The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. Proletarian Demands and Their Future Practical Implementation

[ 1 ] Do not think that I wish to take the floor here today to speak, in reference to the social question, of that superficial understanding that so many people today would like to talk about and that they would particularly like to hear about. I would like to speak of a completely different kind of understanding—the kind that seems to me to be demanded by the loud, facts that are spreading across much of Europe today: an understanding with the historical forces at work in the present and extending into the future, forces that demand a very specific, clear, and energetic response to what has been called the social question for more than half a century. How, indeed, could one even wish to speak today of that other form of understanding mentioned at the outset? Has not far too much been lost for such understanding? Has not a certain segment of modern humanity taken far too long to seek such understanding? Today, a deep chasm is opening up between those who have been the ruling classes of humanity thus far and those who are pressing forward with new demands that have arisen out of the necessities of the times—that is, between the ruling classes of humanity and the proletariat with its just demands.

[ 2 ] Let’s take a look at modern life to begin by forming an opinion about how impossible it is to understand it easily today. Much has been said over the decades about this modern civilization—this civilization that is said to have brought about such great and mighty things for humanity. How often have we heard, time and again, the effusive praise for modern technology and modern transportation! Are we not all too familiar with the clichés about how it is now possible for people—yes, for which people!? —to traverse vast distances in a relatively short time, how it has become possible for thought to bridge almost any expanse of space, how it has become possible to expand so-called intellectual life? Well, I need not go into further detail about all the praise that has been heard time and again. But upon what has all that, to which such praise is sung, been built? Without what would it not have been possible? It would not have been possible without the labor of the majority of humanity—that part which was not allowed to participate in all that has been so praised, that part which had to provide for these comforts of life amid physical and emotional hardships, without being able in any way to share in all the achievements that modern civilization has produced.

[ 3 ] Let’s take a closer look at how, over the course of more than half a century, we have reached the point where we still have to say today that the abyss exists. And if there is so much talk today of “understanding,” it is precisely because people are afraid—because they are terrified—of the realities that loom so menacingly over some people. What, for example—to take a favorite subject of the ruling classes since then—has the moral worldview of these ruling classes been particularly fond of addressing? The moral worldview of these ruling classes has been particularly fond of addressing, in endless speeches, unctuous descriptions, and words that seemed to overflow with emotion—on how people must cultivate love for one another, how people must ensure that brotherhood spreads, and how people can conquer the spiritual world only by embracing such brotherhood. Such speeches, seemingly dripping with deep emotion, were indeed delivered in great numbers by the leading intellectual circles of the class that had hitherto ruled humanity. Let us for a moment put ourselves in the place of such speeches delivered in mirrored halls or similar settings, and consider how love for humanity, love for one’s neighbor, and religiosity were preached there—preached while the room was heated by stoves fueled by coal. To characterize the course of today’s events a little, I would like to draw attention to this—coal that was mined from those coal mines, about which an English inquiry at the beginning of the modern labor movement brought some very strange things to light. Down there in the depths of the earth, nine-, eleven-, and thirteen-year-old children worked; they spent the entire day down in the shafts—children who, except on Sundays, never saw the sunlight, for the simple reason that they descended into the mines while it was still dark and were brought back up only after it had grown dark again. Men stood down there, completely naked, alongside women who were pregnant and who also stood there half-naked and had to work.

[ 4 ] That was the first time a government inquiry sought to draw attention to what was actually happening among the people—to the kinds of experiences that thoughtlessness had never sought to shed light on, despite all the sermons on humanity, charity, and religiosity. Admittedly, that was at the beginning of the modern proletarian movement. But one cannot say that what has at least somewhat improved the situation for broader segments of the population stems from an understanding that would have been gained by the classes that have led humanity thus far. A large portion of these leading classes of humanity stands today just as clueless in the face of the true demands of the times—demands that arise from such facts—as they did fifty or more years ago.

[ 5 ] One need not go as far as a figure who was once a leader—or at least appeared to be a leader—of humanity: the former German emperor, who referred to people with socialist views as “animals that gnaw at the foundations of the German Empire and are worthy of extermination.” Those are his own words. As I said, one need not go quite that far, but the judgments still passed today in certain circles are not all that different from this particularly characteristic judgment just cited.

[ 6 ] If we now look back at what has taken place over the course of the last five to six decades, ever since what is today called the “social question” came into being, we see, on the one hand, precisely that thoughtless folly regarding everything that has emerged in the course of human development, and on the other hand, we see the outcry—the justified outcry of the vast proletarian masses—which has consistently been summed up in the words: “Things cannot go on like this.” But today, the facts speak a very different language than they have in recent decades. And how do the judgments passed by some people stand up in the face of these facts? The horrific catastrophe we have lived through in the last four to five years has taught us a valuable lesson in this regard.

[ 7 ] Allow me to make the following personal remark. What I had come to conclude over the course of decades regarding the political situation in Europe, I had to summarize in a lecture I gave in Vienna in the spring of 1914 before a small audience—a larger one would probably have laughed at me back then— I had to summarize what was stirring among the people of Europe at that time—among those people of whom one could say that they had a hand in shaping Europe’s political destiny. At that time, if one looked at the era with an unbiased eye, one had to say: With regard to the political and state conditions in Europe, we are suffering from a creeping ulcer, from a cancer that is bound to erupt in a terrible way in the very near future. The time when this cancer broke out came very soon. But what did the “practitioners” say? What did the “statesmen” say? Today, when speaking of statesmen, one is tempted to always put the word in quotation marks. What did the “statesmen” say? What the leading undersecretary of state for foreign affairs said in the German Reichstag at that time was as follows. He said: “Thanks to the efforts of the cabinets, we can say that European peace will be secured for the foreseeable future.”—This was said in May 1914 by a leading statesman. This peace was so “secured” that, since then, twelve to fifteen million people have been shot dead, and three times as many have been maimed. Just as those statesmen spoke back then about what was on the political horizon, so do many people today speak about what is now being made clear throughout the entire educated world by facts of the most significant and forceful kind. This is how people often speak about the social question. In many circles, there is no inkling of what must come and what will surely come—and in light of this, every reasonable person must inevitably form a judgment.

[ 8 ] What I have to say on this matter is truly not based on any theoretical perspective. For many years I was a teacher at the Workers’ Educational School in Berlin, founded by Wilhelm Liebknecht—the elder Liebknecht—and taught in a wide variety of subjects; from there, I was also active within the educational system of the modern proletariat, in trade unions, in cooperatives, and within the political party. It is precisely when one has lived among those who strove to carry forward the modern labor movement based on genuine ideas and genuine intellectual foundations—when one has lived among them and worked with them—that one might perhaps say one is able to form a judgment, not in the same way as someone who merely thinks about the proletariat. Such judgments have no value today. Today, the only judgments that have any value are those formed with the proletariat, formed from within the very heart of the proletariat itself.

[ 9 ] In the hours the workers carved out for themselves after a hard day’s work—hours in which, while other classes went to the theater or played skat —I don’t want to list all the wonderful things—in those hours when the proletarian tried to educate himself about his situation, one could learn how the modern proletarian question has become, and will continue to become, something entirely different from a mere question of wages or bread, as many still believe today, namely, a question of human dignity. A question of a dignified existence—that is what lies behind all proletarian demands, and has long been the case.

[ 10 ] Today’s proletarian demands, one might say, rest on three foundations. The first foundation is very often referred to by the proletarians themselves when, following in the footsteps of the great teacher of the proletariat, Karl Marx, they speak of the existence of so-called surplus value. “Surplus value”—it has always been a term that penetrated deeply into the soul of the modern proletarian; it was a term that had a stirring effect on the feelings of this modern proletarian. What term did the ruling classes of the past use to counter this “surplus value”? You may be surprised when I contrast the following two things.

[ 11 ] The ruling classes countered this surplus value with talk of the great, significant intellectual life that human civilization has brought about. The proletarian—what did he know of this intellectual life? What was the great, universal human question for him? He knew that the surplus value he produced was used to make this intellectual life possible—and to exclude him from it. For him, surplus value was the entirely abstract foundation of intellectual life. What kind of intellectual life was this? It was the intellectual life that emerged at the dawn of the modern bourgeois economic order. It is often said—and certainly not without reason—that the modern proletariat was created by modern technology, by modern industrialism, by modern capitalism, and we will speak of these things shortly as well. But alongside this modern technology and this capitalism, something else has emerged that can be called the modern scientific orientation. There was a time—and it has been quite a while now—when, in the face of what the modern bourgeoisie had brought forth as the modern scientific orientation, the proletariat placed its last great trust in the bourgeoisie. And this last great trust—a trust of world-historical significance—has been betrayed.

[ 12 ] How did it actually happen? Well, based on old worldviews—the validity of which we truly do not wish to examine today—what has emerged is what we now call an enlightened, scientific worldview. The proletarian, who was called away from medieval craftsmanship to the soul-destroying machine and harnessed to modern capitalism, could not assimilate what the old classes had absorbed into their spiritual life. He could only assimilate, so to speak, the most modern product, the most modern outgrowth of this spiritual life. But for him, this intellectual life became something quite, quite different than it was for the ruling classes. One need only consider this in light of all the depths of the proletarian soul. One must create a mental image of how people from the previously ruling classes—even if they were as enlightened as the naturalist Vogt or the popularizer of science Büchner, and could be considered enlightened in the sense of modern science in terms of their intellect and reason— but they were such enlightened people only because they lived, with their whole being, within a social order that still stemmed from the old religious and other worldviews, in which the old ways still lived on. Their lives were different from what they professed, no matter how theoretically honest they might have been. The modern proletarian was compelled to take what remained to him as the legacy of the bourgeoisie with the utmost human seriousness. One need only have seen once what it meant to the modern proletarian when, as Lassalle once did, he was spoken to about science and the workers.

[ 13 ] If I may be permitted to make this personal remark, more than eighteen years ago I stood in Spandau, near Berlin, on the same podium as Rosa Luxemburg, whose life recently came to such a tragic end. We both spoke before a proletarian assembly about science and the workers. Rosa Luxemburg said words at that time whose stirring effect on the souls of these proletarian people—who had come on that Sunday afternoon, bringing their wives and children with them—was plain to see; it was a heartwarming gathering. She said that, under the influence of modern science, people can no longer imagine that they have emerged from angelic states—states that would justify modern distinctions of rank and class. No, she said, more or less verbatim: the human being—the physical human being of today—was once extremely uncivilized, climbing around in trees, and if one remembers these origins, then one truly finds no reason to speak of today’s class distinctions.

[ 14 ] This was understood, but not in the same way as by the ruling circles. It was understood to mean that the whole person was to be placed within this worldview, which was intended to answer the question for the proletarian languishing at the dreary machine: What am I as a human being? What is a human being in the world, anyway?

[ 15 ] But the modern proletarian could gain nothing from all this science other than what he might call a reflection of what had emerged as the modern capitalist economic order. He felt that people speak the way they must, according to their economic circumstances and their economic situation. They had placed him in this economic situation; he could only judge from that perspective. The ruling circles said: The way people live now is either a result of the divine world order, or a result of the moral world order, or a result of historical ideas, and so on. The modern proletarian could only perceive all this by saying to himself: “But you have placed me in this economic life—and what have you made of me? Does what you have made of me reflect this divine world order, this moral world order, these historical ideas?”

[ 16 ] And so the concept of surplus value—that surplus value which he produced, which was taken from him, and which made the lifestyle of the ruling classes possible—took hold in his consciousness, and he came to believe that everything produced by the ruling circles in the realm of intellectual life was merely a reflection of their economic order.

[ 17 ] After all, over the past few centuries, the proletarian theorist was undoubtedly correct in this view. Recent years have, in fact, amply demonstrated this in a wide variety of fields. Or can one believe that the people who, at various schools—I won’t say mathematics and physics, since there isn’t much room for worldviews there—taught history, for example, or wrote about history, can be said to have ultimately expressed anything other than a reflection of the prevailing political and economic order? Just look at the history of those states that entered the World War. Certainly, the history of the Hohenzollerns will look different in the future than the way German professors have written it in recent years and decades. This history, however, will be written by people who have been told—and this was indeed a statement by the German Emperor—that they are not only enemies of the ruling class but enemies of the divine world order.

[ 18 ] Thus, what had been the intellectual life of the ruling classes became, for the proletarian, a barren ideology, a luxury of humanity, something he could not comprehend. Nevertheless, his deepest longing was to find precisely something that would tell him what human dignity and human worth are. Therefore, the first proletarian demand is a spiritual one. And no matter what people may say here or there, the first proletarian demand is a spiritual one—the demand for a spiritual life in which one can feel what it means to be human, in which every human being can feel the value of human life on Earth. This is the first proletarian demand in the spiritual realm.

[ 19 ] The second proletarian demand arises from the realm of legal life, of the state in the strictly political sense. It is difficult to speak theoretically about what law actually is. In any case, the law is something that concerns all people, and one really need only say the following about it: Just as one cannot speak to a blind person about what the color blue is—yet one need not theorize much about the color blue with someone who can see—so, too, one cannot speak about the law with those who are blind to it. For the law rests upon an original human sense of justice. The proletarian sought his rights—above all, with regard to his sphere of labor—in the decrees of the political state that the ruling classes had so meticulously crafted over the past centuries. What did he find? He found himself, at first, not ensnared in the constitutional state, but ensnared in the economic state. And there he saw that, in the face of all ideas of humanity, in the face of all ideas of pure humanity, a remnant of old inhumanity—a terrible remnant of old inhumanity—remained for him. This, in turn, is something that struck such a powerful chord in the souls of the proletariat through Karl Marx. There were slaves in ancient times. The whole person was bought and sold like a commodity. Later, there were serfs. In those days, less of the person was bought and sold than in the old era of slavery. Even now, something of the person is still bought and sold like a commodity. What Karl Marx and his successors have repeatedly articulated—and in a way so understandable to the proletarian soul—is that human labor power is sold. On the modern commodity market—where only commodities are supposed to exist—labor power itself is treated as a commodity. This fact lies deep within the proletarian soul, even if often unconsciously, so that the soul says to itself: The time has come when my labor power must no longer be a commodity.

[ 20 ] This is the second proletarian demand. It stems from the legal foundation. When Karl Marx drew attention to this relationship, he once again spoke one of his most stirring words. But action must be taken in this very area in a manner even more radical than the approach Karl Marx himself took. It must be made clear: a world order, a social order, must emerge in which human labor power is no longer a commodity, in which it is completely stripped of its character as a commodity. For if I must sell my labor power, I might as well sell my entire self. How can I still retain my humanity if I must sell my labor power to anyone? That person becomes the master of my entire being. Thus, the last remnant of the old slavery—though certainly not in a lesser form—still exists today in this “humane” age.

[ 21 ] Thus, the proletarian, with his labor power and its sale, found himself pushed out of legal life and into economic life. And if it is said, “Well, there is the employment contract,” it must be countered that as long as a contract may be concluded at all regarding the employment relationship between employer and worker, the slave-like relationship with regard to labor power remains. Only when the relationship between supervisors and manual laborers with regard to work is transferred to the purely legal sphere—only then will what the modern proletarian soul must demand be realized.

[ 22 ] But this can only be the case if a contract is no longer concluded on the basis of wages, but solely on the basis of what is jointly produced by manual and intellectual workers. Contracts can only be made for commodities, not for human beings. Instead of knowing that his employment relationship was protected by law, what did the modern proletarian find on this legal ground? Did he find rights? When he looked at himself, he truly found no rights. Certain people had, after all, gradually become accustomed to viewing this modern state as a kind of deity, as an idol. Almost as Faust spoke to Gretchen about God in the first part, so did certain people speak of the modern state. One could quite well imagine a modern employer instructing his workers about the divinity of the modern state and saying of this state: “The Sustainer of All, the All-Encompassing One—does he not encompass and sustain you, me, and himself?” In doing so, he will probably always be thinking: especially me. - The consciousness of humanity expected rights to be grounded in the state. The modern proletarian found the privileges of those who had won these privileges through economic life, particularly in more recent times. Instead of what must be demanded with regard to all rights—the equality of all people—what did the modern proletarian find? If one looks at what he found there within the framework of the constitutional state, one arrives at his third demand; for on the very ground where he was supposed to find justice—namely, the justice of his labor and the opposing justice, the justice of the so-called owner—he found the class struggle. For the modern proletarian, the modern state is nothing more than a state of class struggle.

[ 23 ] We thus define the third proletarian demand as the one that aims to overcome the class state and replace it with the rule of law. Labor and management are matters of law. What, after all, is property? In the course of modern times, it will have to become something that belongs to the old, rusted-out ways; for what is it in reality? In the social organism, we need only use the concept that states: property is the right of any person to make use of any thing. Property is always based on a right. Only when rights are regulated on the basis of a truly democratic social order will so-called property rights be counterbalanced by workers’ rights. Only then, however, can the legitimate demands of the modern proletarian be fulfilled.

[ 24 ] When one looks at today’s facts, which speak so loudly, one is led to conclude that what has gradually emerged as a social organism under the influence of modern technology and modern capitalism must be examined more closely. - And one need only look at the three demands of the modern proletariat just characterized to see what is necessary for the recovery of the social organism. The spiritual, the legal, and the economic—these are the three aspects one must focus on. But how have these three aspects been treated in the modern historical order, which is precisely under the influence of technology and capitalism?

[ 25 ] Here we move from a critique of what has emerged through the ruling classes of the present to what now presents itself as a historical imperative. I can imagine that some may not fully agree with me on what I am about to say. But don’t the facts that have unfolded show that people’s ideas have in many ways lagged behind these facts? That is why it may, after all, be justified to listen when someone says: We need not only all sorts of talk about transforming conditions—no, today we need to move on to entirely new ideas. New ideas must enter people’s minds, for the old ideas have shown what they have done to the human social order. A change in thinking and a re-learning—not merely a change in approach—is necessary today. And if what I have to say differs in some respects from conventional thinking, I ask you to accept it as something drawn from the observation of real-life facts and meant just as sincerely as many other ideas that are honestly put forward for the recovery of modern social conditions.

[ 26 ] I see how, for example, in more recent times—precisely under the influence of the bourgeois social and economic order—economic life has become increasingly intertwined with legal life, and how the political state and the economic state have become one. Let us take a rather characteristic example from the present day. Let us take the example of Austria, which has just succumbed to its fate. When, in the 1860s, Austria finally decided to establish a so-called constitutional system, how was the Imperial Council—that old, blessed Imperial Council—named? Because they wanted a clear and concise name for this Austrian state (excluding Hungary) comprising the lands of the so-called Holy Crown of St. Stephen, they chose “the kingdoms and lands represented in the Imperial Council” —a short name for Austria!—were elected? Members of this Imperial Council were elected from four curiae: first, the large landowners; second, the chambers of commerce; third, the cities, market towns, and industrial centers; and fourth, the rural communities. The latter were allowed to vote only indirectly. But what were all these colleges? They were economic colleges. They were to represent purely economic interests, and they elected their representatives to the Austrian Imperial Council. What was to be done there? Rights were to be established—political rights. What was the mental image of political rights when the Austrian Imperial Council was structured around these four curiae? Well, the mental image was this: in the Imperial Council, where laws are to be enacted, economic interests are simply transformed into rights. And so it came to pass—and so it remains—that, in essence, state representative bodies encompass, mostly openly or covertly, mere economic interests. Consider the Farmers’ League in the German Reichstag; I will spare you the need to list more obvious examples. Everywhere we see how the trend of recent times has been to merge economic life with the political life of the state itself. This was called “progress.” It began with those sectors that were particularly favored by the ruling classes—the postal, telegraph, and railroad systems, and the like—and expanded this more and more. That is one thing that has been fused together. The other thing that has been fused, that has been welded together, was intellectual life and the political state.

[ 27 ] I know that I am, in a sense, treading on thin ice when I speak specifically about this fusion of intellectual life with the political state, when I speak today about how this fusion has led to the detriment, the harm, and the sickness of the social organism. Certainly, for the ruling classes, this was necessary in recent centuries, and especially in the 19th century. But one must not merely believe that the administration and operation of science and other branches of intellectual life have been corrupted or compromised by the state administration, but rather that the very content of science itself has been affected. Even here, one need not go as far as the famous physiologist Du Bois-Reymond, who once, in a fine speech—gentlemen always speak very, very eloquently when they discuss such matters—in a fine speech, referred to the members of the Berlin Academy of Sciences as “the scientific auxiliary force of the Hohenzollerns.”

[ 28 ] In our enlightened age, there has been much mockery of how, in the Middle Ages, the external sciences and worldview were the handmaiden, the servant, of theology. Certainly, no one would ever wish to return to those times. Anyone who surveys today’s affairs with an unbiased judgment knows that a later age will judge our own in a similar way. In many cases, scholars no longer bear the train of theology—well, I won’t go so far as to say that they polish the boots of the respective states, but in many respects, the bearers of the spirit have already become the train-bearers of those states. This is precisely what one must keep in mind time and again when discussing what has actually brought about the fact that, in recent times, on the one hand, economic life has become fused with political state life, and on the other hand, intellectual life has become fused with this very same political state life. Anyone who looks closely at these matters does not ask—as so many people do—what the League of Nations, which is now to be founded from one perspective or another, should do. I recently heard in Bern a gentleman who considers himself particularly clever say: “The League of Nations must establish a supranational state; it must create a supranational parliament.” Yes, you see, anyone who looks impartially at what the existing states have accomplished during these four dreadful years would truly not ask, with regard to the League of Nations: “How should the various measures and institutions of the existing states be transferred to this League of Nations? What should be done to make this League of Nations as similar as possible to a state?”—He will likely ask something else. He might ask: What, then, should this state refrain from doing?—For what it has done has truly not borne particularly good fruit in the last four years. Thus, when one truly examines the workings of modern social life with sound judgment, one gradually comes to say what the historical powers and forces truly demand in recent times.

[ 29 ] While the World War was raging, I shared with many people the very same message I am sharing here today. My words fell on deaf ears. To quite a few people I said: You still have time now; as long as the cannons are thundering, it is fitting that, amid the cannon fire, those states that wish to bring this war to a reasonable end should speak words that are demanded by the times—words that will inevitably come to pass in the next ten or twenty years. Today you have the choice: either to embrace reason and bring these things to pass through reason, or—if you do not wish to do so—to head straight toward cataclysms and revolutions. It went in one ear and out the other, like smoke and mirrors.

[ 30 ] What the times demand of us is that we truly summon the will to create independent social structures: a free, self-reliant intellectual life; a political state to which we entrust only the legal sphere; and an economic life that we place on its own foundation. - How appalling this must seem to some who, in the spirit of old ways of thinking, consider themselves practical people—that we are now supposed to embrace complexity: three social organisms existing side by side—a distinct spiritual organization, a distinct legal organization, and a distinct economic organization! But let us just make it clear to ourselves what effect this will have, for example, on economic life. On the one hand, economic life is limited by natural conditions—climate and soil quality. On the one hand, one can overcome nature by making all sorts of technical improvements, but a limit is set that cannot be exceeded. Natural conditions form one boundary of economic life. One need only recall extreme examples. Let’s think of a country where many people can sustain themselves on bananas. It takes a hundred times less labor to bring a banana from its place of origin to the consumer than it does to bring our wheat in our regions from sowing to the point where it is ready for consumption. Well, such extreme examples clarify the matter. But even if things do not stand in such extreme contrast within a closed social territory, the natural foundation is still there. It is one boundary of economic life. There must be another boundary as well. This is the one formed by the state, which stands independently alongside economic life. Within this state—which must be founded on a purely democratic basis, because it deals with matters that apply equally to all people and on which all people must agree, and because it must arise from the sense of justice rooted in every human soul—within this constitutional state, measures, time, and many other aspects relating to human labor will also be determined entirely independently of economic life. Just as the seed, with regard to the forces that act upon it beneath the earth, is not itself part of economic life—but rather, just as these natural forces determine economic life itself—so too must labor law be established as the foundation of economic life by the independent state. The price of a commodity must be determined, on the one hand, by its natural basis and, on the other hand, by labor law, which is independent of economic life. Commodity prices must depend on labor law, not—as is the case today—labor prices on commodity prices.

[ 31 ] This is what every genuine worker secretly expects, deep down in the innermost part of his soul: that the regulation of labor—and also the regulation of so-called property, which will thereby cease to be property at all—be separated from economic life, so that in the economic sphere there may no longer be a relationship of coercion between employer and employee, but merely a legal relationship. Then economic life will consist solely of what belongs exclusively to economic life: the production of goods, the exchange of goods, and the consumption of goods. And what socialist thought strives to achieve—that from now on, production will no longer be for the sake of profit but for the sake of consumption—can be realized. This can only happen if the rules governing labor and work performance are established just as independently as nature establishes the rules for the economic order—independently of that economic order itself. Then, in the realm of economic life, what is currently emerging as the cooperative system, the system of associations, will finally come into its own; this must find appropriate administration within the framework of economic life. There, production must be organized into associations and cooperatives in accordance with consumption needs. Above all, the entire regulation of currency must be taken away from the political state. Currency—money—can no longer be something subject to the political state, but rather something that belongs within the economic body. What, then, will be the representative of money? No longer will it be some other commodity—which is really just a luxury item and whose value is based on human imagination, namely gold—but rather, money will correspond to—I can only hint at this; you will find it elaborated in my book on the social question, which will be published in a few days—money will correspond to all available means of production. And these usable means of production will be able to be treated as they actually ought to be treated in the spirit of modern social thought; they will be able to be treated in the same way that, today, only what is regarded in our time as the most despicable form of property is treated.

[ 32 ] What is considered the most precious form of property in our time? Well, of course, the intellectual—intellectual property. We know today that this is something we derive from the social order. Yes, no matter how intelligent a person may be, no matter how much they can accomplish, no matter how beautiful the things they produce—certainly, this corresponds to their natural gifts, and to those of many others as well—but to the extent that they utilize it within the social organism, to that extent they have received it from the social organism. That is why it is just that this intellectual property should not remain with the heirs, but should, at least after a certain number of years, pass into the social organism, become common property, and be used by those who are suited to it by virtue of their individual abilities. This most noble form of property—intellectual property—is treated this way today. In the future, all so-called property will be treated in this way. However, it will have to be transferred to common ownership much sooner, so that those who possess the necessary abilities can, in turn, apply those abilities to this property in a manner that serves the benefit and purpose of the social organism. That is why, in the book that will be published in a few days, I have shown how it is necessary that the means of production remain under the control of an individual only as long as that individual’s abilities justify their control of those means of production, and that all profits derived from the means of production—if not reinvested into production itself—must be transferred to the community. Through the spiritual organism, it is possible to identify the person who, in accordance with their individual abilities, can pass this on to the social community.

[ 33 ] Once one has truly come to understand this social organism through lived experience, it is not so easy to meet this modern demand—that the means of production no longer be transferred into private ownership so that they remain in that private ownership. However, we must find the means by which this private ownership loses all meaning, so that the so-called private owner is then merely a temporary manager, because he has the skills to best manage the means of production for the good of the community.

[ 34 ] If, on the one hand, workers’ rights are regulated within the political state, and if, on the other hand, ownership becomes—in the true sense of the word—a cycle of ownership, then a free contractual relationship regarding collective production between workers and supervisors will finally become possible. There will be workers and supervisors, but no longer entrepreneurs and employees.

[ 35 ] I can only briefly outline all these things. Therefore, allow me to also point out that, alongside the independent economic sphere—which, in turn, has the independent political sphere of the state, the constitutional state, standing independently and sovereignly alongside the economic sphere, just as nature itself does—there will be the spiritual life. This spiritual life can develop in accordance with its own true, real forces only if, in the future, it is placed on its own foundation; if the lowest-ranking teacher, all the way up to the highest leader in any branch of instruction or education, is no longer dependent on any capital group or on the political state, but if the lowest-ranking teacher and all those involved in spiritual life know: what I do depends solely on the spiritual organization itself. Out of a sound instinct—even if not exactly out of a particular appreciation for religion—out of a sound instinct, modern social democracy has coined the phrase regarding religion: “Religion must be a private matter.” In the same sense—as strange as that may still sound to people today—all spiritual life must be a private matter and be based on the trust that those who wish to receive it place in those who are to provide it. Certainly, I know that many people today fear that we all—or rather, our descendants—will once again become illiterate if we are allowed to choose our own schools. We certainly will not become that. Indeed, it is perhaps precisely members of the ruling classes—or rather, the former ruling classes—who today have ample reason to think this way about education; they recall how much effort it took them to acquire the little education that secures their social position. But what the threefold social organism demands of people will certainly not lead to illiteracy—especially under the influence of the modern proletariat and within a free intellectual life.

[ 36 ] I am fully convinced that if we are able to establish in this way a fully democratic constitutional state that safeguards workers’ rights—in which every person has a say in matters that are common to all—then the modern proletariat, in particular, will not lend itself to preaching illiteracy, then it will, of its own accord, demand—as part of a free intellectual life—that people not be led to the ballot box in the manner that is sometimes reported from certain regions of a neighboring state, where monks and country pastors have emptied the asylums for the mentally ill and the mentally disabled in order to lead people who did not even know their own names to the ballot box.

[ 37 ] Anyone who wishes to believe in these things and place their hope in them must, of course, have faith in the true power of humanity and in true human dignity. Anyone who, like me, has been independent of any form of state order throughout their entire life—anyone who has never submitted to dependence on any state order—has also been able to preserve the impartiality necessary for what can be built as an intellectual life that stands on its own and is independent of the state. This spiritual life will not cultivate individual human abilities in the same way that the “luxury” spiritual life—the ideology of spiritual life as it has existed until now—has done. This spiritual life, built upon itself, will also not be a philistine or bourgeois spiritual life; it will be a spiritual life of humanity—a spiritual life that will extend from the highest, the very highest levels of spiritual creation down into the individual details of human work and its management; the leaders of the individual economic sectors will be disciples of the free spiritual life and, drawing from this free spiritual life, will not develop what has today become the spirit of entrepreneurship, the spirit of capitalism.

[ 38 ] Employment contracts do exist, but you can’t really enter into a true contract regarding work. What is called an employment contract today is a lie we live with, because in reality, work cannot be compared to any commodity. Therefore, one must say: If any contract is to be concluded in the future, it will be concluded regarding the jointly produced product, and only then will people truly realize: What, in fact, was this previous employment contract? On what was it based?—It was based not on any right, but on an abuse of personal, individual abilities. Essentially, it was an exploitation. But exploitation—where does it stem from? From the cunning that today’s spiritual life has often produced. The kind of spiritual life I envision—one that is self-reliant—will not produce this cunning; it will not produce this lie of life; it will produce truths of life. There will no longer be any guard troops ruling over thrones and altars; rather, the spirit itself will administer human beings’ individual abilities right down into the individual branches of humanity. Capitalism is only possible if spiritual life can be enslaved on the other side. If spiritual life is liberated, then capitalism in its present form will disappear. I wanted to reflect on how capitalism can disappear. In a few days, you will be able to read in my book on the social question that this capitalism will disappear when spiritual life is truly emancipated and the truths of life take the place of the lies of life.

[ 39 ] Essentially, what I have outlined for you today in a brief sketch has been resonating throughout humanity for a long time. At the end of the 18th century, the words “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” rang out in France like a mighty rallying cry. - Throughout the 19th century, very intelligent people repeatedly demonstrated that these three ideas are mutually contradictory within the social organism. Freedom, on the one hand, demands that the individual be able to act freely. Equality precludes this freedom. Fraternity, in turn, contradicts the other two.

[ 40 ] As long as people were under the spell of dogma—the All-Sustaining, All-Encompassing One—does He not encompass you and me, as well as Himself? As long as people were under the spell of this idol of the unitary state, these three ideas were contradictory. The moment humanity comes to understand the sound, tripartite social organism, these three ideas will no longer contradict one another, for then freedom will reign in the realm of the independent, sovereign spiritual organism; equality among all people will reign in the realm of the state organism and the legal organism; and in the realm of the economic organism, there will be brotherhood—that brotherhood on a grand scale which will be based on production and consumer cooperatives, which in turn will be based on the associations of the various professions that will manage economic life in a truly fraternal manner. The three great ideas—freedom, equality, and fraternity—will no longer contradict one another once the three spheres—the intellectual, the legal, and the economic—have come into their own as independent entities in the world. You may still regard this today as something that receives little thought, but it is no utopia; it is not merely something that has been conjured up, but rather it is what has been gleaned from decades of observation of modern political, economic, and intellectual conditions—something that can be believed to lie dormant within the very bosom of human development itself, like a seed that seeks to come to fruition in the near future. And one can perceive in the eloquent facts of the present day, one can perceive in the demands of the proletariat—even if much is still expressed differently—that the longing for such a realization is certainly already present today.

[ 41 ] Many call what I am saying a utopia. It is derived from a way of thinking that is grounded in reality and in harmony with it. This idea of the threefold social order is not a utopia. It can be tackled immediately anywhere, from any social condition, provided one has the good will to do so—which, unfortunately, is so often lacking today. If one believes that what I am saying is a utopia, then I would like to remind such people that the way I speak here of a healthy social organism is different from the way people usually speak. People who usually speak of social ideas draw up programs. I am not thinking of a program; I am not thinking of wanting to be smarter than other people or of knowing best how everything should be done and so on, but I am thinking only of structuring humanity—which must resolve for itself to pursue what is true, good, and expedient—in the right way. And it seems to me that if it is organized in such a way that people are engaged, first, in a free intellectual life; second, in a free political and legal life; and third, in an economic life properly managed on the basis of economic forces—then people will find the best course of action on their own; I am not thinking of legislation regarding what is best, but rather of the way in which people must be called upon to find for themselves what is good for them. Nor do I think, as some have believed, of a revival of the old estates and classes: the teaching estate, the military estate, the productive estate—no, it is the opposite of which I am speaking here. People are not to be divided into classes. Classes and estates are to disappear as a result of the structuring of life outside the individual—objective life. The individual, however, is the unity that belongs to all three organisms. In the spiritual organism, his aptitudes and abilities are cultivated. In the political organism, he finds his rights. In the economic organism, he finds the satisfaction of his needs.

[ 42 ] I believe, however, that the modern proletarian, out of his class consciousness, will develop a true consciousness of humanity, and that he will come to understand more and more what has been pointed out here: the true liberation of humanity. And I hope that once it becomes perfectly clear to the modern proletarian’s soul just how he is called to strive toward the true goal of humanity, that he—this modern proletarian—will then become not only the liberator of the modern proletariat—which he must certainly become—but that he will become the liberator of all that is human, everything in human life that is truly worth liberating. Let us hope for this; let us work toward it. When it is said: “Enough words have been spoken; let us see deeds”—I wanted to speak today in words that can truly and immediately translate into deeds.

[ 43 ] Discussion

[ 44 ] 1st Speaker (Mr. Handschin): Speaks very passionately about the oppression of workers by the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie imposes violence on the proletariat. The private property of the wealthy was earned by the workers. Only communism will bring peace.

[ 45 ] 2nd speaker (Mr. Studer). Refers to the ideas of “free money” and “free land,” which are intended to liberate economic life.

[ 46 ] 3rd Speaker (Mr. Mühlestein): Shows how the old powers are resurging in Germany and that nothing has changed. Criticism of social democracy and the Center Party. Criticism of the threefold social order: It removes justice from economic and spiritual life; yet justice must prevail in all three spheres, not just within the rule of law.

[ 47 ] 4th speaker: Intends to report on a “Swiss Alliance for Reforms During the Transition Period”; is interrupted, however, and the discussion is thus closed.

[ 48 ] Rudolf Steiner: You will have noticed that the first two speakers in this discussion have not, in essence, raised anything that I would need to debate, since, at least in my view, what these two gentlemen have presented essentially shows—to me, at least—just how necessary it is to take seriously what I have attempted, in a perhaps feeble but honest way, to contribute to the solution of the social question in these grave times, to the extent that is humanly possible. And that this is necessary, that the time is ripe for it today—you will certainly have gathered this from what the first speaker in this discussion has just presented to you, speaking from a heart that is undoubtedly filled with passion.

[ 49 ] Since it is already quite late, I would therefore like to address only a few points here. The esteemed second speaker in this discussion mentioned the terms “free land, free money.” You see, this hints at something that is similar to so much else in the present day when one wishes to approach the social question precisely in the ways I mentioned—realistic ways—as I have attempted to do in my remarks. On such occasions, I have very often found myself in the situation of having to say: I completely agree with you; it’s just that the other person usually—or at least very often—doesn’t say it to me! The fact is this: If I believed that my ideas were simply plucked out of thin air from somewhere, then I wouldn’t bore you with them; I would believe that they are far from mature. That is precisely what I believe to be the essential aspect of the ideas presented to you today. You can find the material, the building blocks for them, everywhere. I gave a similar lecture recently over in Bern. A gentleman approached me at that time—not only during the discussion but also the next day for a private conversation—and spoke about “free land, free money.” After an hour, however, we were able to agree that what is actually intended in the regulation of the monetary question—the creation of an absolute currency—will simply be achieved when this three-part division I have spoken to you about today is properly—and I mean properly—implemented, when the administration of values and the administration of money are simply taken away from the political state and transferred into economic life. As I said, in my book The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life in the Present and Future, I will show that the basis of currency will then be entirely different from what it is today, and will also become international. As long as the leading nation, England, adheres to the gold standard, of course, the gold standard will have to prevail in foreign policy; but domestically, those who truly possess the one true currency will no longer need gold within the social organism; for the only truly real currency consists of the means of production, which will then be available to serve as currency for money. Money is completely misunderstood today. One can only understand money when one grasps it as the complete opposite of the old natural economy.

[ 50 ] What, exactly, is money for today’s social organism? It is the means by which we conduct our collective economy. Just create a mental image of the entire function of money. It consists in the fact that, for what I produce myself, I simply have a claim to something else that someone else produces. And as soon as money is anything other than this claim, it has no place in the social organism.

[ 51 ] I could go into great detail to confirm this; but I will simply state it briefly: money must become that! It will become so when all other machinations that interfere with the circulation of money cease. For money alone is the common index that serves as the common standard for comparing the relative values of commodities. This is precisely what can be achieved through this three-part division, and what is being pursued in part, individually, by the Freiland-Freigeld movement; that is why I said in such a case: I am in complete agreement with this movement—because I always try to recognize the validity of individual movements, and I would like to channel them into one great common current, not because I believe that a single person, or even a group of people, can find the right solution, but because I believe, in a democratic spirit, that people will only find the right solution when they are properly organized together in reality, through cooperation.

[ 52 ] This is what I have called a view of reality, which I do not regard as some kind of objective development. But I believe that the true human being, drawing on his or her healthy human experience and in cooperation with other people, will discover what is beneficial to the social organism.

[ 53 ] There is one thing that every person knows is possible only in social life—today’s egoists would probably like to have that for themselves as well—and that is language for a closed organism. Time and again, it is preached in schools: If a person were on a desert island, having grown up in isolation, he would not be able to speak; for speech can develop only within social life. One must recognize [.. .] that all the things hidden behind private capital, property, hidden behind control over some form of labor and the like—that all these things, including human talents and individual gifts, just like language, have social functions; that they belong to social life and are possible only within it. There must come a time when people in schools come to realize what they are through the social organism, and what they are therefore obligated to give back to the social organism in turn. What I am counting on, then, is social understanding, which must come just as the basics of arithmetic are taught in schools today. In this regard, people will also have to relearn certain things. There were times when people learned something entirely different in schools than they do today; one need only think of Roman schools. A time will come when schools will teach children precisely what social understanding is. Because this has been neglected under the influence of modern technology and capitalism, we have ended up in today’s conditions—the pathological conditions of the social organism.

[ 54 ] As for Mr. Mühlestein, I must say that I, too, am in a position where I actually have nothing against what he has put forward; I simply believe that, if his ideas continue to develop, they will ultimately lead to what I have said.

[ 55 ] For example, he did not even consider for a moment that I certainly do not—of course not!—intend to take away the rights of economic and intellectual life. No, on the contrary, I want to include them precisely. And because I want to include them, I want to see an independent social science developed—one in which they can truly be developed and brought to fruition. Once they have been brought to fruition, they can then exert an influence on the other fields. Comprehensive thinking shows you this. If, for example, you consider the following: Even today, scientific thinking does not yet think in a truly logical and appropriate way with regard to the natural human organism. People today think: the lung—a piece of flesh; the brain—also a piece of flesh, and so on. Science may put it differently, but it doesn’t say much else; for science, these individual parts of the human organism are components of a large centralized system. In truth, they see nothing else. The human being, as a natural organism, is a threefold system: We have a nervous-sensory organism. This stands on its own, centralized, and has its own outlets in the sense organs. - We have a rhythmic organism, the lung-heart organism; it has its own outlets in the respiratory tract. - We have the metabolic organism, which in turn has its own outlet to the outside world. And it is precisely because we have these three members—these three internally centralized members of the organism—that we are this natural human being.

[ 56 ] Can anyone now come and say—if I state, as I have just done in my latest book On the Mysteries of the Soul, that a proper scientific examination simply reveals these three members of the human natural organism—can anyone come and say that nature should not have developed these three members, because it is essential that all three members have air? —Of course all three parts have air!—Once the air is inhaled through the lungs and processed accordingly, the metabolic organs and the brain receive their air precisely because this air is drawn in and processed, and can therefore be treated with all due natural care in a specially separated part of the human natural organism. I do not wish, like Schäffle, or now again Meray or others, to engage in this game of analogies between physiological and social concepts—that would never occur to me; I merely wish to point out that a fully developed way of thinking does not grasp human beings as natural organisms if one merely thinks: “Everything is centralized toward a single point”—but rather, one grasps human beings when one understands their three organ systems, each centralized within itself.

[ 57 ] It is precisely because human beings possess these three organ systems centralized within themselves that they are perfect. It will be a great advance in the natural sciences when this is recognized! And the thinking that views human beings in such a healthy way also views the social organism in a healthy way and perceives the social organism in a healthy way. Spiritual life will be at its freest—and best organized—when it is emancipated. For in the realm of emancipated spiritual life, there are already people who will ensure this free spiritual life. There will arise those who will actually bring the necessary mastery to this spiritual life. Those who do not bring it are precisely those who are enslaved by capitalism or other forms of dependence. Those who will be free as stewards of the spirit will also be able to bring the blessings of spiritual life to the other two members.

[ 58 ] And so, when justice is truly established in a state governed by the rule of law—one that exists independently and is truly centralized within itself—there will be no need to worry that the other two branches lack justice, certainly in terms of equitable distribution; in all the matters addressed by Mr. Mühlestein, there must be justice; and that will follow once it has been established.

[ 59 ] So I do not take these three parts in order to be right in one separate organ and not in the other; rather, precisely in order to be right in all three, I see the necessity that it must first be produced.

[ 60 ] I would like to know if anyone can say: In a household, there is a father, a mother, children, and maids; but if you now divide this household into the father, the mother, the maids, and two cows that give milk—since everyone needs the milk—then mustn’t everyone produce milk, not just the two cows? - No, I say: The cows must produce the milk so that everyone in the house can be properly supplied with milk. And so the constitutional state must systematically establish the law—it must produce the law—and then the rights will be where they are needed. They will be there precisely when—forgive me for this somewhat trivial comparison—they can be “milked” from the constitutional state!

[ 61 ] This is what I would like to emphasize: that what matters today is not simply pursuing our favorite ideas, but rather synthesizing what pulses as a demand in many hearts—what is already present in many minds, albeit more or less unconsciously, arising from the forces of the times— and to truly grasp this in the impulses that exist as the great forces of our time—forces that seek to manifest themselves, and which we should now bring to fruition through reason. But if we do not wish to bring them to fruition through reason, that will not prevent them from entering into reality.

[ 62 ] Ladies and gentlemen, we have a choice: either to act reasonably, or to wait for what must come to pass—because it seeks to come to pass through the forces of history itself.

[ 63 ] In this sense, I believe that proletarian consciousness is indeed capable of grasping these demands, which are inherent in history itself, and thus of truly striving for and achieving—to the extent that it is possible for human beings—what I noted at the end: the liberation of everything in humanity that is worthy of liberation.