to support and consolidate our efforts in a capitalist way. But for outsiders, the coming day is nothing more than a capitalist, a capitalist who needs capital and needs profit to further his endeavors. I can't be fooled. I have already spoken about this with people who are far removed from the endeavors here, and they say: the end justifies the means.

Of course, the Coming Day wants to make a profit, but it wants to use the profit for something quite different from what capitalists use it for; it wants to use it for the common good. Even before I knew Dr. Steiner's book on the threefold social organism, I had asked myself the question: How can we escape from the horror of socialism and capitalism? After reading the book, I breathed a sigh of relief and wondered: How does this work for others? That the material is extremely dry when it comes to passing it on to others is certain. And it cannot be any different. The question is: How do you teach it to others in a way that they understand? I have had little success with it so far, and that is why I have to ask those gathered here, who have probably known and spread the ideas much longer than I have, to share their thoughts. I think it is most important that new people are won over to the idea of threefolding, that new people are always won over.

Interjection: Absolutely!

You come up against a brick wall when you meet the workers. Even if the individual workers are approachable and reasonable, you immediately meet with resistance when you want to introduce the ideas into a factory; you come up against a closed wall of shop stewards and the workers' leaders themselves. For the head of the industry, if he is to be responsible, this is all the more difficult if he is not the owner himself. In the past, people were supported with food and clothing; that is no longer the case. The labor leaders, who usually have a very limited horizon, only want to be in charge. The worker is an egoist; he asks himself: What do I get materially out of it? In the threefold order, nothing is offered for the present, only for the future at best. Then, often out of selfishness, they say: Of course I will voluntarily give up none of the rights that my father and I have acquired.

The material is, as I said, extremely dry. In Württemberg you undoubtedly have a much more enlightened situation than in Upper Austria; they are half farmers and half industrial workers — not open to spiritual inspiration. But there must be a way. And that is what interests me. The whole question of the threefold social order is actually also a question of power; force is needed to teach even the best thoughts to humanity; even for the good, for the best, one must force them. If I had some regiments of cavalry, it might be possible, or money, a lot of money is needed. There is almost no coverage in the press. We have no time to lose. The question is how to approach this practically in order to make progress through the strength of thought.

Wilhelm von Blume: I am not an economist and would perhaps not be speaking here today at all if it were not for the words of the last speaker. I would like to explain one thing right away: I do believe that the question of threefolding is ultimately not a question of power, but a question of trust, and it will depend above all on winning the trust of those who are concerned.

Now, for my part, I have tried to make a personal impact on business people and also on those who mean something today; especially in the Rhineland and in Westphalia, and I have learned a great deal. From a very specific point of view, a thought quickly occurs to the gentlemen, and that is the thought of self-management of the economy. Contact was immediately established. However, the thinking was still capitalist; they thought that they could use their power to push aside this state, which is a nuisance to them in every way, and create their own economic state, with Hugo Stinnes at its head. After all, when a clean divorce between state and economy is demanded, they still allow the matter to be filled with the necessary spirit. But they also see the social side of the whole matter, which Dr. Steiner emphasized so strongly, very clearly. However, they have worked out the following: they want to further expand the “working community” — this keyword is used — they want an economic community between the capitalists and the workers. And the workers go along with this here and there. I need only remind you of the coal industry, which the workers themselves basically think of in very capitalist terms – in many ways the workers think more capitalistically than the capitalists – and they are very aware of the profit they make from it. But the economy as a whole is moving further and further into the abyss. Only those sectors of the economy, such as the coal industry, are on the rise, as is the entire banking sector, because credit is constantly needed to operate companies. The other sectors of the economy are gradually perishing. This is where we have to start, we have to make it clear to the workers that they are not just producers, but also consumers, that working communities are being created in the way that Dr. Steiner described yesterday. The first and greatest danger is that people are merely pointed out to it: entrepreneurs and workers should agree with each other. You have to pursue producer and consumer policies under all circumstances and pursue production from consumption.

In this way, the right ideas can be introduced to the working class. The trade unions are indeed a serious obstacle today because they are imbued with an old spirit. But this evil Works Council Constitution Act will ruin the trade unions. In the not too distant future, the trade unions will be completely destroyed by this law, which was not meant that way at all, which was meant quite differently.

Interjection: Very true!

so that perhaps we do not need to do much to help in this direction, so that we only need to point out the positive, the constructive. Perhaps one can hope that it will be the same in the other questions. We must be aware of the dangers and under no circumstances tolerate the matter being pushed to the end in the wrong direction.

Hans Schwedes: I can tell you a few things about the trade unions. I was led there as a teacher to educate people about threefolding and the idea of associations. The union leaders, in conjunction with the party leaders, are fighting tooth and nail against new ideas, and the union leaders fear that their union positions and posts will be lost as a result of new ideas. The workers themselves, who generally think little about these things, allow themselves to be led completely without will. If we educate and organize in the right way, it would be possible to reach the working class. We must arrive at such an associative economy in the shortest possible time because circumstances demand it. Under no circumstances can we afford to wait a few more years for some event to help us. Such action must be closely linked to social action, to generous social action that introduces the idea of the threefold social organism into public opinion. Consumer groups are also becoming increasingly restless and are demanding more and more of a say in shaping conditions, especially in pricing. It is precisely in order to take up this mood and to bring something into this soil that a generous action for the threefolding of the social organism should be set up.

We have heard from Dr. Steiner that a bridge must be created between the workers on the one hand and the entrepreneurs on the other. How about if we, perhaps here, I mean those of you who are here as entrepreneurs, who are practitioners in economic life, if we were to found an association here that would set itself the goal of bringing about associations, that is, to do everything possible to lead to such a formation of associations. Perhaps someone of you could come to Darmstadt, someone who knows exactly what is going on, and give a lecture there to invited entrepreneurs and discuss the idea of associations in detail. There are bound to be some here who would take up this idea and discuss with these entrepreneurs how to educate the workers. If the employers were to take on the various educational endeavors desired by the workers, for example, higher education endeavors, if the employers were to cooperate so that lectures could be organized, for example - of course, these would have to deal with precisely what is covered by the associations - then a way to act can be found through mutual trust, and it would also be possible to influence public opinion.

So, to find a practical starting point, I propose founding an independent association of entrepreneurs that aims to promote the idea of association in every way, through events in Darmstadt, in order to gain a foothold that can be connected.

Roman Boos: It seems to me that a different approach is needed to promote the idea of association. With associations, it is only important to establish them in some practical way, not to propagate the idea itself. And to found a specific employers' association purely for the purpose of propaganda would not be the right thing either; Futurum and Künftiger Tag have to be practically involved, so that these very diverse organizations work together, that what is being worked on in the Waldorf School and by the Federation for School of Spiritual Science and what is being advocated by the Threefolding Association is represented with the greatest intensity, but by all these groups together. Not that the threefold order as such might be compromised by appearing merely as a matter for employers' circles!

It has been repeatedly shown that contact with members of these various circles has torn workers away from the world of ideas of their trade unions and parties. For example, an event was held at the Basel Youth Organization here, where it was discussed how this kind of thinking requires a different kind of thought formation. Similarly, a few weeks later, a meeting was held with members of the Protestant Workers' Association. In both cases, the way people wrote in the newspapers afterwards showed that they were torn out of their usual circles of thought.

And now the question of Director Schmiedel: How do you actually get the idea of threefolding into people's heads? It makes a tremendous impression on a worker when he is told: “Scientific results and insights into medicine come from these thoughts” - because he lives in these things, albeit in a popular way. That makes an extremely strong impression on him. And precisely because he puts everything on the scientific edge, even if only in word, one must try to make progress on a broad front, if possible to work on the broadest front.

Emil Leinhas: Professor von Blume has already referred to the power that he says “always intends evil but always creates good”. I believe that no one can deny that this power is active in an extraordinarily strong way. I do not believe that it is enough just to help a little, but as things stand today, it will take the most intensive work and effort to ensure that good comes out and not evil. We have the ideas of the threefold social order for this, and if we are properly grounded in them, we can also pass these ideas on. And here I must say, in answer to Mr. Schmiedel's remark that the material we have before us is “brittle”: I am of exactly the opposite opinion; we ourselves are brittle at first, in that we do not really understand the subject. That is the actual brittleness, and it is not the “Key Points” and not the threefold social order that are brittle. In the last few weeks I have had to deal with rather brittle material, with the history of capitalism. I then sat down late at night and read a few pages in the “Key Points”. Fresh air suddenly flowed in from all sides; you realize that you are immersed in real life. Don't worry: the material we have in the “key points” is not dry; the dryness lies elsewhere.

But we must not forget one thing: there should be many more people here, then things could move forward. Dr. Unger and Dr. Koch have already given some hints: This appeal to those who want to join their business because it can no longer exist on its own is certainly necessary in the general interest. It is also necessary to call on those who have capital not to give it to the banks, where it only serves to destroy. It is necessary not only to tie in with this in a one-sided economic way, but to work in a comprehensive way to educate economically and socially. Very little has been done in this regard, and an enormous amount remains to be done in the near future. Therefore, we who are involved in economic life must begin with concrete facts and educate humanity. It would be necessary to be able to provide answers to questions such as the connection between overproduction and entrepreneurship, or the original cell of economic life, or how much social work would actually be necessary at all if work were distributed in the right way, or the whole question of pricing – these are just a few of the many questions to which no answers have yet been given.

I would like to make a specific request to those present. I would ask those who believe they are able to work on this topic to help by giving lectures and the like, but above all to write about the specific aspects of economic life, which would have to take into account not only the economic but also the social. I would like to ask you to contact me for economic or economic contributions.

Roman Boos: I would like to second Mr. Leinhas' suggestion and ask whether it would not be possible to establish a permanent economic department at the coming day, which would then have its organs in the federation for threefolding, a kind of center that would have the task of connecting what is economic practice with economic science.

Emil Leinhas: The form in which people work together will find itself.

Rudolf Steiner: Just a few words. It is always unfortunate when an important thought is thrown into the discussion and then not followed up. Dr. Schmiedel threw out an important thought regarding the question: How do we actually get the threefold social order into people's heads and into their actions? I believe I have understood the idea correctly. And above all, I would like to draw attention to something that has hardly ever been thoroughly considered.

You see, basically we have not developed any skill, any real rational skill in agitation. We simply cannot agitate. Firstly, we have no practice; we also have no inclination to acquire practice in agitation. Secondly, with most personalities, we also have no inclination to really decide to do what is necessary on their part: to develop personal effectiveness. Of course we must also work through the printed word, and we have shown, by founding the Threefolding Newspaper, that we also take into account the fact that we must do this. But all this remains ineffective if we cannot move on to real personal agitation. Dr. Schmiedel will probably agree with me when I say: I know exactly how to approach the oak trunks from the Horn region (I know the people there); I know roughly, if I were to limit myself to this area, how I would have to present the threefold order to the local farmers if only I could be there and work. But that is just it: today, we are at a point in human development, especially in Central and Western Europe, where we are not understood at all if we do not speak in the language of the people. Just think about it: it is impossible today to speak in a workers' meeting the way you would speak in a meeting of entrepreneurs – not because you want to tell people what to do, but simply because you want to be understood. And in this regard, it must be said that a large number of our friends really need to acquire a certain skill, a certain technique. You see, I gave the Daimler speech, didn't I? The first fortnight of our work in Stuttgart showed that if we had continued in this direction, our following would have grown considerably. Instead of that, the Daimler lecture was printed and, well, then you got the echo of the Daimler lecture from some rustic pastor; yes, that he cannot understand what was said for the Daimler workers on his own initiative, that is quite natural. So above all, get to know life, that is what it is about.

We have always made the most important mistakes ourselves. In the threefolding agitation, we made them by not carrying out a technique of agitation, but only having a certain preference for this or that direction of agitation, and always believing that people would follow this direction, that they would think in this direction and that it would then be right. Well, then you go into a meeting of ironworkers and say the same thing to them [as you said to the other people]. Of course you can do that, but you have to say it in the language of each group. We have not adopted this, and I find a certain opposition to it within the threefolding movement itself. The majority is such that they do not want to get out of it, above all they do not want to get out of this, I would say monism of agitation, they do not want to admit that they need to create the possibility of really finding access to people. This inner opposition is what must be overcome, we must get beyond it. It is a kind of practical opposition that is being waged within wide circles of the threefolding movement. People want to agitate as they please, and not as the world requires. I have pointed out again and again: What matters is not that we like the thing, but that we do it as the facts require. And I showed this in practice by trying to do something in a new way. I wanted to have an agitator community; I wanted fifty people to be selected in Central Europe to undergo an agitator course in Stuttgart, so that it could then be determined personally how things should be handled. It simply does not work with the printed word, where the same thing is presented to the worker as to the entrepreneur. An agitators' course should have been organized, but this very important undertaking came to nothing simply because no people could be found who could be brought to spread the art of personal agitation in this way. Until we have really tackled this work of personal agitation, the question raised by Dr. Schmiedel remains valid. But it cannot be answered by discussion, but only by such activity

A participant in the discussion: Dr. Steiner says that the workers themselves do not know what they want. And if I now try to formulate what the workers want, it does not come out systematically, but rather in fits and starts. When workers agitate, they have a certain sense of solidarity among themselves; this comes from the fact that people have worked together. Dr. Steiner said that it depends on breaking up the unions. I was in Berlin for a few weeks and saw how rotten things are and that people are searching everywhere. Why not show people the way through a practical deed? Won't it be possible for the worker, who has nothing to offer but his labor, to have a place where he can say, It is good when I can take my labor somewhere, when I [in the coming day] can work, have a position as a laborer there, then I am already prepared to think my way into spiritual science. If someone thinks about his work, he can do twice as much. And we can help each other, intervene here and there, we can say: leave that for once, I will help you. - If we could say: If you want to break away from the union, then you can find a place somewhere, even if it is in agriculture. — If only we had the opportunity to work in the coming day! Isn't it possible for the coming day to create this opportunity, so that workers can be employed there? I know that people will object that not everyone should move to Stuttgart; we also need workers elsewhere. But we have to start there. We need people who, when the time comes, will not go on strike but will continue the work out of their consciousness. The way forward is shown by The Coming Day. The task at hand is to find the manual laborers, and once we have them, the project will develop from this nucleus.

Roman Boos: We are not competent to vote for the coming day. Furthermore, it depends, of course, on the circumstances of the coming day whether what is ideal can be realized in practice. I ask that you be as brief as possible. We still have four speakers scheduled.

Another participant: I would like to share that I have been active in labor unions for many years as one of the agitators of the old school. And I would like to suggest that we continue the conversation so that I can share some of my experiences with these people. I assumed that today's participants were only economists, so to speak, employers among themselves.

Roman Boos: Perhaps another event can be organized in the next few days.

Franz Dreidax: If we were to satisfy the workers' need for housing by having them start building the houses themselves and obtaining all the materials from the factories of the Coming Day, this would seem to me to be a way of drawing ever wider circles on a completely natural basis. Of course, the Coming Day would have to launch this.

Roman Boos: We are now getting a little too involved in building policy, which is a problem in itself; a great deal of literature and practice has been written about it. Whether we should be talking here about the possibilities of building cooperatives is a different matter.

Franz Dreidax: The intention is to blow up the trade unions. But anyone who is not in a union today will no longer find work anywhere; he will starve with his wife and children. The other workers will kill him if they catch him. The workers must be given the opportunity, the security and the confidence that he can continue to work. And if we now start building houses, at the same time also building on agricultural land and so on, then perhaps a trade could gradually develop with the surrounding villages. The factory workers in the city can be supplied with agricultural products. And vice versa. I don't yet know how it can be done on a large scale, but I see a possibility of how we can achieve mutual interest and how trust can take hold, real trust. It is also already stated in the Key Points that trust is necessary. I don't know of any other way out. I don't want to talk about breaking up the unions if there is no certainty that the workers will be able to survive afterwards.

Roman Boos: I would like to remind you that all these enterprises must also be financed by the Coming Day. If the financing operation succeeds as it should objectively succeed, it would of course be very valuable to create such economic entities. As soon as these economic enterprises flourish here...

A speaker from Breslau: We should discuss again the question of breaking up the trade unions and training agitators. I would ask the gentlemen to speak directly at the next meeting about finding ways to ensure that this action can actually be carried out. We have already missed one opportunity.

Rudolf Steiner: I would just like to note that one should not turn something I have said here into a slogan that can easily be turned into dogma. If, in connection with what I have said, something is said to the effect that only by breaking up the trade unions will the workers be helped on their way, then that is not right. For a not very far-reaching consideration would immediately show that only by following the path I have indicated, namely by bringing about the associations of employers and employees, can the unions be undermined and something else be put in their place. The unions will never be thrown out on the street just by repeating a socialist, Marxist slogan when you speak of “breaking up the unions”. It is not that that matters, but positive thinking; it is a matter of being able to think concretely in such matters.

A senior government official, who is in a kind of ministry of a German state and who wanted to discuss with me the measures that would have to be taken, was with me just recently. I said to him: That's all very well what you say; but you will achieve practically nothing if you sit in your office and concoct all sorts of things that always look different from reality. But you will achieve nothing even if you invite party and trade union leaders to your office. Go to the workers' meetings; speak there! There you will have the opportunity to become the people's confidant. Then you can achieve something. Today there is only one such agitation.

But what have we experienced in Württemberg? When we have been promised ten times, I would say, when some higher-level worker in the labor ministry or even a minister from the Socialist Party has promised ten times that he would come to something – at the moment he was expected, it was always said, especially at the beginning: Yes, it's just another ministerial meeting. The gentlemen always sit together in meetings, it does not even occur to them to come. And those who have outgrown the Socialist Party have tried least of all.

Of course, you shouldn't think that just because you're talking to trade unionists, you could come up with the same program. It does grow out of that, but it's about how it grows out of it. And the main point is that the slogan, “the worker is thrown out onto the street by the breaking up of the trade unions,” no longer applies.

A participant in the discussion: On the one hand you have all the entrepreneurs and on the other all the workers who are dependent on them, and the two groups should sit together in the organically structured tripartite organism.

Roman Boos: We cannot elevate economic group selfishness to the principle of organization; that is not possible!

Roman Boos: It should be noted that today's lecture will be followed by a discussion, and that it will also be necessary to have a further discussion on specific economic questions after this lecture in a smaller group.

Rudolf Steiner: Dear attendees! It has already been said that these two lectures or discussions, Sunday and today, are essentially taking place at the request of individual circles and that the main purpose is to say a few words in response to certain questions and requests that have been expressed. Today, after I mentioned a few preliminary remarks on Sunday, I will therefore address the specific questions and requests that have been put forward. First of all, the problem of associations in economic life seems to be causing a few headaches for many people. I would like to say something about this in general terms.

You see, my dear attendees, when you think practically, it is always a matter of considering the very nearest circumstances and taking the point of application for your actions from these very nearest circumstances. Just consider how little fruitfulness there is in imagining all kinds of beautiful, theoretical images of the situations we are facing today, of this or that association and of everything that should or should not be done in such associations. Once you have discussed such matters at length and have formulated all kinds of fine utopian ideas, you can confidently go home and believe that you have done a great deal to solve the social question; but you have not actually done much. What is needed is to intervene in what is immediately at hand. We are, after all, dealing with specific economic conditions, and we have to ask ourselves: what are the most urgent things to be done? And then we have to try to bring about the possibility of intervening in these most important things. Then it will be much better to move forward – which, given the circumstances, really must be very rapid if it is not to be too late – than to come up with all kinds of utopian schemes or to raise questions that are no less utopian. However, we also have to recognize to a certain extent the underlying causes of the great damage of the present. And then, with a certain overview of how these problems have arisen, we may be more likely to muster enthusiasm for the next necessary step than we are for all kinds of utopian phrases. And here I am now in a position to tie in with one of the questions that, incidentally, recurs among the 39 questions – it is the question:

How can we not only carry the impulse of threefolding into the rural population, but how can we specifically think about agriculture as such in terms of the threefolding of the social organism?

Now, no one will come to terms with this thinking who does not see the radical difference in the whole way of production, in all economic contexts, between agriculture and industry. It is necessary to see this because, before the world war catastrophe struck, we were stuck in a completely materialistic, completely capitalist way of thinking - it was, so to speak, international capitalist thinking and and because, precisely, a departure in the direction conditioned by capitalism and which capitalism will continue to pursue, because precisely in that an ever-widening divergence of the agricultural and industrial enterprises must emerge. Agriculture, by the very nature of its being, is incapable of fully participating in the capitalist economic order. Don't misunderstand me; I am not saying that if capitalist thinking became general, agriculture would not also participate in capitalist thinking; we have seen to what a high degree agriculture has participated in capitalist thinking and action. But it would be destroyed in its essence, and it would no longer be able to intervene in the appropriate way in the whole economic process. That which is most eminently suited in economic life, not only to develop in a capitalist way, but which tends to lead to outright over-capitalism – please allow me to use this word, people today will understand it – that is, to assume a complete indifference to the way it works, even to the product of labor, and to be concerned only with acquiring something: that is industry; industry carries quite different forces within it than agriculture. This can only be understood by someone who has really taken a long, hard look at how it is quite impossible to transition to large-scale capitalist agriculture as it is the case in industry. If agriculture is really to be properly integrated into the economy as a whole, then – simply because of what has to happen in agriculture – a certain connection between the human being and the whole of production, the nature of production, and thus all that is to be produced in agriculture, is necessary. And a large part of what is needed for production, if it is to be produced in a truly rational way, requires the most intense interest of those who work in agriculture. It is quite impossible for something like that absurdity to arise within agriculture – it is an absurdity that I will describe in a moment – that absurdity, for example, that has always been held up when you have had to discuss with the proletariat in recent decades. You see, the absurdity I mean is the following.

As I have often related, I was a teacher at a workers' training school for many years. This brought me into contact with the people of the proletariat, and I had the opportunity to discuss a lot with them, and also to get to know everything that was there in terms of psychological forces. But certain things, brought forth by the whole development of modern times, simply lived as an absurdity precisely within the proletarian endeavors. Suppose that, as a rule, the proletarians' deputies rejected the military budget. But in the moment when, in the discussion, the proletarians were reproached: Yes, you are against the military budget, but you still let yourselves be employed or hired by the cannon manufacturers as workers; you still fabricate with the same state of mind as anywhere else – they did not understand that, because that was none of their business. The quality of what they produced was none of their business; they were only interested in the amount of their wages. And so the absurdity arose that on the one hand they manufactured cannons, that they never went on strike anywhere because of the quality of what they produced, but at most because of wages or something else, but on the other hand, out of an abstract party line, they fought the military budget. Combating the military budget should have led to the production of no cannons, according to the laws of the triangle. And if they had done that, for example, at the beginning of the century, much of what happened from 1914 onwards could have been avoided. Then you have, regardless of whether they are capitalists or proletarians who participate in any kind of production, absolute indifference to the quality of what they are working on; but the whole organization of industry depends on that. This is not possible in agriculture; it would simply not work in agriculture if there were such indifference towards what is being worked on. And where this indifference has occurred, where agriculture has been infected, I would say, by the industrial way of thinking, it withers away. It withers away in such a way that it gradually takes on the wrong position in the whole of economic life.

What is actually happening there? The following is actually happening to what I have called the original cell of economic life: with agriculture on the one hand and industry on the other, and with agriculture by its very nature constantly resisting capitalization, while industry, on the other hand, strives towards over-capitalization, a complete falsification is taking place, a real falsification of the original economic cell. But because the products have to be exchanged – because, of course, the industrial workers have to eat and the agricultural workers have to clothe themselves or have to be consumers of industry in some other way – because the products have to be exchanged, a counterfeit arises quite radically in the exchange of agricultural products and industrial products. This economic unit cell, which in a healthy economy simply consists of everyone having to receive as much for a product they have produced – if you include everything else they have to receive, which is, so to speak, the expenses and so on – as they need to satisfy their needs to produce an equivalent product. I have often hinted at this by saying, in a trivial way, that a pair of boots must be worth as much as all the other products - be they physical or intellectual - that the shoemaker needs, that he needs in order to make another pair of boots. An economic life that does not determine the price of boots by some kind of calculation, but that tends to the fact that this price emerges by itself, such an economic life is healthy. And then, when economic life is really healthy through its associations, through its mergers, as I characterized them the day before yesterday, then money can also be inserted in between, then no other means of exchange is needed, then money can be inserted as a matter of course, because money then quite naturally becomes the right representative between the individual products. But in recent times, on the one hand, agriculture, by its very nature, increasingly resisted capitalization – it was, of course, capitalized, but it resisted it, and that was precisely the corrupting factor – and, on the other hand, other hand, industry was striving towards over-capitalism, it was never possible for any agricultural product to be priced in such a way that it would have corresponded to an industrial product in the way I have just characterized the economic primordium. On the contrary, it became more and more apparent that the price level for the industrial product was different from what it should have been. As a result of this price level of the industrial product, money, which had now become independent, became too cheap, thereby disrupting the whole relationship between what should have come from agriculture to the industrial worker and from the industrial worker to agriculture.

Therefore, the first thing that is opposed is associations that are formed precisely between agriculture and various branches of industry. Certainly, this is the first, I would say most abstract principle, that the associations consist of different sectors. These associations will work best when they are formed between agriculture and industry, and in such a way that the creation of such associations actually leads to efforts being made towards a corresponding price structure. But now you cannot do much in associations that would first have to be created, of course – this would soon become apparent. If associations could be created in such a way that industrial enterprises were linked together with agricultural enterprises, and if the matter were handled so cleverly that they could supply each other, then some things would immediately become apparent – I will mention the conditions under which this can happen in a moment; some things can of course be done immediately.

But what is necessary first? Yes, my dear attendees, it is first necessary to be able to establish something like this in a truly rational and meaningful way. Let me give you a concrete example. In Stuttgart, the “Der Kommende Tag” has been founded. The “Der Kommende Tag” naturally proceeds from its idea, which is to be given by the principles, by the impulses of the threefold social order. It would therefore have the primary task of introducing the associative principle between agriculture and industry, to the extent that the association of mutual purchasers would actually [influence prices] by turning those who are consumers in some areas into producers in others. In this way, a great deal could be achieved in a relatively short time in establishing a truly correct price. But take the coming day in Stuttgart: it is quite impossible to appear reasonable now, for the simple reason that you cannot purchase all goods independently because they would come up against today's corrupted state legislation everywhere. Nowhere is it possible to produce what is economically necessary because the state is opposed to it everywhere. Therefore, the first thing to do is to realize that strong associations must first be created that are as popular as possible and that can thoroughly prevent state intervention in all areas of economic life in the broadest circles. Above all, every economic action must be able to be based on purely economic considerations.

Now, state thinking is so strongly ingrained in our present humanity that people do not even notice how they basically long for the state everywhere. For decades I have repeatedly characterized this by saying: The greatest longing of modern man is actually to go through the world with a police officer on the right and a doctor on the left. That is actually the ideal of the modern human being, that the state provides both for him. To stand on one's own two feet is not the ideal of the modern human being. But above all, we must be able to do without the police and the doctor provided by the state. And until we take this attitude on board, we will not make any progress.

Now, however, all those institutions are in place that do not allow us to get close to the people who come into consideration for such an education of associations. Take one of the last great products of capitalism, take the one out of which the strongest obstacles for our threefolding movement have arisen, apart from the lethargy and corruption of the big bourgeoisie: that is the trade union movement of the proletarians. This trade union movement of the proletarians, ladies and gentlemen, is the last decisive product of capitalism, because here people join together purely out of the principles, purely out of the impulses of capitalism, even if it is supposedly to fight capitalism. People join together without regard to any concrete organization of economic life; they join together in industries, metalworkers' associations, book printers' associations, and so on, merely to bring about collective bargaining and wage struggles. What do such associations do? They play at being the state in the economic sphere. They completely introduce the state principle into the economic sphere. Just as the production cooperatives – the associations formed by the producers among themselves – are opposed to the principle of association, so too are the trade unions. And anyone who really wants to study the development of the present-day revolutions, which are so sterile, so barren, so corrupt, without prejudice, should take a closer look at trade union life and its connection with capitalism. By this I do not just mean the capitalist affectations that have already been drawn into trade union life, but I mean the whole intergrowth of the union principle with capitalism.

This brings me to what is now certainly necessary in a certain sense. The day before yesterday I characterized the associations: they go from sector to sector, they go from consumer to producer. This is how the connections between the individual sectors arise, because it is always the case that whoever is the consumer of something is also a producer at the same time; it all goes hand in hand. It is only a matter of beginning to associate. As I mentioned the day before yesterday, it is best to start by bringing together consumers and producers in the most diverse fields and then, as we have seen today, begin to form associations primarily with what is close to agriculture and what is pure industry. I do not mean an industry that still extracts its own raw materials; that is closer to agriculture than an industry that is already a complete parasite and only works with industrial products and semi-finished products and so on. One can get quite practical there. If one is willing and has sufficient initiative, one can start forming these associations. But above all, we need to recognize that the associative principle is the real economic principle, because the associative principle works towards prices and is independent of the outside world in determining them. If the associations extend over a sufficiently large territory and over related economic areas, over areas related to some economic branch, then a great deal can be achieved. You see, the only thing that hinders progress is that when you start forming an associative life today, you immediately encounter people's displeasure at associative formations in the outside world; you can notice this in the most diverse fields. People just don't realize what things are actually based on. Therefore, allow me to come back to an example that we have already practiced ourselves. It is, of course, an example where one has to work economically with intellectual products, so to speak, but in other areas we were not allowed to work.

Now, you see, that is the peculiarity of our Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House, as I have already mentioned. At least at first it works in complete harmony with the associative principle, because of course it has to connect with printers and so on in many ways, and so it enters into other economic areas. This makes it difficult to achieve anything drastic, but it can serve as a prime example. All that is needed is for what is being carried out in it to be extended to other sectors, and for the associative principle to be further expanded. And the first step is to gather together those who are interested. For example, if someone were to set about gathering a thousand people who would agree to buy their bread from a particular baker, I would specify a certain number. So it was that in the Anthroposophical Society — which of course was not founded merely for this purpose, but everything also has its economic side — so it was that in the Anthroposophical Society the people came together who were the consumers of these books, and so we never had to produce with competition in mind, but we only produced those books that we knew for sure would be sold. So we did not needlessly employ printers and paper makers and so on, but we only employed as many workers as were necessary to produce the quantity of books that we knew would be consumed. Thus, goods were not unnecessarily thrown onto the market. This really does establish an economic rationality within the limits of book production and book sales, because unnecessary work is avoided. I have already pointed out that otherwise you print editions, throw them onto the market, and then they come back again - so much unnecessary paper production work is done, so many unnecessary typesetters are employed and so on. The fact that so much unnecessary work is done is what destroys our economic life, because there is no sense of working together rationally through associations, so that production actually knows where it is selling its products.

Now, do you know what will disappear? You have to think this through: what will disappear is competition. If you can determine the price in this way, if you can really determine the price by combining the industries, then competition ceases. It is only necessary to support this cessation of competition in a certain way. And it can be supported by [the various industries forming associations]. Of course, there has always been a need for people in the same industries to join forces; but this joining together of people in the same industry actually loses its economic value because, by not having to compete in the free market, it no longer has the necessity to undercut prices and the like. Then, however, the associations, which are essentially based from industry to industry, will be permeated by those associations, which we could then call cooperatives again. These associations, however, need no longer have any real economic significance; they will increasingly drop out of actual economic life. If those who manufacture the same product join forces, that will be all well and good, but it will be a good opportunity for more intellectual interests to develop, for people who work from common lines of thought to get to know each other, for them to have a certain moral connection. Those who think realistically can see how quickly this could be done: the associations of the same industry would be relieved of the burden of setting prices, which would be determined solely by the associations of the unequal industries. I would like to say that the moral aspect would be incorporated into the associations of the same goods, and this would be the best way to create a bridge to the spiritual organization of the three-pronged social organism. But such associations, which have arisen purely out of the capitalist economic system, such as the trade unions, must above all disappear as quickly as possible.

I was recently asked by someone who is involved in economic life what should actually be done now, because it is really very difficult to think of anything to somehow have a favorable effect on the rapidly declining economic life. I said: Yes, if they continue in this way at the relevant government agencies, which are of course still decisive for economic life – and today are more decisive than ever – if they continue in this way, then it will certainly continue into ruin. – Because what would be necessary today? What would be necessary is that those who should gradually work their way out of citizenship to become members of economic associations would be less concerned with the direction that could be seen in Württemberg, for example, where there was a socialist ministry. Yes, especially at the time when we were particularly active, these people sometimes promised that they would come. They did not come. Why? Yes, they were always excused because they had cabinet meetings. You could only ever say to these people: If you sit down together, you can plot whatever you want, but you will not help social life. Ministers and all those who now held lower positions, from ministers downwards, would not have belonged in the cabinets at that time, but everywhere in the people's assemblies, in order to find the masses in this way and work among them; those who had something to teach and do would have belonged among the workers every evening. In this way, we could win the people over, and the trade unions would gradually disappear in a reasonable way. And they must disappear, because only when the trade unions, which are purely workers' associations, disappear will association be able to take place, and it does not matter whether someone today tends towards the direction of the trade union or the employees' association or even the capitalist association of a particular branch - they all belong together, they belong in associations. That is what matters: that we work above all to eliminate the things that tear people apart.

You see, that is the greatest harm we have today. It is quite impossible today to somehow introduce into the rest of the world what is reasonable, especially in economic life. I told you that the Coming Day simply comes up against the laws of the state at every turn; they do not let it do what it is supposed to do. And you see, the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press, how could it work in a sensible way? It was able to work in a charitable way by not employing unnecessary workers, unnecessary typesetters, and so on. It was able to work by turning its nose up at the whole organization of the rest of the book trade, trivially — turned up his nose at all these people who act like a state, turned up his nose, didn't care about that, but only cared about the association between book production and book consumption. Of course, all those who constantly and forcefully demanded that the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press should be different did not consider this. Certainly, today we are faced with something quite different from when the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press could work in this way. It needs to have a broader impact. But it is not possible to shape the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House with its production and its prosperity directly in such a way as to shape something that leads into the ordinary, senseless market economy of book production and distribution; if you found an ordinary publishing house, it cannot be any different. Because the point is that things must first be done differently, what is reasonably pursued cannot be incorporated into today's ordinary economic practice.

What does all this teach us? That it is necessary, above all, to form associations in such a way that they aim to make the world as aware as possible of the need to combat unnecessary work and to establish a rational relationship between consumers and producers. At the moment when it is necessary to step out of a closed circle into the public sphere, that is when the great difficulty arises. For example: it was a matter of course that we had to found our newspaper “Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus” (Threefold Order of the Social Organism). Yes, but what could this newspaper be if it could stand on the ground that it works economically and is distributed in the same way as the books of the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House, that is, that nothing unnecessary would have to be produced! Of course, the corresponding number of subscribers is needed, just the small matter of the corresponding number of subscribers. But as things stand now, all of us who work for the threefold social order newspaper have done unnecessary work, for example in our spiritual production. The distribution of the newspaper today is not enough to prevent this work from being considered wasted in some way. And so I could present it to you in the most diverse fields.

What, then, do we need first of all? And here I come to another class of questions, which also keep coming up: What, then, do we need first of all? Above all, we need the movement for the threefold social order to become strong and effective itself and, above all, to be understood. You see, ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed due to the circumstances of the time and the inner essence of the matter, and it is not a coincidence, not some quirk of mine or a few others, that this threefolding movement has grown out of the Anthroposophical Society. If it had grown out of it in the right way, if I could say that the Anthroposophical Society was the right one out of which the threefold social order movement grew, then it would already have developed into something different today. Well, what did not happen can be made up for later. But it must be emphasized that one must first recognize that it would have been possible to work in the right way on the basis of anthroposophy in the field of threefolding. Above all, it would have been necessary to realize how necessary human commitment is for such far-reaching principles - which are practical in the most eminent sense, as described in my “Key Points” - and how human commitment is necessary, a right human commitment. Something like this could have been learned on the soil of the anthroposophical movement. Of course, people resented it when, for example, certain cycles were given only to a prepared number of people, but there were good reasons for this. And if people did not constantly say out of silly vanity that this person may receive a cycle and that person may not, and so on, if all these things were not confused in silly vanity but were understood inwardly, then one would arrive at the right thing. But then one would also have seen at the right time, where it is necessary, how much and how little printing ink can do. It would be good if the threefolding newspaper had 40,000 subscribers today for my sake. But how could it get them? It could only get them if it were helped not by what is the printing ink, but if it were helped by personal intervention, by real personal intervention in the matter, according to the demands of the situation. But that is what has been understood least of all.

You see, I have to touch on this point, but today these points have to be touched on because they are vital questions of threefolding; for example, I gave the lecture to the workers of the Daimler-Werke in Stuttgart. Now, my dear audience, the point was to speak to a very specific group of people who, in their thinking about social conditions, had very specific thoughts and spoke in a very specific language. This lecture was given to these workers and similar workers. It would have been necessary to see this, to understand it and to do it in such a way that one would have spoken to the people from their circumstances. Instead, people today strive to have something that only needs to be said in a certain way to certain people - not, of course, to say one thing to one person and another to another, but to be understood by people - printed as quickly as possible, entrusted to the printing press. And then this printed matter is handed over to quite different people, who now become angry because they do not understand it. This is something that could not be learned from the anthroposophical movement; instead, the opposite was done. One should have learned to recognize the situation and to work from a human point of view. Therefore, it would have been important - and it will continue to be important if things are to move forward and not backward - that as many people as possible would have realized that the time is past when one generally expresses one's opinion as one according to one's own class, social, university-teacher or high-school teacher consciousness, or whatever, that one holds this view, regardless of the audience one speaks to. No, one holds this view regardless of whether one is invited to address an assembly of proletarians and one's lecture, prepared page by page, is placed on the highest possible lectern and one reads or recites it page by page, depending on whether one has memorized it or whether one is invited to address a meeting of Protestant pastors and one speaks the same lecture. This is how we destroy our social life. This is not how we move forward. We do not want to learn the language of the people we are speaking to. But it is precisely important that we learn the language of the people we are speaking to. And that could have been learned in the Anthroposophical Society, where it has always been cultivated, where it was really about achieving just what could be achieved at that moment.

Sometimes it was so grotesque that one could not go further in what had been achieved. For example, let me give you an illustration of what I mean. I was once invited to give an anthroposophical lecture at a spiritualist society in Berlin. Well, of course I did not talk to the people about spiritualism, but about anthroposophy. They listened to it. They listened to it in their own way, of course. I did not speak to the people as I would have spoken to natural scientists, because they would have understood little of me, the spiritists, who had large beer glasses in front of us. What happened then? The audience liked the lecture so much – I am telling you a fact – that they elected me president afterwards. Some Theosophists went with me at the time, they were there and they were terribly afraid, because I could not become president of the Spiritualists' Association. What should happen now? they asked me. I will not go there anymore, I replied. That way the presidency was automatically annulled. But you could talk to these people and they did get something out of it, even if it was only a little at first.

So it is a matter of bringing the real out of the situations if we want to win people over to economic things, economic cooperation today. And we will not get anywhere if such things cannot be realized. We must look at such questions as were raised in a smaller meeting yesterday, where a gentleman who is very much involved in economic life said: Yes, threefolding really is the only way out of the calamities, but it must be understood. Above all, we need the technique of personal agitation to make it understood. We can and must, of course, also have newspapers such as the “Threefolding of the Social Organism”, which must be transformed into a daily newspaper as soon as possible. We must have it, but it means nothing more than yet another amount of wasted labor, if it is not backed by energetic personal action. Such conscious personal action, however, really dares to say that in the future people want something other than police officers and state-stamped doctors, so that they are neither robbed nor sick. There are other ways to ensure that you are neither robbed nor sick than this. So it is mainly a matter of bringing together the leaders of companies and the manual workers, especially in the event of a dissolution of the trade unions, because, after all, the manual workers are in their trade unions on the one hand and the managers are in their associations on the other, and they speak different languages and do not understand each other. You wouldn't believe how different the language is. I can assure you that anyone who does not study the language of the proletarian with an honest intention will only create prejudices against himself if he speaks as a bourgeois to proletarians today, no matter how radical his language may be. On the contrary, he makes things worse if he has no honest desire to really go into the state of mind, into what is in the soul of today's proletarian population. It is not the radical phrases that make the difference, but being inside the matter.

And that brings me to another type of question. For example, I am asked:

Who should be considered when the threefold social order is to be propagated? The wealthy cannot be considered because they have no other aspirations than to preserve their wealth undisturbed.

They do not think of adopting different ideas from those by which they have gained their wealth. Furthermore, they all sleep through the important events of the present; they know nothing about them. At most, they know that the Poles have the upper hand again; they made their plans earlier when the Russians had the upper hand and so on. The fact that what is emerging in the East is not defeated with some Polish victory, the dear bourgeois of Western and Central Europe do not notice that either. And if that which lives in the East cannot be fought from those impulses that lie in the direction of threefolding, it goes into another head; if it is defeated and killed in one form, it will arise again in a different, new form. So the question is, in a sense, rightly posed; it is true that the propertied classes are hardly being considered, and the proletariat, the proletarians, as it has been shown, do not want to know anything about it at first. But, ladies and gentlemen, we do not need to raise this question at all; instead, we need only try to do the right thing in the direction I have just indicated and really get to know what is there, not sleepwalk past the present. What do the bourgeois as a rule know about what goes on in the trade unions? They know nothing about it. Yes, the most ordinary phenomenon of today is this: as a bourgeois you pass a worker on the street, and actually you pass him in such a way that you have no idea of the context in which you stand with him. The point is that we have done our duty in the direction of progress, as I have now indicated, then the essentials will be found. And the point is, of course, that today, when we are already able to develop concrete efforts, we call the associative principle into life wherever we can, and that we do everything we can to dissolve trade union life and create associative federations between company managers and workers, the employees. If we can work towards the dissolution of trade union life, we can do many other things. Above all, we can strengthen the Federation for the Tripartite Order of the Social Organism on our own initiative. Of course, by “us” I mean all those sitting here, not just the members of the Anthroposophical Society — among whom there are those who still say today: “The real anthroposophist must be aloof from political life; he can only deal with political life if his profession makes it necessary. This does happen, there are such egotists, and they still call themselves Anthroposophists, believing that they are developing an especially esoteric life by meeting with a small number of people in a sect-like manner and satisfying their soul lust by indulging in all kinds of mysticism.

(Applause)

Dear attendees, this is nothing more than unkindness organized in a sect-like way; it is merely talk of human love, while the former has emerged precisely from human love, that is, from the innermost principle of anthroposophical work. What is to be expressed in the threefold social order is what matters, and to understand these things today is infinitely more important than poring over every detail. Because, my dear attendees, these questions, which will be very specific questions, will arise the day after tomorrow in a completely different way than we could ever have imagined, once we have helped some institution or other to get off the ground that really contributes something real to the emancipation of economic life from state life. Only then will the tasks arise.

We do not need to ask questions based on today's views, for example, how the people from the spiritual organization will arrange the transfer of capital. Just let something happen to bring about the threefold order, just let something energetic come into being, then you will see what significance something like this will have, as compared to what can be asked as a question today. Today, of course, when you look at the spiritual organism, that is, the sum of the lower and higher schools, and ask questions about individual issues, you are asking the questions in relation to a state-corrupted institution. You must first wait to see what questions can be asked when the emancipation of spiritual life has taken place. Then things will turn out quite differently than they do today. And so it is also in economic life. The questions that need to be asked are only just emerging. Therefore, it is not very fruitful to talk in general terms about associations and so on today, and it does not lead to much if you want to get an idea of how one association should really be linked to another. Just let those economic associations arise within which one must then work without state aid, I also mean in the spiritual without state aid, because then the right questions will arise, because then one must work on one's own, then one must think economically so that things can work at all. And that will be of the utmost importance for economic progress.

Just think what would have happened if these things had been understood at an important moment in modern economic life; at the point where transport grew as a result of the railways growing more and more, modern people declared themselves economically impotent and handed over the railways to the state. If the railways had been administered by the economic body, something different would have come of it than what has come of it under the interests of the state, with the greater part of it coming under its fiscal interests. The most important things for economic life have been neglected; they must not be neglected any longer; the concrete questions will arise by themselves. People have forgotten how to think economically because they believed that if something is missing in economic life, then they should elect the appropriate representatives, who will then bring it up in parliament and the ministers will make a law. But people are involved. They will complain, however, if the state does not take care of it – apparently, of course, only then.

From such backward-looking views of progress, I would say, everything that lives in the following question also emerges:

If intellectual life becomes free, will not the Catholic Church occupy a particularly favorable position? Is it not better to tame it with the state?

So far, the greatest damage has been done from the other side, from the favoring of the Catholic Church by the state. In short, these things look quite different when one is really inside what is being brought about by the three-part social organism, which we must first work towards, so that we do not take the third step before the first.

Now, questions arise that are very interesting, of course, because they are obvious, but, my dear attendees, they take on a different aspect than one might think when faced with the impulse of threefolding. For example, someone asked how, in the threefolded social organism, anthroposophy would acquire the money for the Goetheanum, because they believe that capital would not be available. Well, my dear audience, I am quite reassured about this, because the moment we have a free spiritual life, the situation with Anthroposophy will be quite different altogether, simply because of the nature of this free spiritual life, and we can do without the beggar principle on which we unfortunately depend today and to which we have to appeal in the strongest terms. But within a truly free, that is, healthy spiritual life, I would not be at all worried about building a Goetheanum.

Nor has it ever caused me any headaches when the question arises again and again, and that is this:

If the threefold social organism were already in existence, there would also be people in the spiritual organization who would decide in the right way: is this a brilliant artist, whose pictures must be distributed and sold?

If the threefold social organism were already in existence, I can only say that something would have to be created first to get it off the ground. But people think: if it were only there – there are so many artists who, in their opinion, are so terribly talented, so terribly gifted, so terribly ingenious – will there not be a great danger that the number of unrecognized geniuses will increase more and more? As I said, this matter has never really troubled me, because a free spiritual life will be the very best basis for bringing these talents to bear. And above all, you only have to bear in mind that no unnecessary work is done in the threefold social organism. You see, people do not even consider what we will gain in free time when unnecessary work is no longer done; in comparison, the ample unoccupied time of our rentiers and our idlers is a trifle; only with them it extends to the whole of life. But for that which basically cannot flourish if it is paid for, there would be plenty of time in the tripartite social organism to develop it. You can take what I am about to say as an abstraction, but I can only say that you should first try to help the tripartite social organism to get on its feet and you will then see that art will also be able to develop within it in a way that is entirely appropriate to people's abilities.

Dear attendees, I had to divide the questions more by category, because after all, it is not possible to answer all 39 questions in detail. Some questions are only of interest to people because they basically cannot imagine that certain things look quite different, for example, in a free spiritual life. So the question is raised whether the immoral outbursts of the cinema should be allowed to flourish in the threefold social organism, or whether the State should not intervene to prevent people from seeing such immoral films. Those who ask such questions do not know a certain deeply social law. Every time you believe that you can fight something, let's say the immorality of the movies, through state power, you fail to take into account that by such an abolition of immoral cinema plays – if people's instincts to watch such plays exist at all – you divert these instincts to another area, perhaps a more harmful one. And the call for legislation against immoral art – even if it is only in the cinema – expresses nothing other than the powerlessness of the intellectual life to take control of these things. In a free intellectual life, the intellectual life will have such power that people will not go to the cinema out of conviction. Then it will also be unnecessary to prohibit immoral films by the state, because they will be too stupid for people. But with what we bring into the world today as science, we naturally do not cultivate those instincts that flee from immoral films.

You would find many questions answered if you were to look more closely at the literature on the threefold social order. I have tried to pick out at least the most important questions. I will mention just one more, the twenty-eighth:

Would it not be possible to contribute to the popularization of both anthroposophy and the threefold social order by not using terms that are not understood by the broadest sections of society.

I can only say: do it as much as you can, and you will see that you can do it to a high degree. But I think you have to take more what the whole tendency of such a discussion is today, rather than the details; and this tendency is to point out that this impulse for threefolding is a thoroughly practical one. And so we should not just chat and discuss what the details will look like in this or that aspect of the threefolded social organism, but above all we should understand this threefold social organism and really spread this understanding, carry it into everything, because we need people who have an understanding for it. And then, when we have these people, we only need to call on them for the details. But we must have them first. We must first gain a healthy following – but as quickly as possible, otherwise it will be too late.

Well, this is what I have wanted to say for a long time, because more than a year ago I tried to write an appeal “To the German People and to the Cultural World”. It was certainly understood, as shown by the large number of signatures. But those who work for its realization remain a small number. The Appeal should have become better known, and the core points should have become known quite differently, namely through the work of individuals. You don't make a movement, as we would need to today, by just sending out writings, by just sending out brochures, by just sending out principles; you make it in a completely different way. The Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism must have life in it; above all, it must be a union of people. It does not matter whether we send this or that, if it is just sending. Above all, care must be taken to ensure that within the Federation for the Threefold Order, no bureaucratic principle or the like is allowed to arise. It is necessary to distribute our literature and our newspapers, but at the same time, work must be done humanely. It must be understood that we are working towards transforming the newspaper “Threefolding of the Social Organism” into a daily newspaper as soon as possible. But above all, it is necessary to realize that our institutions must flourish.

Dear attendees, if things continue as they are, with us constantly stuck in the difficulties we are in today, where we don't really know how to continue the Waldorf school, how we should found more schools like this and how we should actually complete this Goetheanum, if we do not take hold of what people can really muster in terms of understanding for such things on all sides — then of course it will not continue. We need understanding, but not an understanding that only sees idealism, that only admires the ideas and puts its hands firmly on its pockets because the ideas are too great, too spiritual, for it to want to let dirty money near them. Money is kept in one's pocket and ideas are admired, but ideas are too pure to be defiled by spending dirty money on them. I meant what I said figuratively, but here it is a matter of learning to think practically and then also to bring it to practical deeds.

I said when the Waldorf School was founded: It's nice, the Waldorf School is nice; but just because we founded the Waldorf School, we have not done enough in this area. At most, we have made a very first start, just the beginning of a beginning. We have only really founded the Waldorf School when we have laid the foundations for ten new such Waldorf Schools in the next quarter. Only then does the Waldorf School make sense. — In the face of the current social situation in Europe, it simply makes no sense to found a single Waldorf School with four or five hundred or, for that matter, a thousand children. Only if the founding of Waldorf Schools is followed by more, if it is followed everywhere, does it make sense – only what arises out of the right practical attitude makes sense. If those who are enthusiastic about the ideas of Waldorf education cannot even develop enough understanding to realize that it is necessary to fight for independence from the state, to do everything in their power to ensure that the state releases the school, you do not also have the courage to strive for the school's independence from the state, then the whole Waldorf school movement is a waste of time, because it only makes sense if it grows into a free spiritual life.

In addition to this, we need what I would call an international effort for all school systems, but an international effort that does not just go around the world spreading principles about how schools should be run – that is already happening as funding is being provided for such schools. What we need is a world school association in all civilized countries, so that the largest possible sum of funds can be raised as quickly as possible. Then it will be possible to create, on the basis of these funds, the beginnings of a free spiritual life. Therefore, wherever you go in the world, try to work to ensure that the work is not done merely through all kinds of idealistic efforts, but that it is done through such an understanding of the freedom of the spiritual life that money is really raised on the broadest scale for the establishment of free schools and colleges in the world. What will be the flowering of the spirit in the future must grow out of the fertilizer of the old culture. Just as the fields yield the food that men must consume, so must that which is ripe for transformation into fertilizer be gathered from the old culture, so that one day the fruits of the future's spiritual, political and economic life may flourish from this fertilizer.

Roman Boos: The aim of this evening is to strengthen the awareness of those present and to clarify the idea of what concrete effects of what is intended at the Goetheanum can be expected in the near or distant future. The task should be such that the course should give the participants something to take away, so that everyone has the opportunity to say or know where they can help, where they can actively participate in the work.

The first thing to be discussed is the idea that in the very near future, the spiritual life must be detached with the greatest intensity from the entanglement in the powers of the state. The political states, in the West as well as in the East, are no longer even able to economically maintain the usurped school supervision rights. Schools are to be established over those areas that were not involved in the economic collapse and want to emerge from the spiritual collapse. The idea of a world school association on an international basis was indeed expressed and carried out in a large number of meetings in Holland a few weeks ago. And so today, Dutch friends have promised to share more information about this World School Association. And I would also like to point out in this regard that those gathered here can be trusted to help the World School Association become a reality.

The enterprises founded under Futurum AG and Der Kommende Tag AG were also set up to grow into what are currently unlimited expanses. What grew up as a Stinnes group, for example, has joined forces with the worst of existences; if such a monster were to receive international credit, it would be to the detriment of healthy development. It is therefore necessary to gain a foothold in economic life, to bring into being economic associations that do justice to the international dimension; it is necessary to seek the way forward in international discussions. In order to say something internationally significant, it will be necessary to speak across the divides created by the currency situation, of the future and of the day to come.

We are being accosted from all sides. And so it is an absolute necessity for the continuation of our work in Switzerland and beyond that we are given the opportunity to regularly publish a journal here at the Goetheanum, at least a weekly publication, in which we do not have to continually polemicize and discussions — although this will sometimes be necessary — but in which brief sketches and suggestions could be used to outline what is actually at stake here, and in which the international idea of a world school association or a world economic association, in particular, would have to be expressed again and again. In a sense, here in Switzerland we still have a foundation that we can speak of more clearly and impressively than anywhere else. Otherwise the Goetheanum would have to remain silent if it cannot make itself known in this way. Actually, very few people have come to this course. The Goetheanum itself, as a work of art, as a building, as a physical reality, has not yet been permeated with sufficient intensity. It is becoming necessary to carry out what is to be achieved for the whole world from the Goetheanum.

All those who have the opportunity to help us find the economic basis for such a newspaper are warmly invited to do so. We have to calculate 50,000 francs for one year; we cannot start before then. The reason we cannot start before then is that otherwise we might have to stop the project again after a while. If any of you could help to ensure that the newspaper can be published, you would be doing a great service that could hardly be achieved in any other way under the present circumstances.

Elisabeth Vreede: I would like to say a few words about the 'World School Association'. It is actually more of an appeal than a concrete foundation. The first steps towards the founding of a World School Association have been taken in the Netherlands, in order to get a world-wide response to what would now have to be done, and that is to liberate spiritual life, especially education, and make it independent. The hope has been expressed that this can be done in Holland. On February 27, Dr. Steiner gave a captivating lecture in The Hague on “Educational, Teaching and Practical Life Issues from the Perspective of Anthroposophical Spiritual Science” and drew attention to the necessity of a free spiritual life and of the school's detachment from state authority, which was met with strong applause from the audience. Afterwards, our member, Mr. de Haan, addressed an appeal to those present. As a result, a number of things have happened; people with good reputations have become interested in working for independent schools. Representatives from Switzerland, Germany and England expressed their conviction of the necessity of a world school association and promised to work for the cause in their own countries. A similar thing happened the next day in Amsterdam. But the World School Association was not yet founded, because such a foundation is only of value if it arises from within, so to speak. But we must not draw the conclusion that nothing should be done; rather, the most intensive work is needed to bring about a concrete foundation.

The first thing to be done now is to approach all educated people with a kind of prospectus - they are, after all, fundamentally interested in a free spiritual life; Dr. Steiner has given the guidelines for this. An appeal is to be made to all educated people to join us in providing our movement with the breeding ground and the air it needs to thrive. Since the whole thing started in Holland, I would like to draw attention to the address of Mr. de Haan, Utrecht; he is willing to provide information. From the events of the past few years, enough has emerged to show how important and significant it is, but also how much work will be needed if something like this is to be undertaken. So let us make an appeal that will find an echo throughout the educated world, so to speak.

(Applause)

Josef van Leer: Dear attendees, a few weeks ago the World School Association was discussed for the first time in The Hague and in Amsterdam. However, nothing will come of it if we do not take action immediately. We did have about 150 names that evening in The Hague, but you can't do anything with just names. Our friends in the Netherlands have the good will, but they are too weak.

A little less than ten years ago, similar discussions were held in Berlin, when Baron von Walleen spoke about his experiences on lecture tours in Scandinavia and England and said that it was so difficult to present Dr. Steiner's ideas there; what is today the Anthroposophical Society emerged from these discussions.

If you talk about an independent spiritual life in England today, everyone will say: We don't need one, we have one. That is an abstraction, of course, but that is how it is; as far as the people in England belong to the bourgeoisie, they can educate their children as they wish, they do not need certified teachers. If you have to propagate the World School Association in England, you are dealing with something quite different than in Germany or in Holland or in Switzerland. I believe that Scandinavia, Holland, England — even if it is not neutral, but it does not matter — all the countries that do not belong to the medium-sized states, should join together. In Holland, one has gained plenty of confidence, but the 25 sounding names do not help much. Dr. Steiner gave about ten lectures in Holland, but of the thousands who were there, not three voted in favor of it. It will be difficult to get only these three.

The question was raised: How do we propagate? — It is necessary to work differently for each country. Our friends in Stuttgart know best what to do because they are in the work. I would therefore like to suggest that we people from different countries — America, England, France, Switzerland, Italy — that we sit down together and say this evening: we will do it this way! I would like to propose this right now. Who from all the countries represented here is willing to participate? Let's start with America: Mr. Monges? Mr. Wheeler from England? Miss Wilson from England? Norway, Sweden: Mrs. Ljungquist? Denmark: Mr. Hohlenberg? Finland: Mr. Donner? Russia? From the Netherlands: Mr. Ledebour, Mr. Zagwijn, Mr. Deventer? From France: Mademoiselle Rihouet? Italy: Miss Schwarz? Czechoslovakia and Poland? I would therefore like to suggest that the various people sit down together and consider what is right for their countries, how it should be done, which people should be approached, which people can be given which material. It is possible that the representatives of a particular country are not in a position to make the right decision, but then perhaps together we will be able to find something better.

I would like to put up for discussion whether what I have suggested would be the right starting point.

Roman Boos: It could be very valuable to speak in smaller groups for each area this evening. But I would just like to ask very sincerely that when personalities are chosen, the matter should not be considered in the same way as parliaments or other associations: as a mandate to work like a commission. We should not put off until the evening what should be done during the day: to promote the idea of the World School Association in each individual group. We just have to try to see how what we have to say can be expressed in the other countries.

Johannes Hohlenberg: I would like to report on the work in Denmark regarding the World School Association. Unfortunately, in terms of results, it is not very much, but it may serve as an example for others. In the last fall course, particular emphasis was placed on the fact that everyone who goes back to their country should talk to as many people as possible and spread the idea of the World School Association. All those who were here have probably done what they could.

Now, to my personal experiences: I gave various lectures in Copenhagen, but unfortunately the timing was bad, because a few years ago the state took over almost all schools from the communities. This is a new fact, two or three years old, not yet fully implemented everywhere. Teachers are generally satisfied because their economic and financial situation has improved a lot and, as civil servants, they have the prospect of a pension. The teaching staff is therefore very reluctant to make any changes to these conditions. But on the other hand, there is a great deal of dissatisfaction among parents with the school system that exists in Denmark today; parents would be willing to try something new. The main difficulty, however, is financial. It should not be forgotten that state schools are completely free of charge; school lessons, materials and books are free.

The only possible way to establish independent schools would be as in Stuttgart, namely a large factory that takes it all in hand. In Denmark, it is just mainly a financial issue, quite simply! If a way could be found to establish such schools that would not cost more than the state schools, then the children would come and the parents would be very satisfied. I have collected a list of names – there are perhaps no more than 200 of them, so it is still nothing – and I am convinced that if you really do the propaganda, you can find real understanding.

Elisabeth Vreede: You have to do the right thing. As Dr. Steiner explained in Holland, it is not primarily a matter of founding individual schools that can only exist on the side and that can only gain their right to exist by stealth; it is about something much bigger: to really implement a free spiritual life! Today, we have a spiritual life that needs fresh air above all and that will wither without it. In this mood, the demand must arise in public: spiritual life must be liberated!

This does not mean that individual schools, such as the Waldorf School, cannot be founded. But it is not enough to found a school or institute here and there. Legally, they all have a meager existence. They always have a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, whether they are legal or not. Schools that depend on the mercy of the state should not be established.

Our Goetheanum is also a school, a free university. First and foremost, a world school association should be created that would feel the need to support or maintain such institutions as the Waldorf School and the Goetheanum. It is necessary that something concrete is already there. There are also teachers' associations, artists' associations; for them it would be a positive goal to work towards the need for a free spiritual life. The goal must be set higher than just setting up individual schools; everything must be seen on a larger scale so that the larger context is also recognized.

We have heard that in Denmark the teachers are very satisfied because they have become “state teachers” and are better paid. We cannot turn to the teaching profession in general; those who are involved in the matter are often the most dried up and do not have the broad view. This public opinion and mood must arise from a broader base than the teaching profession is or can be. Then the national differences will not carry as much weight as they would otherwise, because that would act as a unifying force. The points of view must be taken from the big picture, so that one encompasses everything that one can experience as a human being in our intellectual life, and elevates it to a different level; otherwise we get stuck in the details too much.

Roman Boos: It would be good if, in the discussion, a position could be taken on the recently asserted claim that Switzerland is a country in which a free

spiritual life can develop fully. Mademoiselle Rihouet has the floor first.

Simone Rihouet: I would just like to express a wish for France, that here at the Goetheanum this international purpose may be fully expressed and that the national may not again triumph over the international. It is striking to see that in France we have exactly the same situation as in Germany regarding the schools. But Swiss teachers, for example, who feel so little compulsion from the state, are not in the same situation as teachers in France and Germany, where the state's influence is so strong that there is already a great need among teachers for liberation and independence in their profession. In France, it will be particularly the student body that will show an understanding for the free spiritual impulses that have been given here. And so, as far as France is concerned – I cannot speak for Germany – I would like to express the wish that a student body should emerge from France that could create an alliance with its colleagues from other countries, an alliance of brotherhood.

Roman Boos: These words from France are all the more warmly welcomed to us because a certain kind of intense fraternization has already arisen on the opposing side. At about the same time that in Germany there was talk of “treason of the fatherland” by Rudolf Steiner and the Anthroposophists, a similar claim was circulating in the French newspapers, namely that Dr. Steiner's circles were working towards a war of revenge that would last for three years. And in the face of this “League of Nations” of the opposing clans, it will be necessary for an association of people from different nations to form here and work from the Goetheanum.

A German student talks about the attitudes of young people at the universities and the possibility of winning them over to the anthroposophical cause.

Fritz Wullschleger: I would like to speak briefly as a Swiss citizen. It is indeed the case in our country that teachers themselves can exercise a great deal of freedom, for example, in relation to the cantonal government; but they can also exert a great deal of influence on the authorities. If you want to introduce changes in your school, you can request them and they will usually be granted.

Now, I believe that these college courses have a tremendous impact on us. And under this tremendous impact, we can now try to approach our colleagues in conferences and so on and try to create an understanding for the fertilization of the school, at least to make a start in shaping the spiritual life freely. I heard Dr. Steiner's lectures in Basel this spring and – I speak as a teacher – I have so far had the impression that our task is to reshape our teaching as much as possible in the way that anthroposophy demands. Does that mean that we should transfer all our manpower into our schools? No, we should also direct our time and energy and work outwards. We must try to inform the Swiss, perhaps with lectures; we must try to win over the Swiss teacher magazine and, above all, the cantonal teacher magazine. This could perhaps be a start in making a difference in this direction.

Roman Boos: We thank Mr. Wullsch and I would like to take the liberty of adding just a few words to what has been said. In recent years, teacher newspapers in Switzerland have reprinted various articles and reports from our circles, including the excellent essays in the education booklet. But since then, there has not been much interest in the work; there are not many Swiss teachers present at these courses. Imagine if it said in the invitation: “Cantonal Department of Education” – don't you think the hall would be full? These are the small criteria by which one can see whether intellectual life among teachers in Switzerland is truly freely developed.

About a year and a half ago, the teachers of Basel-Stadt were invited by the cantonal education department, and the lectures on educational issues were received with great enthusiasm; a number of school people spoke very enthusiastically about them. Subsequently, a course was set up by the Goetheanum – not by the education department – but there were considerably fewer people there than at the course organized by the education department. And what has grown out of these courses today is, so to speak, nothing. Individual teachers may have taken very great and valuable things from the course, but in social terms, virtually nothing has happened. Why? Because nothing can happen! Because people everywhere are bound by the state. As the student says: we can win every ground, but not the state ground. This can be seen more or less clearly in Switzerland too; because if it were not the case here, we would be making more intensive progress. A long time ago there was a lecture in St. Gallen; and a Swiss teacher came who said: It is quite different for us in Switzerland; we do not have this subservience towards the authorities. We have not been accustomed to censorship and official decrees and so on. And when it was pointed out to him that this was not entirely true, the man replied: Yes, there is a big difference, because we did it voluntarily!

Friedrich Husemann talks about medical education in Germany.

Roman Boos: In order to provide the necessary economic basis for the entire spiritual movement, the two joint-stock companies Futurum AG and Der Kommende Tag AG have been founded in Dornach and Stuttgart. It was intended to say more about these two companies this evening and to give the opportunity to ask questions. But I think it will now be too late to go into it.

Futurum brochures are available in German, French and English, so that everyone has the opportunity to support the cause by subscribing to shares in the manner indicated. You can also contact Mr. Ith at Futurum A. G., who can personally provide you with all the necessary information. It is absolutely necessary in this day and age that we support these economic enterprises with all the strength at our disposal to help them move forward.

Time is getting very late, so that not much more can be debated on the other questions that may still be outstanding. Perhaps someone has something significant to contribute? I would now like to give Dr. Steiner the floor for the final remarks.

Rudolf Steiner: I do not wish to keep you much longer, but I would like to make a few comments, first in connection with what our friend van Leer has proposed here, which is certainly quite commendable and will be, if it leads to the promised goal. I would just like to note that it would be a questionable basis if the matter were to be built on the same foundation as the “covenant” to which [Mr. van Leer] has referred. At that time, work was indeed carried out with a certain zeal in the way Mr. van Leer has roughly outlined today: people sat together in small committees, discussed all sorts of things, what should be done and so on – but then Mr. van Leer made a statement, which is of course a small mistake at first, but which, if it were to continue to have an effect, could lead to a big mistake. It was said, in fact, that the Anthroposophical Society emerged from the work that was so tirelessly carried out that night. No, that is not the case at all: nothing emerged from that night and from that founding of the society! I would like to protect the “restless work of this night” that is intended today from this fate. There was a lot of talk back then about what needed to be done, but nothing came of it. And the mistake that could arise is based on the fact that one might think that something must now be done in the direction indicated by that “covenant”. What was done at that time was that those who were already involved in our anthroposophical work, who were already with us, founded the Anthroposophical Society, quite separately from this covenant. This then developed further, while the “covenant” gradually passed from a gentle sleep into social death, let us say. So, it would be a small mistake! And this must be emphasized, so that the mistakes of that night committee are not repeated in its second edition. That is one thing.

The other point I would like to make, and which Miss Vreede has already mentioned, is that what should be aimed at with the world school association should now really be put on a broad footing and tackled from the outset with a certain courage and a comprehensive view. Our friend Mr. van Leer quite rightly emphasized that the approach to be taken to the free life of the spirit in connection with the threefold social order must be different for the most diverse fields. But this must really be done in such a way that the approach is appropriate for the territories concerned. I myself will always point out that, for example, in England it will be necessary to present things in a way that is appropriate to the English civilization. But one must not overlook the fact that one must thoroughly understand what is imagination in relation to the great human questions of the present and what is reality. One must not, therefore, put the case in such a way as to create the belief that English intellectual life is freer than other countries. And you will see, if you really go through the “key points”, that there is less emphasis on the negative aspect – the liberation of intellectual life from the state – and much less emphasis on it than on the establishment of a free intellectual life in general. And here it will always remain a good word: that it depends on the human being, that it really depends on the spiritual foundations from which the human being emerges, which spiritual foundations are created for his education. It is not so much a matter of emphasizing the negative, but rather of emphasizing the positive. And I need only say this: if intellectual life were formally freed from state control, but everything else remained the same, then this liberation from the state would not be of much use.

The point is that positive spirit, as it has been advocated here this week, as it has been tried to advocate it, that this free spirit be introduced into intellectual life internationally. And then things will happen as they are meant to happen. For example, it is not just the case that a Waldorf school is a truly independent school, that it does not even have a head teacher, but that the teaching body is truly a representative community. The point is not that all measures are taken in such a way that “nothing else” speaks except what comes from the teaching staff itself, that one really has “an independent spiritual community” here, but the point is also that in all countries the spiritual life that has been talked about here all week is missing. And when one hears it emphasized somewhere that “the spiritual life is free in this country” – I am not talking about Switzerland now, I am talking about England – that is another matter. And it is this positive aspect, above all, that is important. It must then be emphasized that this will only exist, of course, if one tries to actually respond to the specific circumstances in the individual countries and territories.

But one must have a heart and mind for what unfree intellectual life has ultimately done in our time. Not in order to respond to what was said here yesterday, but to show the blossoms of human thinking in our present intellectual, moral, and cozy life, I would like to read you a sentence. I do not wish to detain you for long, and I do not wish to speak from the standpoint from which there was such virulent opposition to anthroposophy and the threefold social order here yesterday; but I would like to read a sentence from the brochure that had to be discussed here yesterday. General von Gleich writes about me: “Around the turn of the century, which also marks a turning point in the supersensible world of Anthroposophy, Mr. Steiner, then almost forty years old, was gradually led to Theosophy through Winter's lectures on mysticism.” Now you may ask who this “Herr Winter” is, whom Herr von Gleich cites here as the person through whose lectures I was “converted” to Anthroposophy in Berlin. One can only put forward the following hypothesis: in the preface to those lectures that I gave in Berlin in the winter of 1900/1901, there is a sentence in which I say: “What I present in this writing previously formed the content of lectures that I gave last winter at the Theosophical Library in Berlin.” That 'Mr. Winter' who converted me to Theosophy in 1901/1902 became the 'winter' during which I gave my lectures. You see, I do not want to use the expression that applies to the intellectual disposition of a person who is now called upon to lead the opponents of the anthroposophical movement with it; I do not want to use the expression; but you will certainly be able to use it sufficiently. Today, spiritual life leads to such blossoms of human intellectual activity, through which one could pass in the present day up to the point where one could become a major general.

So one must look at the matter from a somewhat greater depth. Only then will one develop a heart and a mind for what is necessary. And just because the spiritual life must be tackled first of all from the school system, it would be so desirable to found this World School Association, which would not be so difficult to found if the will for it exists. But it must not be a smaller or larger committee, but it must be founded in such a way that its membership is unmanageable. Only then will it have value. It must not – I do not want to give any advice on this, because I have said enough on the subject – it must not, of course, impose any special sacrifices on any individual. It must be there to create the mood for what urgently needs a mood today! – That is something of what I still had to tie in with what has come to light today.

Finally, I must say something that I would rather not say, but which I must say, since otherwise it would not have been touched upon this evening and it might be too late for the next few days, when the pain of departure will probably already be setting in. I must point this out myself. The point is that it is a matter of course that everything that has been said today should be put into practice. But this work only makes sense if we can maintain the Goetheanum as it stands and, above all, can complete it.

Even if things go well with 'Futurum AG' and even if things go well with 'Kommenden Tag' – they will certainly not be any economic support for this Goetheanum for a long time to come, they certainly will not. And the greatest concern — despite all the other concerns that weigh on me today, allow me to speak personally for once — the greatest concern is this: that in the not too distant future it could be the case that we have no economic inflows for this Goetheanum. And that is why it is above all necessary to emphasize that everyone should work towards this, that everyone who can contribute something should do so, so that this building can be completed! That is what is needed above all: that we may be put in a position, through the friends of our cause, to be able to maintain this Goetheanum, to be able above all to finish building this Goetheanum. And that, as I said, is my great concern. I must say so here, because after all, what would it help if we could do as much propaganda as we like and we might have to close this Goetheanum in three months from now? This, too, is one of the social concerns that, in my opinion, are connected with the general social life of the present day. And I had to emphasize this concern because the facts on which it is based should not be forgotten; only this makes it possible to strengthen the movement that emanates from this Goetheanum.

We can see the intellectual foundations on which those who are now taking up their posts against us are fighting. That will be a beginning. We must be vigilant, very vigilant, because these people are clever. They know how to organize themselves. What happened in Stuttgart is a beginning, it is intended as a beginning. And only then will we be able to stand up to them if we spark such idealism – I would like to say it again this time – that does not say: Oh, ideals are so terribly high, they are so lofty, and my pocket is something so small that I do not reach into it when it comes to lofty ideals. – It must be said: Only idealism is true that also digs into its pockets for the ideals!

The impetus for our meeting is connected with an idea that has been discussed for some time among us here in the “Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism”. Actually, it would be necessary for us to prepare ourselves for the agitation for the threefold order of the social organism comprehensively, that is, in a longer instruction and discussion. The threefold order was conceived as a movement from April 1919 onwards for a much faster effect than it then received. And that is why, at the beginning of the past year, I emphasized here the need to take up the agitation for the League for Threefolding, not by some formal treatment of the art of oratory or the like, but by agreeing on the necessity of treating something like the movement for the threefolding of the social organism in today's truly serious and agitated times.

We see all kinds of political, social and other forms of agitation around us, and everywhere we see how the whole way in which such agitation is conducted is basically dying out today. Only recently, we have had the most dismal experience of how people think and how things are presented when, from the point of view of today's life, something is to be propagated that is necessary for the further development of these or those conditions. We saw it at the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva, where basically all the important matters were only talked about, where in reality the issues at hand were not addressed at all and where not a single one of them was handled in such a way that the action had hand and foot, as it was by those who fled, the Argentinians.

Now, I said that our movement for threefolding was calculated to progress faster than it actually did. This is of course connected with the fact that in the present epoch of humanity, which has no time, it is not possible to carry out such a movement at a slow pace, otherwise the possibility of bringing about any kind of recovery within Europe, and especially in Central Europe, will simply fade away. It is absolutely necessary, first of all, to realize that we are going to our doom at a tremendous speed, even if, from time to time, one thing or another can help us to overcome this doom.

Above all, we must agree – and we want to do that now on the basis of a specific question – on the necessary prerequisites for today's, let's say agitation, or whatever you want to call it. You see, our discussions arose from an idea, I said. The idea was to gather about fifty prominent people here with whom an understanding could be reached about the methods and, in particular, the basis of a corresponding agitation. Because without a thorough agitation being carried out over a large territory in the near future, we will not make any headway on such a comprehensive issue as threefolding must become.

Now, you are about to vote on the fate of the Upper Silesian territories, and we can only discuss some of the things that should actually be done here with all our might in the next few days in principle in the few days that we are allowed for this particular question.

The first thing that is necessary today – that we cannot express in public, if we want to be effective, with these words, with which I want to express it now, but that we must have in mind when choosing our words, in our choice of the material we present – that is the conviction that the old configurations of public life cannot be taken up by anyone who really wants to heal the conditions of civilization. We must be convinced that all the questions: could one perhaps compromise with this party, with this professional association and the like, by leaving this party, this association in its views, in its habits of thinking and feeling? that all these questions should be answered by us in the negative. When the Anthroposophical Society began its work, I always heard from the most diverse sides: Yes, in Munich people are like this, you have to proceed like this; in Berlin people are like that, you have to proceed like that; in Hannover and elsewhere, you have to proceed differently again. All that is nonsense, it really has no significance. The only thing that is of significance is that we are clear about what must be created and what must be reshaped, and that we have the will to bring this new creation to the people, so that we make ourselves as understandable as possible with regard to this reshaping, not only intellectually but also emotionally.

The second thing is, I would put it this way: I say that today we need substance in our agitation material, real content. What have people actually been working with, one might say, for centuries, when they have been engaged in political or social or any other kind of agitation? They worked with slogans, with phrases, and one name they invented for these phrases was: ideals. They worked with ideals in their sense. Now, with ideals, if they contain what has been called such in the last centuries and especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, one can people, can inspire them, can lead them to jumping around and making crazy gestures, but you can't achieve more objective results with such enthusiasm built on mere words. And achieving results is what matters today. But we can only achieve results if we say: We live today in a social order where, I would say, the downfall is also tripartite.

The downfall is tripartite and at the most important points it also shows, I would say, the disorganized - I cannot say: organized - structure of the downfall. We are experiencing a decline in our spiritual life, which has finally led, on the one hand, to the ecclesiastical confessions and, on the other hand, to what has gradually emerged from the ecclesiastical confessions, but today does not really know what it stands for and where it wants to go when it is on fire, that is our school life. These two aspects of intellectual life, our church and school life, are one element of the decline. They are intimately connected with a further element, from which both church and school life are basically fed: they are connected with the national principle. For from the depths of the national element emerges everywhere that which one wants to carry into the school system, that which lives in the school system. And on the other hand, even if they want to be international, the creeds, for the most diverse territories of today's world, are oriented towards nations.

Another thing is the legal-state, the political, which is sailing everywhere into decline. The point here is that one should finally abandon that, one might say, harmful covering of circumstances, which today, at least in the central regions of Europe, still remains as an old habit, not at all as what it was before. But one must at least look at such a thing clearly enough to see clearly. Today, no one has any idea how corrupt this political life of modern civilization actually had become before the catastrophe of 1914. You see, one can give many examples of this. Let us look at just one. Within Germany and the neighboring areas, there are still a number of people who, as you may know, do not consider a certain individual named Helfferich to be a complete pest in all the areas in which he was active. One need only recall, for example, that shortly before the outbreak of war, this individual Helfferich gave a speech in which he said: What some claim, that Germany could be starved in a subsequent war, seems to me to be mere theory. Because if such a war breaks out, so many powers will be involved that one must already have a great mistrust of the entire German diplomacy, if one imagines that one would then have everyone against them. But such mistrust, that contradicts my understanding. That is more or less what this individual Helfferich said shortly before the outbreak of the war in 1914. Now, there is so much intellectual perfidy in a statement like that – I say perfidy because it crosses over from the intellectual to the moral plane at the same time – that such a statement, when properly considered, should make it clear to us the corruption in which modern civilization is steeped.

Just imagine what is meant by this statement: If what many predict comes to pass, namely that Germany will be blockaded from all sides in a coming war, then one cannot have confidence in German diplomacy. Now, however, one must have this confidence! Imagine a person saying that we must have this trust. That means we have to pull the wool over people's eyes, because he knew that this trust was not possible. Today we have to realize that if we want to continue working with nothing but unrealistic ideas, we will not be able to make any real progress. Even words such as 'radical' and 'non-radical' have basically lost their value today, because it is important to express certain things more radically than before. Above all, it is important to really show people in all concreteness what is leading to the harm of humanity. We must come to very sharp characteristics not only of the existing conditions, but also of the personalities, then only we can work thoroughly. And if one considers such a question from this point of view, such as the Upper Silesian voting question, then one must first be seized by one thought: How should one behave in relation to the vote as such: German or Polish? That is the first question that arises: German or Polish?

Today, we must try to look at such questions from a certain objective human point of view, not from a point of view that flows only from the old habits of thought - even if they are those that we call national. And to the extent that we succeed in doing so, we will make progress.

And so, as far as possible in this short time that can be devoted to our understanding, I would like to show you, from individual things, from which the reasons and convictions should emerge today, that, from an objective human point of view, point of view, whether German or Polish, is an equally great misfortune; an equally great misfortune for the population of Upper Silesia, an equally great misfortune for Poland, an equally great misfortune for Germany, an equally great misfortune for Europe, an equally great misfortune for the whole world. I would actually like to show you that, objectively, the question of German or Polish cannot be posed at all for the population of Upper Silesia and that it is a matter of recognizing that for a small population complex it is a matter of life and death today to arrive at an approach to judgment such as that of the threefold social organism, namely, to stand out from everything that has provided a basis for judgment up to now.

When we raise such questions, we must be able to perceive that laws prevail in all social, political and economic activity, that arbitrariness alone does not prevail in them, that these laws will be realized, that voting can only be done within these laws. You can vote on whether to put an oven door on this or that side of the oven; and you would do well to consult with people who understand such matters about such questions. But you cannot vote on whether, when you have put wood in the stove, you should light the wood with a match or with a piece of ice. No, the question of the development of the will must be brought into the right relationship to the necessities of existence. Therefore, one cannot speak out of the blue of the will, out of the nebulous and indefinite, nor can one cause a small group in a particularly exposed position to make their decision out of this. One should not shrink from saying, today, when everything is done out of the old habits of thought, that this will certainly lead to destruction. Today we should not shrink from telling the people the truth, even if it seems insane to them. That is what it is all about: telling the people the truth. If we are to discuss this question, we must speak from the starting-points from which the forces at work can be seen.

You see, the study of the Polish character in particular makes it very easy to see how impossible it would be to simply infiltrate the Polish element in such a strategically exposed territory. And if you look at the relationship of the Upper Silesian territory to the Polish territory, then you already have the other relationship, the relationship to the Prussian-German territory.

It is not enough to judge the Polish element as a people and within European politics, for example, based on the few observations that have been made with this or that Poland, or to treat and view it according to how one or the other action that originated in Poland has played out in history. All this is not enough. Rather, one must be clear about the significant role that the Polish people, if we may use the term, have played within what is, after all, an extensive European territory. This role that the Polish people have played is, after all, very characteristic of the development of other political conditions within Europe, and the Polish element plays a very, very intense role in the political conditions of Europe.

If you look at Poland, it is basically very exposed to both Western and Eastern influences, and it shows such internal peculiarities, this Polish people, that you can say: What was already present in other places has found expression in the Polish nation in a very special way since the 15th or 16th century. One cannot look at Poland without seeing, on the one hand, the ancient cultural, political and spiritual traditions of the East in its East, and how in this East, while Poland is undergoing all kinds of vicissitudes, modern Russian culture is gradually emerging. One cannot judge this Poland otherwise than by taking into account how, in its south, out of medieval conditions, this Austria, now on the verge of extinction, is prepared for disintegration, and how then, in the end, the German Reich, destined for a short existence, emerged in its west.

You see, what Poland is experiencing within European life is actually connected with all these things. If we look back to the beginning of the sixteenth century, to the end of the fifteenth, we see conditions on the soil of what later became Germany that have not actually been directly continued. We need only recall names such as Götz von Berlichingen, Franz von Sickingen, Ulrich von Hutten, and so on, and we see conditions that existed at that time and that have not been continued. What were these conditions based on? They were based on the existence of a certain feudal caste, even if this feudal caste could, of course, also produce such strong, in some respects admirable personalities as those mentioned, even if this feudal caste was based on an ignorant, more or less uncivilized large peasant population. And that this feudal caste worked in such a way that basically the great landowner always lives in the midst of the other, ignorant peasant population, and that the great landowner also exercises the administration and basically exerts his corresponding pressure on the spiritual life, has given the social life in Central Europe its structure. But this structure was eliminated in Central Europe at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, so thoroughly that one can say: Within the German-speaking areas, this structure was eradicated down to the deepest levels of sentiment, and in its place came that which had first worked its way up in the territorial principalities and then welded itself together into the German Reich: namely, the military and bureaucratic organization of the social organism. Thus, from the feudal-aristocratic element, which could only be built on the broad basis of an uncivilized peasantry, it spread from the territorial principality on a military and bureaucratic basis. And within this Central Europe, most pronounced in Prussia, it became an attitude; it was not something that was merely superimposed on the social order, but it became an attitude.

Surely one cannot imagine two greater opposites. A clever man is placed in the old chivalrous Götz von Berlichingen society, and he has to occupy himself in some way. How does he occupy himself? He acts in such a way that he judges, for example, on the basis of his knowledge of human nature, that he sets up the school on the basis of his religious ideas, that he imagines that one speaks according to common sense over a certain district, which is not too large. That is how the German-speaking world was organized until the 16th century; then it was reorganized, then came the civil service and the military, and if you imagine the kind of person who could not have existed until the time of Götz von Berlichingen, then it is the Prussian reserve lieutenant. So, the psychological possibility of existence for him has only been created since the 16th century. And isn't it true, Reserve-Lieutenant, that the civil and military natures are united? This was not only enforced in Central Europe in those areas where it could be understood, but also in those areas where it could not be understood. For example, our history is written in such a way that this attitude lives in it, and our history is taught in schools in such a way that this attitude is inherent in it. But because this transformation could not reach the lowest, innermost structure of the soul because of the German national character, in principle territorial principalities arose, not a complete Caesarism, which was first attempted in the 19th century through the war, the 1870 war, but which could not be carried out.

Because of the most diverse historical circumstances, which would go too far to discuss today, the great wave to view everything political, state-legal and military and to shackle economic life with the state element, because this wave went over Central Europe, that is why it became so in Central Europe.

Now, if you look at Russia, you also have in its social structure what was suddenly abolished in Central Europe at the beginning of the 16th century. You have the broad, uneducated, uncivilized peasantry, which is to be administered somehow, which is to be somehow incorporated into a social organism. There, too, the conditions already exist as they did, for example, in Central Europe until the 16th century; but there is no replacement through individualism. Everything is rapidly drawn into tsarist centralization, so that what existed in the territorial principalities of Europe as something between Caesarianism and the uncivilized people does not exist in Russia, and everything tends to make the individual, whether he is destined to it or not, simply an official or a soldier, since the central power is the decisive factor for him. In various ways, on the one hand in Russia, on the other hand in German Central Europe, that which is actually the organization of the people is being abolished. On the one hand it is driven into Caesarism, on the other hand into the territorial principality.

And a third is Austria, Austria, which is growing out of patriarchal relationships altogether, which live on as family traditions within a princely house. This Austria is gradually being pushed to combine the most diverse peoples purely from the point of view of Roman centralism, which wants to administer, which then takes on somewhat democratic airs, but which wants to administer the people in a medieval Spanish way.

In these three currents, you have the Polish element, which basically opposes all three and which, in a rather strange way, turns against all three currents out of what I would call an inner disposition. The Polish element adopts from the West everything that leads to modern aberrations: parliamentarism, the school system and the like. It adopts, I might say, everything that leads to a certain analytical element in life, to the element of judgment and discernment. From the East it adopts the synthetic element, life in grand concepts and ideas. You see, in a sense, analysis in the Polish element becomes sloppiness and the Eastern synthesis becomes, in a sense, fantasy. Certainly, these two currents are always present: from the western element, from orderly analysis, sloppiness; and from the eastern element, fantasy, enthusiasm and also untruthfulness; for untruthfulness is only the dark side of the oriental synthesis, and sloppiness is only the dark side of pedantry. When pedantry goes so far that it can no longer be followed, then it lapses into its opposite element, into sloppiness. In Austria, there was no lack of stringent regulations for all aspects of life; the essential thing was that no single regulation could be observed, because, firstly, they all contradicted each other and, secondly, because there were so many that no one could deal with them all.

How did it come about that this Polish identity emerged in Europe, when everything around it was so very different? How did it come about that this Polishness tenaciously developed its own character? This simply came about because, when the great wave of Russianness, with its natural plans for conquest, poured over Europe, it was necessary for the others, who were also considered – I cannot present it in detail now, but it could be presented – to always react to this Russianness in an appropriate way. Above all, it was necessary for the Prussian and Austrian empires to react to the Russian element in the 18th century. From a certain point of view, it is easy to reproach the Prussians and Austrians for dividing Poland with Russia; but one does not consider that if they had not divided, Russia would have taken everything alone. No, things must be considered objectively. Prussia and Austria participated in the partition of Poland because they could not allow Russia to take Poland alone, which would certainly have happened otherwise. Well, so this Poland was divided.

But in this divided nation, there lived on, strongly on, that with which Europe, the German element, had broken in the beginning of the 16th century: the feudal element of the nobility with the broad base of the uncivilized peasantry. What had also been broken in Russia on the surface all lived on in Polishness. In its social structure, Polishness basically preserved the Europeanism of the 15th century, which actually still had an ancient element in it, had Greekness in it. We admire Greekness, but the greatness of Greekness is based on the fact that it developed to its highest degree in the 15th century. If we saw clearly, we would say to ourselves: We rightly admire this Greekness in what history has brought forth from it; but on the other hand, we say wherever we can: We have achieved the greatest progress in Europe by overcoming, bit by bit, what we were, that which could only be built on the basis of a rural proletariat. Development in Europe up to the 15th century was still oriented towards Greek culture, so that we say of this 'Greek Europe': that is what does not allow for a dignified existence. A certain upper class, which emerged in Poland, also retained this Greek attitude internally, namely, to live in an aristocratic upper class with a simple, uncivilized peasantry that was not differentiated to the extent of the bourgeoisie and proletariat. And so it was divided up, this Polish nation. Because, if you think about it, only the upper class of the Poles thought correctly. They began to hate Russia, Prussia and Austria terribly. But now, within this Polish element, there were people who did not matter at all, the completely uncivilized lower class with no urban or intellectual background. And you see, some of them went to Russia, some to Austria; that is, to Russia, where the Poles were within Russian territory, and to Austria, where the Poles were within Galicia. And some went to Prussia, where the Poles were in Silesia and Posen. The Polish upper class did not change, but behaved in the new circumstances as it could, adapting as little as possible to the circumstances, especially the political ones. By contrast, the lower class adapted in a most remarkable way. Of course, what has emerged from the lower class is what we must look for today as a new ferment, that is, what has emerged from the lower class that was below the surface of the Polish aristocratic element. You see, it is curious that this lower class has only acquired a certain structure under the conditions that arose from the partition of Poland. Through the structure that was in Russian Poland, the lower class incorporated an intellectual element in the most eminent sense, an intellectual element that aims at deepening thought and deepening scholarship through a certain religious element. In Russia, until the revolution, religious life was not distinguished from scientific life. The merging of scientific thoughts, the insights of sensory life, into large synthetic, comprehensive ideas is what has passed from the East through the Russian element into the Polish element. Without this influence from the spiritual side of social life, people like Slowacki, Dunajewski and so on are, I believe, inconceivable. On the other hand, in the part of Polish life that was influenced by Austria, this underclass took on the legal, political and constitutional aspects of Austria. And that is the reason why the finest political minds and speakers emerged from Austrian Galicia, and basically from Polish Galicia, such as Hausner and Wolski. These people could never have emerged within the Polish nation if this Polishness had not been absorbed from the neighboring areas, where one could take from the Russian the synthetic and from the Austrian the basis for constitutional, political thinking. A person like Hausner, who played such a great role in the 1870s and 1880s – he was a deputy from a Polish-Galician town – such a figure, or his parliamentary colleague Wolski, they are completely oriented towards what one might call “political minds”, not people who can necessarily manage, but who see through circumstances in a wonderful way.

You see, that is the problem: people are talking about political conditions everywhere today without having any substance in their speeches. We have to deal with what has happened. When I designed the agitation course, I did not think that individuals would be trained in speaking, but that material would be provided for agitation, and it is from this point of view that I am speaking now.

What happened in 1918, what has happened through the events since 1914, you can basically find it prophetically expressed in the Austrian parliament at the end of the 1870s. It is true that at that time, people like Hausner and Wolski spoke of the downfall of Austria, of the inability to deal with the proletarian question and other questions. In short, everything that has become reality was spoken of in the Austrian parliament at the time. The people were mistaken about almost nothing, except with regard to two things: with regard to time and with regard to present possibilities. They saw time distorted in a fantastic way everywhere. Take a person like Hausner. In a speech he once gave a magnificent exposition of how the moment Austria marched into Bosnia the foundation was laid for the downfall. What others only grasped later, Hausner had already put forward in the 1970s. But he was wrong about the time frame. He thought it would happen in ten years. This stems from the eastern element; even the sober Hausner has this element within him, this fantasy. He sees the right thing, but he sees it distorted in time. He predicted for the next decade what would take another two, three, four decades. And then Hausner once gave a critique of Germanness with a complete misunderstanding of the present moment, because if you read the speech he gave in around 1880, if you read it, it doesn't fit the circumstances of that time at all; but it describes with a certain sensitive cruelty what it is like today. People were mistaken there, but it is true that one can say that Poland has been particularly stimulated from the east for great, synthetic thinking, and particularly for political-state life, which has indeed been mastered in a magnificent way by people like Hausner and Wolski, from Austria. And that is why one must also believe – and this is absolutely true and is also evident in reality – that those parts of Poland that came to Prussia at that time have received their special impetus for the development of economic life, and that therefore the key to dealing with the parts of civilization that came to Prussia from Poland must lie in dealing with economic life. The Poles have been especially endowed by Prussia in economic life, by Austria in political life, and by Russia in religious-spiritual life.

We have here a threefold structure that shows itself in such a way that the Poles have been endowed by Russia for great spiritual ideas. Study what is called Polish Messianism, study the reflections of Slowacki, but also study what Poles speak so casually, and you will find that this impulse comes from the East. But study that which lives in the Poles, that which makes them politicians, that which basically makes them take part in every conspiracy and the like, and you will find that they have taken it from Austria. And you will find that they have taken the economy from Prussia.

But with all this it is not possible to rebuild some Poland, to build a Polish state. It had to fragment Europe in such a way that a certain population took something different from Russia than from Austria, namely the spiritual, and from Austria something different than from Prussia, namely the political, and from Prussia the economic; it had to arise from the fragmentation. It is true that the appropriate talents could be acquired in these three fields, but it would not become a unified state. It could be built up but would fall apart again and again. There would never be a Poland in reality for any length of time, because there could not be one, because at the decisive moment Poland would have to be divided in order for the Poles to develop their talents. So, this Poland will not exist and to speak of Poland today is an illusion and one should do everything to popularize such ideas, as I have now hinted at the impossibility of such state structures as they are being sought today as a unified state. Today we should be planting in people's minds the realization that to say: 'to be Polish' is to court misfortune. It must come out of the Polish into the general human, then these things, which have developed historically in the threefold order, will bear fruit. Let us look at it from the opposite point of view: the Poles received their great synthetic ideas from Russia; so they must have given the Russians to them. But the Russians no longer have them; they have sailed into Bolshevism. They were not strong enough to build an organism. They live in a social organism that is completely passing over into destruction. This was especially characteristic in Austria, in this most remarkable parliament of the world in the 1870s, where people like Hausner, Dunajewski, Dzieduszycki and the like lived. Old Czech Rieger and Gregr also lived there, for example. But people like Herbst, Plener and Carneri also lived there – that is, Germans. The most eminent Czechs, the most eminent Poles, the most eminent Germans all lived there. The situation with regard to the Germans was similar to that with regard to the Poles. There we have another example of how the lower classes among the Czechs developed into fine politicians by living in Austrian conditions. In Austria, one becomes a fine politician and develops a sophisticated understanding of political conditions. But that starts with the Germans in Austria. And a person like Otto Hausner, with his subtle grasp of politics, with his accurate predictions of Austria's downfall, he once said: If we continue in this way, then in five years' time - he is exaggerating, of course - we will no longer have an Austrian parliament at all. It was only later that he said, but it was correctly predicted. People like them have only become possible alongside the Germans of Austria, who actually adopted this form of parliamentarism from the West and transplanted it into Central Europe; it has become fashionable. But the Germans in Austria are the ones from whom the others have learned this fine, sophisticated view of political life. But they themselves behave as clumsily as possible in this regard. It is characteristic that what the others learn from them and what becomes significant for them, they behave with clumsily. At the moment it enters the minds of the others, it becomes significant for European life as a ferment. The Germans had to rely on holding on to the territory they inhabited. They could not do that. The Poles did not need to hold on to any territory, because they had none. They could develop ideas as such. As for the Germans, they could not do anything with ideas, they gave them to others, and there they worked in such a way that they undermined their own social organism.

Let us now turn to the third element: in Germany, economic life really did develop. It can be said that economic life in Central European Germany has progressed beyond everything else that has developed in the world. Enormous economic conditions developed there. But they grew into the airy and could not hold themselves. Poland could learn a lot from it, but the Germans could not continue to operate in this way. They steered into disaster. This would have been the case even if the war had not come.

So we have a threefold division of European decline: from the spiritual side in Russia, from the legal and political side in Austria, from the economic side in Germany. The only way to counter this is to develop a threefoldedness of the rising, that is, a fully conscious grasp of the threefoldedness of the idea.

And now one should imagine: There is a territory that is supposed to decide today whether it wants to belong to the one that cannot found a state, Poland, or whether it wants to become a member of the tripartite Europe that brought together all the elements that were heading towards decline: Austria, Prussia-Germany and Russia. It is supposed to decide whether it wants to belong to one of these three members, in this case to Germany. Should such a decision not be the occasion to reflect on what constitutes our salvation today, by saying: We do not care about what has happened in Europe, but we want to incorporate into the moments of development what must come anew? It may be possible to talk cleverly and consider what I have said here to be unwise, but no reasonable Europe will be able to emerge from what is simply said. Therefore, it is necessary that we base ourselves on positive, real conditions. That is what I wanted to say to you today.

I regret that we cannot negotiate for a longer period of time. I can only give you a few suggestions from a variety of points of view regarding our specific problem. This afternoon, we will then address the individual questions that our friends have to ask.

Yesterday, more out of a certain historical context, I tried to make it clear to you the futility that exists under present-day conditions in a vote such as that on the Upper Silesian question. But this futility can still confront us from various other sides. It is already the case that all people who think today in terms of the old conditions have terrible illusions about the future of European life. Today, one actually lives only on illusions. And those of our friends who now propose to work for an improvement of conditions must realize that we can only make progress to the extent that we succeed in creating enlightenment relatively quickly, and not only enlightenment out of the small circumstances, but enlightenment out of the very comprehensive world circumstances, which today actually also play a role in the circumstances of the smallest territory. We will hardly be able to tie in with existing institutions and the like. We will only have to approach people who are inclined to take up our ideas, so that we have more and more such people and can then do something with them. And we must try to make it clear to these people that they must behave in such a way, even within the present circumstances, as is in line with our ideas. For, you see, if we have established yesterday that basically both the German and the Polish side actually have no future within the old and also the desired state structures, then on the other hand we can also realize that this hopelessness also exists for other reasons. Of course, Upper Silesia is part of the whole European situation. The special situation is only this, that in a certain sense it has to decide its fate today. This must be taken into account. Wherever there are decisions to be made, the big issues must be brought into play.

Let us look at the situation in Europe today from a different point of view than we did yesterday. You see, the economic situation in Europe is such that Central and Eastern Europe are heading for rapid decline in relation to everything that has developed from their old conditions. The old economic foundations, but above all the state and intellectual foundations, cannot be used as a basis for further work in Europe. Those who are concerned with public affairs today may have some idea of the horror of this decline, but they have illusions. One of the main illusions, especially among the people of Central Europe, and it is no different for those in Eastern Europe, is the belief that an understanding with the Anglo-Saxon world or with the Western countries in general is possible under the old conditions. Such an understanding is simply not possible, and such an understanding must also trip up a vote like the one on the Upper Silesian question. It must trip up this impossibility. You cannot simply vote on the conditions that are now being created by, let's say, the statesmen and economists of the former Entente. What ideas can a person, who basically thinks half-way - after all, people hardly ever think in black and white - what ideas can such a person have about a possible restoration of the economic and other European conditions? He can say: the first thing that is possible would be a large foreign currency loan to be obtained through America, that would be large advances. As you know, such things are being discussed today. Large advances, loans, which could only come from America, would be given to the Europeans, perhaps guaranteed by the individual states that want to consolidate in this way, and economic life would be able to be revived through such a valuta loan. Europe would again be supplied with raw materials and foodstuffs, and it might be possible to improve the economic conditions in Europe over a period of 30, 40 or 50 years. This idea is the result of superficial thinking. No government in America will be able to overcome the resistance that is rooted in the conditions in Europe. The states of Europe are not in a position to offer sufficient guarantees, even if small-scale measures are taken. But such measures cannot be taken under these circumstances. It is inconceivable that anything could be achieved in this way. One could still imagine that, on a smaller scale, individual people in neutral or Entente countries or in America would be approached, who, on the basis of trust, would in turn grant individual loans to individual economic figures in European countries. But such action would be possible only on a very small scale under the existing conditions, for the people who could be found in the neutral or in the Entente countries to grant such loans would be so few that an improvement of the European situation through this smaller of the two means could not be considered at all. So people fall prey to all kinds of illusions. They virtually omit intermediate steps and think of organizing a kind of world economic federation, which is to develop from the idea of the League of Nations. They think that in a kind of world state, all economic life would be nationalized, so that the individual liabilities in the defeated countries would not come into consideration. Now, of course, that is a terrible utopia, because it has been shown, of course, by what has happened with regard to the effectiveness of the League of Nations, as uncovered by the assembly in Geneva. And to pin one's hopes on such a League of Nations, oriented as it is towards the economic side, is something quite utopian today. What is at issue today is to look more deeply into the forces that are driving the development of humanity and to try to arrive at measures that can really help and must work. Such measures can only be derived from the threefold social order, and as soon as we entertain illusions that something can be done without it, we are simply collaborating in our own destruction. Just consider what it means if, for example, the population of Upper Silesia votes to join Prussia-Germany. This means nothing other than that this population surrenders itself and its territory to a larger area, which, if it continues to work as it has done so far, must inevitably fall back into barbarism. It cannot be a matter of joining a territory that has not already shown that it has overcome the old conditions. This is certainly not yet evident in the influential circles in Prussia-Germany, but the opposite is the case. So let us look at the facts quite objectively: joining Prussia-Germany means completely surrendering to impossible conditions.

For you see, here we come to the other illusion which the best people on the Entente side have - and we want to look into this. There are people like Keynes, who has a certain following, or Norman Angell, who also has a certain, even very large following. What do these people think? They think that the Treaty of Versailles must be revised, that it cannot continue on the basis of the existing treaty. But why do they think that? They think this: Europe has so far been in economic contact with the rest of the world. If Europe falls back into barbarism and its economic life disintegrates, then, so these people think, especially Norman Angell, the economic life of not only the Entente states, which of course will disintegrate, but also of America, will disintegrate, because the European markets will no longer exist. They say that the countries of Europe are needed on both sides of the Entente and in America in order to engage in fruitful economic relations with them. You see, the best minds of the Entente are judging from these foundations. It can be said that very significant things have been said in this direction in recent months, and that the number of people who are convinced of the impossibility of the Versailles Treaty and all that it entails is increasing. But they are wrong, they live in an illusion, they also judge from existing habits of thought and feeling. One must not retreat from cruel truths in a sensitive way. It is simply not true that the Anglo-Saxon population depends on economic relations with Central and Eastern Europe. At most, it depends only on reorganizing its entire economic life, making it a self-contained economic entity, and then it can continue to exist quite well, even if so many people die of hunger in Europe. These are well-intentioned statements, but they are not true. It would perhaps take fifteen to thirty years before the economic life in the countries outside Central and Eastern Europe could be reorganized in such a way that it could exist in itself; the real possibility of such a reorganization certainly exists. If one were to proceed as these people imagine, then whatever anyone in Central or Eastern Europe does, based on the old assumptions, would ultimately lead to the Western world being supported by way of a detour through barbarism. There is basically no other way to see it from the old assumptions.

One could imagine that a majority, particularly in America, would work towards simply abandoning Europe to its fate and turning the western part of the world into a closed economic area. But one would absolutely surrender to this state of affairs if one were to join the existing conditions in Central Europe by voting. By joining Poland, one would not be doing anything different. The prospect has already been anticipated with what has just been said. One would also do nothing other than surrender oneself to the thinking of the Entente. Poland may be the Entente's protégé, but that would not help it in any decisive case; it would be at the mercy of the ruin of European conditions, or it would be drawn into the catastrophic events that I am about to mention.

So, a plebiscite that goes both ways is an absurdity. We must first of all keep this sentence very clearly in mind: such a plebiscite is an absurdity. We will discuss the conditions under which it could take place in one case or the other later on. We must be quite clear about the fact that we cannot keep up the world of the past with the ideas of the past. This is particularly evident from the things I tried to describe yesterday. Poland, I said, has retained what the rest of Europe has in a sense overcome: a kind of aristocracy. Under this aristocratic rule, the lower classes developed, drawing their impulses for their cleverness and energy, I would say, from a threefold structure: namely, from Russia, the spiritual; from Prussia-Germany, the economic; and from Austria, through Galicia, the political and state-related. This lower class has, so to speak, worked its way into the bourgeois currents that had the upper hand in Europe for a time, so that what had developed in Poland from the lower class, together with that of the rest of Europe, has worked its way into the bourgeoisie. But today it is blunt in its effectiveness, just as the bourgeoisie is blunt in general.

Now, there is simply the broader background today, and this broader background confronts us today in an illusion, in a real illusion. It confronts us in the West more as a bourgeois labor movement, in the center of Europe as more or less social democracy nuanced in this or that way, and the further east we go, the more it confronts us in the form of Bolshevism. We must be clear about the living conditions of Bolshevism in Russia. Incidentally, the Silesian voting area is very close to these living conditions of Bolshevism, and we must be completely clear about them.

You see, Bolshevism stems from the fact that the upper classes, be it the nobility or the bourgeoisie, have not found any way in modern times to expand their thinking to the same areas where labor has been expanded and where, above all, human will has been expanded. They continued to work with the old ideas, expanded the commercial and economic aspects, and involved the broad masses of the population, but they took no steps to meet the needs of this broad mass of humanity in any way other than through the old state relationships. And unfortunately it must be said that even today this is not happening, because it is not happening in the only way it could happen. This must be our main concern. For it is a characteristic example of how leading personalities have been brought to what is actually stirring and moving in the broad masses of humanity. It has not happened in a reasonable way. Ludendorff himself says in his memoirs that he provided the leaders of Bolshevism in Russia; he says it was a military necessity for him, and the politicians would have been obliged to avert the dire consequences of this necessity. So he does not deny that he provided Bolshevism in Russia with its leaders; he only says that the politicians were not clever enough to make up for the great folly he committed. Such things are possible today and are accepted. Thus, the leading personalities were supplied to Bolshevism, not from the most ancient state conditions, as Ludendorff thought, but from a rational cooperation of people who know something about the course of humanity and of those people who want to be led, but do not want to be led within the old conditions, but want to be led to new conditions. This is something that must be thoroughly recognized. Since the world war, it is no longer true that only the old proletarians make up this broad lower class. Members of all former classes belong to this broad lower class. And this fact is still not taken into account today either. They do not yet realize that those people who have retained something of their pre-war intelligence must be approached primarily with sensible ideas, so that more and more of the leading intelligentsia can be introduced into the world in a reasonable way. That is the most important question today: that the eyes of those people who have retained some of their intelligence be opened so that they become the right leaders. Without this we shall make no headway. You see, two things are impending. One has already been hinted at earlier: the reconstruction of Central and Eastern Europe is impossible on any other foundations than those of the threefold social order; it is impossible for the people of Central and Eastern Europe, but also impossible for the people of the Entente. The people of the Entente and America could only do something if there was a significant reduction in wages in Europe compared to America. But the American proletariat would immediately oppose this, and perhaps the English proletariat would not allow it either. Any action in this direction would itself promote the revolution in the Western countries. And that is what must be held out to humanity: that the Bolshevik revolution will also take hold in the Western world, coming from the broadest lower classes, not from outside but from within. No matter how many blockades the leading personalities in the West of today erect against the Bolshevik contamination of the West, what comes from the East through the transmission of Bolshevism is not the main thing for these Western countries, but what rises from below is the main thing; that is the essential.

Now there are already a number of people today – and their number will grow rapidly – who realize that it is quite impossible to avoid revolution if one continues to work in the old way. And just as they told the people in the old sense: we have to make a war to defeat the revolution in our own country, it means nothing else, but that it must be worked towards, especially among the people of the West who understand in the old sense, the Second World War. There is no other way than to work towards the Second World War in order to avert internal Bolshevism in the West. This Second World War is all the more certain as, in the East, as soon as things are taken to extremes, understanding can never be gained for the economic measures of the West. In the East, the way of thinking that is emerging today in Russia will even combine with the religious ideas of the East, and an atmosphere will arise over the whole of Asia, to which the Japanese population and their rulers are extraordinarily suited, so that the East-West tension will fall into the economic turmoil of the future. The Second World War, which must develop between Asia and America and what lies in between, must develop out of economic reasons. You hear how the call sounds from the lower classes: world revolution! This idea of world revolution can only be shrouded in a fog by unleashing this second world war catastrophe. There is no other way.

Now we are living towards such a time when the conflict between America and Asia will become stronger and stronger. Of course, the nations that lie in between will be drawn into this conflict. You can be quite sure that Asia, with the Japanese in the lead, will be in the same position as Central Europe was in relation to the Entente, with regard to what comes from the West. The East may indulge in a great confidence of victory for a time, but just as America was decisive in Europe, it will also be decisive in Asia. But the Ludendorff will be found in the East, which will send the necessary leaders to the West to contaminate the West with Bolshevism, that is, in this case, with Asia. It will also be found among the Japanese. And then you have the one thing for which the mood exists in the broadest sections of society, you have simply created that through the Second World War. The America in which a Lenin is at work, as Lenin is now at work in Russia, must be before one's eyes. One must not close one's mind to these perspectives, one must realize that the causes of the present plight lie in economic decline, that the effects lie in the barbarization of humanity. There is only one fact that can be set against this, and that is this, which may perhaps be said in our context here, but which should permeate all our work. However, it should perhaps not be made into a subject of agitation, because the moment it is made into one, it will be immediately killed off in this world-historical moment.

You see, there are people all over the world who, simply because they have come to an end with current economic, state and spiritual thinking, are beginning to seriously consider this threefold order. The fact that, for example, the translation of the “Key Points of the Social Question” into English has been met with a strong reaction is full proof of this. And if we were strong enough to work with the necessary momentum, then, if we could take advantage of the fact that the “Key Points of the Social Question” have been discussed in the English newspapers, we would be able to develop a very effective agitation while the mood is still warm. But what we lack are personalities, a sufficiently large number of personalities who could work effectively for our cause. This led me to point out as early as the spring of 1920 that we would first need fifty people here in Stuttgart to discuss among themselves and with me everything that is necessary to bring to the people. That is what it is about today. There is no other way to educate a sufficient number of people. But for that we need a sufficiently large number of enlighteners who speak out of the underground. Because you can be sure: if you educate in what we have discussed here today and yesterday, it works; it just needs to be brought to the people on a sufficiently large scale. It is not enough for us to spread it with a group of ten; we have to be able to spread it with hundreds of agitators. It is necessary that we have more and more such personalities.

Thus, as I said, in the lower classes there is growing understanding of the whole world, which is moving towards barbarism; but there must be leaders, leaders who, through their inner quality, can thoroughly understand what is contained in the threefold order; these leaders can only come into existence in Central Europe. That is the paradox that stands before humanity today: that in those areas that are most oppressed, most defeated, there live the people who can most understand the way out of the turmoil of humanity. In this respect, we in Central Europe have been sorely tried enough. Consider this: since the first half of the 19th century, the idea of an initially idealistic organization of the German people arose from the best qualities of the German people. What has asserted itself as the striving for unity, especially since 1848, arose from the finest qualities of the German people in Central Europe, which was absolutely precious in the cultural development of humanity. And that has a certain quality in itself to which one must appeal. It has the quality in itself that it is not despised or hated by any people on earth, but on the contrary is accepted by everyone, even by the Poles, when it appears in the quality in which it appeared in Germany at the time as a political idea. For there were some among those people, who were later ridiculed in so-called realistic Germany as the forty-eight idealists, who expressed certain qualities best of all. On the other hand, there is everything that has happened in Central Europe in recent decades, both in Austria and in Germany. There, things have developed that fundamentally contradict the German essence, and it is these that are hated and reviled throughout the world. As long as people in Central Europe do not realize that Central Europe must work from those foundations that lie in the spiritual, that Central Europe, by virtue of its entire historical mission, cannot rely on power relations but only on spiritual ones, as long as that remains the case, the impulse is not given for some developed Central Europe, but only for the downfall of the entire civilized world. In this respect, we can actually look back to Fichte. I will draw your attention to just two points in Fichte, to the last words he uttered in his “Speeches to the German Nation”, in which he calls on the Germans to reflect on their own qualities, to work from within, because by doing so they will look up to the world above. And on the other hand, he admonished the Germans to renounce naval supremacy. Read in the “Speeches to the German Nation” how strongly Fichte advised against striving for any kind of naval supremacy. Fichte scorns the so-called freedom of the seas. That was based on a deep instinct.

And you see, the moment you touch on these things, you also have to point out that this is where the lever for change lies. Read the important hint that was not understood at the time, like the whole writing was not understood, the important hint that I tried to give in my “Thoughts During the Time of War,” namely that the German people are innocent of the war. Read this important note and read the title on the cover, that the writing is addressed to Germans and to those who do not believe they have to hate; because I knew very well: only such people can understand it. But such people did not come forward at the time, although I was urged to organize a second edition of this writing. Of course I refrained from doing so, because basically only those people who believed they had to hate the Germans responded to it. In Germany, people kept quiet about these things. The book would only have gained significance if it had been fully taken in its factual basis. That is why it had to be removed from the book trade. I wanted to evoke a certain mood among those who are German and believe that they do not have to hate Germans, a certain mood that is present in the depths of the soul. If this hatred, as it was meant at the time, had really come to the fore, it would have created an 'atmosphere' at the time; that is, if it had been seen from the outside that such a mood existed, then fortunately it would have had no impact. If such a mood were perceived today, it would still have a favorable effect. Let me say the following, whereby I ask you to consider the words I am about to read to you, especially in the context in which we now find ourselves: “The Germans did not push their government to enter the war. They knew nothing about it beforehand and did not agree. We do not want to hold the German people responsible, who themselves have gone through all the suffering in this war that they did not cause themselves.”

I ask you, is this not completely in line with what I said in the booklet “Thoughts During the Time of War”? But who said these words under pressure from certain people on June 14, 1917? - That was Woodrow Wilson. If you look at it that way, there is the possibility of understanding across the world. We must bear in mind this turn of events, and continue to do so today, that in the moment when something asserts itself in Europe that shows that it has only to do with the factual development of humanity and has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with a connection with old things, that in that moment an understanding can be found with the world from Central Europe. The moment that the self-determination of the people of Central Europe can be invoked, even if only to a limited extent and in relation to a single point, it must become clear that, by the very nature of things, the German people want nothing to do with anyone who with the old rulers, regardless of whether they are old statesmen or industrialists who have sought their profit, regardless of whether they are on the side of Helfferich or Erzberger or on the side of German democracy. Everything that has any connection with what first sailed into the Wilhelmine era must be eliminated. And from the real essence of the German character, to which the Austrian also belongs, that which can be said must be found. For then it will correspond with what those who still reflect on the truth are saying all over the world. Therefore, the greatest impression can be made in the whole international world when some small group says: We want nothing to do with the Prussia that has emerged, we want nothing to do with that which stands under the protection of the Entente, we know that quite different forces can arise from the subsoil we want to take the position of threefold social order, we do not want only a sham autonomy, as it would emerge, we want a real, true autonomy and will provisionally establish ourselves within this true, real autonomy, we make the vote a protest against the fact of the vote. This is the necessary consequence that arises from the facts of history, as well as from those of current international relations.

Of course, one can say in response: Such a thing today only results in sitting on the ground between two stools. It would not have that effect if it could be sufficiently popularized, and so quickly that it would at least emerge as something clearly audible by the time of the vote in Upper Silesia. It is only by such means that we can advance our movement. The only thing we are faced with is that we are not in a position to get to the point, by the day of the vote, where what would arise as a protest against the facts of the vote itself could somehow be realized. Then, in the first place, working in this area would become extremely difficult. For those who propagate our ideas will find just as little support in Prussian Germany as in Poland. So they have nothing to lose that they would not lose anyway, whether one or the other comes about. It is only possible if a sufficiently large number of people hurl this protest into the world. Then this protest would be just as effective today as if Kühlmann had simply stood up in the German Reichstag at the right time and presented the whole threefolding prospectus against Wilson's ideas. For in the future, it will not be compromise victories that are important, but standing firm on something that one brings out of the matter itself. And if only a relatively small number of people – thousands, of course, would be needed – were to call out to the world: We, as Upper Silesians, see the connection between the one and the other as nonsense – that would be heard throughout the world and would become a factor throughout the world, because it would be favored by the fact that it occurs in connection with the plebiscite. We must endeavor to ensure that what we have to say is not only published week after week in the Dreigliederungs-Zeitung, where it can be as spirited as possible, but only spreads out in decreasing waves, but we must ensure that wherever important things happen in the world, threefolding has a voice, so that it is not always standing aside from events, but really seeks out the moments when something can be done, because humanity is simply hypnotized by the things that happen. Do you think that the Entente will look favourably on the threefold social order if we spread the word about it here? No, their eyes are hypnotized by something like the Silesian voting question. What a few thousand people say, they will see in it what they would otherwise overlook.

These are the things we must take into account here in the present moment. Of course, if it is not possible to get a sufficiently large number of people to vote for it, then under certain circumstances our friends might have no choice but to say: Threefolding will eventually come out of its birth pangs and into effectiveness , and out of necessity the German people might yet develop an understanding for the threefold order; so we will provisionally vote in favor of annexation to Prussia-Germany, but in the hope that this Prussia will sink. But that is only a substitute; with it we would resign ourselves to what we are suffering. What we have to do is win people who can be active in our movement, who can be active in the sense of our threefold social order. And in this direction – it must not be concealed – we have not been effective enough.

Wherever we need supporters who can work, we lack them today. The people we do have are certainly energetic workers, but they are actually needed everywhere. For them, the day should perhaps have not 36, but 64 hours or more. The few people who are really working effectively within our ranks are also aware of this. We need more and more personalities, and if we succeed in attracting more and more such personalities, then we will indeed come to a propagation of the threefold order in Central Europe, so that something can be done. But we should not let such a favorable moment pass by unused, when we could show the world what threefolding means. The world would then take an interest. If what the Upper Silesian appeal is on our part were to become known, the world would take an enormous interest in the threefold order, and we must bring this about; it cannot be taken further at present.

This is what really needs to be emphasized, what those who have now set out to work among the Upper Silesian population for the propagation of our cause must write into their hearts. You cannot say that you should spread the threefold order in general; that has not been possible from the start. You see, I once managed, with threefolding in the background, to get someone to work extremely hard to establish a proper press service in Zurich during the so-called World War I. I was able to make it clear to someone that nothing can be achieved from the old press conditions. The matter had progressed so far that one Tuesday - I have to tell this story over and over again - I was told that there was every prospect of my being able to move to Zurich in the next few days to set up the press service there. The next day came the refusal from the great headquarters, which was, of course, almighty, with the information that there were so many people within Germany waiting for such a position that an Austrian could not be chosen. Well, one need only reflect on such things to get a sense of how, since all the words that have been coined earlier by the idealism of our time no longer have any meaning, how one must look at things when they become clear from the threefold order. If only once the call can sound in the appropriate way somewhere, then it will work.

You see, you must be clear about this: until now, the obstacles to human progress have consisted in the fact that the spiritual movement has been tied to external power relations and external constellations for centuries. Just think that all bourgeois progress, and connected with it everything we have achieved in the arts and sciences, is simply connected with the development of cities, and that it is because cities have become leading that the whole upsurge of the last centuries has come about. In the end, people were no longer able to have the leading coming from the cities. They turned to the old state, which was now supposed to take the lead. This will always fail, regardless of whether it is undertaken by social democracy or by Bolsheviks or undertaken by any intellectual people, it will always fail because of the world's peasantry. In this direction, for example, particularly interesting studies can be made in Switzerland. When the people in Switzerland came very close to a kind of revolution, it was the peasantry that opposed it. Switzerland owes it entirely to the peasantry that the threatened revolution did not break out. Here one can clearly see the contrast between the broad peasantry and what stands out in individual cultural layers: these were the cities, the state and so on. Only in Russia did things turn out differently. The 600,000 people who are now truly steeped in Bolshevik labor in Russia are not what makes the difference; rather, what makes the difference is that the entire broad mass of the peasantry is attached to Lenin and that this entire broad mass believes it has a prospect of getting land. The peasantry believes that only if Lenin remains can it be treated in such a way. If Lenin falls, they will not get the land.

What is the only solution to the great cultural question of the future of humanity? Of course, this culture depends on the existence of spiritual leaders. These spiritual leaders had to, one could say, had to withdraw until now due to special power constellations, withdraw into castles, then withdraw into the cities, had to withdraw into the state, because there was no mood to create an organization that is leading as such through its recognition. And the only way to create such an organization, one that is independent of all other social institutions, is to have the source of higher cultures recognized by itself. And between this spiritual organism and the broad economic organism, the state-legal organization will then stand in, just as the rhythmic system stands in between the head and metabolism systems. The only solution to the questions of the future is an institution of spiritual life that works directly through it. You can see how I have worked towards this in my “Key Points of the Social Question”. The moment one allows oneself to be pushed back by the objection that one wants to create a spiritual aristocracy, one does not understand the matter. The creation of this spiritual organization alone leads forward. After all, such an organization is, in keeping with the old conditions, the Catholic Church. It is independent of urban development and so on, but today it no longer has a mission, that is over. The fact that it can be organized into a great sham power is because it has such an institution, which is independent of external power relations. Therefore, such a spiritual organization must be created that is simply not dependent on anything other than itself. Understanding must be awakened for this. And if we find the right ways, this understanding can be awakened; for it is no longer the pre-war proletariat that makes up the broad layer, but other classes have already been pushed down, and our task today is to win them over, regardless of their class position, not only by preaching these ideas, but also, when it comes to concrete things, by acting on them.

Today, we will begin by talking about the intentions of the personalities participating in this course and how to develop an attitude towards our tasks.

If you want to fulfill the intentions associated with this course, you will go out in the near future to work for the impulse of threefolding in the world. This work is eminently necessary in our time. And we must start from this conviction that it is a necessity. We must be clear about the fact that it is basically high time to work for this impulse of threefolding, which we must consider as the unconditional demand of the civilization of the present.

We must, however, from the outset, take a position that excludes any kind of scepticism in our hearts towards the impulse of threefolding, while we are informing ourselves about the conditions of this work during these days. Because you will not be able to work if you are still somehow sceptical about the matter today. In the course of this course, we will be able to see how not only what we say or do has an effect in the world, but how certain imponderables, unspoken things, must accompany our speaking and our actions if we want to have an effect.

Furthermore, we must be clear about the fact that all the old forces of civilization, which are in a state of decline, are revolting against this impulse of threefolding, developing antagonisms, and that we have a great deal to struggle with if we want to bring this impulse of threefolding to bear with our strength. And we will have all the more to struggle with the more we have a certain success on the other side. Such success does not make the struggle any less, but sharpens it more and more. And you will have to arm yourselves against the very thing that asserts itself as struggle. Of course, I do not mean to say that we should prepare ourselves for struggle to any great extent; that is not what could advance us. But we must be aware of how strongly this fight will unfold in the near future, especially if we manage to get through it.

What I would like to say today will, so to speak, be individual psychological starting points. Of course, the only thing to be discussed here is to characterize the factual basis for your work. I would like to emphasize from the outset that this cannot be a guide to political-social or other oratory, but rather to creating the positive foundations for working in the spirit of the impulse of the threefold social organism. And here you may initially feel that I am putting it in rather general terms, if I start with some very general rules, which, however, will be of extraordinary importance for us if we think them through in a very concrete way.

You will only succeed in what you want to achieve if you act from two basic forces in your soul, and since today it is an extraordinarily serious matter that must permeate our cause and inspire our work , then we must first become fully aware, fully conscious, that we will not get ahead without developing these two basic powers of our soul: first, to speak out of a real love for the cause, and second, out of an insightful love for our fellow human beings. Be clear about this: if these two conditions are not present or if they are replaced by others, say by ambition or vanity, then no matter how logical your judgments are, you will be unable to achieve anything. The conditions for working through the word are basically not something that lies in the formation, in the shaping of the word alone. You need only start from the way in which effects are most often achieved by the word in our present day, and you will understand what I have told you.

Just imagine: two speakers appear before an audience. One of them is an unknown person with extraordinary insights, with a penetrating power of speech, and with full justification of the matter, and another speaker would appear before the same audience, as things are now, and he has held some public position for a long time, be it as the representative NN, the statesman NN, the well-known industrialist NN or the scholar NN. He will work with far less urgent motives, with a cause that is far less justified. What makes an impact is something that is added to the content of the spoken word. But we cannot base our work on such things as I have just characterized them.

But there are also other things that must characterize our speech, and these are precisely the two soul qualities of which I spoke: real love for the cause, which alone can carry inner conviction, and love for humanity. Of course, these two soul forces cannot replace what the content of the spoken word is. The content of the spoken word must, of course, be unimpeachable. But it has no effect if it is not supported by the two soul forces that I have mentioned. Therefore, today, when we are more inclined to dismiss, I would say, the formalities, it must be said that we must bear in mind the extent to which we have these two forces present in our souls. If we come to the conclusion that we do not have them, then it might be better not to participate in the important action that is to be undertaken, because it would be wasted strength, wasted labor. And one would be convinced that the effect of something that arises from other impulses could not be great, while the effect of something that arises from love for the cause that carries the conviction and from love of humanity may initially be directly small, but it will nevertheless be there.

My dear friends, the truth chooses all manner of paths, which are unobservable at first, in order to come among people, and it just so happens that where the two imponderables, love for the cause and love for humanity, are present, there must also be an effect, even if it does not initially come to light. We can be sure of that.

But other things must be added. There must be full insight into what we are speaking about today when we present such a matter as the impulse of threefolding to the public. We must not have any illusions about the state of mind of the people to whom we are speaking, about the conditions that are given by the fact that we have to speak to the people of the present. Among these people of the present age there are by no means a few who are quite capable of absorbing what we have to say to them. But it is particularly true of the majority of the leading personalities of the present age that the forces of those people who would be capable of absorbing the impulse of threefolding are initially suppressed, and quite brutally at that.

Let us dwell as little as possible on generalities and go straight to the details. The most common thing people say when you approach them with something like the impulse of threefolding is something like this: Yes, especially in Central Europe, the need and misery are there first. We have to fight for the dry crust. It is the economic interests that we must take into account first. What use are lofty ideals? What use is what is presented from spiritual backgrounds? You will hear this objection in all keys. And one cannot deny that it arises from the oppressed souls of the present. At first glance, it has a certain justification. But if we let the most important questions of the present, which could become the foundations for our work, pass before our souls, we will see that this view, that today it can only be about solving economic questions, is based on a complete illusion. For it assumes another question, or rather the answer to another question, as if it were self-evident; but it is not self-evident. The starting point, namely, is the assumption - and we shall be discussing this matter in great detail shortly - that it is not the fault of human beings, not this or that human being, but of human beings in general, that the civilized world has ended up in its present situation.

When we consider the world economy spread across the whole earth – and it must be considered today – then we have to say to ourselves: nature gives us no less today than at any other time, if we can properly wrest its results from it and if we can distribute these results in the right way among people – as a whole of humanity, of course. That people today are in a greater state of emergency than they were before is not caused by physical factors, but is caused precisely by the spirit of people. If people are in need today, it is because of wrong spirituality, wrong thinking. Therefore, there can be no other way out of this emergency than to replace wrong thinking with right thinking. It is not nature, nor some unknown forces that have brought humanity to its present situation, but it is people themselves who have brought these things about. When there is hardship, it is people who have brought about this hardship; when people have nothing to eat, it is people who do not let this food reach them. Therefore, it is important not to start from the wrong premise: some unknown forces have caused the hardship, and one must first remove this hardship before one can start thinking in the right way – but to make it clear: because the hardship is caused by people's wrong thinking, only right thinking can remove this hardship.

We must look at this superstition from every conceivable angle. It says that we can provide bread for humanity, and then, when they have enough bread, they will also come to better thinking. This is a terrible superstition. And nothing beneficial will ever be able to penetrate into today's civilization unless people decide to discard it and replace it with the right faith, which consists of a reversal, a re-education of thinking about the things of this world itself. This is also what must gradually enter a sufficiently large number of human minds.

But we shall only find the opportunity to speak to these people if we first rid ourselves of any illusions about two things. The first is the fact that at present there is, to a great extent, no sense of the productivity of intellectual life. The silliness with which, not so long ago, the phrase “the road to success is open to the brave” was coined – not the word, but the way the word was coined – was a silliness that should be thoroughly eradicated from people's minds in view of the facts that prevail in today's civilization. For the facts of today's civilization are such that they, by their very nature, always carry a selection, a selection of the unfit, to the top.

We live today in a time that particularly favors the unfit. We will also talk about this in detail and will have to seek the forces that lead to this selection of the unfit in particular in our time. Today, I would like to start by saying just one thing. But I do ask that we take into account the following: we must stand firm from the outset here, in that we are aware that we are talking among ourselves and creating the conditions for our work, we must stand firm from the outset here, in that we are aware that we are talking among ourselves and creating the conditions for our work, we must stand firm from the outset here, in that we are aware that we are talking among ourselves and creating the conditions for our work, we must stand firm from the outset here, in that we are aware that we are talking among ourselves and creating the conditions for our work, we must stand firm from the outset here, in that we are aware that we are talking among ourselves and creating the conditions for our work, we must stand firm from the outset here, in that we are aware that we are talking among ourselves and creating the conditions for our work, we must stand firm from the outset here, in that we are aware that we are talking among ourselves and creating the conditions for our work, we must stand firm from the By standing on this ground, we will be able to see what I am about to say now not as an immodesty or the like, but as something that is factually related to the conditions of our work in general.

Take the “Key Points of the Social Question”. Consider the way in which it is often understood today, look at the things that are put forward by the opponents, and then try to judge what the opponents are saying from. You will only be able to get to the bottom of these issues through a psychological approach, through psychological observation. The opponents usually talk past the content of these “key points” – I am of course referring to the book. As a rule, there is hardly any reference in what they talk about to what the content of the “key points” actually is. For example, I recently discussed the content of the “key points” in Bern. Afterwards, the economist from the university spoke for three quarters of an hour. In not a single sentence did he succeed in addressing the content of the “key points” themselves. This can be proven. And he certainly did not address the content of the lecture. He was completely unprepared because he did not know the “key points”, did he?

So what do people feel when they approach the ideas of the threefold social order? Why do they form things out of the depths of their souls that don't fit at all? Because they feel something very special. They sense, without being aware of it, what is active in them. They sense that if the impulse for threefolding, as set forth in the Key Points, were to take root in the world, it would bring about a selection of the able, and the unworthy would be pushed down from their pedestal. For the impulse that lies in the threefold social organism is one that takes effect in the most real way as soon as it is carried into humanity in some way. But it works unconditionally to exclude the incapable from being effective. This is what people feel in the subconscious. Of course, they cannot say this, so they come to what they do say. If a psychologist makes an effort to understand what people are saying, especially if he makes an effort to analyze the way they work, then he will certainly come to a confirmation of what I have just said. And in the end, all this is based on the fact that in the present day there is actually no sense of spiritual productivity. People have become too accustomed to letting the spiritual be carried by the impersonal or by the personal, which is not itself spiritual: by the state or by state personalities who do not primarily have the living spirit as such in mind.

You only have to look at things in detail, you only have to ask yourself: What do the theological faculties want? Today, in the theological faculties, the aim is much less to get behind the secret of the spiritual primal forces of the world than to create useful religious officials in the service of the state or the denominations. In jurisprudence, the aim is not to seek the reasons and essence of the law, but to teach people what is customary in a particular state, what has been established by those who did not want to create the essence of the law either, but who, out of some interest, made this or that into a law. And so one could go through all the things that ultimately become leading in spiritual life, and one would see everywhere that there is hardly any sense in the present for the productive element of the spirit, which must actually carry civilization, for the living influence of the spirit into human souls.

People have gradually been educated to a lameness of intellect, to mere thinking without this thinking being imbued with the will. People are absorbed in a merely contemplative thinking. You will see this first hand as an experience when you give your lectures. You will be able to experience it again and again, that the people who listen may even be satisfied by one or the other thing they hear; the words rush to the ear, enter the soul; people have a certain voluptuousness about the thoughts; they feel satisfied in them; they would most like to hear just that which fills them with a certain inner voluptuousness. But inwardly they are always somewhat annoyed when one expects of them that the words should not remain words, but that the whole person should be filled with them and energetically, from the point of view that the words open up, must now intervene in life, if the words are to have any consequence. For centuries people have been accustomed to a certain way of receiving the word. When they listened to the preacher in the pulpit, they sat in the pew, and the sermon should be “beautiful,” should draw them inward with a certain warmth, though it was usually a philistine warmth. They wanted to feel a certain inner voluptuousness, and also have a certain inner yearning of the soul satisfied, so that the satisfaction comes from outside. But then, when you had left the sermon, you didn't want what was offered in the sermon to really penetrate your life. Of course, people said that often enough, but basically it never happened for a long time. You are well aware of how things stand today in this regard with other things that are said. It cannot be said that in most cases young people today enter the university doors with a certain inner passion to go through their hours, that they have an enormous inner warmth and cannot wait to hear what the teacher will say tomorrow based on what he said today. There seem to be more cases where people just sit out their hours because it's their duty to do so – or maybe many don't even sit them – and where they are then glad to have crammed in what is necessary for the exam, which which really does not determine whether one is an able and capable person, but rather whether one has what it takes to become a good theological or legal official, that is, to fit into any state structure in an appropriate way.

Under these conditions, we shall see what factors were at work in the last centuries, but especially in the 19th century, the sense of the living work of the spirit in humanity was gradually lost. Think what truly effective religions would have become if they had not proceeded from this sense of the living spirit. All religions that have become religions at all did not start from what our present-day intellectual life starts from, namely, that everything we carry in our minds is basically just an ideology, a sum of abstractions. Rather, the religions started from the premise that the objective spirit present in the world has revealed itself through certain personalities, that it has worked as such, that the spirit is something real, a real power. Most people who are involved in today's spiritual life hardly understand anything about this.

Recently, I was extremely interested to learn the following. Based on the idea expressed in the first chapter of my book Kernpunkte, I said that, from the spiritual side, an essential part of the proletarian question is that the modern proletariat regards all spiritual life, customs, law, art, religion, science, and so forth, as an ideology, and that it is this conception of the spiritual life as an ideology that forms the basis for the desolation of souls, which then, by virtue of their instincts, arrive at what in many respects is today the social movement. I have explained this in my “Key Points”. I recently hinted at it in a lecture, and a professorial debater understood the matter so well that he said, roughly: Yes, it was stated that the proletariat lives in a kind of ideology in spiritual terms; but that cannot be stated, because all classes, all estates, all of humanity lives in ideology all the time; it is quite natural that everyone lives in ideology! The good man has absolutely no concept of what is meant here, because he has completely lost the concept of the reality of spiritual life. It was a matter of course for him that what fills our spirit and our soul is an ideology. As a good bourgeois, he could not grasp anything other than that one lives quite justifiably within the ideology; so if the proletariat lives in it, that cannot be the reason for the social impulses of the present!

You see, these things are so thoroughly ingrained in those who are “the educated” today that one must speak of it: people have no sense of the productivity of the spiritual life. We must give the people of the present age a concept of this productivity of the spiritual life, of the creative spirit, of the power of the spirit. That is the first thing that is needed. This is the one thing about which we must have no illusions, for otherwise we would not know how to speak to the people of the present age.

The second issue is that, basically, the sense of the needs of other human beings has been lost due to the particular form of social life that has emerged in recent centuries. But without this sense of the needs of other human beings, there can be no shaping of economic life at all. Economic life can only be shaped by people who, in their thoughts about economic life, can initially disregard their own needs and who have a feeling for the needs of some other people and thus learn to feel for humanity. What is needed in economic life is insightful understanding of what can be called the consumption of humanity.

Economic life consists of production, circulation of commodities, and consumption. But it is not primarily the business of economic life to control production and to ensure that the right amount of energy goes into production. You can see this from the “key points”: capital is first put into circulation by the spiritual member of the social organism. The way in which one produces is a purely spiritual question. The question of consumption is essentially an economic question. Of course, those who are members of economic associations must have the opportunity to control and organize production on the basis of intellectual life; but one only learns about the intensity of production, the nature of production, if one has a sense for the needs of other people and not only for one's own, not even as a group.

But what has emerged in more recent times? In those talking shops that we call parliaments – it is, after all, a literal translation, and a very apt one at that – the custom of forming interest groups has become widespread. Federation of Industrialists, Federation of Farmers, and so on. In the Austria that was the basis for the outbreak, there were initially four economic interest groups at the starting point of chatterism. So, just the opposite of what leads to real economic understanding has actually been at work recently. Interest groups, that is, people were there who said from the outset: I decide what I think is right, depending on whether I am interested in the matter. However, in economic life, decisions can only be made if one can abstract from one's own interests and has a sense of the interests of others.

I had already expressed this years ago in a series of articles entitled “Theosophy and the Social Question”. There I formulated with a certain certainty what I am saying now. But you see, with such things I always meant something that should not just be talked about, otherwise one could also say it in parliament, in the chatterbox, but with such a thing I always meant something that concerns all of humanity, that should evoke a response. I stopped doing it back then because no one cared about it. Of course, theoretically some people may have taken an interest. But for a long time now, it is no longer enough to be interested only in theory. For the social forces that arose in humanity in earlier centuries have passed away. Today we need words that can also have an immediate social impact. What I mean by this may become clear to you if I say the following. Take the most radical socialists, the communists, the Leninists, the Trotskyists and so on, take them all. Do they start from a fundamental principle of social life? No, they take a framework, something that is already there. Even Lenin and Trotsky do not take something objective as a basis, but the existing state, from which they start. So the Communists do not take some objective thing either, some territory with a coherent economic life and the like, but they take existing frameworks and start from them because they do not dare, however radical they may otherwise be, to create frameworks first. They do not dare to start from the beginning.

Look around you in another area: today, even the educated flock to Roman Catholicism in droves. A Young Catholic Party is now being formed, which will probably take on very strong dimensions. Why? Because people today do not dare to search for the beginnings of an intellectual life in their souls, because they do not dare to start from something original. They want to lean on something that already exists. They want to run into what is already there. Because people do not want strong inner activity that draws from the original. They do not dare to do that. But that is precisely what we need. To achieve this, we have to awaken a sense of purpose in people. And that is what we need now. It is high time that European civilization came to an understanding in a sufficiently large number of people. That is what we need: to start from principles of origin, and not to lose ourselves in abstractions.

In that essay, “Theosophy and the Social Question,” I said that social life can only become healthy through people who start from the interests of others. In response to this, the abstract thinkers usually say something like, “That's nothing new, it's been said long ago.” If you then ask them where it was said, you learn: by Schopenhauer. He said quite correctly: “It is easy to preach morals; it is difficult to establish morals”; namely, morals must be based on compassion. Yes, you see, there you have the abstraction! In Schopenhauer you find an empty abstraction, which as such is quite correct. Because if you want to be abstract, you can say: to have a sense of the interests of others is to have compassion. But you have transformed the concrete fact that leads you to intervene in life into a shadowy abstraction. And with these shadowy abstractions, something is given with which people are very satisfied. If you come to people with something very concrete, as has just been attempted in the literature of threefold social order, then the opponents come and say: Yes, that is all already there! If you then look into what they mean, they mean some shadowy abstraction. One person finds that everything I have just pointed out is already contained in Schopenhauer's doctrine of compassion, another perhaps even in Kant's categorical imperative, and so on. This is a point to which we must look very carefully so that we can find the possibility of taking up the essential.

And so it is necessary that we do not speak out of some prejudice about what is right, but that we constantly let ourselves be dictated to by what we notice around us, that we let ourselves be taught by what people have and, above all, by what they do not have. But for that we need to really familiarize ourselves with what is happening in the present.

You see, it is of course right to defend oneself against the attacks that are now coming from all sides against anthroposophy and also against the threefold social order. But defense alone is not enough. We must be fully aware of that. No matter how well we defend ourselves against certain currents in the present day from which the personalities who attack us come, there is not much that can be done with defense. Take, for example, the type of religious Dadaist who recently wrote in the “Tat”, his name is Michel. A real religious Dadaist, that is what actually characterizes him. And no matter how much you defend him, you cannot deal with such a person. You will never be able to deal with him. Because what emanates from anthroposophy, what emanates from the threefold social order, he does not understand even in a subordinate clause. Such a person has the feeling, for example, that he should only write nouns when he writes. Although he is always speaking of “grace” and of what Catholicism has given him, in his feelings and in his way of perceiving things, which of course comes from the standpoint of a religious Dadaism, he is quite materialistic in his outlook. If he senses that in order to think spiritually about the spiritual, one must dissolve the nouns, then he calls it a “lack of style”. From his point of view this is quite understandable. But naturally you will never be finished discussing or defending it. Of course one can point out such impurities, that is all well and good, but one cannot achieve anything through these defensive measures alone.

And we must become fully aware of this if we want to be effective: today it cannot be a matter of merely defending ourselves against the attacks. That may be necessary sometimes. But what is at issue is that we get to know the currents of the time, the directions that are there, and characterize them ruthlessly before the world. It is not really about the spirit of Michel or something similar, but about this particular kind of religious Dadaism. It must be characterized before the world. It is not Mr. Michel who is of interest, but this particular kind of religious impotence, which is becoming a current. We must present it in such a way that, as it were, from the mirror in which we show such currents to people, those people who are also there and still have a healthy feeling can see what it is about. Of course, this is much more difficult than mere dialectical defense. But this is especially necessary. We must familiarize ourselves with what is in the undercurrents of our contemporary civilization. Then we will grasp it at the root and place it before the present.

In this respect, a great deal is contained in the material that is simply available from the lectures I have given since April 1919. In these lectures, I have always tried to point out the so-called intellectual and economic currents at work in the present day, and to characterize individual personalities as they had to be characterized. But most of these things have been buried. They lie there. They have certainly been read. But further work must be done. The ideas must be taken up and developed.

That is what is at stake. Then, gradually – now we no longer have much time to do so, the “gradually” could take a long time – then, gradually, something will emerge in our movement for the threefold social order that is a positive, fruitful critique of contemporary civilization as a whole. And it is on the foundation of a thorough critique of contemporary civilization that we must build up the positive ideas that are to enter into hearts and minds. People must realize how fragmented what is present in the current trends is, and that much of it is only a rehashing of something old. For when they see how it is splitting up, they will be inclined to accept the positive things we have to say, because the leading personalities are actually living in illusions everywhere. Until something catastrophic comes from one corner or another, people will continue to deny any danger. That is the characteristic of the present time.

So every day we have to make a new effort to show people how the illusions they are shrouded in must shatter. From this point of view, it is extremely interesting to study how the fear of the leading personalities initially worked when we started our threefolding movement in 1919. At first, for a few weeks, there was still a general atmosphere of fear. In the first few weeks, one could see quite clearly how, among certain industrial and commercial people, the question arose, half grudgingly and half reluctantly, which they naturally understood in their own way: How are we to get along with the Socialists? How are we to do this or that? And they deigned to talk about such things, even if they mostly did so with caricatures of socialization issues. Then a few weeks passed, the socialists did one foolish thing after another, and then the leading personalities of the old days were back on top.

This is an interesting movement that could be observed, because it showed how strong the tendency is not to simply move on to inner activity, but to devote oneself to what already exists, to work from what already exists and not to realize at all that one is basically dancing on a volcano. Even now, it is quite true that people are unsuspecting. It is therefore necessary to create understanding in the broadest circles for the fragmentation of our civilization in all areas. In these lectures, we will discuss how one finds this. Today, I wanted to emphasize the formal aspects and show where we should focus our thoughts first. After all, these days you cannot effectively represent a cause through external things alone.

For a long time, the education of humanity was entirely theoretical. And today, every person – especially the so-called practitioners, whose practice is basically just routine – has the theorist breathing down their neck. They have some theoretical phrases that they “implement in reality”. This is why so-called reality, so-called practice, is so unreal today. It is indeed completely unreal because people are educated to be theorists. Our entire school system was designed to intellectualize people, to turn them into theorists. And that is what we must come to: that we stop representing anything theoretically, — that every word is an inner deed,

It is extremely interesting, for example, to study the debates that have taken place in political economy regarding the idea that only physical labor productively creates goods, but that intellectual labor does not, that intellectual labor is unproductive. In the literature on political economy you will find extensive discussions of this. And two of the most important leading figures in political economy in the 19th century, in particular, started from this principle as from an axiom: Karl Marx and Rodbertus. Both take the view that intellectual work does not create goods, that only physical labor creates goods. This view is to be understood historically. But the way it is put forward is based on the idea that, for example, manual labor exhausts a person when it is performed, and the exhausted strength must then be compensated and replaced by nutrition; but an idea does not exhaust itself when something has been invented, when thousands and thousands of things are imitated according to the template. This is an argument that has been put forward very often. But it is nonsense. If one were to calculate how much energy is needed to find an idea, one would see that the energy expended on ideas, which must be replaced, is by no means less than that expended in physical labor, because what is done in thinking is just as much dependent on the will as what is done with the hand. You can't separate them at all. It is the greatest nonsense to distinguish between mental and manual labor in reality. But things have gradually become a cliché because there has been a tendency, especially in recent decades, to create clichés out of what used to be actual reality.

If you have experience in these matters, you can follow this step by step. I remember, for example, hearing a lecture that the socialist leader Paul Singer gave to proletarians. There were some among them who began to speak disparagingly of the “souls of writers”. They should have seen how the old Singer, in all his corpulence, protested and argued that he would not put up with it, that if you do intellectual work, it should not be treated the same as any other kind of work. But that was back in the early 1890s. Since then, one could clearly observe the process of becoming a cliché in the socialist world as well.

Such observations are important to find our way into life and to speak out of life. Of course, this cannot be done to a great extent overnight. But one must have a sense for it. And if one has the sense, then certain imponderables come into our speech. And then our speech will be such that it bears fruit.

That is what I wanted to say to you at first, as a formal introduction.