The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. The Fundamental Question of Economic Life

[ 1 ] First of all, I would like to thank the esteemed Chairman for his warm words, and I ask you, above all, to bear in mind—as I assure you just as warmly—that it gives me deep satisfaction to be able to present here some guidelines drawn from the social endeavors to which I have devoted a large part of my time. However, I must, of course, immediately ask for your forgiveness, because speaking about the social question today is an extraordinarily difficult task. In a short lecture, one can really only offer a few guiding principles and perhaps some suggestions, and I ask you to bear this in mind. One might think that someone who is essentially dedicated to popularizing and spreading anthroposophical spiritual science, when venturing into social matters, could only present ideas that are out of touch with reality, perhaps fanciful, or even utopian. However, what has emerged for me regarding the social question specifically from the anthroposophical way of thinking differs from much of what is currently being said in this vein, perhaps precisely because it seeks to address the practical realities of life and actually rejects the discussion of more or less abstract social theories.

[ 2 ] Over the course of decades, drawing on a wide variety of sources, I myself have arrived at a perspective on the social question—the guiding principles of which I would like to outline today—through direct observation of social life. From this, I have come to the conclusion that our social question—and specifically the economic question—is, at its core, a universally human one today. When studied in the context of real life rather than theoretically, it reveals itself to be an issue that, in essence, is not at all driven by economic considerations, but rather arises in the present in such a volcanic manner for purely human reasons. And it will only be possible to approach this issue in a practical sense if one approaches the solution—of course, we can only speak of an attempt at a partial solution—from a purely human perspective. And in doing so, I will first have to identify something quite different from the cardinal economic question than one would usually expect. Indeed, since life is richer than theories and ideas, I will not even be able to answer this cardinal economic question in a single brief sentence; rather, I will be able to let it emerge as a thread running through my reflections today.

[ 3 ] If, however, I may begin by stating a completely abstract point of view from the outset, it is this: we live in an age in which human beings are, to a high degree, becoming alienated from life in general—and from economic life in particular—through their thoughts and the principles they formulate for themselves. This view has been reinforced for me in particular by the fact that I have worked for years as a teacher among the proletarian working class, in a wide variety of fields of knowledge and instruction, both in the field of history and in the field of economic issues. Above all, I was able to gain insight into the life of the modern proletariat because I had the privilege of conducting classes and discussions in an open forum with the workers for many years. That is how one comes to understand how people think and how they feel. And when one realizes that, above all, the economic question today hinges on reintegrating the proletariat into the workforce in a manner that meets humanity’s economic needs, one is first compelled to view economic issues from this human perspective. And it has become clear to me that when one tries today to arouse interest within the proletariat for this or that, the actual concrete economic issues—an understanding of real, practical economic life—basically meet with no interest at all among the proletariat. People are completely uninterested in concrete, individual economic issues. What exists among the proletariat today—and the proletariat I am speaking of includes millions of people in international life today—is nothing but an economic, abstract theory; but it is, in fact, an abstract theory that constitutes the very meaning of life for this proletariat itself. The proletarian worker is, at heart, fundamentally alienated from his work—that is, from the actual content of his work. He is indifferent to the nature of his work. He is interested only in how he is treated at his workplace, and when he speaks of this treatment, he does so from entirely general, abstract perspectives. He is interested in the relationship between his wage and the profit generated by the products he helps manufacture, while the quality of those products lies entirely outside the scope of his interests. I have tried, particularly in proletarian education, to arouse interest in specific branches of manufacturing and industry by drawing on history and the natural sciences. But all of this is something that does not interest the proletarian as such. He is interested in the position of the classes, the class struggle; he is interested in what—which I need not define for you here—he calls surplus value. He is interested in the development of economic life, insofar as he attributes to it the causes of all human historical life, and he is actually speaking of a theoretical realm that lies far above the reality in which he is immersed from morning to night, and he wishes to shape reality according to this realm. And one might say: What he recognizes as his theory regarding economic life also stems, in turn, from a theoretical perspective. Most proletarians today are, after all, more or less modified or original Marxists—that is, adherents of a theory that does not actually deal with the conditions of economic life as such, but rather works in the direction I have just described.

[ 4 ] This is what one learns today among broad sections of the proletariat through practical interaction with them and through working among them. But in a certain sense, this is merely a reflection of an alienation—which has become increasingly pronounced over the past few centuries—between purely human interests and the interests of practical life. One might say: The increasing complexity of our economic life has produced a kind of numbness, so that one can no longer immerse oneself in the individual, now-complex areas of economic life with what one ethically regards as good, with what one regards as just. But if one does not speak from practical experience, but rather proceeds from general, abstract perspectives, the demands and principles one sets forth hardly touch upon what actually constitutes the work of the day, the tasks of the day.

[ 5 ] Just as I have been able to illustrate this to you from my own life experience, it can also be corroborated by all sorts of examples from history. I would like to cite a grotesque example to illustrate my point. It was in 1884 when Bismarck, speaking in the German Reichstag and seeking to lay the groundwork for his further handling of the cardinal economic issue, acknowledged every person’s right to work. He then addressed the members of the Reichstag, saying: “Provide every able-bodied person, through the community, with the work that sustains them; ensure that those who are sick or infirm are cared for by the community; ensure that the elderly are cared for; and you can be certain that the proletariat will turn away from its proletarian leaders, and that the social democratic theories being propagated will find no more followers.” — Well, those were the words of Bismarck, who admittedly confessed in his memoirs that he had held republican leanings in his youth, but whom you will certainly recognize as a true monarchist—one whom you would certainly not accuse of having agreed if, at the conclusion of a proletarian assembly, a toast had been raised to international social democracy.

[ 6 ] I would like to point out another figure who expressed the same idea in almost the same words, but who, in his entire outlook and in all his human sensibilities, stood on a different, universally human ground. That figure is Robespierre. In drafting his “Declaration of the Rights of Man” in 1793, Robespierre said roughly the same thing—no, I would say, exactly the same thing—that Bismarck said in the German Reichstag in 1884: It is the duty of the community to provide work for every able-bodied person, to care for the sick and the weak through communal means, and to provide for the elderly when they can no longer work.

[ 7 ] The same words from Robespierre and Bismarck—certainly spoken from very different human perspectives! And there is a third point, which is also worth adding: When Bismarck uttered his “Robespierre-like words”—which he certainly did not learn from Robespierre—he cited the fact that these demands had already been enshrined in the Prussian Landrecht since 1794. Well, one certainly cannot conclude from this that the Prussian Landrecht, one year after Robespierre had drafted the “Declaration of the Rights of Man,” had incorporated these human rights into its legal code; nor would anyone in the world judge that the Prussian state had sought to implement Robespierre’s ideas for nearly a century in accordance with its Landrecht, when Bismarck had once again articulated this demand in 1884. This raises a question in light of the historical facts: How is it possible that two people as different as Robespierre and Bismarck can say exactly the same thing, yet both certainly envision the social environment they wish to create thereafter as being entirely different?

[ 8 ] I cannot view the matter any other way than this: that today, when we discuss the concrete issues of life—which have become complicated over the past few centuries—we speak in such strong abstractions that, in fact, we all—Bismarck on the right, on the far right, and Robespierre on the far left—are in harmony with one another when it comes to general principles. We all find common ground in these general principles. In real life, however, we immediately begin to fall into the most extreme disharmony, precisely because our general principles are so far removed from what we must actually do in our day-to-day lives. Today, precisely when it comes to practical life, we have no way of actually putting into practice in specific instances what we generally believe. And what appears today in proletarian theory as an economic demand is the most abstract of all, for the reasons I have attempted to characterize.

[ 9 ] This is, after all, the situation we face today. And it must be said: This situation has arisen as a result of the entire course of development in recent times. We see how that part of economic life which we regard as the production process has become increasingly multifaceted due to the complexity of technical life. And if I were to describe it in a single word—one that has, admittedly, already become a buzzword, though one must use such words—we see that production life has become increasingly collectivist.

[ 10 ] What, after all, can the individual actually accomplish today within our social organism in the realm of production? Everywhere, he is caught up in what must be done in community with others. Our mode of production has become so complex that the individual is caught up in it as if in a vast production mechanism. Productive life has become collectivist. This is precisely what the proletarian focuses on, and in his economically fatalistic worldview, he expects that collectivism will grow ever stronger, that more and more branches of production will merge, and that the time will come when the international proletariat itself can take over this production. This is what the proletarian is waiting for. He thus succumbs to the great delusion that the collectivization of production is a natural necessity—for he perceives economic necessity almost as a natural necessity— and that this collectivism should be further expanded, that above all the proletariat is destined to take the seats currently occupied by today’s producers, and that what has become collectivized will henceforth be administered collectively. We can see just how strongly the proletariat clings to such an idea out of its own economic interest in the sad results of the economic experiment in the East, for there—though not in the way the proletarian theorists had dreamed, but rather as a result of the conditions of war—an attempt was made to shape economic life in this sense. One can already see this today, and one will see it more and more: the experiment—quite apart from its ethical or other merits, or from the sympathies or antipathies one may feel toward it—will fail miserably due to its own internal destructive forces and bring unspeakable misfortune upon humanity.

[ 11 ] The life of production is contrasted with the life of consumption. But the life of consumption can never become collectivist on its own. In consumption, the individual is, by a natural necessity, fundamentally present as an individual. The needs of overall consumption arise from the human personality, from the human individual. Thus, alongside the collectivist nature of production, the individualistic nature of consumption persisted. And the chasm grew ever more jarring, ever deeper—this chasm between production, which strives for collectivism, and the interests of consumption, which assert themselves ever more vehemently, precisely because of this contrast. For those who can view contemporary life with an unbiased eye, this is no abstraction; rather, for them, the terrible disharmonies in which we find ourselves stem precisely from the imbalance that has emerged today—as indicated above—between the impulses of production and the needs of consumption.

[ 12 ] However, one can only grasp the full extent of the misery that prevails today in this regard, penetrating even the deepest recesses of people’s souls, if one has immersed oneself—not through study, but through decades of practical life experience—in the very source from which this disharmony has arisen in the various spheres of life. And it is truly not from any principles, nor from theoretical considerations, but from these life experiences that what I have set forth in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question* has emerged. It was far from my intention to attempt, based on this practical experience of life, to arrive at some kind of utopian solution to the social question. I had to learn, however, that people’s thinking today tends quite involuntarily toward the utopian side. Naturally, I had to summarize what I had gleaned from the great diversity of life—things I would have preferred to discuss using specific, concrete examples—and I had to condense them into general statements, which in turn are grouped under the catchphrase “Threefold Social Order.” But the content within it had to be at least illustrated by a few guiding principles. It was necessary to explain how one envisions these matters being addressed. That is why I gave some examples of how the development of capitalism should proceed, how the labor question, for instance, should be resolved, and so on. In doing so, I tried to offer concrete, specific suggestions. Well, I have participated in many discussions about these “Key Points of the Social Question,” and I have always found that people, in their utopian views today, keep asking: “Yes, but what will this or that be like in the future?”—They have based their questions on the suggestions I made regarding specific details, which I never intended to be anything other than examples. In real life, after all, it’s the case that whatever you do—whatever you organize to the best of your knowledge—you can implement it in some form in reality, but of course you could also do it differently. Reality is not such that only a single theoretical framework fits it. Of course, one could also do everything differently. The utopian, however, wants to have everything characterized down to the smallest detail in the form of catchphrases. And so these “key points of the social question” have often been interpreted by others precisely in a utopian sense. They have frequently been transformed into utopias, even though they are not in the least intended as utopia, but have emerged from an examination of what has emerged in the production process as collectivism—from the observation that, on the one hand, there is indeed a certain necessity on the part of production to move toward this collectivism, while, on the other hand, all the power of production ultimately depends on the abilities of the human individual.

[ 13 ] Thus, simply by observing modern production, it became painfully clear to the mind’s eye that the fundamental impulse that must underlie all production—namely, personal ability—is, so to speak, absorbed by the collectivism that has emerged from economic forces themselves and continues to emerge. On the one hand, one was confronted with the direction toward which economic life tends; on the other hand, with the equally self-evident demand to bring the individual strengths of each human personality to bear precisely within economic life. And it is up to us to reflect on the social organism in such a way that this fundamental requirement of economic progress—the cultivation of individual abilities—can endure amid the ever-increasing complexity of production processes, driven purely by technical conditions. On the one hand, this is what comes so vividly to mind: real economic progress and the necessary demands that must be placed on economic life so that it can flourish.

[ 14 ] On the other hand, everything we call the “social question” today does not, in essence, stem from production interests at all. When collectivism is sought in the realm of production, it actually arises from the technical possibilities of economic life—and from technical necessities as well. What is commonly called the social question is actually raised entirely out of consumer interests, which in turn can be based only on human individuality. And the curious fact emerges that—even if something else appears to be happening—the call for socialization is spreading throughout the world out of purely consumer interests. One can see this, too, by following the discussions and practical life. I observed this myself during the lectures I began giving in April 1919—and which were repeated time and again—and in the subsequent discussions: how deeply offended those who are actively involved in practical economic life as producers or entrepreneurs are by the discussion of what is called the “social question,” as it is preached from the perspective of consumer interests.

[ 15 ] In contrast, as is essentially the case wherever the call for socialism arises, one sees that the focus is solely on consumer interests. Thus, it is individualism that serves as the driving force behind the ideals of socialism. Essentially, all those who are socialists strive toward socialism out of entirely individual emotions. And the striving for socialism is, at its core, merely a theory that floats above these individual emotions. On the other hand, however, a very serious examination of what has been developing more and more in our economic life—again, over the course of centuries—reveals the full significance of what is commonly summarized in political economy and economics under the term “division of labor.”

[ 16 ] I am convinced that an extraordinary amount of insightful commentary has been written and spoken about this division of labor, but I do not believe that its full significance for practical economic life—right down to its ultimate consequences—has yet been fully thought through. I do not believe this because, otherwise, one would have to recognize that, fundamentally, it follows logically from the principle of the division of labor that no one in a social organism where a full division of labor prevails can actually produce anything for themselves—I would even go so far as to say. We still see the last remnants of self-production today, particularly when we consider small farms. There we see that the person who produces actually retains only what is necessary for his own and his family’s needs. And what does this mean—that he can, so to speak, still be a provider for his own needs? It means that he is actually producing in a completely incorrect manner within a social organism that is, for the rest, based on the division of labor. Anyone who makes their own coat today, or who provides for themselves with food grown on their own land, is actually doing so at too high a cost; for because the division of labor prevails, every product is produced more cheaply than it can be when one manufactures it for oneself. One need only reflect on this fact to see that its ultimate consequence is that, fundamentally, no one today can produce in such a way that their labor is in any way incorporated into the product. And yet it is indeed curious that, for example, Karl Marx treats the product as crystallized labor. But that is certainly not the case today. Today, in terms of its value—and value alone is what matters in economic life—the product is, first and foremost, least determined by labor. It is determined by its utility, that is, by consumer interests, and by the utility it serves within the social organism based on the division of labor.

[ 17 ] All of this raises the major economic questions of our time. And these questions have led me to the conclusion that, at this very moment in human development, we are faced with the necessity of structuring the social organism in such a way that it increasingly reveals its three natural components. And as one of these three members, I must first recognize the spiritual life, which is essentially based on human faculties. When I speak of the threefold structure of the social organism, I do not include in the spiritual realm merely the more or less abstract spiritual life or the spiritual life itself, but rather I include in the spiritual realm everything that is based on human, spiritual, or physical faculties. I must emphasize this explicitly; otherwise, one could completely misunderstand the boundaries of the spiritual sphere within the threefold social organism. Even someone who performs only manual labor requires a certain degree of dexterity for that work; they also require various other qualities, which, in this regard, do not make the individual appear as a member of the purely economic sphere, but rather as a member of the spiritual sphere.

[ 18 ] The other sphere of the social organism is that of pure economic activity. In pure economic activity, one deals only with production, consumption, and the circulation between production and consumption. But this means nothing other than that, in pure economic life, one deals solely with the circulation of produced goods, which, as they circulate, become commodities; one deals with the circulation of commodities. A good that, within the social organism, acquires a certain value through its use—a value that then affects its price—such a good is, in the sense in which I must understand it, a commodity.

[ 19 ] But this leads to a further point. Of course, I can only allude to the ideas I wish to convey in accordance with the guidelines in an aphoristic manner; otherwise, the discussion would become far too long. It follows, then, that everything that is a commodity can have a real, objective value in the context not only of economic life but of social life as a whole. Simply by virtue of what a product signifies within consumer life, it acquires a certain value that certainly has an objective significance. I must now discuss what I mean by the term “objective significance.”

[ 20 ] By “objective significance,” I do not mean that one can directly determine the value of a commodity—which I am now discussing—through statistics or the like. The conditions from which a commodity derives its value are far too complex and far too diverse for that. But apart from what we can initially know about it, every commodity has a very specific value that lies beyond our knowledge. If a commodity has a certain price on the market, this price may be either too high or too low in relation to its real objective value, or it may correspond to it. But just as the price that appears to us externally is not decisive—because it may be distorted by various other circumstances—so it is true, on the other hand, that if one were able to specify all the thousands upon thousands of individual conditions under which production and consumption take place, one would be able to determine the objective value of a commodity. It follows from this that a commodity occupies a very special place in economic life. For what I now call objective economic value can be applied only to commodities; it cannot be applied to other things that currently occupy a similar place in our economic life as commodities do. It cannot be applied to land, nor can it be applied to capital.

[ 21 ] I don’t want to be misunderstood; you will never hear me, for example, offer characterizations of capitalism such as those so often heard today, which are based on all sorts of catchphrases. It goes without saying—so much so that there is no need to elaborate further—that in today’s economic life, nothing can be accomplished without capital, and that railing against capitalism is simply economic amateurism. So what I have to say now about capital and land is not what one so often hears today, but rather something else. While it is possible to state for every commodity that its price lies above or below a mean—which, admittedly, cannot be readily specified but which objectively exists and is the sole source of salvation, even though it cannot be recognized at first glance—this cannot be stated for something that is treated today as if it were a commodity: land. The price of land, the value of land, is today entirely subject to what one might call human speculation—which is anything but a social impulse. And there is no objectivity whatsoever in setting a price or determining a value for land in the economic sense. This is because a commodity, once it exists—regardless of whether it is good or bad (if it is good, it is useful; if it is bad, it is of little use)—can determine its own objective value through the nature and intensity of the demand for it.

[ 22 ] The same cannot be said of land, nor can it be said of capital. In the case of both land and capital, the way in which they yield returns—how they fit into the broader social and economic context—depends entirely on human capabilities. They are never a fixed entity. If I have any land to manage, I can manage it only according to my abilities, and its value is therefore something entirely variable. The same is true of the capital I have to manage. Anyone who studies this fact in its full significance in practice will have to conclude: This radical difference between a commodity on the one hand, and land and capital on the other, certainly exists. — And it follows from this that certain symptoms that arise in our economic life—and which clearly appear to us as symptoms of a disease in the social organism—must be understood in some connection with what arises in economic life from the fact that, in practice, the same money, that is, with the same valuation, treats things that are actually not at all commensurable—that is, that one lumps together and, indirectly through money, brings into exchange and economic interaction things that are entirely different in their inner nature and therefore ought to be treated differently in economic life as well.

[ 23 ] And if we now proceed to study in practical terms how the principle of equal treatment actually came to be incorporated into our social organism—that is, the practice of paying the same price both for goods, that is, for consumer goods, and for land and capital, which, as anyone familiar with economic life knows, has essentially become an object of trade as well—if, then, we ask ourselves how this actually came about, and traces the historical development of humanity, one sees that three spheres of life are interacting in an inorganic way within our social organism today—spheres that, fundamentally, stem from entirely different roots and are connected in social life only through the individual human being. First and foremost is the spiritual realm—the realm in which human faculties are exercised, faculties that human beings actually bring to Earth from other worlds, that lie in their innate dispositions, that lie in what they can learn from these dispositions, that represent something thoroughly individual, and that unfold all the more intensely the more the individuality of each person can come to the fore in social life. One may be a materialist or whatever one may be, but one will have to admit: What is active in this realm is brought into this world by the human being at birth; it is something—ranging from the physical dexterity of the manual laborer to the highest expressions and manifestations of inventive power—that is entirely dependent on the individuality of the human being if it is to flourish.

[ 24 ] The situation is somewhat different in the realm of economic life. I would like to illustrate my point with a historical fact. As you all know, at a certain time in the 19th century, the ideal of a uniform gold standard emerged here and there. Anyone who follows what was said by practical economists, economic theorists, and members of parliament during the period when efforts were being made here and there to achieve the gold standard—and I say this quite certainly without irony—will find it extraordinarily insightful. One is often deeply moved by the insightful remarks made in parliaments, chambers of commerce, and other forums, as well as by what has been written about the gold standard and its benefits for economic life. One thing that has been said—and emphasized particularly by the most prominent figures, or at least by many of the most prominent figures—is that the gold standard will lead to the flourishing of economically beneficial free trade everywhere, and that economically harmful political borders will lose their economic significance. And the reasons and evidence put forward to support such claims are extraordinarily ingenious. And what has actually happened? In reality, what has happened is that precisely in those areas where it was expected that the gold standard would cause economic barriers to fall, these barriers have nevertheless proved to be necessary—or at least have been emphasized as necessary by many. Actual economic life has revealed the opposite of what was predicted on the basis of theoretical considerations, even by the most intelligent people.

[ 25 ] This is a very important historical fact, one that is not too far behind us, from which one should simply draw the necessary conclusions. And what are these necessary conclusions? They are the ones that always become apparent when one looks into actual economic practice: that in the realm of economic life itself—which consists of the production, circulation, and consumption of goods—let me state this paradox, for I consider it a truth that truly becomes evident to the impartial observer—an individual’s cleverness is of no use whatsoever. No matter how clever one may be, no matter how cleverly one may reflect on economic life, no matter how completely the evidence may add up, it will not prove true in economic life. Why is that? Because economic life cannot be comprehended at all through the deliberations of the individual, but rather because economic experience and economic understanding can only lead to valid judgments through the mutual understanding of those with various interests in economic life. The individual can never arrive at a concise judgment—not even through statistics—regarding how the economy should function, but only through mutual understanding, say, between consumers and producers who unite in associations, whereby one tells the other what needs exist, and the other tells the one what production is capable of. Only when a collective judgment arises from communication within communities of economic life can a valid judgment regarding economic life emerge.

[ 26 ] Here, however, we are touching on something where external economic understanding—I would say, economic psychology—comes into play. But life is, after all, a unified whole, and one simply cannot ignore people’s souls if one truly wants to speak of practical life. The point, then, is that a genuine economic judgment can only arise from the understanding of those who are actively involved in economic life—from the insights that individuals acquire as partial understandings, which only become adequate judgments when one person’s individual insight is refined by another’s. Only through discussion can valid judgments be reached in economic life. But this brings us to two radically different spheres of human life. And the more practically one views life, the more evident it becomes that these two spheres are distinct from one another, and that, for example, production—which, after all, requires knowledge of how to produce and how to work with human capabilities—indeed calls the human individual into play; yet everything that happens to the commodity, to the good, once it has been produced, is subject to collective judgment. Between these two spheres lies a third, where the individual does not stand alone to develop the abilities he has brought into life through birth, nor can he join with others to refine his economic judgment through interaction with them and arrive at a collective judgment, that can apply to the evaluation of economic life in practice, but where he faces his fellow human being in such a way that this encounter is a purely human one—a relationship from person to person.

[ 27 ] And this sphere encompasses all relationships in which one individual stands directly face-to-face with another individual—not as an economic actor, but as a human being—where the focus is not on innate or acquired abilities, but rather on what one is permitted to do within the social organism or what one may be obligated to do, what they are entitled to, and what they actually represent within the social organism—namely, when one human being faces another purely as a human being, apart from their abilities and apart from their economic position. This is the third sphere of the social organism.

[ 28 ] It might seem as though these three areas were contrived. They are not. It seems as though they were not drawn from practical experience. But that is precisely the case. For what constitutes their specific nature is precisely what is effective in the practical reality of life. And when these three spheres of the social organism interact in the wrong way, damage to the social organism results. In my *Key Points of the Social Question*, —not to prove anything; I know very well that one can never prove anything through analogies, but to illustrate a point I wanted to make—I used the analogy of the human organism, which is certainly a unity, but which, when analyzed using actual physiology, is nevertheless also based on a threefold division. We have clearly distinguished within the human organism the nervous-sensory organism, which, although it permeates the entire human being, is primarily localized in the head. We then have, as a second relatively independent organism within the human being, the respiratory and circulatory rhythm—the rhythm organism. And as a third organism, we have the metabolic-limb organism—everything that is based either on the internal functions of metabolism or on the metabolic expenditure involved in external human activity, which, after all, begins with the movement of the human limbs, thereby engaging the metabolism. As I said, the human being is a unity, but this is precisely because these three relatively independent components interact harmoniously with one another. And if, instead of this organic interaction, one were to wish for the human being to be an abstract unity, one would simply be wishing for something foolish. Each of these components has its own openings to the outside world—the senses, the respiratory openings, the alimentary opening—relative independence. And it is precisely through this relative independence that the members interact in the right way—organically and harmoniously—as each member develops its own specific power, thereby giving rise to a unified whole. As I said, I know that one cannot prove anything by analogy. Nor do I intend to prove anything by this, but only to explain. For anyone who views the threefold structure of the human being as objectively as in this physiology, and who views the social organism objectively, will find that, based on its very own qualities, the social organism requires an independent, relatively independent position for the economic organism, the state-political or legal organism, and the spiritual organism, within the limits I have indicated.

[ 29 ] This threefold structure of the social organism has often been criticized, mistakenly, on the grounds that such a separation could not actually take place—that, for example, legal relationships constantly play a role in economic life, that intellectual faculties also play a role, and that it is therefore absurd to attempt to bring about a structure for the social organism based on this triad.

[ 30 ] In the human natural organism, too, the three members work together as a unity, precisely because each one can exert its specific characteristics, and it is certainly the case that the nervous-sensory organism is also nourished, that it has its own particular nourishing processes, and that what the nervous-sensory organism is also has its significance for the metabolic organism. The fact that the three systems are nevertheless relatively independent is a finding of sound physiology.

[ 31 ] A healthy social physiology will also show that, precisely when each of the three individual spheres—the spiritual sphere, the sphere where human beings simply face one another as human beings (that is, the legal, state, and political sphere), and the economic sphere, where human beings must progress toward associations and communities in the sense indicated—that these spheres, when they develop their own inherent qualities with relative autonomy, can then work together to form a unity in the true sense. What is being asserted here is by no means a revival of, say, the old Platonic tripartite division: the scholarly class, the military class, and the productive class, for there people are divided into three classes. Given our current circumstances, there can be no question of such a division; rather, the threefold social organism refers solely to a division of administration—the external organization of the three spheres of life.

[ 32 ] The intellectual realm should certainly be administered on the basis of its own principles. Those who are, say, teachers, for example, should at the same time be the administrators of the educational system, so that we do not have, on the one hand, the science of pedagogy and didactics, and on the other hand, the regulations of the political organism governing education. All administration in the spiritual realm must arise from the science of pedagogy and didactics—that is, directly from the spiritual. In the political-state sphere, everything will be able to emerge through mutual understanding between people within the corresponding administrative and constitutional bodies. In the economic sphere, for reasons that are already evident from my remarks today, associations will have to form in which people participate as economic agents. What, then, should be the primary task of these associations in the economic sphere? Well, it is precisely in shaping this task that the specific nature I have sought to describe in my *Key Points of the Social Question* can become apparent. Nowhere in these “Key Points of the Social Question” is it stated that social institutions should be established in one way or another, or that this or that is the very best. For me, that would already border on utopianism. For anyone familiar with human life today knows that even if one devises the best theories, real-life practice has infinitely little to do with these theories. I am, in fact, practically convinced of the following: If you bring together twelve—or fewer, or more—people who aren’t particularly clever, you can come up with wonderful programs on just about anything, say, for example, on the organization of elementary schools—programs against which there is absolutely nothing to object to: Point 1, Point 2, Point 3. If everything stated in Point 1, Point 2, and Point 3 were to become reality, the result would be nothing short of an ideal school. But it cannot really become reality, because although humans can conceive of the most ideal things, what can actually be realized depends on entirely different conditions.

[ 33 ] We have tried, as far as is possible in this day and age, to establish something at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart that is not based on any set curriculum, but rather flows directly from pedagogy and didactics themselves. The Free Waldorf School has a number of teachers. Even they—though I do not wish to praise them for this—could devise ideal school curricula if they got together. But we are spared that. The people—the living human beings—are present in the teaching staff. And what they are capable of—the very best that can be drawn out of them—is what should be developed. All ideal programs are rejected in this process; all regulations are rejected; everything is placed within the immediate impulse of individual ability. No regulation misleads the one who—and this is precisely the task of the individual, the personal human being—is to intervene actively in a certain area of spiritual life based on pedagogy and didactics, that is, based on his or her own abilities.

[ 34 ] Of course, today such things can only be carried out to a certain extent. But in practical life, no ideal can ever be fully realized; rather, one must do what arises from the possibilities of life. The same approach was taken for everything else in my “Key Points of the Social Question.” Nowhere is an attempt made to show what the individual institutions should look like. Not as a demand, not as an ideal, but as an observation of what people want in their current historical development, attention is drawn to the fact that people—even though they are exactly as they are—could have a different impact than they do today if they were placed in their proper place. I therefore do not provide concrete designs for how this or that institution should be, but address people directly and say: If people cooperate in the right way and find the right perspectives from which to view the social question, then the best possible outcome will emerge. — And I believe that the best structure for the social organism, arising from human beings themselves, is one in which each individual—I would say, as a separate entity—thinks, works, and acts in the spiritual realm, in the legal, state, or political realm, and in the economic realm. Every individual—the social organism is not structured according to social classes—every individual can, under certain circumstances, be active in all three spheres if they have the capacity to do so. What matters is not that this or that person is active in this or that sphere, but that, objectively and independently of the individual, these three spheres of life are administered autonomously according to their fundamental conditions, so that a person can be involved in all three, or in two, or in one, but now administered according to the principles of that sphere. Anyone who reflects on how this results in harmony among the three spheres will see that what matters in this threefold division is precisely unity, not separation, as is mistakenly assumed in the critiques and discussions.

[ 35 ] And so, particularly in the economic sphere, the point is that things should not be determined by arbitrary fixations—say, through the study of statistics and the like—but rather drawn directly from life itself. Let me give an example. Everyone knows, doesn’t it, that a product becomes too cheap in the economic cycle when too many people produce it—that is, when too much is produced—and everyone knows that a product becomes too expensive when too few people produce it. This gives us a guideline for where that objective middle ground I spoke of actually lies. This middle ground, this objective value, this objective price—it cannot be fixed as such. But when associations arise that see their purpose in gaining practical knowledge of economic life, in studying it practically at every moment, in every present situation, then the main observation can consist in how prices rise and how prices fall. And by having associations deal with this rise and fall of prices, it can be achieved through negotiation that a sufficiently large number of people are brought together in an economic community, that a sufficiently large number of people are engaged in a particular branch of production—that, so to speak, through negotiation, the right number of people are directed into a particular branch of production. This cannot be determined theoretically; it can only be determined by placing people in their proper roles—that is, by determining these matters based on human experience. Therefore, one cannot say: This or that is the objective value. But if associations in economic life operate in this way—making it one of their duties to gradually phase out businesses that undercut prices too sharply according to prevailing customs, and to establish others in their place that produce different goods—then a sufficient number of people will participate in the individual branches of production. This can only happen through a genuine associative life. And then the price that emerges for any given commodity will approach the objective price. So that we can never say: “Given these or those conditions, the objective price must be this or that,” but can only say: “If the right kind of human association arises, then through its work in the immediate life of the social organism, the correct price can gradually emerge.” — The point is not to specify what institutions should be like so that what is socially right may come about, but rather to bring people into such a social connection that the gradual resolution of social issues arises from their interaction. For anyone who truly understands the social question cannot view it as something that has simply arisen and could be solved by some utopian ideal; rather, the social question is a result of modern social interaction and will, in fact, continue to exist in ever-greater measure into the future. What is required, however, is for people to follow social trends from their economic perspective and, through associations—in which alone an economic judgment can arise—to steer economic life onto the right course not through laws, but precisely from within direct life itself, through direct human negotiation. Social life must be grounded in practical human reality.

[ 36 ] Thus, the “key points of the social question” are not concerned with describing any particular social structure, but rather with indicating how people should be brought into a relationship so that, in their interaction from one moment to the next, they do what does not solve the social question in the sense that is sometimes imagined, but rather steers it into the right course. These associations, as one can already see, will therefore primarily concern actual economic life. In actual economic life, goods circulate. Consequently, these associations will primarily have to shape the tendency toward the correct price out of immediate life itself, so that everyone can actually purchase, from the proceeds of their own production, what provides for their needs. I once attempted to formulate what such a just price would look like. Of course, this does not mean that it should be determined abstractly. As I have indicated, it is determined by real life. But I have said: Such a price for any product in social life—that is, for a commodity—is the one that gives a person the opportunity to provide for themselves and their family’s livelihood and all their needs until they have once again produced an equivalent product.

[ 37 ] I am not presenting this as a dogma. I am not saying, “This is how it should be,” because it would never be possible to implement it—since such theories cannot be applied to reality—but I am simply saying that the price that emerges as the correct one through associative interaction will tend in this direction. So I simply want to present a result. I do not wish to establish a dogma—any kind of economic dogma. And in my conviction, this is precisely what matters in today’s economic thinking: that it be grounded everywhere in human principles; that we recognize once again to what extent human beings must be the driving force of economic life everywhere; that we do not think of shaping a social organism in any way through mere institutions devised from ideas or theories, but rather that we try to figure out how human coexistence should be, so that the right kind of system emerges.

[ 38 ] I would like to clarify this further with the following analogy. In the realm of nature, the following is true: while the prerequisites and conditions created by human beings do contain something that stems from human’s elementary sensibility, this does not aim to determine anything that takes shape outside in social life. In recent times, there has been much discussion about how human embryonic development could be influenced, so that, in a certain sense, one would have the freedom to bring boys or girls into the world. Well, I certainly do not wish to discuss this question theoretically today, but I consider it fortunate that this question is not completely resolved in practical terms, for although people cannot determine in the abstract what the optimal distribution of male and female sexes in the world is, it nevertheless emerges approximately as such, without people being able to do anything about it. There are simply objective laws that arise when human beings, operating under entirely different conditions, simply act in accordance with their basic impulses. And so, when associations function in the right way and are based on insights gained from life—without dogmatically assuming that the “fair price” must be this or that—this price will emerge through associative action. I call it associative action because human individuality must be preserved in the process of association; that is, when the forces of one are united with the forces of another, individuality remains intact. In coalitions and cooperatives, individuality is lost. This, in my conviction, is what can lead to real—rather than dogmatic—economic thinking.

[ 39 ] And one can imagine other functions of these associations. If we again consider the analogy with the human organism, we can say: From this or that symptom, we notice that the human organism is ill. From a complex of symptoms, we can gain an understanding of the disease and the disease process. It is quite similar with the social organism. Today we see clear symptoms of illness in the social organism. Associations are the healing force. Associations work toward harmonizing interests, so that the interests of producers and consumers are harmonized through cooperation within the association, so that other interests are harmonized, and above all, so that the interests between managers and workers are harmonized. Today we see how, out of a sick economic body, the opposite of associative life arises; we see how passive resistance, lockouts and strikes, sabotage, and even uprisings emerge. No one with sound judgment can think otherwise than that all of this works in the opposite direction of the associative principle, and that all of this—sabotage, lockouts, uprisings, and so on—are symptoms of illness in the social organism that must be overcome by that which has a harmonizing effect. To achieve this, however, we need a truly appropriate structure for this social organism, just as the human natural, threefold organism is meaningfully structured.

[ 40 ] And now I return to what I said earlier: that land and capital are by no means commensurate with commodities, for their value is subject to human capabilities. If we have an abstract unity—as has increasingly emerged in recent times, but one that also contains the symptoms of the illness described above, as well as others—then this very abstract unity leads to a situation in which land, capital, and ultimately labor are valued in the same way as commodities.

[ 41 ] In a threefold social organism, individuality—and the forces of individuality—are at work in the realm of spiritual life. Therefore, everything that must be connected to the unfolding of individuality in economic life—that is, everything connected to land and capital—must in fact be meaningfully integrated into the spiritual part of the social organism. That is why I have described how, indeed, the administration of capital and the administration of land must take place within the spiritual part of the social organism. Anyone who now criticizes me for tearing the three spheres apart fails to take into account that—as I myself described—the spiritual organism, which is built precisely upon individual power, automatically takes over the administration of capital and land once people are placed in their proper positions. But what appears as labor in the social organism is a service that one human being renders to another; this is something that can never flourish if it remains confined to mere economic life. Therefore, the regulation of labor belongs within the constitutional state, within the political state. And precisely because the duration and scope of work can be regulated—based on entirely different foundations than today—through human relationships, separate from the economic contracts determined in economic life by associations, something of extraordinary importance will come to pass: Economic life will thereby be placed on a sound foundation, with nature and its conditions on the one hand, and human beings and their conditions on the other.

[ 42 ] It would certainly be very strange if we were to sit down today in a small committee and ponder how many rainy days there must be in 1922 for economic affairs to proceed as desired. We must accept nature, and it is only on the basis of this accepted nature that economic life can be built. That is one side of the matter. In the threefold social organism, on the other side of economic life—which consists of associations that are relatively independent, from their own perspective, even in the organization of the monetary system—human beings face one another as human beings, not as economic entities, and as human beings they formulate the laws of labor. And now, human labor will not be determined by economic reasons—reasons that are intended to establish only commodity prices, the mutual value relationships of commodities, that is, purely economic factors—just as one cannot determine the productivity of nature based on economic conditions. Only then will economic life have been grounded in purely human as well as purely natural conditions.

[ 43 ] However, a utopia will not be able to become a reality. But what good would it do to ponder how human beings could be better than they actually are? After all, one can only study human beings as they are. Therefore, it can be said that while it may be quite pleasant to speak of some future worlds in which human beings are desirably well off, it is fruitless; for one can conceive of all sorts of ways in which the social organism should be structured. But that can never be the question. The question can only be this: How is it possible? How must its parts interact so that it is not the best, but rather the one made possible by its own forces—one that is endowed with as few symptoms of illness as possible in the sense indicated, and that develops in the healthiest way possible?

[ 44 ] Perhaps, as I believe, we will gradually—precisely when we seek to communicate based on a genuine understanding of the conditions of social life—be able to reach an understanding regarding this fundamental question of economic life that I have alluded to, which has been at the heart of all my remarks, and which I do not wish to state in an abstract, dogmatic, or formulaic manner. Today, however, our most terrible struggles—which are wearing down economic life—ultimately arise from the fact that we do not study economic life or examine its conditions within the social organism with the same goodwill as we do, for example, with regard to the natural organism. And only when we learn to proceed with regard to the social organism in the same way as we do in biology, physiology, and therapy will we recognize the possibilities that exist, and only then will the questions we today call “social” be posed in the correct manner. In this way, they can be brought back to the human level. Therefore, it seems to me that the most important thing is to first win over as many minds and sensibilities as possible to such a natural understanding of the social organism—an understanding capable of viewing the social organism in terms of health and illness, just as the natural sciences attempt to do with regard to the human organism. And I believe we can recognize today that, indeed, even with regard to the cardinal question of economic life, the threefold division of the social organism into the realms of pure economic life, legal or state or political life, and the spiritual realm can shed the proper light on the matter. For the three spheres are not to be separated; rather, each is to be able to interact harmoniously with the others precisely by developing its strong forces within relative autonomy.

[ 45 ] And the fundamental question of economic life is this: How must public life and spiritual life—with regard to capital, land, and the measurement and valuation of human labor—independently influence pure economic life itself, so that, through the structuring of associations, economic life may create—if not an earthly paradise, then at least a viable social organism? — And one can believe that only when this question is first considered in such a natural way will such a question—which one must surely call the cardinal question of economic life—be able to be posed in the correct, life-affirming, practical manner. And in life, it is usually the case that the greatest mistakes are made not by striving for false solutions—which are generally utopian—but by posing the question incorrectly in the first place, by failing to ask questions based on genuine observation of life and genuine insight into life. But it seems to me that the most significant question in economic life today is precisely this: that the questions be posed correctly and that life be shaped in such a way that the answers do not come from theory, but rather that life itself—the full human and historical reality—provides the answers to the correctly posed questions. The questions arise from the historical foundations; life itself must provide the answer directly and truly. No theory can provide this answer; only the full practical reality of life can do so.