The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. The Key Issues of the Social Question

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! When, about three years ago, at the request of a number of friends who were then under the influence of the events in social life following the provisional end of the Great War, I published my “Key Points of the Social Question,” it became clear to me—I would say as a direct experience—that this publication had, in essence, been misunderstood on all sides, precisely because it was initially classified among those writings that, in a more or less utopian manner, attempted to portray through external institutions what their authors perceived as a kind of remedy for the chaotic social conditions that had arisen in the course of recent human development. My work was intended, so to speak, not as an appeal to thinking about all sorts of institutions, but as an appeal to human nature itself. That this could not be otherwise, given the spiritual-scientific foundations, will become clear from the overall tone of the lectures given so far.

[ 2 ] In particular, what I actually presented only to illustrate the main point has often been taken as the main point itself. In my attempt to explain how humanity might arrive at a social way of thinking, feeling, and even willing, I had to illustrate this, for example, by showing how the circulation of capital might be transformed so that it would not be perceived by many people as oppressive, as is often the case today. I had to say a thing or two about price formation, the value of labor, and the like. But all of this was really only for illustrative purposes. For anyone who—if I may use the expression—wishes to delve into the fullness of human life must first listen in on that human life in order to find human solutions to its aberrations, and not by promoting certain ideological templates that are then to be implemented in the most diverse areas of life.

[ 3 ] Above all, it becomes clear to anyone who has observed European social life over the past thirty to forty years—not with this or that preconceived notion, but with an open mind—that what must happen socially today is, in fact, already foreshadowed in the unconscious will of the European people themselves. Everywhere one can find unconscious tendencies toward something. They already live in people’s souls, and one need only give them expression through words.

[ 4 ] That is what prompted me to give in to my friends’ urging and write this book. That was the reason why, based on the sense of reality that spiritual science—to put it modestly—instills in people, I attempted to observe what has been taking place in all social classes and strata beneath the surface of outward appearances and institutions in Europe over the past few decades. And I did not actually want to say: “I find this or that to be right”; rather, I wanted to say: “This or that is willed from the hidden unconscious, and it is necessary simply to become aware of what humanity is actually striving for.” And it is precisely there that the root of many of our social ills is to be found: that today this unconscious yearning stands in a certain contradiction to what humanity has devised in an intellectualistic manner and incorporated into its institutions, so that our institutions actually contradict what is desired today in the depths of people’s hearts.

[ 5 ] And for yet another reason, I do not believe that there is any particular value today in simply proposing one institution or another in some utopian way. Within the historical development of humanity in the civilized world, we have, after all, reached the stage where, no matter how wise the words may be about what should happen among and between people, they cannot actually have any significance unless people accept them—unless it is something toward which people themselves are drawn, albeit mostly in an unconscious way.

[ 6 ] Thus, I believe that today, if one is to think about such matters at all, one must take into account the democratic spirit that has emerged in the course of human history, namely the democratic spirit as it lives today in the depths of people’s souls—the democratic spirit that holds that, in social terms, something has value only if it aims not to express undemocratic opinions, but to enable people to voice their opinions and assert them. Thus, for me, the main thing was to answer the question: Under what circumstances are people in a position to truly express their social opinions and their social will?

[ 7 ] When we look at the world around us in terms of social life, we must say to ourselves: Yes, we could certainly know a great deal about how this or that should be different; but what obstacles stand in the way, preventing what we know quite well—and what we wish to assert quite firmly—from becoming a reality? There are the differences in social status and class themselves, and there are chasms between the classes of people—chasms that cannot simply be bridged by having an opinion about how they should be bridged, but chasms that arise precisely because, as I emphasized so strongly yesterday, the will—which is the very center of human nature—is shaped by the way one has integrated oneself into one’s social class, social stratum, or any other social context. - And again, when one looks at something that, in our modern times amid complex economic conditions, has increasingly come to stand alongside class prejudices, class sensibilities, and class-based impulses of the will as obstacles in and of themselves, one finds these obstacles in the economic institutions themselves. We are born into certain economic institutions and cannot escape them. - And there is a third type of obstacle to genuine social interaction among people: that those who, as leading figures, might be in a position to exert the profound influence I have just spoken of face other barriers—namely, those arising from certain dogmatic teachings about life and from certain dogmatic attitudes toward life. Just as many people cannot transcend economic barriers or class and social status barriers, so too are many unable to transcend the barriers of their own concepts and ideas. All of this, I would say, has already become a substantial part of life, the result of which often manifests itself as chaos.

[ 8 ] But when one tries to make sense of everything that has emerged in recent decades from the unconscious depths of the human soul, despite these obstacles and divides, one is led to realize that the crux of the social question actually lies quite elsewhere than where it is usually sought. They lie in the fact that, in the more recent period of human development, the rise of technology—which makes life so complicated—in the civilized world has been accompanied by the emergence of a belief in the omnipotence of the unitary state. And this belief in the omnipotence of the unitary state grew stronger and stronger throughout the 19th century. It has become so strong and firm that it has not been shaken even by the various damning judgments that large masses of people have formed regarding social organization.

[ 9 ] And something else is then associated with what comes upon people as dogmatic faith. With this faith, one seeks to hold fast to the belief that in the object of one’s faith lies a kind of panacea, so that one might then be in a position to say which is the best form of government; that one might then—I won’t go so far as to say—attempt to conjure up paradise, but that one nevertheless believes one is establishing the best possible institutions.

[ 10 ] But in doing so, we have lost something that is particularly evident to anyone who views life in terms of its reality, as it has been discussed here in recent days. For whoever, precisely because he is dependent on developing his ideas for the spiritual world, acquires a true sense of reality, will come to realize that the best institutions one can conceive for any age can, at best, retain their value only for that particular age; and that the situation with regard to existing social organization is similar to that of, for example, the human body.

[ 11 ] I do not wish to engage in a misguided exercise in analogy, but to illustrate my point, I would like to draw attention to what can be understood in the social organism based on the human organism: We can never say that the human organism—or, for that matter, the animal or plant organism—can exist solely in a state of upward development. If that which is organic is to flourish, if it is to draw its powers from within itself, then it must be able to grow old, and it must also be able to die. Anyone who studies the human organism more closely will find that this dying-off is present within it at every moment. The ascending, sprouting, budding, and fruiting forces are always present, and the decomposing forces are always present as well. And human beings owe a great deal precisely to these decomposing forces. Indeed, anyone who wishes to completely overcome materialism must direct their attention precisely to these decomposing forces within the human organism. They must seek out everywhere in the human organism those places where matter, so to speak, disintegrates under the influence of the organism. And they will then find that the development of spiritual life in human beings is bound precisely to the decay of matter. We can only understand the human organism if, alongside the ascending, sprouting, and fruiting forces, we observe the continuous process of decay.

[ 12 ] And even if I say this merely by way of illustration, it can nevertheless illustrate what the impartial observer must find in the social organism: The social organism does not die—which is what distinguishes it, for example, from the human organism—but it transforms, and ascending and descending forces are inherent to it. Only those who understand this can truly grasp the social organism: when one puts the best intentions into practice and creates something in any area of social life that has been derived from existing conditions, after some time—because people with their individualities are at work within it—it will begin to exhibit forces of decay and decline. What is right for the twentieth year of a century has, by the fortieth year of the same century, changed to such an extent that it already contains within itself the forces of its own decline. Such things are certainly sometimes expressed in abstract terms. But in this intellectualistic age, people cling to these abstractions, even when they believe they are thinking in the most practical way possible. And so we also observe that, while people generally admit that there are forces of decay in the social organism, forces of decline, that the social organism must constantly transform itself, and that the forces of decline must always be at work alongside the forces of ascent—yet when we intervene in the social order with our intentions and our will, we fail to recognize what we have admitted in the abstract.

[ 13 ] Thus, in the social order that existed before the World War, it was evident that capitalism led to a certain degree of satisfaction even for the broader masses when it was in a phase of upward development. Wages rose when capitalism was in an upward phase of development in any sector of life. So as things progressed further and further, as capital was able to operate with ever greater freedom, it became evident that wages and the opportunities for employment were indeed increasing more and more. But people did not pay equal attention to the fact how this rise simultaneously encompassed other social factors that ran entirely parallel to it and that were bound to cause forces of decline to assert themselves—so that, for example, as wages rose, living conditions had to develop in such a way that the rising wages gradually had the effect of not contributing all that much to an improvement in the standard of living. Of course, such things were noticed. But social trends were not tracked in a way that would have made the analyses themselves true to life and reality.

[ 14 ] And that is why, now that we find ourselves at a crucial historical juncture, social life must be examined at its very foundations, rather than through its superficial manifestations. And this leads us to the individual branches that make up our social life.

[ 15 ] One of these social branches is the spiritual life of humanity. This spiritual life of humanity—which, of course, we cannot consider in isolation from the rest of social life—has its own conditions. These are bound up with human individualities. Spiritual life flourishes on the foundation of the human beings of a given era. And the rest of social life depends on this. Just consider how much has changed in certain social spheres simply because this or that invention or discovery was made by one person or another. But then, when one asks: “How did this invention or discovery come about?”—then one must look into the depths of the human soul: how human souls have passed through a certain course of development, how they were led—I might say—to find something in their quiet innermost recesses that then transformed entire broad areas of social life. Let us ask ourselves this question in such a way that the answer takes on social significance: What significance does Leibniz’s discovery of differential and integral calculus have for social life as a whole? Try, from this perspective, to view the influence of intellectual life on social life realistically, and you will—because this intellectual life has its own conditions—come to the conclusion that within this intellectual life there exists a particularly distinct branch of general social life.

[ 16 ] And if one asks what this particular form is, one must say: Everything that can truly flourish in the spiritual life of humanity must spring from the innermost creative power of the human being. And one will have to conclude that what is most beneficial for social life as a whole is that which can develop unhindered within this spiritual life from what lies at the very core of the human soul.

[ 17 ] But then we find ourselves driven by another impulse that has become increasingly prominent in recent decades: the impulse that has poured itself into the belief in the omnipotence of the state, namely, that civilized humanity, from the very depths of its being, has become more and more democratic. This means that aspirations exist among the broad masses of humanity: every person must have a say when it comes to establishing human institutions. One may find this democratic trend appealing or unappealing; that is not the point for now. What matters is that it has emerged as a real force in the historical life of modern humanity. But precisely when one looks at what has emerged as this democratic trend, then—if one thinks realistically—it becomes particularly clear how, out of an inner urge, out of the spiritual life of Central Europe, ideas concerning the very nature of human coexistence in a state have developed among the noblest minds.

[ 18 ] I do not mean to say that we should still place special value today on what one of the noblest of Germans described as his “closed commercial state.” One need not pay as much attention to the content as to Fichte’s noble intentions. But I would like to point out that, in a very popular form, what might be called the pursuit of ideas of natural law emerged at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. At that time, very significant and noble minds were engaged in answering the question: What is the relationship between human beings? What, in fact, is the innermost essence of human beings in social relations? And they believed that if they understood human beings correctly, they would also be able to discover what is just for human beings. They called this “rational law” or “natural law.” They believed they could determine, through reason, which legal institutions would allow people to flourish best. One need only look at Rofteck’s work to see how, even in the first half of the 19th century, the idea of natural law was still very much alive among many people.

[ 19 ] However, during the first half of the 19th century in Europe, the historical school of law took a contrary position. It was guided by the belief that one cannot deduce from reason alone what is lawful among human beings.

[ 20 ] But this historical school of law failed to recognize what it is that renders all attempts to conceive of a rational law fruitless; it failed to recognize that, under the influence of the Age of Reason, a certain barrenness had crept into the intellectual life of humanity. And so the opponents of natural law argued: human beings are not called upon to discover from within their own souls what is just; therefore, law must be studied historically; one must examine how human beings have developed historically, and how legal conditions have arisen from their customs and their instinctive mutual relationships.

[ 21 ] One must study law historically! Nietzsche’s free spirit turned against such a study in his essay “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life.” He believed that if one always looks only at what has historically existed in humanity, then one cannot achieve productivity or arrive at viable ideas for the present; the elemental forces that live within human beings must rebel against the historical perspective in order to use these forces to establish a framework of social relationships.

[ 22 ] Among leading figures, particularly in the 19th century—the height of intellectualism—a debate had arisen over what actually constitutes the foundations of law. And with that came the debate over the foundations of the state. At least at that time, this was not denied at all. For the state is, in essence, merely the sum total of individual institutions in which legal forces operate. And so, with the loss of the ability to identify the foundations of law, it was inevitable that people could no longer come to terms with the very nature of the state. Consequently, we see—not only in theory but also in practical life—how, over the course of the 19th century, the life of the state became a problem for countless people, including the broadest masses, a problem that needed to be solved.

[ 23 ] But this took place, I would say, more in the higher, conscious spheres of human civilization. Beneath the surface, what I have characterized as the emergence of the democratic spirit was taking root. This emergence of the democratic spirit, if properly understood, leads us to conceive of the question of the nature of law in a much more thorough and realistic way than is often the case today. There are many people today who take it for granted that one can somehow derive, from the individual human being, what actually constitutes law in this or that area. However, modern legal scholars are already losing their footing with such an endeavor; and they then find that when they philosophize in this way—or even believe they are thinking practically about life—they lose sight of the substance of law, and law becomes something merely formal to them. And then they say: That which is merely formal must be given substance; the economic must flow into it as substance.

[ 24 ] On the one hand, there is a distinct sense of how powerless one is when trying to arrive at the concept of law or a sense of justice on one’s own; on the other hand, one nevertheless seeks time and again, starting from human nature, the essence of law. The democratic spirit, however, rebels precisely against this search. For what does it say? It says: There is no such thing as a general, abstract definition of law; rather, there is only the possibility that people who are part of some social community may come to an understanding with one another—that they may, so to speak, say to one another: “This is what you want from me, this is what I want from you”—and that they may then agree on the relationships that result for them as a consequence. Then the law arises purely from the reality of what people mutually want from one another, so that there cannot actually be any such thing as a “rational law,” that everything which has come into being as “historical law” can still come into being if one only seeks the right ground for it, and that people can enter into such a relationship on this ground that they truly bring the law into being through mutual understanding in accordance with reality. “I want to be able to see how law comes into being!”—that is what the democratic spirit says. And anyone who then wishes to write books about law—even in a theoretical sense—cannot simply pull what law is out of thin air, but must simply observe what emerges as law among people and more or less take note of it. Even in the natural sciences, we do not look into the world of facts in such a way that we formulate the laws of nature out of our own heads; rather, we let things speak to us and formulate the laws of nature accordingly. We assume that what we seek to capture in the laws of nature already exists; but what exists in legal life is created among human beings. There, life exists on a different level; there, the human being stands in the realm of creation—specifically as a social being, alongside other human beings—so that a life may come into being that seeks to channel humanity’s sense of development into the social order. That is precisely the democratic spirit.

[ 25 ] The third factor that stands before people today and calls for social reform is the complex economic conditions that have arisen in recent times—conditions I need not describe here, as they have been adequately described from many perspectives. One might now say: These economic conditions are such that they, in turn, arise from conditions different from those of the other two spheres of the social organism—namely, spiritual life —where everything that can bear fruit in the social order must arise from the individual human personality; only the creative work of the individual can make the proper contribution to the entire social order—and the legal life, in whose realm the sole concern must be that the law, and thus also the nature of the state, arises from mutual understanding among people. Neither of these conditions—one as it applies to spiritual life, the other as it applies to state and legal life—exists in economic life.

[ 26 ] In economic life, it is not the case that a judgment about what might happen can spring from a single individual. Precisely in the course of the 19th century, when intellectualism flourished so greatly among humanity, we were able to see how certain very significant individuals —I say this not out of irony, but to characterize things truthfully—who were active in various fields and expressed their opinions on one thing or another; people who were well-versed in economic life and whom one could trust to have sound judgment. When they then commented on something that went beyond their field—something that influenced legislation—one could often say: “Yes, what this or that person said—for example, about the practical impact of the gold standard—is significant and insightful”—one is even amazed, when one traces what took place in the various economic associations during the period when different countries were making the transition to the gold standard, at the sheer amount of insight that was brought to light; but if one studies further how the things that were predicted actually developed, then one sees: for example, this or that very significant person said that, under the influence of the gold standard, customs barriers would disappear. The exact opposite happened!

[ 27 ] And it must be said: In the realm of economic life, it is the case that shrewdness—which can be of great help in the realm of spiritual life—cannot always be a reliable guide. One gradually comes to realize: When it comes to economic life, the individual alone cannot make authoritative judgments at all. Judgments can only arise, so to speak, as collective judgments—resulting from the interaction of many people who are actively engaged in the most diverse areas of life. This, in turn, must not remain mere theoretical wisdom, but must become practical, down-to-earth wisdom—the realization that truly valid judgments can arise only from the harmony of many.

[ 28 ] Thus, all of social life is divided into three distinct spheres. In the realm of spiritual life, the individual has a voice; in the realm of democratic legal life, all people have a voice, because what matters there is the relationship between human beings based on their purely human nature—and every person can express an opinion on this; and in the realm of economic life, neither the judgment of the individual nor the judgment that emerges from the undifferentiated judgments of all people is possible. In this sphere, the point is that the individual contributes expertise and experience in their field to a whole, so that a collective judgment can then emerge in the proper way from associations. This can only come about if the justified judgments of the individuals can be refined. For this reason, however, associations must be structured in such a way that they bring together elements that can be harmonized and are then capable of forming an overall judgment. Thus, the entirety of social life is divided into these three areas. This is not some utopian idea, but rather a realistic view of life.

[ 29 ] But now—and this must be emphasized again and again—the social organism, whether small or large, always contains within itself not only the forces of ascent but also the forces of decline. And so everything we infuse into social life simultaneously carries within it the forces of its own destruction. A continuous healing process is necessary within the social organism.

[ 30 ] If we look at spiritual life from this perspective, we can say, in accordance with the reflections that have been shared here in recent days, that in Eastern social life, spiritual life was universally decisive. Every individual aspect—including, fundamentally, political and economic life—was derived from the impulses of spiritual life, just as I have described here in recent days. But if one considers the course of social development, one finds that for a certain era—and this varies from era to era—impulses flow from spiritual life into social structures; that economic associations then form based on ideas derived from spiritual life; and that the state establishes institutions based on spiritual life. But one also sees that spiritual life has a constant tendency to develop forces of decline—or forces from which such forces of decline arise. If spiritual life were to stand before us in all its omnipotence, we would see how the impulse constantly arises from this spiritual life for people to divide themselves into classes and estates. And if one studies the reasons why the caste system holds such great power in the East, one will find that the caste system is regarded as a necessary consequence of social life having developed out of spiritual impulses. And so we see even in Plato how he points out that humanity itself must be divided in the ideal state into the class of producers, the class of teachers, and the class of warriors—that is, into estates. Anyone who examines the reasons for this will find that it is precisely in the gradation inherent in the omnipotence of spiritual life that the estates and class distinctions arise, and that within the classes, human individuality then emerges, perceiving these classes as detrimental to the social order. Thus, within spiritual life, there are constantly opportunities for rifts to arise between estates, classes, and even castes.

[ 31 ] And when we turn our attention to the realm of the state, it is in this realm, above all, that we must seek what I have recently described as the conquest of labor in the course of human development for the sake of the entire, unified social organism. It is precisely because theocracy evolved from Asia into a system of government that is now influenced by legal principles that the problem of labor has arisen. As each individual came to claim their rightful place, the demand arose that labor be properly integrated into the social organism. But as legal life became detached from religious life, as it moved ever more toward democratization, and as it developed further and further, we see how a certain formalistic element of social thought also increasingly made its way into humanity.

[ 32 ] Law, after all, developed from what one individual has to say to another. One cannot derive law from reason alone. But from the mutual interaction of reason—if I may use that term—among human beings, a living legal system emerges. This therefore tends toward logic, toward formalistic thinking. But as humanity passes through its various epochs, it also passes through periods of one-sidedness. Just as it passed through the one-sidedness of theocracy, it later passes through the one-sidedness of the state. Through this, however, the logical element—the element that conceives—is cultivated in social life. One need only recall the sheer volume of human intellectual power that has been devoted to legal life in the course of historical development.

[ 33 ] But in this way, humanity is also moving toward the power of abstraction. And one will be able to sense how, under the influence of the principle of law, human thought becomes more and more abstract. But what takes hold of humanity in one sphere eventually extends, at certain times, to the whole of human life. And so, I would say, as I have indicated earlier, even religious life was incorporated into legal life. The God of the East, who legislates for the world and bestows grace upon humanity, became a God of judgment. Cosmic law in the cosmos became cosmic justice. We see this particularly in the Middle Ages. With this, however, something like abstraction had entered into human habits of thought and feeling. People sought more and more to master life through abstractions.,

[ 34 ] And so abstract life spread to encompass religious life and spiritual life on the one hand, and economic life on the other. People gained more and more confidence in the omnipotence of the state, which was geared toward its abstract administrative and constitutional life. More and more, it was considered in keeping with progress that spiritual life, in the form of educational life, should be fully integrated into the realm of the state. But then it had to be captured within abstract relationships, such as those linked to legal life. The economic sphere, too, was, in a sense, absorbed by what was deemed appropriate for the state. And in the era when the modern mode of economic activity emerged, the general opinion was that the state must be the power that, above all else, determines the proper organization of economic life as well. But in doing so, we subject the other branches of life to the power of abstraction. As abstract as this may seem, it is nonetheless true to reality. And I would like to illustrate this with reference to human education.

[ 35 ] In our age, when cleverness is so cheap, people can get together in a small or large group—it really doesn’t matter—to figure out what the best educational measures are. They will—and I say this without irony—come up with something truly excellent when they gather together like this to figure out how education should be conducted and what should be included in the curriculum for this or that class. I am convinced that these people, provided they are even moderately intelligent—and most people today are—will devise ideal programs. We live—or at least lived, since people are already trying to move away from this—in the age of programs. What do we actually have in abundance if not programs, if not guiding principles in this or that area of life! Society after society is founded, each drafting its own programs: things should be this way or that way. I have absolutely no objection to these programs; I am convinced that no one who criticizes them can, at heart, come up with better ones. But that is not the point. For while we can impose what we devise on reality, reality does not then become such that people can live within it. And it is the latter that matters.

[ 36 ] And so, I would say, a provisional conclusion has been reached in this area. We have seen how a person with the best and noblest intentions for the development of humanity in the very recent past drew up such a program for the entire civilized world in fourteen excellent points. It fell apart immediately upon coming into contact with reality. We have an extraordinary amount to learn from the fate of Wilson’s fourteen abstract points, which sprang from intelligent minds but were not grounded in reality and were not drawn from life itself.

[ 37 ] And so it is in pedagogy, in the field of education and instruction, that programs—which are, after all, merely issued from the realm of government and law—are of no consequence at all. Regulations may be issued in the very best possible way, stating that one should do this or that; but in reality, one is dealing with a faculty that comprises teachers with these or those abilities. One must take these individuals into account in a living, dynamic way. No curriculum can be fully implemented. Only what can emerge from the individualities of these teachers can be realized. One must have a sense of, and feel for, these individualities. Every day anew, based on the immediate life of each individual, one will have to determine what needs to be done. Then one will not be able to put forward some all-encompassing program. That remains an abstraction. Something can only be created out of life itself. Let us imagine the most extreme case: Suppose there were, for a given field, only a number of teachers with average abilities. Well, even if these teachers were to devise teaching objectives and issue directives during a period when they do not need to teach but only to think, they would certainly come up with something exceptionally sensible. But it is quite another matter to approach the reality of teaching; there, only their abilities as whole human beings come into play. It makes a world of difference whether one takes into account immediate, lived experience or only what has flowed purely from the intellect. For this intellect has the characteristic of exaggerating things; fundamentally, it always seeks to encompass the immeasurable vastness of the world. In real life, this intellect should merely be a servant in the specific, concrete field.

[ 38 ] But if one considers in particular that what arises between people—insofar as they face one another in complete equality as human beings—can develop into law, then one must say: What generally develops among people becomes entirely correct when it emerges from the abstractions of the present, for this is how people perceive things; they establish legal relationships among themselves that are based on certain abstract concepts of humanity, and it is only through people coming together on democratic ground that these relationships become specific legal relationships. But within the realm of universal humanity, nothing can be created that seeks to spring forth from the immediate life of the individual; rather, only that which can apply to people in general. This means that, on democratic ground—precisely if one wishes to be honest—what is meant to flow from the individuality of the human being within spiritual life cannot flow. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize that, while belief in the omnipotence of legal and state life was a phenomenon of its time—and while it was historically justified that, during the era when modern states emerged, they took charge of education because they had to take it over from other powers that were no longer managing it properly— One should not seek to rewrite history retroactively.

[ 39 ] But we must be clear that recent developments have given rise to a tendency to reestablish intellectual life as an independent entity, so that intellectual life has its own social structure and its own administration, and so that even what takes place in individual school lessons can arise from the living reality of the teacher’s individuality rather than from the observance of arbitrary regulations. We must resolve—even though it has been regarded as progress to surrender spiritual life, and with it the school, to the state—to reverse this course. Then it will be possible for free human individuality to come to the fore within spiritual life, including in the realm of education. And no one need fear that authority might suffer as a result! No, where productive work is to be carried out out of human individuality, these individualities yearn for authority that is in harmony with nature. We can already see this at the Waldorf School. There, everyone is glad when one person or another can be an authority figure for them, because they need what that other person produces out of their own individuality.

[ 40 ] And so the realm of state and law retains the possibility of acting in accordance with democratic principles. Yet, once again, it is the case that the realm of the state, precisely because of its tendency toward abstraction, carries within itself the potential to develop forces that ultimately become forces of decline. And anyone who studies how, within the realm of state and law, the very existence of this tendency toward abstraction necessitates that human actions become increasingly detached from concrete interests in individual spheres of life will also come to understand how it is precisely in state life that the foundation lies for the very abstraction that has developed more and more within the circulation of capital. Modern capital formation is, after all, widely contested by the broad masses of the people today. But the way the struggle is being waged stems, in fact, solely from a lack of understanding of the circumstances. For anyone who wished to abolish capital or capitalism, for example, would have to abolish the entire modern economic and social life; for this social life cannot exist under any principle other than that of the division of labor, and with it comes, at the same time, the accumulation of capital. In recent times, this has manifested itself particularly in the fact that a large portion of capital is represented by the means of production. The essential point, however, is that capitalism is, first of all, a necessary phenomenon within modern life; yet, on the other hand, it constantly leads—precisely when it becomes nationalized—to the separation of money from concrete, individual spheres of life. And in the 19th century, this was taken so far that what actually circulates in social life is separated from the individual concrete spheres of life to the same extent that, for a thinker who lives only in abstractions, his pale ideas are separated from real life. The economic sphere, separated in this way from the individual spheres of life, is money capital. If I have any sum of money in my pocket, that sum can represent any economic object or even an object of intellectual life. Just as a very general concept relates to individual experiences, so does this element relate to the individual concrete spheres of life. This is why crises are bound to arise within the social order.

[ 41 ] These crises have been studied extensively. In Marxism, for example, crisis theory plays a major role. The mistake lies in attributing crises to a clear sequence of causes, whereas in reality they stem from two underlying currents. It may be that there is a surplus of capital; in that case, as it circulates as a surplus, it leads to crises. But it may also be that there is too little capital, in which case that, too, leads to crises. And these crises are of a different nature. These issues are not studied realistically even in today’s economics. In reality, a single phenomenon can have the most diverse origins.

[ 42 ] And so one sees that just as spiritual life has a tendency to lead to forces of decline arising from differences in social status, class, and caste, so too does a life that works toward abstractions, and rightly so, has an inherent tendency, on the one hand, to lead to the ascendant forces inherent in legitimate capital formation, but on the other hand—because capitalism leads to abstract economic activity in which a sum of capital can be used for one purpose or another—to cause crises.

[ 43 ] When one realizes this, one becomes a social reformer and devises something intended to bring about healing. But here one encounters the following obstacle: while the individual must indeed be the guiding force in economic life by contributing his or her experiences within appropriate associations, the guiding principle of economic life cannot emerge from this individual alone. That is why I identified association as essential for economic life, alongside the legal-statist and the spiritual spheres.

[ 44 ] And what struck me here, when I was speaking about associations to a small gathering of workers outdoors in Germany, was that they told me: “We’ve heard a lot of talk about this, but we don’t actually know what associations are—we haven’t really heard anything about them.” An association is not an organization; it is not just any coalition. It arises when individual economic actors come together, and when each individual does not simply accept what is dictated by some central authority, but rather contributes what they know and can do based on their understanding of the field in which they are engaged. And it is from this collaboration—in which everyone gives their best and where what happens arises from the harmony of many—that all other economic activity can emerge.

[ 45 ] Such associations will come together. It will happen; I have no worries. To anyone who tells me this is a utopia, I say: I know that these associations arise simply from the subconscious forces within human beings. However, we can foster these associations through reason; we can bring them about more quickly, or we can wait until they develop out of necessity. These associations will unite those engaged in production and trade with the consumers. And only production, the circulation of goods, and consumption will play a role within them. Work will increasingly enter the realm of legal life. With regard to work, people must reach an understanding in a democratic manner. In this way, work is separated from that which can be effective solely within the realm of economic life. This can only be what arises from a collective judgment within associations through the union of producers and consumers with those who facilitate trade.

[ 46 ] In the realm of economic life, within associations, only goods will therefore play a role. This, however, implies something very significant: we will cease altogether to establish any fixed principles regarding the price and value of a commodity, but will instead say: The price and value of any good are something that changes with living conditions. Price and value will be determined by the collective judgment emerging from the associations. I cannot elaborate further on this; however, readers can find more details in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question*.

[ 47 ] I merely wished to point out that observation reveals how social life as a whole is divided into three spheres arising from very specific and distinct conditions: spiritual life, legal and political life, and economic life. Within the development of modern civilization, these spheres are, in a sense, evolving toward a certain degree of autonomy. Understanding this autonomy and gradually assigning to each sphere its proper role, so that they can cooperate in precisely the right way—that is what matters today.

[ 48 ] People have reflected on this threefold structure of the social organism in a wide variety of ways. And when my “Key Points of the Social Question” became known here and there, people also pointed out various aspects that had already been hinted at in earlier writings. Well, I do not wish to raise any question of priority. What matters is not whether an individual discovered this or that, but how it is brought to life. One could only rejoice if a great many people were to come to this realization. But this must be noted: When Montesquieu in France defines a kind of threefold division of the social organism, it is simply a threefold division. He points out that these three spheres have entirely different conditions; therefore, they should be separated from one another. That is not the thrust of my book. It is not a matter of distinguishing between intellectual life, legal life, and economic life—just as one might distinguish in the human body between the nervous-sensory system, the cardiovascular system, and the metabolic system—by claiming that these are three systems separate from one another. Such a division accomplishes nothing; it only becomes meaningful when one sees how these different spheres interact, how they best form a unity by each operating according to its own conditions. The same is true of the social organism. If we know how to place spiritual life, legal-political life, and economic life each on its own distinct conditions and allow them to function from their own inherent forces, then the unity of the social organism will also emerge. And then we will see that certain forces of decline are driven out of each of these individual spheres, but that these are in turn healed through interaction with the other spheres. This points not to a tripartite division of the social organism, as in Montesquieu, but to a threefold structure of the social organism, which nevertheless finds its unity in the whole social organism, since every human being belongs to all three spheres. Human individuality—on which everything ultimately depends—is so embedded in this threefold social organism that it connects the three parts with one another.

[ 49 ] Thus we can say that—precisely when one is inspired by what has been said here—the aim is not a division of the social organism, but rather its structuring, precisely so that unity may come about in the proper way. And if we look more closely at the surface, we can also see how, for more than a century, the people of Europe have been tending toward seeking such a threefold order. It will come about, even if people do not consciously want it; for unconsciously they will act in such a way in the economic, spiritual, and legal-political spheres that this threefold division will come about. It is something demanded by the development of humanity itself.

[ 50 ] And so one can also point out how the three impulses associated with these three different spheres of life entered European civilization—first as three meaningful ideals, then as three mottos for social life. At the end of the 18th century, the call for liberty, equality, and fraternity gained traction in Western Europe. Who, if they are familiar with the developments of modern times, would not say that these three mottos embody three significant human ideals? But on the other hand, one must also acknowledge that there were many people in the 19th century who very incisively refuted the notion that any unified social organism—any state—could be possible if it were to realize these three ideals simultaneously. More than one insightful work has been written demonstrating how freedom, equality, and fraternity cannot be fully united within the state at the same time. And one cannot say that what has been so insightfully written there does not give one serious cause for concern. And so, once again, one finds oneself confronted with a contradiction in life.

[ 51 ] Life itself is not meant to be free of contradictions; it is full of them everywhere. And it consists in constantly overcoming the contradictions that arise. Life consists precisely in raising and overcoming contradictions. Thus, it is entirely justified that the three great ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity were established. But because people in the 19th century and right up to our own time have continually believed that everything must be organized in a completely centralized manner, they fell into errors of judgment in this regard as well. And that is why people could not see through the illusion that it is meaningless to agonize over the manner in which the means of production are utilized, how capitalism should be developed, and so on; rather, the point is to place people in circumstances in which they can organize their social affairs out of the very deepest impulses of their being. Here we must say: We must grasp in a vital way how freedom must operate in spiritual life—the free, productive unfolding of individuality; how equality must operate in legal and political life, where each person is to develop, in a democratic sense, what is due to every human being together with every other human being; and how brotherhood must operate in the concrete associations that encompass what we call “associations.” Only those who look at life in this way see it correctly.

[ 52 ] But then one will come to realize: Because one believed, in an abstract way, that all three ideals could be accommodated in the same form within the mere unitary state—into which economic life has intruded—this is why a contradiction with reality has arisen. The three ideals—freedom, equality, and brotherhood—will one day be truly understood when people realize how freedom must prevail in spiritual life, equality in political and legal life, and brotherhood in economic life. And not in a sentimental way, but in such a way that it leads to social structures within which people can live in a manner that allows them to experience their human dignity and worth. If one grasps that a unified organism can arise only when the spirit develops productively out of freedom, when equality must operate in the political and legal spheres, and when fraternity must operate in economic life and within associations, then one will be able to overcome the worst social ills of the present.

[ 53 ] For only that which can spring freely from human beings as individuality gives them a spiritual life rooted in truth; this truth can come to light only when it flows directly from the human heart. The democratic spirit will not rest until it has achieved equality in the realm of state law. We can do this through reason; otherwise, we expose ourselves to revolutions. And in the economic sphere, brotherhood must thrive within associations.

[ 54 ] Then the law established among human beings—arising from a relationship in which equals stand face to face—will be living law. Any other law that, as it were, hovers above human beings becomes a convention. True law must emerge from the community of human beings; otherwise, it becomes a convention.

[ 55 ] And true brotherhood can only give rise to a way of life if it is grounded in economic conditions themselves, within associations; otherwise, human cooperation within such associations does not give rise to a way of life, but rather to a daily routine, as is almost universally the case today.

[ 56 ] Only when one has learned to ask: What chaotic social conditions have arisen under the influence of empty rhetoric instead of truth in the intellectual sphere, of convention instead of law in the political sphere, and of routine instead of practical living in the economic sphere—only then will one pose the question correctly. And then one will set out on a path that can actually address the social question in the right way.

[ 57 ] One might be somewhat surprised that the social question is not addressed here in the way some believe it ought to be. But here we shall speak only on the basis of what can be gleaned from reality itself, specifically with the help of spiritual science, which is grounded in reality in every respect. And it follows that the core issues of social life today are:

[ 58 ] How can we, through a proper structuring of the social organism, move from the widely held cliché—which arises from human individuality because it must submit to another in its spiritual work—to the truth; from convention to justice; and from the routine of daily life to genuine practice?

[ 59 ] Only when people come to realize that the threefold social organism is necessary to create liberty, equality, and fraternity will they be able to address the social question in the right way. Then, too, the present moment will be properly linked to the 18th century. And then Central Europe will be able to respond to what Western Europe has proclaimed—namely, freedom, equality, and brotherhood—by expressing from within its spiritual life: freedom in spiritual life, equality in political and legal life, and brotherhood in economic life.

[ 60 ] Then much will have been accomplished regarding the social question, and it will be possible to form an idea of how the three principles of the social organism—freedom, equality, and fraternity—can work together to bring about a recovery from our current chaotic intellectual, legal, and economic conditions.