The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday we attempted once again to gain insight into the contemporary social movement from a certain perspective. And what was the subject of our consideration yesterday was that, precisely in the present day, in order to understand any movement within humanity at all, one must carefully observe what is taking place, on the one hand, on the surface of the soul in ordinary consciousness—both in people who are actively involved in such a movement and in their contemporaries— and, on the other hand, what is taking place deep within the soul, in the subconscious regions. And in this context, we have focused on three impulses of the modern proletarian movement. First, we focused on the so-called materialist conception of history. Then we examined what the proletarian has learned from his leaders. What he understands by the class struggle movement, which is said to underlie all historical events; and then we have turned our attention to that which has had such a profound effect on the souls of the proletariat; we have turned our attention to the so-called theory of surplus value. And we have seen that these are the things that lie on the surface of the modern proletarian’s inner life. In the depths below, something entirely different is stirring and churning. While the modern proletarian deceives himself by telling himself that all historical development is merely a reflection of purely economic processes—which send all spiritual life to the surface like smoke—the proletarian, along with all of modern humanity, actually yearns for a certain spiritual understanding of the world. But he is still unaware that it is actually the subconscious depths of his soul that yearn for spiritual insight. It is precisely what is taking place in the subconscious regions of his inner life—and which is masked on the surface by something entirely different—that often rumbles within his wildest instincts. Likewise, when the modern proletarian utters the words “class struggle,” he does not realize that he is merely attempting to mask what, in turn, fills the depths of modern humanity’s soul like a profound longing: the impulse toward freedom of thought. On its journey from the subconscious to the conscious, the striving for freedom of thought is transformed into its opposite. The very, very extreme form of life under authority—the experience of mere class consciousness—actually has at its foundation the striving for freedom of thought. And the true socialism toward which our age strives in its depths is actually expressed in what is, at its core, a kind of opposite of socialism: the selfish pursuit of reaping all surplus value.

[ 2 ] I would say that anyone who does not understand this secret of the current proletarian movement cannot truly grasp the social forces at work today. Having reflected on this yesterday, let us now consider a few related truths.

[ 3 ] Anyone who wishes to look more deeply in this way into what is actually happening will develop a very special relationship to movements in world history, including those taking place in the present. The most radical expression of the current social movement is, as you know, Bolshevism, which is more of a social method than anything substantively different from what radical socialism—as it calls itself—has incorporated into its aims. Anyone who views history not theoretically but in accordance with reality seeks above all to understand how certain currents in the unfolding of human history reveal themselves, particularly in their most radical manifestations; for it is often through these radical manifestations that one can best gain an understanding of what otherwise remains hidden in places where radicalism is less prevalent, even though it is no less effective. If one wishes to understand this historical conclusion—which history itself has drawn from today’s terrifying realities—if one wishes to understand this historical conclusion of Bolshevism, one must look around a bit at recent intellectual life as well.

[ 4 ] You see, if you ask today, “Who, exactly, are the Bolsheviks?”—you’ll get a variety of names in response. After all, the names that come up everywhere are Lenin and Trotsky. But I want to name a third Bolshevik for you—one whose name might surprise you a little, but who, I can’t put it any other way, is, from a certain point of view, a genuine Bolshevik; that is Johann Gottlieb Fichte. I have spoken to you often about Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and have already tried here to present the story of his life in somewhat greater depth. We have also reflected on some of Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s main ideas. It cannot be denied that Johann Gottlieb Fichte was one of the most vigorous thinkers of modern times. Nor can it be denied that he was an idealist in the truest sense of the word. But Johann Gottlieb Fichte also articulated his socialist views in a short, concise treatise, his *Closed Commercial State*. In terms of content—if one considers how what Fichte presents there as a kind of ideal picture of social conditions would actually take shape in reality—one can only say: if this social ideal, which Fichte presents in his concise little booklet *The Closed Commercial State*, were to be realized, it would turn out to be Bolshevism. One might even say that at times, what Trotsky writes—almost sentence for sentence, word for word, as far as that is possible with such disparate subjects—is reminiscent of what is written in Fichte’s *The Closed Commercial State*.

[ 5 ] Now, Johann Gottlieb Fichte is, of course, a Bolshevik who has long since passed away. But I would like to say: that is precisely what prompts us to examine the matter a little more closely. In Fichte, we must see above all a solitary thinker who arrived at lofty philosophical ideas, and who, in the course of his thinking, also pondered how a just social order might emerge from the various injustices of his social system—injustices that were, to him, glaringly obvious. And so, from the depths of his soul, he weaves a vision of social order that approaches the structuring of humanity in roughly the same way as today’s Russian Bolshevism is unfolding it—albeit by force—and as its successors will continue to unfold it. There is even something else at play here. I can imagine that many people, who are affected by the various injustices that are, of course, still perceptible to them within the social order even today, feel captivated by the rather simple ideas in Fichte’s *Closed Commercial State*. I need not explain this to you, for you need only imagine what Bolshevism does, expressed in the refined language of a philosopher, and you will have the description of the “Closed Commercial State” as presented by Johann Gottlieb Fichte.

[ 6 ] But it is precisely this fact that can, from a certain point of view, confirm to you the validity of the threefold structure of a healthy social organism, about which I have spoken to you on several occasions. What, then, is this threefold structure actually based on? I have hinted in public lectures at how this social way of thinking differs from others. I have said: When one looks today at what has already been realized to some extent in this or that state structure, and when one looks at what even those with socialist thoughts and convictions are striving to achieve, one gets the feeling that what people perceive on the one hand as medieval superstition has, on the other hand, taken deep root in their souls. It is as if human souls had a certain craving for superstition, and if superstition is driven out of them on one side, it turns toward the other. That is why, both in regard to certain existing aspects of social life and to what socialist-minded people currently desire, one is reminded of the scene in the second part of Goethe’s *Faust* where Wagner creates the homunculus. The homunculus is to be mechanically assembled from ingredients according to sober principles of reason. The alchemists, who are regarded as superstitious people, imagined that this could be done without further ado, and in doing so they contrasted the artificial creation of a little human being—the homunculus—with the conditions necessary for a real human organism to arise. One cannot assemble a real human organism from its ingredients; one must create the conditions so that it can, as it were, arise on its own. People believe they have overcome alchemical superstition in the realm of the natural sciences. Superstition in the social sphere, however, is thriving. They attempt to create an artificial social order out of all manner of ingredients of human will.

[ 7 ] This way of thinking is diametrically opposed to the one advocated here, which is based on materials from the humanities. The way of thinking advocated here strives to cast aside all social superstitions and to set out to answer the question in practical terms: What conditions must be established so that it is not one person or another who, by virtue of their particular cleverness, can realize some socialist ideal, but rather so that people in social life, through mutual cooperation, bring about the necessary social structure.

[ 8 ] There, however, one finds that this social organism, just like the natural organism, must indeed consist of three relatively independent parts. Just as the human head—which is primarily the seat of the sense organs—stands in a special relationship to the external world through the sense organs, just as it is centralized in itself, just as, in turn, the rhythmic system, the pulmonary and respiratory system, and the metabolic system are each centralized in themselves, and these three interact with relative independence, so it is a fundamental necessity that the social organism be threefold and that these three components possess relative autonomy. The spiritual organism, which stands independently; the political state in the narrower sense, which stands independently; and economic life, which stands independently—must all function side by side, each of these entities with its own legislation and administration, which must arise from their own circumstances and strengths. This may seem abstract, but it is precisely what structures the mass of humanity in such a way that the interaction of these parts must result in what makes the social organism healthy. Thus, the point is not to figure out how the social organism should be structured. For in the social realm, our thinking does not extend far enough for us to be able to specify a structure for the social organism off the cuff. Just as an individual human being cannot, on their own, realize a structure for the social organism, so too could an individual human being, if they were to grow up on a deserted island without any connection to society, never learn language on their own; in the same way, an individual human being can never weave something social out of themselves alone. Everything social arises through interaction, but through the orderly, truly harmonious interaction of human beings, built upon this threefold structure. Only when one truly grasps this direction—which leads toward genuine practical organization and genuine practical life—only then does one understand how a man like Johann Gottlieb Fichte came to conceive of a social system that, in its actual realization, is in fact Bolshevism.

[ 9 ] What kind of figure was Johann Gottlieb Fichte? Fichte is one of the most distinctive thinkers of modern times. He is, in a sense, the man who—as we know, thought has evolved and has not always remained the same—[see my *Riddles of Philosophy* for more on this]—who developed thought in the most vigorous way and in its purest form. It is precisely in a figure like Fichte that one can see what thinking becomes when a person seeks to draw this thinking entirely from within themselves, from the “I.” And if one then applies this pure thinking, just as it is, to the social structure, the result is the picture Fichte presented in *The Closed Commercial State*. Only those who realize that thinking such as Fichte’s is not at all suited to discovering the social structure can come to terms with this matter. Thinking that arises solely from the impulse of the “I” is incapable of discovering the social structure, just as the individual human being cannot invent language; rather, the social structure can only be discovered when people are first brought into such a relationship that they find this social structure through their mutual interaction and within their interconnectedness. One must, so to speak, draw the line at certain things that relate to social structure, and must follow the path only so far as to show: “Look, this is how people must relate to one another if the social organism is to realize itself through their interaction.” That is thinking grounded in reality; that is thinking grounded in experience. Fichte’s thinking is thinking born of the pure “I.” And thinking born of the pure “I”—albeit in a somewhat different form—is, after all, also Bolshevik thinking. It is, in essence, antisocial precisely because it is born solely from the revelations of the “I.” For it is precisely this form that did not arise in human communal life. The communal life of the proletariat has adopted this form out of deference to authority. The individual leaders are the decisive factor. That is what matters.

[ 10 ] Now, in contrast to this, one must ask: In what way does this communal life—particularly in the social sphere—actually offer more than the inner life of the individual? Well, you see, one really has to make it quite clear to oneself what something like the purest form of thought, as found in Fichte, actually leads to. Anyone who approaches Fichte’s books without philosophical preparation—but rather as an ordinary person accustomed to reading newspapers, more accessible books, and perhaps even following university scholarship as it exists today—will not be able to keep up; they will find it all so overwhelming that they feel as if they’ve been impaled by the ideas—so forceful are they, yet he develops them in such an abstract manner. For most people, what Fichte presents here is nothing more than a pure web of ideas.

[ 11 ] Where does this come from? It comes precisely from the fact that this thinking is pure thinking—a kind of thinking that, setting aside all worldly experience, weaves out of the soul only what can be woven out of the soul. When you study Fichte’s *Science of Knowledge*, you proceed from proposition to proposition at such an abstract level that you often have no idea why you should actually entertain these thoughts, since they tell you absolutely nothing. You can read through many pages of Fichte’s *Science of Knowledge*, and you learn: The “I” posits itself. — This is first elaborated upon over many pages. Next: “The ‘I’ posits the ‘not-I’”—again elaborated over many pages. Third: “The ‘I’ posits itself as limited by the ‘not-I,’ and the ‘not-I’ as limited by the ‘I.’”—Now you have almost worked your way through the *Science of Knowledge*, in which these propositions are expounded only through a highly expansive deduction. You will say: that doesn’t interest me at all, because after all, these are completely hollow abstractions. But nevertheless, if you again consider Fichte’s “Life and Striving” as I once presented it to you here some time ago, then you will gain respect for Fichte; then you will gain respect for this striving toward pure thought.

[ 12 ] Where does this strange contradiction come from? You see, this strange contradiction stems from the fact that, at a certain point in human development, it became necessary to arrive at this pure form of thinking, filled solely with thoughts. Human thinking, after all—especially in earlier times—has always been filled only with images, as I explained to you again yesterday. Thinkers such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel were the first to conceive of what are purely abstract, image-less thoughts. The Greeks could never have thought this way, nor could the Romans, nor could people throughout the Middle Ages, for Scholasticism is something entirely different, despite all its abstractness.

[ 13 ] Why, then, has such abstract thinking emerged in recent historical development? Well, it has emerged because people once had to make an effort. And it takes a strong inner effort, for example, to rise to such a level of abstraction in the Fichtean sense—to vigorously attain such abstractions—which the philistine, sensually grounded person dismisses as utterly worthless, claiming that all experience has been squeezed out of them. That is indeed the case. But one simply had to arrive at such abstractions at some point. The first step was toward such abstractions. But as soon as one develops the inner driving force of the soul life a little further, beyond these abstractions, one enters into spiritual life. There is no healthy path to modern mysticism other than through energetic thinking. Therefore, energetic thinking had to be attained first. The next step is to move beyond this energetic thinking toward the actual experience of the spiritual. Of course, all of this unfolds slowly in the course of historical development, but humanity’s path is indeed heading in that direction. And this longing—which actually dominates all people today—to move from abstraction to spiritual life, this longing also mysteriously underlies the force anchored in the modern proletarian movement.

[ 14 ] The proletarian says that no spiritual forces are at work in history; only economic forces are at work in history. He perceives these with the crudest of senses and regards them as the sole agents of historical development. Spiritual life is merely a superstructure, an ideology, a reflection of external economic processes. — Well, that is how he imagines it, because modern man, when he looks within himself, has lost the old atavistic visions; he sees within himself mere abstractions, mere abstract thoughts, in which he cannot find any reality; for to do so, he would have to take the next step, which I have just described. Consequently, everyone seeks the reality for which they actually yearn from within in the external world. And because the proletarian, since the advent of capitalism, has been bound up in mere economic life, he seeks this reality in economic life.

[ 15 ] What will be the next step—the natural, obvious step? It will be the realization that, ultimately, there is nothing truly driving the economic order. In contrast to this historical materialism, the driving force in history will arise from within—the impulse to advance toward the spiritual. What emerges in historical materialism is merely a caricature of the longing that lies in the depths of the human soul.

[ 16 ] And in the same way, class consciousness embodies the power of individual human identity, which seeks meaning within itself and expresses itself—because it still feels empty, having not yet found that meaning—by drawing strength from the entire class and feeling empowered when it exists as part of the human collective.

[ 17 ] And so all the impulses that are at work today on the surface of the social movement secretly spring from the source I have just described to you. And that is why, in the era when Fichte was active—an era not yet ripe for spiritual scientific endeavor—nothing else could come to the fore but a mode of thinking that is actually waiting for the spiritual world to meet it halfway and that is of no use whatsoever to external reality. And this way of thinking, which is actually meant to be applied to the spiritual world, when applied—radically, consistently, and violently—to external sensory reality, does not build up that sensory reality but destroys it. I have spoken to you often about the functions of evil. I have told you what forces are actually at work in what we here call evil in human beings. I told you: if we ascend just one plane higher—from our sensory plane into the next spiritual plane—then, through our perception of this spiritual plane, we will realize what is actually at work in evil. For if the forces that dwell in thieves, robbers, and murderers were not acted out here in the sensory world, but if human beings were to act out on the higher plane—in a transformed, metamorphosed form—what they unlawfully act out in the sensory world, then it would be fully justified there. That is where it belongs. Evil is good that has been displaced. It is only because the Ahrimanic forces force into our world that which belongs to an entirely different world that the nature of evil arises. And thus a destructive way of thinking arises—not a way of thinking that can wait for fulfillment from the spiritual world—when the social ideal is spun out of one’s own inner being.

[ 18 ] You see, this gives one insight into the difference between all the numerous abstractions that prevail today and what is being sought here: a genuine, practical understanding of the social organism. For in what is inspired in human coexistence, in what people develop through living together—if only the right kind of coexistence is established—it is not abstract thoughts that come to life there. Abstract thoughts come to life when a person is truly and honestly alone. Abstract thoughts do not come to life when people are together. It is hidden, mysterious imaginings that come to life then. And these mysterious imaginings give the social organism its proper structure only when they are realized. Therefore, the progress made in modern spiritual science is essentially linked to the only salutary impulses for a socialist world order. And the shortcomings, the damage, and the unhealthy nature of the present social organism lie in the fact that, precisely in the Fichtean manner, it seeks to weave out of mere inner demands that which can only be grasped through experience.

[ 19 ] If one considers how, in recent times, there has been a drive to transform the state more and more into a unitary state—to centralize it entirely within itself—then it becomes clear that this could not have led to anything other than upheavals and disruptions within the social organism. And the reasons for these upheavals and disruptions lie far deeper than those who view this modern proletarian movement merely as a movement for wages or bread might suppose. For what matters—even if a movement for wages or bread were necessary today or were in fact taking place—is not that people strive for a change in bread conditions, in the conditions of bread supply, but rather, especially today in the social movement, how they strive for it. And it is this “how” that you arrive at through such reflections as I am once again engaging in with you today.

[ 20 ] Let us now consider what we concluded yesterday: the question of surplus value. Anyone who has witnessed the proletarian movement knows how deeply it took root when it was instilled into the souls of the proletariat by certain leaders. On what, then, is the so-called theory of surplus value based? It is based, in fact, on what I also stated the day before yesterday in my public lecture in Basel: that a real untruth actually prevails today in the relationship between employer and employee, and neither the employer nor the employee, on the surface of their inner lives, is aware that this untruth exists. The reality of the situation is masked. But even if it is not known, it nevertheless acts in the soul as a fact; it acts as a feeling; it rises up from the depths of the subconscious.

[ 21 ] Let us once again keep the main point in mind. Today, the employee stands in a very specific relationship to the employer—one that the employee perceives as degrading, even if he sometimes presents a completely different view in his conscious description. Deep down, they feel it is degrading because it means they must sell their labor to the employer as if it were just another commodity. And in the secret depths of their soul, they feel that nothing about a human being should actually be sold. And when a person sells their labor, their whole being is actually sold along with it. Well, we have already reflected on this.

[ 22 ] Now, one could actually pose the question this way—and it is usually framed precisely this way by socialist thought: How does one go about properly compensating labor? Social ideals generally boil down to providing full compensation for human labor, for manual labor. But the reality is quite different. For anyone who understands the national economy, it is clear that human labor cannot be exchanged for anything else at all, because human labor cannot be exchanged in any way for any commodity or a representative of commodities such as money. This is not a real process, but merely a fantastical one—albeit one that has been realized. The fact that a craftsman works and then receives money in exchange for expending his labor power is not a real process; rather, the reality is masked—it is a real untruth. What is actually happening is something entirely different. This concept was introduced into the social organism as if the worker were bringing his labor power to market and the entrepreneur were purchasing that labor power from him in exchange for a wage. But that is not how it is at all. In the economic sphere, one can do nothing at all other than exchange commodities for commodities—though “commodity” must be taken here in the broadest possible sense. All economic life consists, in reality, solely of the exchange of commodities. What, then, is a commodity in reality? — A piece of land, as such, is not yet a commodity. Coal lying underground is not yet a commodity in and of itself. A commodity is only that which has come into contact with human activity—either altered in its intrinsic nature by human activity or moved from one place to another by human activity. If you take these two characteristics into account, you will find everything that can in any way be subsumed under the concept of a commodity. There has been much debate about the nature of a commodity. But anyone who understands the economic context knows that, in reality, only this definition of a commodity has any value.

[ 23 ] Now, in the modern social organism, numerous intertwining and fusions of the circulation of commodities with other processes have emerged, and this has driven this modern social organism to its revolutionary convulsions. People today believe—and this is also a fantasy that has become reality—not only that they are exchanging commodities for commodities, but also that they are exchanging commodities for human labor power, as in wage relations; and furthermore, they believe they are exchanging commodities or their representatives—money—for that which, as long as it remains unaltered by human hands, cannot be a commodity: land, for example. For land, as such, is not an object of the economic process. Objects of the economic process are produced on land through human activity, but land itself is not an object of the economic process. What matters for land in the economic process—and in the social organism in general—is that one person or another has the right to exclusively use and cultivate that land. It is this right to the land that truly has real significance for the social organism. Land itself is not a commodity; rather, commodities are produced on it. And what comes into play here is the right that the owner has to the land. So when you acquire a piece of land by purchase—that is, through exchange—you are in reality acquiring a right; that is, you are exchanging a thing for a right, just as is ultimately the case with the purchase of patents.

[ 24 ] Here one delves deeply into that entanglement that has caused so much misfortune—the entanglement of the purely political constitutional state with economic life—for which there is no other remedy than separation. Economic life must be allowed to function on its own terms in the pure production, circulation, and consumption of goods—in an associative life in which production, consumption, and the individual professional interests that bring people together are placed in a corresponding relationship. But within these associations and associative groups, economic activity takes place only in the same way that, in the human digestive system, only digestion occurs; and then this digestion is, on the other hand, taken up by the independent lung-heart system, which relates to the outside world on its own; what lives within the digestive process is further received by what constitutes the independent respiratory-cardiac process. Thus, what is enshrined as law in economic life must be established as independent, deriving from a distinct source. This means that everything relating to political conditions—which find expression in legal life and elsewhere—must possess a relative independence alongside economic life.

[ 25 ] You see, once you see through this, you also realize the falsehood inherent in the relationship between employer and employee—a falsehood that presents itself as if labor were actually being compensated. In fact, labor is not compensated directly at all, but only indirectly. What we have here is a certain apparent right—one that has become a form of coercion, of economic coercion—through which the employer compels the worker to the machine or into the factory—not entirely openly, but in fact covertly. What is actually exchanged is not labor power and a commodity or a commodity representative—that is, money—but rather the products: the commodity produced by the worker, that which he produces. Thus, in exchange for a small portion of these commodities that the entrepreneur gives him, there is truly an exchange of commodity for commodity. And this is where the falsehood first presents itself, as if commodities were being exchanged for labor power. And the modern proletarian perceives the secret behind this as degrading, telling himself: You produce this much in commodities, and of that, the entrepreneur gives you only this much.

[ 26 ] The lawful relationship between the employee and the employer cannot, in fact, be established within the sphere of economic life, but only within the sphere of the political state as a legal relationship. That is what matters. If a person stands, on the one hand, on the ground of economic life and, on the other hand, on the ground of independent legal life, then this economic life is determined from two sides. On the one hand, economic life depends on natural factors that are independent of human activity. I explained to you in my public lectures in Basel, for example, how—depending on the yield of a particular area of land with regard to wheat—a different amount of human labor must be applied than in areas with a different yield or productive capacity. These are the natural foundations. On the one hand, they border on economic life. On the other hand, with regard to labor, for example, legal norms must define the relationship between employer and employee.

[ 27 ] Now, people who only see things on the surface will say: Yes, but that’s already the case today, because an employment contract is signed. — Yes, my dear friends, but what good is that if the employment contract is signed for something that is actually a disguised relationship based on lies? The employment contract is, in fact, concluded precisely regarding the relationship between employer and employee with respect to labor and its compensation. The proper relationship will only be established when the contract is not concluded regarding remuneration, but when it is clearly concluded regarding the way in which the employer and the employee share the work that is performed. Then the worker—and this matters far more than anything people believe today—will realize that it is impossible to do without the production of surplus value. But he must be able to see how surplus value is created. He must not be drawn into a relationship based on lies. Then he will realize that without the production of surplus value there can be no spiritual culture at all, nor can there be a constitutional state, for all of this flows from surplus value. But if the social organism is healthy, all of this arises from the threefold social organism.

[ 28 ] Of course, one could talk about this view not for hours, but for weeks on end, and we have, in fact, almost done so already; but we naturally keep coming across new details that are meant to make the matter clearer to us, for one can foresee every single concrete question that will arise and whose answer will be sought in practical life through the threefold order.

[ 29 ] You see, above all else, we must consider the following: In economic life, goods are exchanged; linked to economic life is the life of the political state in the narrower sense. The latter limits working hours in human coexistence and in legal life. Thus, while economic life depends on natural foundations on the one hand, on the other hand it depends on what is established by legal life—for example, working hours, the relationship of work to the individual, to his or her strengths, weaknesses, and age. There cannot be a maximum workday or anything of the sort; in reality, there can only be an upper and lower limit. All of these are conditions that flow into economic life from its other boundary just as the natural foundations flow in from the opposite side.

[ 30 ] Once the social organism is restored to health in this way, then, for example, the utterly outrageous situation that exists in many cases today—where wages are determined by economic conditions alone, so that when the economy is particularly strong, wages rise, and when it is weak, they can be reduced—will disappear. This will be transformed into the opposite. A strong economy will be able to emerge under the influence of wages, and vice versa.

[ 31 ] This can be particularly evident in the case of ground rent, which today is often dependent on the price of the goods produced on the land—that is, on the market price of those goods. The healthy relationship is precisely the opposite: when the right, as expressed in ground rent, in turn influences the market price. In many cases, this threefold structure gives rise to precisely the opposite conditions that exist today and that have caused our revolutionary upheavals. For life as a whole will unfold in a different way.

[ 32 ] What, above all, must be taken into account in the relationship between economic life and the political state in the narrow sense? Among the factors to consider, you will easily realize for yourselves that one thing comes into play that is sometimes perceived as unpleasant: paying taxes. When it comes to paying taxes, the key is to truly understand how taxes must be derived from surplus value—by always keeping in mind, within democratic political life, the conditions of existence of the political organism just as one keeps economic life in mind when buying and selling, and by clearly perceiving the reality of this economic relationship based on human needs. But this, in turn, will have certain consequences that are today virtually the opposite of what a healthy social organism would entail. I am not saying that tax legislation should be handled differently; under today’s circumstances, many things cannot be done differently—or can only be done so if the errors are shifted to another party. But under the influence of the threefold healthy organism, a completely different perspective will emerge, above all, regarding specific aspects of social life. People will come to realize that it is meaningless for social life as such—for human life within the social organism—when a person takes in money. For by taking in money, a person separates themselves from the social organism, and this is of the utmost indifference to the social organism. For what a person earns has absolutely no bearing on the functions of the social organism; rather, a person only becomes a social being by spending. It is only through spending that a person begins to act in a social way. And this is precisely why—I am not thinking of indirect taxes, but of expenditure taxes, which are quite different—it is precisely through spending that the payment of taxes must take place. Of course, I cannot explain this to you in detail—although it can be worked out in detail—because it requires far too extensive a knowledge of economics to be discussed in a lecture. But some aspects of it can, I would say, be hinted at in a communicative way.

[ 33 ] In a healthy economic life, separated from the other parts of the social organism, it naturally follows that, for example, in one region—which is relevant to the social organism from a geographical standpoint—wheat must be produced at a higher cost due to natural conditions than in another. And it may turn out that the mere existence of economic associations does not create a balance. But one can then completely correct the situation through the legal system by simply—and this would follow naturally—requiring those who buy wheat more cheaply, that is, who spend less, to pay higher taxes than those who buy wheat at a higher price, and thus have to spend more.

[ 34 ] You can—if the rule of law properly regulates economic life, if rights are not merely realized interests of economic life, if the Reichstag is not composed of the Farmers’ Union but only of those who are to adjudicate matters of law on a person-to-person basis—then you can bring about complete regulation of economic life. I am referring to this in abstract and general terms; it would need to be elaborated in all its details. This is the case with the relationship between economic life and legal life.

[ 35 ] The relationship, however, between economic life and legal life on the one hand, and intellectual life on the other, is one that can be based only on mutual trust and understanding. Just as the payment of taxes must be compulsory—even in a healthy social organism—so, on the other hand, the contribution to spiritual life can only be voluntary, for spiritual life must be placed entirely in the hands of the spirit of humanity. It must be completely emancipated from everything else. Then, in turn, it will have a profound and intense effect on that other realm.

[ 36 ] These, in turn, are the kinds of sketches I can give you of the way in which the social organism, when it is healthy, must function. This threefold structure is not something invented; it is simply what can be observed when one looks at the deeper forces in human development—forces that have just now come into play and will manifest themselves over the next ten, twenty, or thirty years, regardless of what anyone might wish for. The only question is how. These forces have been observed and have been given the form of a vision. But this is precisely how one must live in relation to historical life—by becoming aware of what is striving to come to fruition in history. This does not interfere with freedom, for freedom relates to something entirely different. Freedom is no more impaired by this than it is by the fact that one cannot reach up to the moon, even though one might wish to do so, and the like. Freedom realizes itself in accordance with the necessities inherent in both the natural and the historical processes of becoming.