The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. The Spiritual Science Basis of the Social Question

[ 1 ] When it comes to ideas that are intended to be put into practice, complete errors are, in essence, less harmful than half-truths, third-truths, and quarter-truths. For complete errors can be refuted relatively easily and are unlikely to endure for long in public life. Half-truths and quarter-truths are extraordinarily powerful temptations in the face of life’s complexity. They are carried through life for a long time by various passions and the emotions of the mind, until—perhaps after severe struggles, perhaps even after severe suffering—one comes to realize that such half- and quarter-truths are precisely that and, as they are conceived, cannot be applied to life.

[ 2 ] Anyone who observes modern life with an unbiased eye—especially after the difficult years of trial that civilized humanity has now endured—will have to make a confession such as the one I have just expressed, particularly with regard to what is currently, and has long been, referred to as the “social question.” For, from all sides, a vast number of half-truths and quarter-truths are, in essence, tangled up in this social question.

[ 3 ] Now, in my book The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life in the Present and Future, an attempt has been made to examine what this modern social work—this modern social question—actually entails, setting aside the half-truths and quarter-truths of the programs, and toward what it can realistically be directed. What is laid out in these “Key Points” should then be further developed—for Switzerland, for example, in Soziale Zukunft (Social Future), edited by Dr. Boos.

[ 4 ] Before I turn to my actual task for this evening, perhaps you will allow me to make a brief—very brief—personal remark, one that is nonetheless related to the topic. What I have attempted is, after all, merely an attempt that is fully aware of its own imperfections. What I have attempted in my book The Key Points of the Social Question did not arise from any of the existing political movements; it does not seek to take any particular political stance, nor, so to speak, to intervene directly in the current political life of our time. It has arisen from a very long observation of life and is not intended to be some kind of program, nor some abstract social idea, but rather aims to be a result of practical life itself, as it has presented itself to me, since I had the opportunity—as my life’s circumstances have dictated—to truly get to know, if I may say so, all classes and categories of people in the contemporary world, to get to know them in their mutual demands, in their mutual misunderstandings, in their cooperation and lack thereof. And since, in earlier years—when I always had the opportunity to touch on topics such as today’s—I was primarily engaged in the study of Spiritual Science as such, I may say that what I am about to express before you is not influenced by any partisan bias whatsoever. My life has led me down many paths, but certainly never through any political party. And what is ultimately the result of decades of social observation—always undertaken from the perspective of Spiritual Science insight—that, my esteemed audience, will also prevent me from ever being able to participate in any given party platform.

[ 5 ] What is at stake, then, are suggestions for actual practical implementation. It goes without saying that when discussing such suggestions, they must be expressed in more or less seemingly abstract statements; but these abstract statements are intended only to express what is, in fact, life experience—which can certainly serve as a foundation for practical living.

[ 6 ] If we examine social life—not from a theoretical but from a practical perspective—as it has developed over more than half a century, particularly in the civilized world as it pertains to us, if we examine this social life, we will find that the conception of this social life is fundamentally different, and has in fact been fundamentally different for decades—for more than half a century—between the ruling classes of humanity on the one hand and the vast, broad masses of the proletarian people on the other. |

[ 7 ] Through my experience living among them—I was a teacher for many years at a workers’ educational school in Berlin—I was able to gain insight into the mindset of the broad proletarian masses, and not just their mindset, but also their sensibilities and emotions, as expressed in what eventually crystallizes into the social demands of the present and the near future.

[ 8 ] What subsequently emerged in my Key Points of the Social Question, is a reflection of what is based on the insights I believed I had always to draw from observations—from the insights that led me to the conclusion that, with what lies at the foundation of the demands of the broad proletarian masses—namely, a conscious idea, a conscious party program—it is impossible to make any progress whatsoever on the social question, that these proletarian masses were, in a fateful sense, succumbing to half-truths and quarter-truths, and that precisely those who are serious and sincere about the social question cannot remain stuck with what was formulated under the influence of the work—the beginnings of which, after all, date back more than half a century—of Karl Marx and his followers. As I said, under the influence of this realization, my “Key Points of the Social Question” were written at a very specific moment when one might believe that such truths, such insights, can be understood through the confirmation they have received from the world of facts. They were written at a time when the calamity brought about by the war—the so-called World War—had already been raging for years. By this I do not mean the outcome of the war; I mean the fact that this calamity, this terrible slaughter, could have befallen modern civilized humanity at all.

[ 9 ] In early spring 1914, in Vienna, I had to state that, from the perspective of Spiritual Science, anyone observing the development of modern humanity would see modern social development as resembling a disease, a kind of ulceration that could erupt in a terrible way in the near future. This book was written at a time when a current that had developed out of programmatic Marxism should already have led to a practical outcome in Russia. What must be called the terrible failure of Marxism in Russia—a failure evident to any impartial observer—could have served as the first confirmation of the ideas expressed in The Key Points of the Social Question. Since then, further confirmations have emerged. I need only point to the failure of the Hungarian Revolution, which dashed so many hopes. And finally, I need only point to the as-yet-unrealized but certainly imminent collapse of the German Revolution of November 9, 1918.

[ 10 ] Anyone familiar with the circumstances can see today that this German revolution is a strikingly telling experiment in world history—an experiment that demonstrates, like no other, just how incapable the ideas that the 19th century produced in many social circles are of giving rise to any practical way of life. Let us examine these ideas from one perspective. Let us look at them as the modern proletariat perceives them under the influence of those impulses stemming from so-called Marxism—as founded by Karl Marx and Engels—which is truly not a mere theory but lives on in the feelings and sensibilities of the broad masses.

[ 11 ] This Marxism has, first and foremost, engendered in broad circles of the proletarian population what one might call a disbelief in the spiritual world. To the discerning observer, this disbelief in the spiritual world on the part of the proletariat seems more important than anything else. Ideology—that is the word one might encounter when one has become accustomed not to think about the proletariat, but to feel and live with the proletariat. Ideology—that is, or at least should mean, the entire spiritual life. Law, custom, morality, art, science, religion—all of this is, when it comes down to it, merely like smoke rising as something purely imaginary from the economy, an illusion that rises from the only true reality, which consists of the economic relations of production and economic processes.

[ 12 ] Under the influence of the aforementioned figures, this proletariat saw the true reality in the nature of the economic system. The way people conduct economic affairs, the way they initially participate in economic life, and the way they relate to the means of production in economic life—so it is drummed into them—stems from mere material labor. Whatever arises in them as ideas, whatever arises in them as moral ideals, and whatever ultimately constitutes religion, science, and art: all of this, it is said, has no inner spiritual reality, but is merely a reflection of purely economic reality.

[ 13 ] And if one examines the origins of this view, one must conclude that it is the legacy of the worldview that has emerged over the course of the last three to four centuries precisely under the influence of the leading circles of humanity. It is not true that modern social life has arisen solely through capitalism and through what has been associated with this capitalism in recent times—namely, modern technology. No, the fact is that, simultaneously with the rise of modern capitalism and modern technology, a certain worldview has emerged that is concerned only with chemical, mechanical, and physical facts, and that does not seek to rise to an independent understanding of spiritual life. The technical complexity of modern economic life has brought about a situation in which everything has, so to speak, been inundated by the influences and driving forces of this economic life. Just as economic life was derived from technology, and technology in turn from modern science, so this gave rise to a worldview that is purely scientifically oriented—a worldview consisting solely of ideas, concepts, and thoughts relating to external mechanical, chemical, and physical life. This modern way of life lacked the capacity to grasp any ideas or worldview concepts other than those relating, broadly speaking, to the advent of economic life and the advent of modern technical enterprises. This scientific orientation—this entire modern way of thinking—was incapable of other ideas. Through this modern way of thinking, one could understand how external mechanical processes unfold and how to set them in motion in practical life; through this science, one could gain chemical and physical understanding, but one thing was missing from these ideas, from these scientific concepts—namely, the very thing that is closest to human beings: human beings themselves. Rather—or to put it more accurately—human beings were understood only insofar as they consisted of material substances and mechanical, physical, and chemical forces. But since human beings are also spirit and soul, they were not truly understood in this way. And people held a worldview from which thoughts about human beings were, in reality, excluded. No one answered—in this modern way, as this modern science answered in an incomparably perfect manner—the question of how physical processes arise; no one answered this modern human being in a modern way so perfectly: How do psychological processes arise? What is human beings in their innermost essence?

[ 14 ] And you see, the ruling, leading circles preserved as a legacy, as a tradition, what had been handed down from religion, from art, from ancient worldviews, and from old customs. This filled the souls of the modern ruling circles. They developed this alongside their scientific worldview as something that meant something to them, in addition to what science contributed to technology and the economy. And so a dual current arose in the inner life of the leading circles: one current that, in a sense, set itself religious questions apart from life, formulated moral principles apart from life, and cultivated art and certain worldviews apart from life. Ask yourselves, my esteemed audience, how far removed—for example, in the case of the modern businessman, or the modern industrialist, or the modern government official—what he feels and experiences as a religious person, that from which he seeks to derive his goodness as a human being, and his aesthetic sensibilities—how far removed that is from what unfolds in his daily practice and finds expression in his office and in his bookkeeping. There are two entirely different currents of life here. And one of them—the spiritual current of life, which is essentially a legacy from ancient times—lacks the power to penetrate outward life. In what constitutes outward daily practice, the contingencies of the day prevail; what, I might say, lives of its own accord in the practice of life. Consequently, people tend to withdraw from life and regard religious, spiritual-moral, and artistic life as something that hovers above everyday existence. Yet it was only through this—by cultivating this inner spiritual life, alien to everyday existence, alongside what flowed into external, practical life—that the leading circles of modern civilization were able to develop any inner substance at all.

[ 15 ] The proletarian, who was torn away from his old craft and placed before the machine—the abstract machine that bears no resemblance whatsoever to what lives within human beings—could not, because it did not correspond to the feelings he could only develop while standing at the machine, he could not adopt the old traditions, customs, laws, art, religion, and worldview that had been handed down from earlier times and in which the ruling classes continued to live, despite the modern, soulless, and spiritless technical economy. All that remained for him was what emerged from this economy itself. And so he formed a worldview—or rather, his leaders formed a worldview for him—that is devoid of spirit and soul: an ideology.

[ 16 ] An ideology can be defended in theory. An ideology can be conceived. An ideology can even make one feel very clever. But one cannot live by an ideology, for it hollows out the soul. The human soul can truly live only if it does not believe that what it thinks are merely unreal thoughts; but rather if it can be conscious that what lives within it connects, as something living and real, to a living, real spiritual world.

[ 17 ] And so much, much is said in the socialist program; one need not even pay attention to what is being said, for what goes on in people’s consciousness in this way is very different from what truly lives in their souls. But what truly lives in the souls of the broad masses of the intellectual population today is a spiritual wasteland. This is proof that while one can think with the modern worldview, one cannot live by it. This is the first part of the social question.

[ 18 ] I know very well how many people, from their perspective—from their conscious perspective—rightly say: “You’re talking to us about the social question as a spiritual issue. But we’re concerned with balancing out social inequalities, social distinctions. We’re concerned with ensuring that bread is distributed equally among people.” - Yes, that is a superficial view that only someone who does not penetrate beneath the surface of things can hold. For the social question is present in the feelings, in the subconscious life of the modern proletariat. Try as much as you might to satisfy the purely material needs of this proletariat—if you could, which you certainly cannot—you would see: The social question will have to arise in a new form. It will not work as long as spiritual life has the kind of relationship to the proletarian soul that I have just described. For people merely believe that it stems from material interests. In truth, it stems from the hollowness of souls, from a life devoid of substance.

[ 19 ] This must be regarded as the true foundation of one aspect of social sentiment—the widespread yearning of the proletariat.

[ 20 ] The second is understood by those who, as I have already said, have not merely learned to think and feel about the proletariat, but are truly able to think and feel with the proletariat. They come to recognize what it can mean for the modern proletarian when, time and again, drawing on Marxism, it is made clear to them: they stand at the machine, they work, but they receive only a wage for their work. Their labor power is paid for with a wage, just as one pays for a commodity on the commodity market.

[ 21 ] The modern proletarian feels that human labor cannot be a commodity, that it should not be bought and sold on the market like a commodity! From this arises what the modern proletarian calls his class consciousness. Based on this class consciousness, he wants to create the possibility that human labor power will no longer be a commodity; for he feels that what he produces not only generates the values that play a legitimate role in economic life, but also generates surplus value, which is extracted from him by those in the ruling, governing circles—which, as he believes, are the capitalist circles.

[ 22 ] And so the connection between surplus value and the degrading buying and selling of human labor power as a commodity is the second factor that motivates the proletarian.

[ 23 ] And the third point—what is it? One comes to understand it by observing how, fundamentally speaking, the ruling and leading circles have developed a significantly different attitude toward social issues than the one imposed on them by the demands of the proletariat. It must be said that, on their own initiative, few people in the ruling and leading circles are inclined to truly engage with the core issues of the social question, simply because those who are already in a position of power are far less inclined to think about the development of that position than those who are still striving to secure one. But this, in turn, led to the emergence—more in the subconscious, in the instinctive, than in clear consciousness—of the view among broad circles of the proletariat that it had nothing at all to expect from the ruling and leading circles, as if it were entirely on its own in finding a solution to the social question. And so something arose that ranks among the most fateful developments in recent history. What emerged is something that, I would say, draws on a phrase that is often spoken and often heard, but whose deeper meaning is little understood. You are probably aware that the Communist Manifesto, which launched the Marxist social movement in 1848, concludes with the words: “Workers of the world, unite!” It is understandable to anyone familiar with the modern proletarian movement that this phrase came about. And the effect of this phrase is disastrous in the most terrible way, for it points from the very outset to what is to happen—to struggle. And this struggle is still being relied upon today. It is based on struggle. It is not based on people coming together under the impetus and driving force of an idea that is to be realized in practical life; it does not build on faith in the power of the spirit. This word builds on the external, material connections of a class of people—on the non-spiritual. And this word clearly and unambiguously expresses a lack of faith in the spiritual in the most disastrous way, the more this word takes root in people’s souls. And one might also say that the more one listens to it thoughtlessly, without grasping its fateful significance in world history, the more humanity must sail headlong into unbelief in the spiritual, and—because material interests unite as they are attached to a class of people—cannot arrive at what must ultimately move life at its very core: faith in the power of spiritual impulses.

[ 24 ] This is how what is called the modern social question appears from one perspective—that of the proletariat. And this proletariat has seen that certain social ills, which it experiences firsthand, have arisen under the influence of capital and modern technology. What does it mean? It means that these ills will cease when private property is transformed into communal property, when what is now managed and administered by individuals is managed and administered by the community.

[ 25 ] And so we see how the proletarian demand repeatedly resonates in the call that is already taking on catastrophic proportions today: the transformation of the means of production, the transformation of private ownership of the means of production into common ownership and common administration of the means of production. Only then, the proletarian believes, will salvation come for him—not when the individual manages the means of production in pursuit of profit, but when human society, in which everyone can participate democratically, manages these means of production. And because the proletariat feels betrayed by those who belong to the leading and governing circles—because it believes that these leading and governing circles, driven by their own interests, have no interest whatsoever in the shaping of social life— what has developed over the course of many decades resounds as a call for a kind of dictatorship of the proletariat itself in the replacement of old administrative and social relations with new ones.

[ 26 ] But these matters must be examined not from a partisan standpoint; they must be examined with complete impartiality. Perhaps one can only view them with complete impartiality if one also considers the opposite perspective: whether the proletarian demands—as they are formulated today in a large number of newspapers and books, and as they consciously live in the souls of the proletariat—are correct or not; that is what matters. For in genuine movements, it is not the content of ideas that matters, but rather what lives in people’s will. We must bear in mind that millions of people believe these things, and that what matters is not to refute them abstractly—whether in this or that way—but rather to reach a point where their practical application is understood as truly in keeping with life and reality. Precisely because the ruling, leading circles—I would say, as a byproduct of their economic activities—have not had to struggle with life, or at least not in the same way or on the same ground as the proletariat, precisely for this reason, the social question has not, to the same extent as with the proletariat—where all the issues I have just raised I might say, boil down to a matter of sustenance, bread, or money—the social question has not developed in such a way into an immediate issue of practical life, of everyone’s personal interest, because personal interests are fostered as a byproduct under the influence of modern life. Therefore, the ruling and leading circles have not experienced in the same sphere what the proletarian world has experienced. You can look at it however you like—as the great tempter or seducer Karl Marx, or as the brilliant, groundbreaking Karl Marx; it depends on one’s perspective—but there was no figure like Karl Marx for the ruling and leading circles. That is why it appears today that, fundamentally speaking, the proletarian demands are not being viewed in the right light at all. One can prove them, one can refute them; but there are also other views that can just as easily be proven or refuted, and which represent the opposite of them.

[ 27 ] You see, the proletarian interprets everything that develops as the human world of ideas in art, customs, science, and so on, as a kind of reflection of the purely economic conditions, which are the only ones he can grasp. To him, human thoughts are nothing more than what is triggered in people—like a reflection—by economic interests and the relations of production. Everything that people think and feel stems from the economic relations of production—so says the proletarian.

[ 28 ] It would be easy for the opposing side to demonstrate the exact opposite using precisely the same line of reasoning. To take just one example: It is, I would say, child’s play to prove that this entire modern economic life—as we find it, in particular, in Western civilization and its extension, America—that this entire human economic life, as it dominates the modern world, is the result of human thoughts, which in turn are born out of the spiritual world. This can be demonstrated in very concrete terms. There is no need to remain stuck in abstract mental images. Consider the following:

[ 29 ] If we consider the situation before the war, we can say that in the Western world, approximately four to five hundred million metric tons of coal are produced annually. In modern economic life, these four hundred to five hundred million metric tons of coal are used for mechanical work performed by people, in industry, and elsewhere. I’ll break it down by presenting this figure—four to five hundred million metric tons—to you, which encompasses everything necessary for private ownership and so on. The power and technology—which then become economic power—that flow into modern life through these millions of metric tons of coal processed in machines can be calculated; one can calculate what it accomplishes for humanity. What matters is that one must make a proper comparison with horsepower and human labor. If one assumes that a person works about eight hours a day, a simple calculation reveals how many people would have to apply how much human labor if they were to achieve through human effort alone what is achieved technically through the further processing of these millions of metric tons of coal. Here the remarkable—indeed, the very remarkable—fact emerges: the calculation shows that seven to eight hundred million people would have to work, would have to contribute their labor, if they wanted to achieve through human labor the same results that are achieved with the energy derived from this coal.

[ 30 ] You see, this possibility of introducing coal energy into economic life stems solely from ideas that have developed under the influence of the intellectual evolution of the West. A comparison with the economic conditions of the East makes this particularly clear. There are, say, 250 million people who possess the inner strength from which sprang all the ideas necessary to bring this modern economic life into being; that leaves about 1,250 million people who have not participated in this life. If one calculates what these people then produce during the same daily working hours, one arrives at a figure that is far lower than the one indicating how much is produced through coal mining and coal processing in the mechanical sector. But this means nothing other than that what is specifically characteristic of modern economic life is the result of human thought. And these human thoughts have certainly not sprung from matter; they are the result of Western cultural development. And it can very well be demonstrated that through these ideas, through this way of working, the labor power of an additional 700 to 800 million people is added to our 1,500 million people on Earth. So that, in truth, we work on Earth today as if not only 1,500 million were working, but as if well over 2,000 million people were working. It can easily be demonstrated that everything that constitutes the actual structure and character of this modern economic life—from which social issues have arisen—is a result of spiritual development; that this spirit is by no means an ideology, but rather that this spirit is the creator of economic life.

[ 31 ] In other words, on the one hand there is the proletarian view, and on the other hand the common opposing view, which can indeed be substantiated just as well as the other view. And just as one can calculate, in a Marxist manner, how people work to produce the value that prevails in legitimate economic life, it is equally possible to demonstrate—with exactly the same scientific rigor as in Marxism—that everything that constitutes modern economic life stems from the ideas of the leading, governing circles, and that what is distributed as wages is derived from what these leading, governing circles contribute to humanity in social terms. Just as one can calculate, on the one hand, the surplus value that flows upward from labor, one can just as easily calculate the totality of all wages as that which flows from what is contributed by the leading circles—the intellectual pillars of humanity.

[ 32 ] But that did not happen, and I am convinced it was for the sole reason that, on the other side, out of sheer carelessness, there was no “Karl Marx” at work who could have proven it just as well as the real Karl Marx proved his theory for the proletariat. What I am telling you now is truly not some abstract invention. Just as I have demonstrated this using coal mining as an example, you can demonstrate from the facts of economic life that the opposite of what Marx proved—albeit only in a limited sense regarding surplus value—is true.

[ 33 ] When one considers the structure that modern technology has imposed on economic life, one must take into account that this modern technology arises from human thought, which in turn arises from spiritual life, and that a certain concentration of the means of production is necessary at certain times—a concentration that is required simply because of advanced technology and must be managed by individuals. One might well say that if, in contrast to what modern economic life and modern relations of production have brought about—concentrations of the means of production that are now in the hands of individuals—one sets against this the abstract demand for surplus value to be derived from means of production that are to be managed collectively, then one will see exactly what the result will be! Certainly, one can, in the abstract, make the claim that what has hitherto been accomplished by the ruling, leading circles—who provided the ideas for the structure of the modern economy—can be taken from them and managed by the community. But to those who do not view the workings of life through the lens of human sentiment or emotion, but rather observe these workings impartially—indeed, to them, the following thought appears as a looming threat to humanity’s immediate future: If it were truly possible to bring about the takeover of what has hitherto been accomplished by individual personalities [. . .] —even if this has entailed certain damages—were to be carried out by the community, then this community would likely fare as the Japanese did in the mid-1870s, who acted out of a certain national pride when they acquired their first warships from the English. The English also offered them instructors for these warships; but they sent these English instructors away and wanted to sail them themselves. And now, from the shore, one could witness the beautiful spectacle of the gunboats constantly circling; they could not move forward, for the Japanese had not learned how to do it. They had been forgotten to be shown how to close and open the valve, which releases the excess steam. And so they could do nothing but wait until the steam power was completely exhausted.

[ 34 ] Thus, when one truly examines how things unfold in social life today, one fears that what individuals in the leading and governing circles accomplish—based on their expertise and competence, even if at a cost— were to be taken over by an abstract community that democratically decides how production should be organized, along with the technical administrations and so on.

[ 35 ] These are all things that are not tied to party platforms, nor do they stem from a party template; rather, they become apparent to anyone who views life in a practical and unbiased way and who truly has the will to engage with that life in a practical and unbiased manner.

[ 36 ] And the first thing that will result from this is also the first conclusion I had to draw in my “Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life in the Present and Future.” What humanity needs above all else is—in addition to an understanding of nature, which is truly the creator of modern technology and thus of modern economic life—a true understanding of humanity.

[ 37 ] You see, you’ve probably heard from various other sources about that convoluted worldview that’s supposedly linked to what’s now being built in Dornach as a monumental structure—a sort of “School of Spiritual Science,” or “anthroposophically oriented spiritual science,” as it’s called. - You would do well to assume from the outset, as it were, as an axiom, that what I refer to in connection with anthroposophical Spiritual Science is the exact opposite of what is usually said by those in the world who are unfamiliar with it. For this Spiritual Science is concerned with finding, alongside natural science—which serves as the spiritual foundation of modern economic life—that which pertains to the human being; it seeks to discover a true understanding of humanity. That is why this Spiritual Science is called anthroposophy, or “wisdom of the human being”—a true understanding of the human being. Modern natural science is quite right, in its understanding of nature and in everything related to mechanical, chemical, physical, and technical life and the economy, not to involve the human being in this process—to leave the human being, as it were, merely as a spectator in the background. But the fatal flaw is that in recent times, the very mode of thinking characteristic of natural science has been applied to social thought as well—that is, the belief that social life can be penetrated by the very ideas that are extraordinarily useful to natural science, ideas that have elevated natural science to a pure level; yet in social thought, the human being must be at the center. There must be a consciousness at work that truly penetrates to the human being.

[ 38 ] This consciousness—that is what Spiritual Science seeks to add to what, in modern times, has been merely scientific thinking and, dependent on it, social thinking. And this Spiritual Science seeks—which is why it is so deeply uncomfortable for so many people—to penetrate deeper into the human being than is possible through anatomy, physiology, or biology, which after all only reveal the outer aspects of the human being. Spiritual Science seeks to penetrate into those depths of human nature where something takes place that is not merely thought, where realities unfold that are equal to the realities of external life and also equal to the realities of external nature.

[ 39 ] On the one hand, this Spiritual Science truly seeks to rise to the knowledge of the spiritual. On the other hand, however, it does not wish to stop short of the facts of the most practical everyday life. For this Spiritual Science, it is unthinkable that such a duality should exist within human consciousness, as I have described it for the modern businessman, the modern astronomer, and the modern civil servant—who lead their own separate, life-estranged religious and aesthetic lives that hover above life and are also far removed from what everyday life actually is. On the surface, this life—which develops as a spiritual life—appears to be very spiritual. In truth, however, it is alien to life. Consequently, it has also engendered a certain disbelief in life.

[ 40 ] This is also why the broad masses were never able to develop a belief in this spiritual life to the extent that they would view it as a source of social benefit. Serious and honest individuals were at work here. Those who take social life with penetrating seriousness—they regard spiritual life, at heart, as nothing more than utopian. There lived Fourier and similar minds, who devised such beautiful programs for how they wished to shape life. But from what mental constitution, from what state of mind, did all these social and socialist ideas arise? They arose from a mental life that places itself alongside life as something alien to it—a life as foreign to reality as religious life is to a merchant’s ledger. It goes without saying that beautiful ideas—genuine, well-intentioned ideas—can emerge from such a state of mind, but not ideas that have a practical impact on real life.

[ 41 ] Spiritual Science seeks to ascend to the highest heights of the spirit. But as it descends into the deepest innermost being of the human being—where there are not thoughts detached from life, but rather thoughts that penetrate the realities of the external world— these thoughts should be capable, while reaching up to the highest spiritual heights on the one hand, of grasping at the same time what we encounter in the ledger regarding the relationship between employer and employee—that which is alive everywhere in immediate life. Weak and powerless were the thoughts of that spiritual life which has dominated human souls over the last three to four centuries; for these thoughts were beautiful aesthetic, religious, scientific, and secular thoughts, but they were not thoughts that reached down into reality and recognized anything real.

[ 42 ] Take, for example, anything that functions—let’s say—like a modern moral code or a set of ethical principles, and look at what it says about humanity, goodness, goodwill, love of one’s neighbor, and human brotherhood—it stands alien to life; it does not intervene in this immediate life, any more than modern philosophy, which lives in abstract ideas, or modern intellectual life in general.

[ 43 ] Only Spiritual Science today is truly capable of delving into what philosophy—and indeed, true, external, empirical science in general—brings to light. Please refer to my numerous books on this subject. You will find that Spiritual Science has nothing to do with those abstractions, with what is traditionally regarded today as a philosophical worldview and the like; rather, you will see that Spiritual Science is dependent on truly immerse itself in the spirit within which the human being lives with his or her soul, in order to gain genuine insights into the human being; because the human being is, after all, the most spiritual of all, and thus to establish a knowledge that ascends to the highest heights of the spirit and at the same time plunges down into immediate, practical life. For if one penetrates deeply enough into these insights, this life of knowledge proves to be a unity, not a duality.

[ 44 ] This spiritual life will also be able to penetrate what we call social life. That abstract Spiritual Science, that abstract scientific approach—which the modern proletarian perceives as ideology—is not capable of penetrating the true social form of life. Its thoughts and ideas are too weak; they do not penetrate, do not reach down to the depths; they are abstractions that remain in the realm of the intellectual and unreal. They are truly ideologies. But the mind need not remain stuck at the level of ideologies. The mind can, after all, penetrate so deeply into ideas that these ideas are at the same time forces contained within reality. Only with such ideas is it possible to immerse oneself in social life.

[ 45 ] But this requires a specific social structure. And I attempted to hint at this social structure—or at least to outline it in broad strokes—in my “Key Points of the Social Question.” I attempted to demonstrate how necessary it is that the administration of intellectual life be effectively separated from economic life and from public life—which must be left to the administration of justice; the intellectual sphere must be separated from all political and economic matters. As long as economic life develops spiritual life out of itself—in that those who are economically powerful are at the same time best able to advance themselves in terms of their spiritual education—and as long as there is any connection at all, any inner connection between spiritual life and economic life, it remains impossible for spiritual life to develop in complete freedom.

[ 46 ] But anyone who is familiar with this spiritual life I have just spoken of knows that it can develop only on a completely free foundation. For the spiritual life I have spoken of is a product of the human inner being. This human inner being must be nurtured in complete freedom. Schools and education must be administered independently, with their own administration, independent of economic life and the rest of public life—including political and legal life.

[ 47 ] It is quite another matter when the teacher of the lowest grade does not have to conform to what is dictated by economic life, does not have to conform to the requirements a state imposes in order for him to hold his position; but rather when what takes place in spiritual life—in its most important aspect, namely in the realm of education and instruction—is the guiding principle, when this arises solely from what people are meant to experience in their inner lives. If I were to describe this concretely, I would have to say: In the future, the entire spiritual life—including educational and school life—must be structured in such a way that those who teach and educate, from the lowest to the highest levels, are burdened with teaching and education only to the extent that they are left with the opportunity to also manage this spiritual life at which they are working and in which they are actively engaged. Spiritual life constitutes an independent member of the social organism. It governs itself and is entrusted to its own administration.

[ 48 ] If this is the case, then one will not experience what so vividly appears before the eye of the soul when, for example, one finds oneself in the following situation. We have now attempted to establish a foundation in Stuttgart through our friend Emil Molt’s active engagement with social life; we have attempted to establish a school that is, at least in its inner spiritual constitution, shaped in such a way that it is drawn from the spirit just described. The teaching staff was initially prepared so that they would, at the very least, work in the spirit of a completely free spiritual life. We had to begin, as it were, at this very corner for the reason that so many paths have been laid out today, and because what is meant here is truly meant in the most practical sense and is actually understood only when approached with an instinct for practical life, not with theoretical ideas or the like. It is an eight-grade elementary school that, operating under a free educational system, is intended to cover the same external curriculum as ordinary elementary schools, as well as ordinary secondary schools and high schools, up to the age of fourteen, fifteen years of age for both boys and girls, but which at the same time is intended to foster human individuality in a completely free manner, so that individuality becomes integrated into social life and shapes it—a process in which social life, from an economic or state perspective, does not provide the templates according to which individualities must develop. But then one sees that regulations are being imposed on how instruction is to be carried out from class to class, and already today the regulations contain stipulations on what must be done. But for those who are capable of thinking for themselves, who can view life independently, it seems to them that the only possibility is that what must underlie education and the school system—what determines what must happen day by day, hour by hour in school—that this should not be determined by some democratic will—which would seem to stem from pedagogical shortsightedness—but rather by the professional and practical expertise of those who work out of intellectual life itself and are also capable of managing the spiritual realm.

[ 49 ] These things simply have to be approached in a practical way. Only then will much of what we today call “practical”—and which we cannot even create a mental image of any other way—become different from what it has become today; only then will we be able to view it truly impartially, as it should be, and then follow the true inner laws of human development.

[ 50 ] The other element that must be integrated into this free spiritual life, which has its own administration—I can only sketch this out today—is the independent constitutional state, the independent political element of the state, which, however, has separated from itself, on the one hand, the independence of all spiritual life and, on the other hand, economic life as well. In fact, a legal life has existed in the last few centuries only to the extent that this legal life has developed out of economic life. And it was precisely in those states that were drawn into this terrible war by their state-run economic systems that it became most evident that their entire political constitution was a consequence of their economic life—that, so to speak, the state was already, to such a high degree, the economic community itself. This would only be escalated to the very height of impossibility if, through the Marxist program, a massive cooperative were to emerge from the state, where the means of production are to be managed and operated collectively. Nothing new would come into being; it would merely escalate to monstrous proportions that which has already caused great harm. But in an independent legal sphere, the creation of law can arise only from an independent legal consciousness. This means that, alongside economic life, an independent state or legal component of the social organism must develop. It is precisely this component that will encompass everything in which all people who have come of age have become capable of judgment.

[ 51 ] Intellectual life can never be managed democratically; it must be managed based on the expertise and specialized knowledge of individuals in positions of authority. However, economic life as such cannot be managed democratically either. It must be managed in such a way that what corresponds to the economic sphere is, once again, the underlying foundation. Economic life must be managed in such a way that the person who operates within a given economic sphere is intellectually mature and firmly grounded within that sphere. This sense of being immersed in, being grounded in, and being firmly rooted in a field of economic activity—this ability to act from within that field—is undermined when decisions are made democratically about how work should be carried out in individual businesses, or what should be produced in individual businesses, and so on.

[ 52 ] If the forces that exist are truly to be put to fruitful use for the social community, this can only happen if each individual representative occupies the right position based on their expertise and professional competence and produces for the community whatever they are capable of producing according to their abilities. However, there remains that aspect over which he alone does not have the final say, but which every person of legal age who represents the democratic element is capable of judging—whereby every person is equal, stands on equal footing, and in which each person is to develop a relationship from person to person.

[ 53 ] Today, socialist thinkers constantly emphasize: The worker is separated from the product of his labor; he produces a product that he barely gets to know, or of which he gets to know only a part. - All of this is certainly true. The product enters the market; the worker is separated from it; he is separated from his workplace; he simply performs his labor—his human labor—for something he does not know at all. But this is only the case as long as we do not have, alongside the economic life in which the individual is enmeshed, an independent sphere—an independent life—where people develop from person to person because, as human beings, they are equals alongside one another. This independent life, in which only what is just is decided—this true political life—is the essence of state life. This is the very realm in which democracy can truly develop. But this must be cultivated in concrete terms. One cannot say: those who have achieved excellence in a particular area of economic life will also achieve excellence in the legal sphere, so that this legal sphere can best be managed by them. No, that is not the case, because a person can only cultivate—and can only develop the capacity to judge—what actually develops concretely in life. Legal life must not be chaotically intertwined with economic life; rather, legal life must stand alongside economic life. And a person must establish a relationship—a concrete relationship on the basis of law—with other people. Interests must develop within them for the other people with whom they coexist in economic life, when economic life gives rise to needs that must be satisfied. On the foundation of law, every person will know: you are a member of the rest of humanity; you participate in something that determines your relationship—and no other—among others. You stand within all of humanity; you now come to recognize yourself as a member of a state built on the equality of people and on democracy. This state becomes a reality for you. For it becomes a reality by, above all, addressing your labor rights. Labor law will no longer be established within the realm of economic life; the worker will no longer be dependent on the economic power of those with whom he can perform and undertake work, but rather what applies is that in which every human being is equal. On the separate legal ground, it will be determined in what respects every human being is equal. And other relationships will be regulated on the corresponding ground. Today I can only outline all of this in very general terms; you will find more detailed information on this in my “Key Points of the Social Question.”

[ 54 ] Then there remains economic life—the true, unified economic life. And in this economic life, one will not find what exists in it today, but rather one will find associations formed jointly by consumers and producers. And these associations will have to deal with matters closely related to the determination of economic needs, the setting of prices, the value of goods—in short, everything that depends solely on the human labor that goes into the goods. Economic life will not have to decide on the allocation of human labor; that is decided by the legal system. Within the realm of economic life, the corporations will have to concern themselves only with fair prices. Thus, such prices will emerge from genuine expertise and professional competence gained through active participation in economic life, such that the individual actually receives, on average, an amount of corresponding goods that serve his needs in exchange for what he produces, until he has produced an equivalent of what he exchanges.

[ 55 ] I will return shortly to the fundamental unit of economic life; when presented as I must present it now, it seems somewhat paradoxical, yet, fundamentally, everything rests upon it. Above all, it is on this that fair price relations are based; for it is not through some form of collective administration, nor through the transfer of these spheres to the administration of the collective, or into the ownership of the collective—it is not through these means that social equilibrium can be achieved, but solely through the value ratio of commodities determined not by the vagaries of the market, but by human reason, so that it flows from the actual management of economic life as such.

[ 56 ] Put bluntly, paradoxically, and actually quite trivially: if I have finished making a pair of boots today, then within the social organism this pair of boots must be worth enough that I can exchange it for goods until I have finished manufacturing another such pair of boots, including everything that must be provided for the unemployed, the sick, the disabled, and so on. That is the fundamental unit of economic life.

[ 57 ] This can indeed be achieved when economic life is completely separated from the other two aspects of social life: independent spiritual life and independent legal life.

[ 58 ] As I have already said, I could only sketch these things for you, yet they have been developed from a genuine way of living, from a view of life as it truly is, as it seeks to unfold. That was also the reason why, while that terrible world war was raging, I said to many people: The point is that} this fury can only be countered by ideas that have grown out of spiritual soil. You have a choice, I told many, either to speak to humanity now of such ideas—ideas that humanity can grasp as a starting point for a genuine betterment of the Earth—or you will experience social cataclysms and revolutions.

[ 59 ] People did not bother to embrace reason. Thus, the revolution came. But these revolutions have their own peculiarities. Revolutions have always existed in the world. One of the greatest revolutions was the one brought about by the rise of Christianity. What kind of revolution was that? It was a spiritual revolution. What was transformed were the conditions of spiritual life. Anything truly new that can emerge in humanity in this way—through a metamorphosis in development—can initially be nothing but spiritual impulses.

[ 60 ] The Christian revolution was a spiritual one. And the changes it brought about in legal and economic life were a consequence of the spiritual revolution brought about by Christianity. Therefore, this revolution was a great one, and anyone familiar with the development of Christianity knows just how profoundly transformative what Christianity brought into the world as a spiritual revolution truly was.

[ 61 ] But let us now consider an upheaval in legal and political conditions: we find such upheavals in the French Revolution or in the continental revolution of 1848. Study these revolutions, and you will find: they achieved some things, they replaced the old with the new in some respects; but much remained behind—not a resolution of previously raised demands, but rather a resolution of earlier demands—remnants left behind by these political revolutions, by the three elements of human life. One can trace these upheavals in the spiritual realm and in the political-legal realm; an upheaval in the spiritual realm, namely that brought about by Christianity; an upheaval in the political-legal realm, namely the upheaval of the French Revolution and the Revolution of 1848. Now people want an upheaval in the economic realm. Economic life, of its own accord, can become mechanized, but it cannot transform itself. Anyone familiar with the context of world history knows that intellectual upheavals are possible because the spirit can fertilize all other aspects of life, and that something remains of the legal relationships rooted in the spiritual coexistence of human beings even when they undergo a transformation. But if the external realm itself—formed purely out of itself—is to be transformed, this is an illusion. It is simply a law of world-historical development that where a purely economic revolution is to take place, as in present-day Russia, this economic revolution must be the gravedigger of modern civilization unless it once again takes up something truly spiritual.

[ 62 ] It is true that Lenin and Trotsky are the last consistent proponents of what has been part of the mass Darwinism for decades. But by attempting to put into practice what one could develop one-sidedly as mere economic ideas in theory—and in which one could believe as long as it remained theoretical—one becomes, at the very moment one seeks to implement it, the gravedigger of civilization. And death alone could spread throughout Eastern Europe under the influence of such ideas, were it not recognized that we need something entirely different in our time: a renewal of intellectual life.

[ 63 ] This is what I wanted to emphasize particularly strongly today: that we need to develop a free spiritual life within an independent spiritual member of the social organism—a life that, in turn, is built upon true spirit. Out of this spirit, a true social future will emerge. We should not hope for anything from a new revolution. This new revolution would have to be an economic one. An economic revolution can only destroy; it cannot build. Today, the world is ripe for a new spirituality, so that something new can be built.

[ 64 ] This is what must be said by those who do not base their judgments on party demands or party platforms, but who look at life with an open mind and honesty, and who take seriously and honestly what is commonly—though poorly—referred to as the “social question.” This is what must first be made up for in the course of human development: to spread enlightenment on this matter, to enlighten the broadest masses—by those who, through the education they have received and inherited, have been able to develop this understanding—enlightenment among the broadest masses regarding what is necessary. Otherwise, while the broad masses may know what they demand out of their passions, they cannot see through to what can truly be demanded in the interest of humanity and in the interest of a social future.

[ 65 ] What I have attempted to present in my “Key Points of the Social Question” does not follow any party templates; it follows what has been attempted to be recognized from the world-historical development of humanity itself, what has been attempted to be recognized from the current moment in world history. Anyone who assumes a common ownership of the means of production knows nothing about development. For even if it were possible for the common ownership of the means of production to arise today, to be introduced today—which cannot be, because it is, of course, impossible, since it would destroy all individual initiative—even if it were possible to assume the common ownership of the means of production, then the present generation, having reached a certain age, would possess these means of production, while the next generation would not have them again. And the protest of the next generation would, in turn, give rise to what is supposed to be remedied today.

[ 66 ] Only such a thought—one drawn from reality in its fullness, not from a one-sided view of reality—is truly given from the outset today. And the idea I have presented to you—the threefold structure of the social organism—also takes into account development over time, not merely the spatial coexistence of people. This idea is therefore much better suited to shaping spiritual life in its most important aspects—in its most essential areas, such as schooling and education—and also in relation to the social organism, so that it can supply the social organism with the necessary forces in an appropriate manner. Today you hear time and again from socialist quarters: If we introduce a collective distribution of the means of production, if we introduce compulsory labor and so on, then we will educate people through these social structures in such a way that they will work of their own accord, and so on. Yes, for humanity will accomplish nothing; it will only be willing and eager to work if a spiritual life truly stirs the individual capacities of human beings—capacities that can only be stirred if, already during their upbringing, we educate people in such a way that we take their full individuality into account.

[ 67 ] Just as in this field, so too in all fields the social idea of the threefold social order is what underlies practical life in the most comprehensive way; it can only underlie practical action because it is built upon the foundation of a true Spiritual Science, in which not only nature must be understood, but also human beings—and through this, human beings come into the consciousness of other human beings.

[ 68 ] In closing, I would just like to emphasize that what you will be able to read in detail in the future regarding the organization of capital, the organization of labor, the organization of the economy, and so on—as elaborated in my Key Points of the Social Question—is, as I have already said, still only a tentative attempt today. Precisely because it is not some contrived program, but rather because it is derived from practical life, it must necessarily be a tentative attempt. Those people who say today, “One cannot understand what is written in The Key Points of the Social Question”—they simply lack the instinct for reality that is necessary today if one is to truly grasp the fundamentals of practical matters. It is not merely a matter of committing oneself to a social-scientific idea, but rather of committing oneself to those ideas that can be sustained by an instinct for the things to be realized. When attempting to present such ideas, one will not claim that they must be perfect from the outset. One will emphasize time and again: they are an attempt. And so what is currently being put forward on the basis of the movement toward the threefold social order should indeed be an attempt. For what it is ultimately meant to be will become apparent precisely as it is transformed and introduced into practice.

[ 69 ] That is why I have often said to people: It is possible that none of the specific details I provide will hold up; but what is meant to inspire is designed in such a way that it touches reality at its very edge. If you grasp it there, then perhaps something entirely different will emerge, but you will truly be working. That is what matters—not programs, not preconceived ideas, and no matter how clever they may be, not working from them, no matter how old they may be, but working from the reality of practical life! But not working from the randomness of everyday life, but from the grand, overarching ideas from which all great creations—including social ones—have truly emerged. I believe this is how everyone thinks who speaks about such questions in this way, as I have attempted to do today. I’d like to use a comparison to explain what I mean. Recently, someone in a studio—where they usually deal only with sculptural work, where sculptural methods are used for construction—developed a chair model. This chair was to be based on the idea that, on the one hand, it should satisfy our sense of beauty, which we apply to the Dornach building; on the other hand, however, it should be as inexpensive as possible. The greatest possible affordability is necessary, alongside the appropriate design, in the entire production process. Now we had made a model. When we handed this model over to the worker, we said to ourselves: Here is the model, but now the practical design process begins, and it is possible that what ultimately emerges as a chair will look quite different from the model. But what emerges will be practical precisely because the model was conceived with practicality in mind.

[ 70 ] I would also like the issue of the “Key Points of the Social Question” to be understood in this way. Everything you will find in the form of suggestions regarding the social question—for example, in The Social Future here for Switzerland—this book and our other ideas are, in a sense, meant to be nothing more than a kind of model; but it should be a practically conceived model. If one undertakes the work in this spirit, it will result in practical action. Perhaps it will even look quite different, but it will only truly take practical shape if one approaches it on the basis of a practical impulse.

[ 71 ] Such a threefold social organism could, in my opinion, most easily—please forgive me for speaking about all these matters, especially to those who are not fully versed in them, but I would like to say it nonetheless—be realized particularly strongly here in this country, which is justifiably proud of its long-standing democracy. For precisely because the democratic element is so well-developed here, it is easiest here to see how to find a way to separate spiritual life and economic life on both sides in an appropriate manner. — In a further development, the idea of threefolding emerged. If one is serious about these ideas, I believe that, precisely when living in a democratic community, one will find it easier to understand what must necessarily happen for the threefold social order to take shape. Otherwise, this threefold social order is attacked from the left and the right, from all sides. And while the very point is to take the social question seriously and honestly, it has come to pass that I, for example, am personally attacked in the most vile manner precisely by the leaders of socialist parties of all shades. But what is at stake here is simply that three great ideas—which are meant to be taken only seriously and honestly—have emerged in the course of human development. One idea is that of liberalism, another is that of democracy, and the third is that of socialism. If one is sincere about these three ideas, one cannot mix all three together, nor can one allow one to be supplanted by another; rather, one must say to oneself: something must radiate from an independent spiritual life that flows into capitalism and into the entire social organism. That is free human development; that is the liberal element. In the political state, in legal life, there must be something in which all people are equal. That is the democratic element. And in economic life, the fraternal element must prevail. That must form the true foundation of a social structure. That is what is at stake. One should not one-sidedly oppose or one-sidedly advocate what has emerged as a blessing in the course of recent human development—as a consequence of liberalism, democracy, and socialism; one should see through how, within an independent spiritual life, liberalism grows to illuminate all other aspects of social life; how, in a true constitutional state, democracy—which in turn outshines all other aspects of life—grows; and how, in that economic life concerned solely with the production, circulation, and consumption of goods and the resulting determination of fair prices, socialism—which in turn permeates everything—prevails. Then, once one sees through this, one will truly grasp one’s view of life today with the realization that complete errors in external life are less harmful because they can be more easily seen through than half-truths or quarter-truths.

[ 72 ] But what today often exists among people as a social movement is flooded with half-truths and partial truths. And by clinging to what is a partial truth, one believes one is grasping the whole of life. Yet one should seek to embrace life in its entirety only through the living interplay of truths. The whole, full truth cannot be revealed in an abstract idea, nor in an abstract reality. It can be grasped only through the living interplay of ideas. Then, from these half-truths and quarter-truths, the whole truth of life—including in the social sphere—that is necessary will emerge. And one will come to realize that it is less necessary to combat complete errors than to correct these half-truths and quarter-truths.

[ 73 ] That is precisely what I wanted to emphasize today, with regard to the ideas concerning the necessities of life and the social question in humanity’s present and immediate future.

[ 74 ] Dr. Roman Boos points out that here in Switzerland, too, the danger in the economic sphere is immense, and that we must therefore be able to draw upon our creative potential—which will be absolutely essential—and that we must take fully to heart what Dr. Steiner could only hint at in his remarks today. (It appears that no discussion took place.)

[ 75 ] Rudolf Steiner: As for my closing remarks, I will be able to keep my comments very brief. I would like to emphasize that someone might say that this lecture has covered a great deal about each member of the social organism—the spiritual, the legal, and the economic spheres—but that for a large portion of those who speak of the social question today, none of this is what really matters to them; rather, the social question is, above all, an economic question.

[ 76 ] Now consider the overall approach of both the lecture and what is meant by the impulse for the threefold structure of the social organism. You can see this, at least in part, from the lecture: It does not present a ready-made program, but rather proceeds from the assumption that the social organism itself—that is, human social life—should be structured in a certain way, structured so that there are separate administrations for economic life, for democratic, political, or legal life, and an independent administration for spiritual life.

[ 77 ] Now, of course, it is easy to say: You are actually dividing what must be a single unit—the whole of human society, the organization of human society—into three spheres. But it is precisely through the independent administration of these three spheres that it becomes possible to bring about their true unity. It is not a matter, as some have believed, of reviving what was demanded in the pre-Christian, Platonic worldview—namely, the teaching class, the military class, and the producing class. No, back then, humanity as such was divided into three classes; so that one person belonged to the first, another to the second, and a third to the third class. Precisely this is what must be avoided: that people cannot be human beings in their entirety, but are divided into estates. It is not humanity as such that is divided, but human life itself. And the person who is fully engaged in life stands, in a certain sense, on all three grounds: in spiritual life, insofar as he or she has a living share in spiritual life in one way or another; he stands within it in the legal life, in all legal matters, because he is a person who has attained legal capacity in this sphere—either directly through some form of referendum or indirectly through representation and the like—and he stands in that sphere where, through his person, he has credibility or possesses practical and specialized knowledge in a specific economic sector into which he is integrated through an association; The entire economic life is structured internally.

[ 78 ] And now it is precisely the various objections that have been raised that show how little the fundamental idea is still understood today. For example, a lengthy review of this threefold structure of the social organism appeared in a magazine, and it was stated: “Yes, he wants to replace the single parliament with three parliaments—a spiritual parliament, a legal parliament, and an economic parliament.” What matters, however, is this: in a democratic parliament, decisions can only be made on matters about which every person has become capable of judgment—matters that do not require specialized knowledge—and precisely those matters that do require specialized knowledge are to be excluded. So, if there can be no parliament in the realm of intellectual life or in the realm of economic life, it is [because] the situation there is precisely the opposite. The point, then, is to apply parliamentary democracy honestly by limiting it to the realm in which it can truly function appropriately.

[ 79 ] From this, however, it is clear that the essence of the matter has actually been little understood to this day. But if one grasps the essence of the matter, one will see how this very idea is truly conceived from the very foundation. Anyone who believes that through some program—no matter how well-conceived—they can, for example, organize economic life according to a specific structure may think they are very clever, but they are not thinking from reality. But the person who thinks from reality is the one who says: Humanity must live in a social organism that is administered from three sides; then what constitutes social structure will emerge. People will shape this through what they experience as a result of this threefold division of social life. That is what matters, not saying: Now there is a social problem that must be solved. It cannot be solved today, but tomorrow it will be possible—one person says it one way, another says it another way, but very many people think this way.

[ 80 ] No, anyone who believes that is thinking in a completely unrealistic way. The point is this: The social question has come to the surface within humanity, and now a social structure must be created such that this social question must be continuously resolved. The conditions exist today; it will be resolved one way or another today—not tomorrow. And if other issues arise tomorrow, the circumstances for tomorrow will have to be resolved again; then other things will come up, and people must be embedded within the social structure. It will be an ongoing process. The solution must be tackled anew day by day. It is not as though one can say, “Today it is here and will continue to be here,” but rather one must ask: How must society be structured so that what comes about through society can be shaped in a social sense? Anyone who does not take human matters seriously in this sense, who does not think in terms of their real essence, fails to see what is actually happening in reality.

[ 81 ] People today believe they are thinking, but their thinking is highly unrealistic. For example, they believe that social life will acquire a social structure through a certain reorganization of economic life. Well, that would be just like believing that the individual human organism derives its structure from what it eats and drinks. No, the human organism has an inner lawfulness. It has such a lawfulness that it undergoes a very specific transformation as early as the age of tooth replacement, and undergoes yet another transformation at the age of sexual maturity. Processes arise in the human organism from these transformations, from within the human constitution; but mental images also emerge in the course of historical development. This development has now reached a point where it is necessary to undertake the threefold organization of the social organism!

[ 82 ] Finally, I would just like to say the following to show you what I mean. You see, anyone who truly follows my writings will know that when I experience something like this, my intention is by no means to mock anyone. I know better than anyone how worthy of consideration even the simplest mind’s insights can be. But let’s take the following example. In a discussion, someone replied to me—actually, such replies often follow a certain pattern, especially among those who consider themselves particularly revolutionary today; there’s no need to go into the reply itself—but this person said something that wasn’t directly related to the matter at hand; he said: “Look here, ladies and gentlemen,” he said—speaking from the standpoint of the most radical demagogue in the Socialist Party—“we certainly do not—he said—we certainly do not want to abolish intellectual labor; we want to let it continue; for, you see,” he said, “I am, for example, a cobbler; I know full well that I cannot perform the work of a registrar; so once we have seized power, we must hire people who can take on this role. — A glorious idea! The good man believed he could not do the work of a registrar, but what he believed was that he could be a minister who would then determine the entire structure. That was perfectly natural to him.

[ 83 ] These kinds of simple errors that we live with are, in real life today, the essence of things; they are, in fact, the very foundation. These are the things that reveal where certain approaches exist that cannot lead to anything fruitful.

[ 84 ] On the other hand, I had recently learned the following from another source. After an article had been written that essentially condemned the entire threefold social order to the ground, an American came up to me during one of my lectures a few weeks ago and said: “I read that article; it’s written in such a way that it lambasts everything. Yes, there must be something to it!” And so I got my hands on the article, he said. - You see, sometimes even critical articles have their positive effects. By the time he came to me, the man was already fully immersed in the idea of the threefold social order. He said to me: “Do you believe that this idea of the threefold social order will now provide something that can apply, in the most absolute sense, to the entire future of humanity?” I said: “No.” We have gone through a phase of historical development that has led to everything being brought to a close within this unitary state. Within this unitary state—let’s say in Austria—economic life, legal life, and spiritual life were brought to a close, particularly in the form of national cultural life. I have often spoken about this. In 19th-century Austria, the system of administration was such that in the 20th century nothing else was possible but what ultimately led to the Bosnia and Herzegovina affair—that is, the annexation, which had, of course, been negotiated. What arose from that became intertwined with the construction of the Thessaloniki Railway, that is, a purely economic undertaking. And from this arose a chaotic jumble, to which was added a purely intellectual element—namely, the opposition between Slavic and Magyar identities. And out of the terrible ethnic turmoil of the East, what emerged was the result of the three regions being tangled together. But they were simply of such a nature that they were driven toward a unified state. Now it is ripe to break apart into its three parts. And a completely different necessity will arise again in a relatively not-too-distant time. Life is, after all, alive; it is not something closed off. People want something that applies forever and everywhere!

[ 85 ] The problem with such ideas is that they cannot be conceived as abstract ideas, like programs; programs are simply implemented, and that’s the end of it. No, that is not how it works; rather, such ideas—spiritual ideas—take into account spiritual life, legal life, and economic life within the threefold social organism. And that is why they can only ever identify what applies to a specific epoch. And they are aware that, in turn, this must be superseded by something else at a certain time. They also take development seriously by seeking within that development what they themselves can find for their own age.

[ 86 ] So, I just wanted to present a practical result in this vein and point out that this cannot be something absolute, as is the case with other contemporary programs, but rather something conceived in the most eminent sense from within the present.

[ 87 ] Thus, that which seeks to emerge into the world today is subject to the most varied assessments. It may be subject to the most varied assessments, provided only that these assessments, this judging, ultimately come to terms with studying things in a way that is full of life. With such matters, what matters is not that what is hinted at on any given page be carried out pedantically, but rather that it be done as intended: that reality be approached in a practical, living way. Then, while not a single stone may be left standing when it comes to the individual elements and details, what can serve the whole will take effect and emerge from such a living engagement.

[ 88 ] In this sense, these things should be said from reality for reality’s sake. The threefold structure of the social organism does not imply—and cannot imply—a one-sided political development, nor indeed any development understood in a one-sided manner. And so this threefold structure of the social organism should also be received without emotional bias.

[ 89 ] On the other hand, she would like to be viewed in such a way that she is understood impartially, just as she is meant to be understood impartially. Some people today say: Yes, this threefold structure of the social organism would be quite good, but it would have to come about only at the very end; before that, everything would have to go haywire, dictatorship would have to come first, and so on. - If one thinks this way, then in reality one does not want what is practical, but rather what arises solely from abstract demands that stem directly from this or that state of mind. One does not want the threefold social order as it is meant here, but rather what one has fallen in love with.

[ 90 ] But if one seriously wants to achieve something in life, one must rise to a vantage point from which one can view and survey this life with an unbiased perspective.