The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] I have often taken the opportunity in these reflections to point out how, particularly with regard to the most important questions of life, people today can learn from the dramatic, profound, even deluge-like events of our time; yet how, in reality, very few people today actually practice this learning from events as a method. People usually believe that they learn from events by judging them and then regarding the judgment they have passed on the events as experience. This can be very satisfying for a person. But for what the present so desperately needs—social knowledge—it is not only entirely insufficient but also entirely unsuitable. The point is not to impose one’s own judgment on events, but to truly learn from them—to let the events judge themselves. And you will perceive this, in the wide variety of observations made here, precisely as the methods of spiritual science when this spiritual science is applied to external, physical occurrences—that is, for example, to social occurrences. And here I believe that we can learn in particular from an extraordinarily significant phenomenon of recent times with regard to social life. I have already alluded to this, but I would like to place the corresponding insight at the forefront of our reflections today.

[ 2 ] If one tries today to discuss the social question with a member of the working class—who is crucial in every respect when it comes to current affairs— and who, on the other hand, has derived the inner impetus for their views primarily from Marxism, one always finds that such a person initially places very little value—in terms of social work and social thought—on so-called good will or ethical principles. You will find time and again that such a person behaves in the following manner. Let’s suppose you said that you saw the basis for a solution to the social question in the fact that, above all, people in certain leadership positions—namely, those in the so-called entrepreneurial class—develop a social conscience, that they come to realize how a dignified existence for all people must absolutely be created. Suppose you wanted to speak to a member of the broad masses of the working class about raising the moral sensibility of the bourgeois classes. As things stand today, this member of the broad masses of the working class will, at first, smile when you express such a view. They will say that you are naive to believe that the social question can be solved in any way today through feelings or emotional engagement. Such a member of the broad masses of the working class will say that none of what flows from the sentiments of the leading entrepreneurial class matters at all. For this class of entrepreneurs may imagine whatever it likes regarding its ethical and moral sentiments; but as the world is currently structured—divided into a class of entrepreneurs and a working class—the entrepreneur, no matter how good a person he may be, must exploit. And the working-class person wants nothing to do with an elevation of social consciousness, because he says: None of that helps; everything depends on the working class becoming aware of its class relations, on this working population itself bringing about, from within its own circumstances, such a transformation of the social situation that general impoverishment ceases or is alleviated. What matters is not an elevation of moral sensibility, but rather that the class of people who are oppressed above all by the current capitalist economic order—that this oppressed, miserable class of people—should, through struggle, bring about a different, non-capitalist economic order: a change in conditions, a change in the economic order.

[ 3 ] In other words, this means having absolutely no faith in the power of thought, having absolutely no faith that one can improve anything in society through a correct understanding or perception of life. People recently recognized this as a truth when a satirical magazine published a cartoon depicting a man with a rather long body and tiny legs; he was depicted as the only person in Germany who was not yet in a position of power, since everyone else was already participating in some council or another, but he, with his short little legs, had always been left behind, and so he was the only person in Germany who did not yet belong to a council and was not in a position of power. — One can certainly perceive this as a kind of truth. One could quite easily imagine that, for example, today—say, in one of the many councils being formed in the Central European countries—the following might happen. One can imagine that if, in such a circle today, one were to speak of what—based on an understanding of human development and human needs—must be regarded as the right thing to do, the people listening there, if they belong to the working class, would say: “What on earth are you trying to tell us? You belong to the bourgeoisie!” Because you belong to the bourgeoisie, you think from the outset in a way that aligns with the current economic order. It is far more useful for improving the social situation if we neutralize you in some way so that you have nothing left to say, rather than having to listen to anything you might say that could be useful for the further development of the social situation.

[ 4 ] Things have indeed already been taken to the extreme. And because things have been taken to the extreme, it is necessary to acquire the ability to see clearly. Of course, most people today do not want to see clearly—least of all those who usually gather in congress councils, for they wish to judge things by criteria other than clarity. But what every proletarian today—every member of the broad masses of the working population—would have to recognize, if one were to catch him at the right moment—and that is what matters, for today it really does come down to seizing the right moment—is that he denies any possibility of bringing about social improvement in the development of humanity through thought. Now one might ask them how they arrived at this view, how they came to believe that an improvement in the social situation can be brought about only through a change in conditions. — There is only one answer, one that can be gleaned from the facts. The entire immense force—and it is an immense force—of the modern social labor movement rests on the ideas of Karl Marx and his followers. It is, indeed, a radical idea. The idea that an idea is worthless—that, after all, is Marxist theory. But it is an idea that has actually given rise to the current socialist mindset. This socialist mindset, which wants nothing to do with the impulsiveness of thought, rests on the impulsiveness of ideas.

[ 5 ] I once said in a lecture delivered to proletarians: Anyone who looks at world history and searches for the real forces at work in human development will find that, except in a single case, a truly scientific impulse has never become a world-historical impulse. Search everywhere, and search for the real impulses: they have never been scientific impulses, except in a single case, where Marxism renewed the proletarian movement. Lassalle sensed this correctly when he delivered his great, impassioned speech on science and the workers. For the only truly scientific movement—as a political and social movement—is the modern labor movement. It is therefore fraught with all the flaws and all the hopelessness inherent in modern science, precisely because it sprang from modern science. But it arises entirely from the idea.

[ 6 ] Just imagine this colossal contradiction that has been introduced into modern life: the idea that thought is worthless has, as an idea, had the greatest impact over the last sixty to seventy years. We can learn this from the course of the last sixty to seventy years. And this is a powerful lesson—powerful because we see that when it comes to the impact of thoughts, what matters is something entirely different from the content of the thought itself. Isn’t it true that one thought—the thought of Karl Marx—was particularly effective? But if we examine it in terms of its content, we find that it is precisely this: the content of the thought has no significance; only economic conditions do. It is something extraordinary when one has the gift of delving into this contradiction of thought—this living contradiction of thought in modern times—for the sake of understanding the present.

[ 7 ] And yet this is precisely what is so necessary to grasp at the present time: that the content of theories, the content of programs, is actually of no significance whatsoever; that the effectiveness of an idea rests on something fundamentally different—namely, the relationship of that idea to the state of mind of the people who receive it. If Karl Marx had not developed his idea—as he did from 1848 onward, beginning with the *Communist Manifesto*, and then in his system of political economy and his great work *Capital*—not from 1848 into the 1870s, but perhaps, say, in 1800 or 1796, then this idea would have remained completely ineffective; no one would have taken an interest in it. Therein lies the key to an important matter. Just imagine, for my sake, that Karl Marx’s works had been published fifty years earlier—they would have been worthless! From 1848 onward, when the general standard of living of the proletariat had become established, these works did not become worthless; rather, they became an international impetus, so that they now live on in Russian Bolshevism, live on in the entire Central European chaos that already exists and will continue to grow, which will engulf the entire earth.

[ 8 ] This will make you realize that these fifty years of saying “sooner or later” about a matter are far more important than the content itself. Content has meaning only as content within a specific time frame. That is why it is not merely a personal hobby of mine when I say, for example, regarding anthroposophical spiritual science: “Now is the time for it to be spoken; now is the time for it to find its way into people’s hearts, for now is the moment when people are ready to receive it.” — This is something else entirely. With Marxism, it was something that ignited of its own accord; with spiritual science, it is something that must be received by people through their own free will. If one understands this on the one hand—that people’s understanding is indeed something subject to development—then one will also grasp many other things more easily, things that, it must be said, are as necessary as possible to understand, yet which people actually do not want to comprehend at all. In a certain sense, one encounters something monstrous today when one comes across people’s thoughts as they currently exist in so-called spiritual life—which, however, is not true spiritual life. Anyone who wishes to verify this can, of course, take random samples anywhere. Take, for example, an issue of a magazine published here in Switzerland, in which a writer who frequently contributes to this magazine once again expresses his views on a particular contemporary issue. In this essay, in which he expounds on the subject, he comes to discuss what he actually means by “the people.” He speaks of the guilt of various figures in relation to the war; he discusses—and on the one hand there is much truth in what he says—how leading figures within the Central European population are to be held accountable—though, as I have already explained here, the concept of guilt cannot be applied to them—; but then he feels it necessary to state what, in his opinion, the “people” actually are. Now we see how this gentleman defines “the people,” so to speak: He counts as part of this “people” nine-tenths of the population of a region that encompasses, for example, Germany, Austria, England, France, and so on. And of this “people,” he says it is the totality of uneducated, unfree individuals who, in the broadest sense, are dependent on leaders—that is, individuals in need of leaders.

[ 9 ] This man, then, defines the people as the uneducated, non-self-reliant, dependent individuals who, in the broadest sense, are in need of leadership. Now, if one were to put most of today’s prominent figures—those belonging to the bourgeoisie or an even higher social class—through their paces, as the saying goes, they would probably give roughly the same answer if asked to explain what they mean by “the people”: It is the broad, uneducated, non-self-reliant, dependent, and leader-dependent segment of humanity—nine-tenths of the total human population. Only one-tenth, one would therefore have to say, is educated, self-reliant, independent, and in no need of a leader. Those who consider themselves qualified to judge what the “people” actually are usually count themselves among this group.

[ 10 ] In contrast to such concepts—which are of the utmost importance when one seeks to form a social judgment—it is above all necessary to validly ask oneself whether it is a concept that corresponds to reality in the broadest sense of the word: to regard nine-tenths of the population as an uneducated, non-autonomous, dependent mass in need of leadership. This is a question that everyone who wishes to form an independent social judgment must ask themselves. However, if one wishes to reach an understanding on such questions, one must first allow the intensity of thought to develop somewhat through what one can gain for this intensity of thought by means of spiritual science. For everything else that gives thought its intensity today is not enough; one can see this in all the thoughtlessness that dominates the masses today. I don’t know if one can call it a coincidence—in reality, there is no such thing as a coincidence— but in recent months I have found a proverb quoted again and again whenever such conditions were discussed in public, sometimes by one person, sometimes by another. This proverb was: “Only the very dumbest calves choose their own butchers.”—People find it perfectly natural to apply this proverb. Everyone takes it for granted that this proverb makes sense. I don’t see the slightest point in it, because I believe that it wouldn’t be the dumbest calves, but rather the smartest ones—since they would then choose as their butchers—given that they have to die anyway, and these calves aren’t considered for anything else—those who would make this death the least painful, while those who don’t choose for themselves will likely fare the worst. In fact, the exact opposite would be true: only the smartest calves would choose their own butchers. But just as these things are accepted without a second thought, so too are important judgments—which need to be revised—accepted; for when taking stock of life, people generally want to spare themselves the mental effort and intellectual activity; they do not want to exert this mental energy.

[ 11 ] Sharper intellectual activity—that is what we need today to arrive at concepts that reflect reality. No matter how tempting the idea may seem to the so-called “enlightened” person—as defined by today’s conventional wisdom, today’s Enlightenment, and today’s democratic consciousness—the fact that the uneducated, the dependent, and those in need of leadership make up nine-tenths of the entire population has no basis in reality, for the following reason.

[ 12 ] Let us start with the historical fact that can teach us a great deal in this regard. After all, Christianity arose in an obscure province of the Roman Empire through the Mystery of Golgotha. Within the Roman Empire of that time—which had, after all, already absorbed Greek culture—there lived a people who truly carried within themselves a deep and meaningful wisdom. The Church had to make tremendous efforts to erase the traces of the ancient Gnosis—I have discussed this here before. But this Gnosis was there. Supreme knowledge was there. In fact, within the bosom of the Roman Empire, at the time of Christianity’s emergence, supreme wisdom was already present. This cannot be denied in any way. But it was impossible for this highest wisdom to have absorbed the historically powerful impulse of Christianity. The powerful impulse of Christianity—I spoke of this just the other day—was taken up by the northern barbarians, who did not possess this wisdom of the southern peoples. It was only when the northern barbarians met the wave of Christianity head-on that Christianity unfolded as it was meant to for the remainder of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch and even into the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Only today has a different relationship emerged.

[ 13 ] What must be taken into account here is that it is not the highly developed, abstracted spirituality of a particular age that is capable of receiving the historical impulse at its greatest strength, but rather that it is precisely the seemingly backward nature of human beings—which is more closely connected to instinctive human nature—that can receive the impulse in the strongest way. The judgment I just mentioned regarding the nine-tenths of humanity—the uneducated, dependent, and leader-dependent—says little more than that this segment of humanity differs, in terms of its spirituality, from those who consider themselves the leading figures. But these so-called leading figures already possess a degenerate intellect, a decadent intelligence. Among the nine-tenths of humanity—the so-called uneducated, dependent, and leader-dependent—there is, as one might say, an intelligence still latent and hidden that is immensely more receptive to the powerful spiritual impulse that is to be received today—an impulse that is immensely stronger than that found among the so-called intelligentsia with their decadent intelligence. What separates the bearer of spiritual impulses today from the receptive masses is not the masses themselves, nor are they the souls of the broad masses of humanity, but rather the leaders—the leadership. And this leadership—even among the most socialist of the proletariat—is itself completely steeped in and permeated by the decadent mindset of the bourgeoisie. This is what is necessary above all else: a clear and honest admission that the path to the so-called uneducated, dependent, leader-dependent, and non-autonomous people—the path to the true impulses of spiritual development—can indeed be found, provided one has insight into the peculiar effect of this intelligence.

[ 14 ] No class of people has ever been more fantastical than the bourgeoisie, which today looks down so heavily on imagination. For the most fantastical thing of all is today’s practice. Everything that claims to be practical in life today is actually only so because it has, so to speak, legally secured for itself the opportunity to push its way through, to force its way through, while the other—who has not secured the opportunity to force his way through—no matter how skilled or practical he may be in and of himself, simply does not get through. One must have a sense that today, among the broad masses—who are not led but seduced by their leaders—something has surged forth from that era which is usually referred to in history, albeit somewhat inaccurately, as the Age of Migration. Back then, so to speak, barbarian peoples emerged who absorbed precisely what the developed peoples could no longer absorb. Today, a Migration Period is surging upward not from some specific place, but from the proletarian underbelly of humanity. That is the crucial point. But this Migration Period must be met head-on. Let’s consider a hypothesis. Just imagine: everything that is usually referred to in history books as the Migration Period—all these migrations of the Goths, the Huns, the Vandals, the Suebi, and so on, and later the Mongols, which are usually described as the Migration Period—would have taken place but had these migrations taken place from the east toward the southwest, they would not have been met by the wave of Christianity. Let us suppose that this wave of Christianity had not come; just imagine how different the world would have become! You can only conceive of the entire subsequent period by imagining that these barbarian tribes migrated from the east to the southwest and were met by the Christian wave.

[ 15 ] Today, the situation is such that the proletarian element is rising up from the depths. And today, this proletarian element must be met from above by a spiritual, a spiritual-scientific grasp of social conditions and of the worldview as a whole. And anyone who refuses to believe that it is necessary for this migration of peoples—which today proceeds not horizontally but simply vertically—to be met by a new spiritual revelation, anyone who wishes to remain stuck with the old spiritual revelation suited to the horizontal direction, in short, anyone who wishes to remain with the Roman form of the spread of Christianity, anyone who does not wish to find, through the language of spiritual science, a grasp of the new revelation of Christ who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha—such a person misses the very most important thing necessary for the present; such a person misses so much, would have been missed at the dawn of the Middle Ages had the wave of the spread of Christianity not met the barbaric wave that rolled from the East toward the Southwest. Even then, standing between the wave of Christianity and the wave of the barbarians were all those people who were precisely the educated classes of the Greek and Roman empires. Today, standing between the wave—which, as a spiritual wave, is meant to push downward against the upward-moving proletarian wave—are all those who wish to cling to the old concepts, led by the so-called intelligentsia and, in particular, by science, which is entirely unproductive in this field. But what we must strive for is, above all, an open-mindedness toward concepts such as those we developed here yesterday and the day before, which give one the ability to form a social judgment. One cannot form a social judgment without understanding the social organism. Do you know what emerges when, today, a typical run-of-the-mill professor of economics—whom others then follow—or a typical political leader speaks about economic and social interrelationships and so on? Do you know what emerges in relation to the social organism? The social homunculus! This is what we should finally come to realize: that all those who have attempted to conceptualize the social organism without an understanding of its threefold nature have, with regard to the social organism, merely brought about the homunculus—just as Goethe maintains that through ordinary sensory and intellectual perception, one arrives only at the homunculus, not at the homo.

[ 16 ] For you see, when it comes to the social organism, most people today are simply incapable of thinking at all, because they lack the guiding principles for such thinking. As I have already mentioned, people in these areas start from the strange, grotesque idea that a single state or a single national territory is an organism in and of itself. They want to establish, as it were, national organisms. That is nonsense in and of itself. I have explained this before: If one wishes to make a comparison regarding the coexistence of people across the globe, one must view the entire Earth as a single organism; a single state or national territory can be only one limb of that organism. If one wishes to use the concept of an organism, it must be a self-contained organism. Anyone who seeks to establish national economics, political economy, or socialism within the territory of a single country is like a person who, let us say, would attempt to establish the anatomy of the entire human being based solely on the hand, the leg, or the stomach. This is far more important than people realize today. For this threefold division that I have outlined for you does not provide “such abstract summaries as people today are accustomed to, but rather offers a living immersion into the workings of the national economy and the social order.” Anyone who has merely studied the anatomy of the stomach will not understand the anatomy of the head or the neck. But anyone who knows the anatomy of the human being will, when it comes down to it, be able to correctly assess the stomach, the head, and the neck. It is just so: whoever understands the social organism in its inner conditions of life—and this is something that must stem from this threefold division—will know how to place themselves in the proper context, whether they are assessing social conditions in Russia, England, Germany, or anywhere else.

[ 17 ] Today, you make the strangely sad discovery that people talk about countries as if these countries existed in isolation. They think they can bring about some kind of socialization or the like with regard to individual, separate territories. This is one of the fundamental errors of our time, and one that can indeed lead to the greatest calamity in practice. Today, it is simply disastrous to believe that one can do anything within a certain limited territory without taking into account the fact that, since the mid-19th century, the Earth has been a single organism in social terms. One must simply reckon with reality; otherwise, there is no way to make any progress at all.

[ 18 ] You can see from this that the most important thing is to cultivate an open mind—to truly mature through an open mind into the ability to let things speak for themselves. For it is only through an open mind that one can learn from things. A statement you will encounter time and again whenever social conditions are discussed as they are here is that it is hard to imagine how economic value can be separated from human labor. Today, it is the learned economists who find this hardest to conceive. If people were to learn even a little from history, they would say to themselves: Plato and Aristotle could not yet conceive of a situation in which economic value did not include slaves; Plato and Aristotle still regarded the existence of a fairly large slave population as economically necessary. Well, today no reasonable person regards the existence of a slave population, in the sense of the ancient Greek and Roman empires, as an economic necessity. But people still regard it as a necessity today that human labor should be a commodity in the same sense as any other good.

[ 19 ] Well, let us strive to ensure that the threefold structure outlined here is gradually brought to fruition. It can only be realized slowly. We are not working toward a sudden upheaval here, but rather toward setting a direction and taking specific measures in line with that direction. And everything that needs to be organized can already be arranged in every detail today in such a way that these guidelines are truly followed—provided one is not a mindless adherent to a program, but rather a person grounded in living reality who wishes to immerse themselves in the facts themselves, in the living movement of the facts—and that is precisely what a person should be today; that is what matters. If one works in the spirit of that direction that gradually introduces the threefold social order by separating the three members—which have become so fused in recent development and thereby produced a diseased social organism that played itself out in the recent pathological catastrophe— if one attempts to drive apart what has become so fused into the three members, as I always characterize them here: then one arrives at a healthy development in keeping with reality. And then the gradual separation of the economic concept of value from the concept of human labor will realize itself of its own accord. Just as the slave has ceased to be a commodity, so too will human labor cease to be a commodity. Not by enacting laws that prohibit treating human labor power as a commodity, but by actively promoting the actual separation of intellectual, economic, and governmental functions. In this way, the good that, as a commodity, alone represents economic value is separated from what is crystallized in the commodity today: the expended human labor power.

[ 20 ] In this regard, it is truly appalling to see the confusion of concepts one encounters among people who today often speak out and want to have a say in the necessary restructuring of social conditions. Let me give you an example of this. There is the broad mass of so-called Marxists, who are clear on this point: When I purchase a good today—a commodity—that commodity embodies the human labor through which it was produced. By paying for the commodity, I am also paying for the human labor power embodied in it. — Yes, under today’s conditions, that is naturally the case; but the very point is that, in the real process—not merely in concept—labor power is separated from the commodity itself. To achieve this, it is of course necessary to truly grasp these concepts clearly.

[ 21 ] Now, it is easy to refute the claim that labor power stored in a commodity constitutes economic value. Someone who is not a Marxist—who views the matter from a different perspective—would say that it is incorrect to claim that the economy is driven to link labor power and commodities; it is actually the other way around. Commodities—finished goods that one possesses—actually exist today in the capitalist economic order to save labor. — And indeed, commodities with purchasing power, so to speak, do exist to save labor. Imagine for a moment that you are a painter; you paint a picture worth ten thousand francs, which can be sold for ten thousand francs under today’s economic conditions. With those ten thousand francs, under today’s conditions, you can have so many people work for you. Because you possess the valuable object that is this painting, you can have so many people work for you. Just imagine if you didn’t sell the painting and had to do everything yourself that you otherwise have others do for you—just think of all the work you’d have to do if you sold the painting for ten thousand francs! You’d have to make your own shoes, and not just your clothes—you’d even have to weave the fabric for the clothes yourself, and so on; you’d first have to procure the raw materials and all that—the economic process is, after all, immensely complicated. But, according to some economic theorist, this has nothing to do with labor being crystallized in the commodity, but rather with the fact that it is precisely by having a marketable commodity that one saves labor. Thus, the economic value of a good rests precisely on how much labor it saves; not how much labor has been expended on this good, but how much labor is saved.

[ 22 ] So today there are two schools of thought, one of which claims that the economic value of a good consists in how much labor has been put into it. Well, in the case of a painting, one really cannot compare the labor that has been woven into it with the labor that was saved by selling the painting at the value it holds in economic circulation. Under certain circumstances, a talented painter can produce such a painting—let’s say—in a month, ready for sale. Then his labor power is what has crystallized into that work over the course of a month. But that matters far less than the labor he saves as a result. It is precisely by saving labor that he becomes a capitalist; it is precisely this—that he can employ so many people through the labor he saves by means of his commodity—that gives rise to the capitalist economic order.

[ 23 ] There are two opposing definitions here. One definition: The economic value of a good or commodity consists of how much labor was expended to produce it. The other definition: The economic value of a commodity consists of how much labor is saved by possessing that good or commodity. These are two completely opposing definitions, but they are opposed in terms of their real-world significance. For it would be quite different if a good were actually valued according to the labor required to produce it or according to the labor saved. In the economic process of circulation, however, neither of these things takes place. To illustrate this further, you need only imagine the following: Imagine this painting I’m talking about—which, according to the notions held in a particular era, let’s say the present, is purchased from the painter for ten thousand francs—imagine that this painting is still with the painter. There, it is worth ten thousand francs. But let’s assume it has now been purchased and is currently in Mr. Mendelssohn’s living room; he is not a painter; it hangs there, and only a few people see it. Now define the economic value of this painting, which consists of the sum of the labor expended. You see, you cannot apply this to either Lenbach or Mr. Mendelssohn, for neither of them is the economic value derived from that. So for Lenbach or any contemporary painter, the value does, of course, lie directly in the labor he saves; but for Mr. Mendelssohn, it certainly does not, because he saves nothing. So if you want to look at the matter from an economic perspective, you can—if you are one-sided—apply this concept to the painter who produces the painting; there you can give this definition. If, however, you wish to define value with reference to the person who has purchased the painting and hung it in their room, then this economic definition of value no longer exists in reality. This is what is so immensely important: people today are inclined to define things too readily when they have gleaned something from the circumstances they observe. They jump right to a definition. Then it’s no wonder that one person holds this view and another holds that one. Of course, the person who derives the economic definition of a painting from Lenbach’s studio arrives at a completely different view than the one who derives the economic definition of a painting from Mr. Mendelssohn’s salon. Then people are bound to argue.

[ 24 ] And so all the conflicts that arise in social spheres today stem from the fact that people do not go back to the original impulses. This, however, requires a sense of reality that can only be cultivated through the study of spiritual science. You can find hundreds of definitions in the field of economics today, and you will only be left with a sense of dismay at how out of touch with reality these definitions are—at how terribly out of touch with reality they are—which you can always demonstrate, because they always seem to fit a certain context. You could say: Economic value consists of the labor that is saved—if you are speaking specifically from the perspective of the intellectual worker. You could also say: Economic value consists of the labor expended—if you wish to speak from the standpoint of the proletarian manual laborer.

[ 25 ] I have given you another example from economics. As I told you, in the field of economics there are the so-called nominalists and metallists with regard to the theory of money. Yes, they argue fiercely. One group views money as a commodity, worth whatever it is worth as gold or silver; the other group views it merely as a symbol of existing value. The one group, the nominalists, and the other, the metallists, argue to the death, defining their positions and debating them. Yes, people know nothing of reality. The fact is that nominalism proves correct when one lives in a time of sharp decline in production; when there is hardship, nominalism proves correct. When there is abundance, metallism proves correct. Both are simply correct in light of reality—one at one time, the other at another. Concepts are never—as people form them one-sidedly—ever beneficial when applied to a totality. A totality always involves bringing together the whole, avoiding one-sided definitions, and having a sense of where, in reality, one can grasp that which provides insight.

[ 26 ] Now the question may arise: Where does economic value arise? It does not arise when labor is crystallized into the commodity, nor when labor is saved through the commodity; economic value does not arise in any of these instances. Economic value is a state of tension. Isn’t it true that if you have an electrical conductor here (a diagram is drawn) that can discharge here, and the electricity is collected here, then a state of tension arises between the two—between the discharger and the object to which the discharge is transferred. It strives to cross over with a certain force in order to discharge. If the voltage is not high enough, no discharge occurs. If the voltage is high enough, a discharge occurs.

[ 27 ] Similarly, economic value is also a kind of state of tension—a type of economic value that can be described as follows: On the one hand, there is the good, the commodity, with its qualities and also in relation to the place where it can be consumed; that is, on the one hand, there is the commodity at a specific place and at a specific time. On the other hand, there is human need, which is the same as artificial or natural interest. This state of tension constitutes true economic value—and nothing else. The concept of labor is not involved here at all. It must be associated in a different way with the process of commodity circulation within the social organism. What is inherent in the production of economic value is this peculiar tension—similar to the tension between an electrical conductor and a receiver—between the existence of a commodity with specific qualities at a specific place and time, and the human need that exists for that commodity. This alone determines economic value. The effort Mr. Lenbach must expend to complete the painting within a certain time using his talent, and the labor the painting saves him, determine only Mr. Lenbach’s private property value. But the same is true of all other labor and its relationship to the commodity. None of this determines economic value. But economic value at any given moment is determined by demand—the need—on the one hand, and the specifically defined commodity at a specific place and time on the other. This constitutes the concrete economic value of a commodity. You can apply this principle everywhere. But in doing so, you step right out of the purely economic organism, and here you step right into the social tripartite division. For on the one hand, you have the good, the commodity, which leads you not to the economy—which can never be created by mere circulation—but to land, to the other natural foundation. This natural foundation must be there. It cannot be foisted upon the state. It must be present on the one hand. On the other hand, you have need. But this leads you toward the spiritual; it introduces you to the spiritual world of the human being; for how different are the needs of uncultivated barbarians and cultivated human beings! Here, two other elements come into play within the purely economic organism. That is what is important; that is what matters: that two other elements come into play. So that we have the social organism just as we have the human organism, which on the one hand has the chest and the head, into which the spiritual world plays, and on the other hand has the digestive system, where the physical aspect plays a role. This makes the human being a threefold being. But the social organism, too, is threefold, in that on the one hand everything that arises from needs themselves—needs that must never be produced as such by the economic process—plays a role, and on the other hand, that which nature produces. This leads to the threefold structure. In the middle is that which connects the two.

[ 28 ] You need only consider the following, and you will already notice the immense fruitfulness—the social fruitfulness—of what has been said here. According to what I have just said here, a need must never be generated by an internal social process or an internal economic process; rather, the need must be developed from the outside by another force, be it an ethical process or some other cultural process. In unhealthy times, needs are developed purely in economic terms, and people with unhealthy ways of thinking are actually glad of this. During the period that led directly to our social catastrophe—the period in which the social carcinoma, the social cancer, gradually intensified— they could see everywhere how the need—which does not arise from the social structure itself, but which should enter the social structure from other cultural tasks of humanity, how it should be generated by the social process itself—was being shaped. For a while, one kept reading: “Cook good soups with Maggi!” — Well, the need for Maggi would certainly not have arisen without this advertising! This advertising stems purely from economics. It is not a need that has arisen in a genuine way. To create such needs, to generate such an artificial interest in a specific product, is just as harmful and bound to lead to the sickness of the social organism as if you, as a doctor, for example, were not to encourage a boy who is supposed to study to be diligent through moral means, but were to give him a little powder so that, through this powder, he might experience a jolt here or there and become more diligent through his stomach. Such social bungling—which has arisen from the fact that everything has been crammed into a so-called “monon,” a social homunculus—is precisely what has brought about our catastrophic present. For the social organism itself must not, on the one hand, generate needs, nor, on the other hand, produce goods intended solely to serve the social organism as such. The social organism must receive its goods from the natural foundation. On the other hand, it must receive its needs from the development of humanity itself.

[ 29 ] Therefore, the question of population must never become a social issue. And that is precisely a misunderstanding of the proper relationship between human beings and the national economy, which I alluded to yesterday. It means that in our time people do not know the difference between a pig and a human being, as I hinted at yesterday in closing; it means, in short, that they are turning the population problem into a social problem. Whether a significant increase in the human population is desirable or whether the population should be maintained at a certain level must never depend on economic considerations; rather, other—ethical and spiritual—considerations must also be taken into account. When discussing this question, it must be borne in mind in particular that if one artificially works toward a significant increase in the population through economic policy, one is then forcing souls—who might not have wished to incarnate until four or five decades from now—to come down now, and to do so in an all the worse condition. Thus, under certain circumstances, population growth amounts to a coercion that you exert upon souls, who must then enter physical incarnation in an all the worse condition. This can, under certain circumstances, lead to a moral decline. The question of population growth, stability, or even population decline must never be a purely economic issue, but must be a matter of ethics, morality—in short, of the spiritual and even the transcendent outlook on life and the world. All these matters can only be placed within a healthy context when they are understood through the lens of spiritual science. Therefore, you will come to understand the necessity of a spiritual-scientific foundation for all social thought. If you truly wish to grapple with all the abominable nonsense that is currently being said and written about the social question, then—by seeing the very barrenness inherent in all these things—you would be driven to finally apply the sharp thinking that is necessary for these matters.

[ 30 ] Just as the successors of Plato and Aristotle had to resolve to say: “Human beings, as slaves, must not be treated as commodities”—so too must the successors of today’s humanity learn to say: Under no circumstances may labor power be a commodity—but rather, human beings must be driven to serve and work for their fellow human beings by other impulses, not by the value of what they produce. The economic value of what is produced must never be determined by the labor expended or saved, but solely by the justified balance between the commodity and human needs. Thus, neither accumulated nor saved labor is the deciding factor; for one does not participate in the economic process through one’s labor, one does not work to save labor, but rather one merely produces goods so that they enter into a specific balance with the corresponding need. The corresponding need may dictate that a commodity requiring a great deal of labor must, under certain circumstances, be inexpensive; in a healthy economic process, the need may dictate that a commodity requiring little labor may even be more expensive; the labor expended cannot be the decisive factor. This follows from the current debate. Consequently, for those who see through these matters, a radical demand arises: to derive the impetus for human labor from a source entirely different from the economic value of the commodity, which is precisely determined by the tension mentioned above.

[ 31 ] Only those who see through these things can then decide on the two important social issues facing us today: compulsory labor—the compulsion to work, as the Bolsheviks want it—or the right to work, whatever one may call it. But those who do not delve into the depths we have pointed out today will always spout nothing but confused, foolish nonsense, regardless of whether they are speaking from any position or for any purpose about the right to work or the compulsion to work. Only by delving deeply does one have the right to speak on such issues. And today, it is a serious matter to earn the right to have a say in these matters. More on that next time.