The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. The Interplay of Spiritual, Legal, and Economic Life in a Unified, Threefold Social Organism

[ 1 ] In the second lecture, I have already outlined how such a structure of spiritual, legal, and economic life—as I have attempted to describe in the three preceding lectures—can only be achieved by dividing what has hitherto been conceived as a strictly unified state into three parts, transforming it into a threefold social organism, that is to say, that everything pertaining to legal, political, and state affairs be administered by a democratic parliament, while, on the other hand, everything pertaining to intellectual life be separated from this political or legal organization, and this intellectual life be administered independently in its freedom; that, on the other hand, economic life be separated from the political, and that economic life, in turn, be administered on the basis of its own circumstances and conditions, grounded in expertise and professional competence.

[ 2 ] Now, the objection is repeatedly raised that such a division of the social organism contradicts the necessity of shaping social life into a unity, for all individual institutions—everything that a human being can accomplish within the social organism—must strive together toward such a unity. And such unity, it is said, would be disrupted if one were to attempt to break the social organism into three parts. — Such an objection is entirely comprehensible and understandable given the prevailing patterns of thought today. But, as we shall see today, it is by no means justified. It is understandable because one need only look, at first, at economic life itself: how, even on the smallest scale, everything flows together in this economic life—the spiritual, the legal, and what is actually economic. In contrast, one might well ask: How could any separation or division possibly lead to a remedy?

[ 3 ] If we consider just the problem of the value of commodities—the goods themselves—we will find that the value of goods and commodities in and of itself gives rise to three aspects; yet these three aspects, as the good is produced, circulated, and consumed within the social organism, manifest themselves as a unity—I would say, bound to the unity of the good—in the following way: What determines the value of a commodity through which a person can satisfy their needs? — First of all, the person must subjectively have some need for this commodity. But let us examine what determines such a need. This is connected, first of all, of course, with the physical nature of human beings. Physical nature determines, in particular, the value of the most diverse material goods. But even material goods are evaluated differently, depending on whether a person has undergone this or that upbringing and has these or those expectations. And only when it comes to spiritual goods—which, after all, often cannot be separated from the sphere of physical goods—will we see that a person’s entire constitution thoroughly determines the way in which they value any given good, what they are willing to contribute in labor for any given good, and what they are willing to contribute of their own efforts for such a good. There we see that the spiritual element that lives within a person is decisive for the value of a good, for the value of a commodity.

[ 4 ] On the other hand, we see that commodities, in being exchanged between people, are bound up with relations of ownership—which is nothing other than legal relations. When one person wishes to acquire a good from another, he encounters rights that the other person holds in some way over that good. Thus, economic life and economic circulation are thoroughly permeated by legal relationships.

[ 5 ] And thirdly: A good also has an objective value—not merely the value we attribute to it through our needs and the subjective assessment of those needs, which is then transferred to the good—but a good has an objective value in that it is durable or non-durable, permanent or non-permanent; in that it is more or less useful by its very nature; and in that it is more or less common or more or less rare. All of this determines an objective, truly economic value, the determination of which requires objective expertise and the establishment of which requires objective professional competence.

[ 6 ] But these three determinations of value are united into a single entity within the good. And therefore, one can rightly ask: How, then, can that which is united in the good be divided into three spheres of administration that relate to this good and have something to do with this good in its circulation?

[ 7 ] Well, first of all—purely in theory—it is a matter of recognizing that, in life, things can indeed come together that are managed from a wide variety of perspectives. Why shouldn’t, on the one hand, the value that a person subjectively ascribes to goods be determined by his or her upbringing, which is governed independently? Why shouldn’t legal relationships be integrated into economic life from an entirely different perspective, and why shouldn’t the objective value that expertise and professional competence confer on goods be added to all of this and united into a single entity in the object itself? But this is, for the time being, merely a theoretical concept and has little practical value. Rather, the actual intent of the threefold social order in this regard must be grounded more deeply.

[ 8 ] And here it must first be said: This threefold structure of the social organism is not just some idea conceived today out of the subjective impulses of one or a few people; rather, this impulse toward the threefold structure of the social organism arises from an objective observation of the historical development of humanity in modern times. So one can say: In fact, for centuries now, humanity has been unconsciously tending toward this threefold structure in its most fundamental impulses. It has simply never found the strength to truly bring about this threefold structure, and it is from this lack of developed strength that our present conditions—the calamity of our surroundings—have arisen. Today, however, conditions have matured to such an extent that one must say: We must now undertake what has been preparing itself for centuries for the shaping of the social organism.

[ 9 ] First of all, it must be said: For a long time now, truly free spiritual life has been separated from political life and economic life. For spiritual life that is dependent on economic life and on legal and political life—such spiritual life is by no means free. It is a fragment of spiritual life that has been torn away from the truly fruitful, free spiritual life. Rather, we can say that at the beginning of the era in which capitalism—in which the modern technical economic order with its magnificent division of labor—emerged, that during this time the truly free spiritual life—that spiritual life which creates solely out of the impulses of human beings themselves, just as I called for yesterday with regard to the entire spiritual life—that this free spiritual life, but only as a part of spiritual life, became detached in certain areas of art, worldview, and religious convictions from economic life and political life and is, so to speak, driven between the lines of life, while, in turn, what economic life needs for its administration and what the state needs for its administration has been torn away from this free spiritual life that creates out of human impulses themselves.

[ 10 ] What economic life needs for its administration has become dependent on the economic powers themselves. In the positions and circles where economic power resides, there is the opportunity to educate the next generation in economics as well, so that they, in turn, are qualified to attain economic power. But what emerges from the economy itself as economic science is only a part of what could flow into economic life if the entire spiritual life were made fruitful for economic life. It is only what remains for reflection from the economy of chance, and what is then turned into economic science.

[ 11 ] And again, regarding public life: The state needs its civil servants—and even its scholars—to conform to the templates it has established for its positions. It desires and demands that individuals be molded to fit within the parameters it has defined for its positions. But this is an unfree intellectual life, even if it imagines itself to be free. It does not recognize its dependence; it does not realize how it is being placed within the confines of the templates for these positions.

[ 12 ] The truly free spiritual life, however, has—independently of economic life and political life—nevertheless secured a certain position in the world. But what a position! I have already characterized it in part. It is this spiritual life, which has preserved its freedom, that has become detached from life. In a certain sense, it has taken on an abstract character. One need only look today at what is present in the aesthetic, religious, and even scientifically oriented worldviews of intellectual life to see that, while many things are said, what is said is, more or less, merely a sermon for humanity. It is there to captivate the intellect and the emotions. It is there to play a role within the human being, to fill the soul with inner contentment and well-being, but it lacks the power, the driving force, to truly intervene in external life. This is why disbelief in this spiritual life has arisen—that disbelief I have also characterized, which emanates from the socialist camp and which asserts: No social idea, however well-intentioned it may be, if it is born solely from the spirit, will ever transform social life. This requires real forces. — And this very spiritual life, which has been separated off, is not counted among those real forces at all. How far removed is what—as I have already stated—the merchant, the civil servant, and the industrialist today regard as their inner, religious, and even scientific convictions from the laws they apply in economic life, in their external positions, and in the administration of public affairs! A completely dual appreciation of life! On the one hand, certain principles that have, however, emerged entirely from economic and political life; on the other hand, a remnant of freedom, of spiritual life, which is, however, condemned to powerlessness in the face of life’s external affairs.

[ 13 ] On the one hand, it must be said that a unified, free spiritual life has been developing independently for centuries; but because people were unwilling to acknowledge it in the shaping of public life, this free spiritual life has become abstract and detached from reality. Today, however, this spiritual life is being called for again, because we need the influence of the spirit on external social life—its power and its strength. That is the situation we face today.

[ 14 ] Legal life has taken a different path. While intellectual life—insofar as it is a free one—has, in a sense, emancipated itself, legal life has, over the course of the last few centuries, allowed itself to merge completely with economic power structures. People have not even noticed it, but the two have become completely one. What were once economic interests and needs have been expressed in public laws. These public laws are often regarded as human rights. On closer inspection, however, they are merely economic and state interests and needs that have been translated into legal form. While intellectual life, on the one hand, demands its own strength, we see, on the other hand, how confusion has now arisen regarding the relationship between legal and economic conditions. Wide swaths of today’s population throughout the civilized world are calling, in what they call the “social question,” for a further fusion of legal and economic life. We see how the entire economic life is to be shaped according to political and legal concepts. And when we look at the catchphrases popular with so many today, what are they but the ultimate consequence of the fusion of legal and economic life? Today we see the radical socialist party, which has gained widespread support, demanding that—as I have already stated here—a political system of centrally controlled, hierarchically structured, and compartmentalized administrations be imposed upon economic life. Economic life is to be entirely encased in legal relationships. We can literally see how the power of legal relationships is to be extended entirely over economic relationships.

[ 15 ] This is the other aspect of the crisis unfolding in our time, which can be expressed as follows: By demanding, in a radical manner, that these political and legal conditions be imposed on economic life, the tyranny of the state and the legal system is, in a sense, set to descend upon the economic order. We see that what is required for economic life and its recovery is not a structure of economic life that arises organically from economic conditions themselves, but rather the seizure of political power—a seizure of political power with the aim of bringing economic life under the control of that political power and dominating it. The dictatorship of the proletariat—what is it other than the ultimate consequence of the fusion of legal or state life with economic life?

[ 16 ] Thus, it is demonstrated here—albeit in a negative way—how necessary it is today to thoroughly examine the relationship between legal or political life and economic life. On the one hand, we see that intellectual life—which is free in part—has emancipated itself and is reclaiming its original vitality; on the other hand, we see that legal life, if it is to remain bound ever more closely to economic life, throws the entire social organism into disarray.

[ 17 ] For long enough, people have been led to think in terms of a unified state, a unified social organism. Today, the time has come when the fruit of this thinking confronts us in the form of the social chaos that has engulfed a large part of the civilized world. Economic conditions demand, in the strictest sense, that they be separated from the legal system, because it has become clear what havoc this legal system itself would gradually wreak on economic life if the ultimate consequences were drawn from what has developed over the course of the last few centuries.

[ 18 ] The impulse toward a threefold social organism takes these facts into account. And I would like to show you, using a concrete example, how this very fact has torn apart precisely that which should function as a unity in life. People say today that the threefold structure of the social organism seeks to tear apart the unity of social life. In the future, people will say: This threefold division is what truly establishes this unity in the proper sense. That the abstract striving for unity has in fact destroyed this very unity can be seen precisely through a concrete example. Today, certain people take great pride in making the theoretical distinction between law and morality. Morality is the evaluation of a person’s action purely according to inner aspects of the soul. The judgment of whether an action is good or evil is guided solely by such inner aspects of the soul. And one distinguishes very carefully—especially in matters of worldview—between this moral judgment and the legal judgment, which concerns external public life and is to be determined by the decrees and measures of the state or other forms of social public life.

[ 19 ] People were completely unaware of this separation of morality and law until the advent of modern technological and economic development and modern capitalism. It was only in the last few centuries that the forces of law and morality were torn apart. And why? Because moral judgment was shifted into that free spiritual life which has emancipated itself but has become powerless in the face of external life—a life that, in a sense, exists only to preach and to judge, but which has lost the power to truly intervene in life. But those maxims that can intervene in life—which are needed because purely human impulses can no longer be found, and which have been relegated to morality—economic impulses—are then translated into law. Thus, what acts in life is torn apart: legal provisions and their infusion with human morality—torn apart into a duality, when it should be a unity.

[ 20 ] Anyone who studies the development of modern states more closely will find that it is precisely the notion of the unitary state that has brought about a separation of the forces that are actually meant to work together toward unity. The impulse toward the threefold social order is intended to counteract this very separation. Even a correct consideration of the very principle of this impulse reveals that there can be no question of a division of life here.

[ 21 ] Spiritual life, which is supposed to have its own administration—isn’t every human being connected to this spiritual life, if it develops completely freely, as I have described, within a relationship? He is educated within this free spiritual life; he, in turn, has his children educated within it; his immediate spiritual interests lie in this spiritual life; he is connected to this spiritual life. And the very same people who are connected in this way to this spiritual life—who draw their strength from it—are active in legal and political life and determine within it what functions as the legal order among them. They determine this legal order out of the spirit they draw from this spiritual life. This legal order is directly brought about by what is acquired through the relationship to spiritual life. And in turn, what is developed democratically from person to person on the basis of the legal order—that which a person takes up as the impulse for his relationship with other people—he carries into economic life, because it is, after all, these same people who have a connection to spiritual life, who are active in legal life, and who engage in economic activity. The institutions he establishes, the way he associates with other people, the way he conducts economic activity in general—all of this is permeated by what he develops in spiritual life, which he regulates as a legal order in economic life, for it is the same people who are part of the threefold social organism, and unity is brought about not through some abstract order but through the living human being himself. It is only because each of the members can develop its own nature and essence through its independence that it can thus contribute to unity in the most powerful way. Each of the members can thus function, whereas we can see how, through the suggestion of the unitary state, precisely that which belongs together in life—even that which is so intrinsically connected as law and morality—falls apart. Thus, the impulse for the threefold social order asserts itself not to separate what belongs together, but to bring into genuine cooperation that which works together or is destined to do so.

[ 22 ] The spiritual life that I described yesterday can develop only on its own free ground. But if it develops on its own free ground, then—if it is granted the same rights as the other two members of the social organism—it will not be an otherworldly construct like the intellectual life that has developed for centuries in an otherworldly and abstract manner, but rather it will develop the driving force to intervene directly in real, externally real legal and economic life. It might seem like a grotesque, paradoxical contradiction to claim, on the one hand, that spiritual life should become completely independent—that it should develop from its own foundations, as I described yesterday—and yet, on the other hand, that it could intervene in the most practical areas of life. But it is precisely when the spirit is left to its own devices that it develops the impulses capable of encompassing all of life. For this spirit, left to its own devices, is not dependent on listening to what a person is supposed to cultivate within themselves for the sake of some state template; it is not determined by the notion that only those who possess a certain economic power can be educated; rather, what seeks to come to light in any given generation is developed out of the conditions of human individuality and out of the observation of human abilities.

[ 23 ] But what seeks to come to light in any given generation—because the spirit extends its interest across the whole of life—will encompass not only nature in its phenomena and facts, but above all, human life itself. We were condemned to be impractical in the realm of the spirit because the only areas left to us for free intellectual life were those that were not allowed to interfere with external reality. The moment the spirit is granted not merely to take note of what parliaments establish as constitutional law, but is allowed—as it ought to be—to determine constitutional law of its own accord, at that very moment it will make constitutional law its own creation and will intervene in the workings into the order of the economy—at the moment when, rather than merely allowing the economy to run its course on its own, rolling along according to its own facts without being guided by thought, certain perspectives and principles are formulated for this economic life, and when the spirit is permitted to intervene in this economic life. Then it will also prove capable of practical application within the economic cycle. One need only grant it the power to intervene in practical life, and it will do so. But this view of reality is necessary so that the spirit is not hermetically sealed off in abstraction, but rather so that it is allowed to influence life. Then, of its own accord, it will always enrich economic life, whereas otherwise it remains unenriched or is enriched only by chance occurrences.

[ 24 ] This must be taken into account if one wishes to clearly see how spirit, law, and the state and economy are to interact within the threefold social organism. Even very discerning individuals of our time remain entirely in the dark about these matters. These discerning individuals often see how, within economic life—which has, in a sense, driven out the spirit—conditions have developed that have now become socially untenable. Take, for example, a thinker on economic life who is highly regarded today; he observes the following. He says: “When we look at economic life today, we see above all a system of consumption that leads to social harm to the highest degree. People who can afford it consume this or that, which is really nothing but luxury.”—This thinker points out the role that what he calls “luxury” plays in people’s lives today, as well as the role it plays in their economic lives. Certainly, it is easy to do this; one need only point to phenomena such as, for example, when, let’s say, a woman buys a pearl necklace today. Some people today will still regard this as a very minor luxury. But they fail to consider what this pearl necklace is actually worth within today’s economic structure. For the value of this pearl necklace, one could support five working-class families for six months! The lady in question hangs it around her neck. Yes, one can see this, and one can seek a remedy in keeping with the spirit of our times. The distinguished thinker I have in mind here concludes that it is necessary for the state—of course, everyone assumes it’s the state!—to introduce high luxury taxes, and specifically such high luxury taxes that people will lose all desire to acquire such luxuries. He rejects the objection raised by many—that if luxury is taxed, then luxury will decline and the state will gain nothing from it. He says: No, it is precisely right that luxury should cease, for taxation is meant to serve a moral purpose. Human morality is to be promoted through taxation.

[ 25 ] You see, that is how people think. They have so little faith in the power of the human soul and the human spirit that they want to bring about—through taxation, that is, through the law—what should spring forth from the human soul and the human spirit! No wonder, then, that one cannot arrive at a unified structure of life.

[ 26 ] The same thinker then points out how the acquisition of property becomes unjust because monopolies are possible in our society, because social life is still influenced by inheritance law, and so on. He again proposes regulating all these matters through tax legislation. If inherited property were taxed as heavily as possible, he believes, this would result in justice with regard to property. Similarly, state laws—that is, legal principles—could be used to counter monopolies and the like. The curious thing is that this thinker says: Yes, but it does not matter at all whether state laws, tax laws, and so on actually bring about all that he envisions, for it is evident that the value of such state laws is thoroughly open to question, and that such state laws do not always achieve what they are intended to achieve. But now he says: What matters is not that these laws actually promote morality, prevent monopolies, and so on, but rather the mindset from which these laws are enacted.

[ 27 ] Now we have truly reached the point of going in circles to the absolute extreme. A respected contemporary political thinker says roughly what I have described to you here. He wants to bring about a mindset—an ethical mindset—through legislation; but what matters is not that this legislation actually succeeds, but that people have the right mindset toward this legislation! It is like a Chinese man trying to catch himself by his own pigtail. It is a strange circular argument, but one that is deeply embedded in our social life today. For public life today is shaped under the influence of such a way of thinking. And people fail to see that all these things ultimately lead to the recognition that the following must become the foundations for a genuine restructuring of social life: intellectual life in its independence, legal life in its independence—detached from the economic organism—and the free structuring of the economic organization as such.

[ 28 ] Such things become particularly evident today when one sees—as is currently the case, for example, with Robert Wilbrandt, who wrote a book on socialism that has just been published—how, even among exceptionally well-meaning people, people who certainly possess the ethos for a restructuring of social life, there appears I would say, a subtle hint at the absolute necessity, for example, of a spiritual foundation for social reconstruction—yet everywhere there is a lack of insight into how this spiritual foundation might be achieved. Robert Wilbrandt is not someone who speaks purely from a theoretical standpoint. First, he speaks from a warm and socially passionate heart. Second, he has traveled virtually the entire world to learn about social conditions, and in his book he faithfully describes how severely misery still afflicts people today throughout the entire civilized world. He provides vivid examples of the misery of the proletariat in the civilized world. But he also points out, from his perspective, how in the most diverse regions where the social question has become pressing today, people have attempted to work toward a new social order—yet either have failed, or, as is clearly evident—for example, in today’s Germany—are bound to fail; and Robert Wilbrandt is fully aware that all attempts made from today’s perspective are bound to fail. This is more or less how he concludes his book. Since this has already been hinted at in various ways throughout the text, the entire book ends on this peculiar note. He says: These attempts that are being made are bound to fail; they will not lead to any reconstruction, because the social organism lacks a soul today, and until it acquires a soul, it will not accomplish any fruitful work. — The most interesting thing is that the book concludes on this note, without addressing how this soul is to be found.

[ 29 ] This is precisely the impetus behind the threefold social organism: not to speak theoretically about the necessity of the soul and wait for the soul to emerge on its own, but to point out how this soul will develop. It will develop when we separate spiritual life from political life and economic life. And then this spiritual life, if it is allowed to follow only the impulses that human beings themselves give to the spirit, will grow strong enough to influence the rest of practical life as well. Then this spiritual life will take the form I attempted to describe yesterday. Then this spiritual life will contain reality within itself. And then one will be able to say of this spiritual life that it is capable of bearing the burdens placed upon it—such as those described in my Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life in the Present and Future.

[ 30 ] Certainly, one can point out today—and we did so in the second lecture—how capital functions in the social and economic process today. However, if one merely speaks of the need to abolish capital or to transfer it to communal ownership, one has no concept of how capital actually functions within economic life—especially under today’s conditions of production—or of how the accumulation of capital is necessary so that capable individuals can, through the administration of these masses of capital, work specifically for the common good. That is why, in essence, in my Key Points of the Social Question, the administration of capital was made dependent on spiritual life, with the cooperation of an independent legal system. While we say today that capital manages itself, the impulse for the threefold social order demands that, although it must always be possible to to form capital accumulations—that it must be possible for these capital accumulations to be managed by those who have developed the necessary abilities for a particular enterprise from the spiritual life—but that these capital accumulations should be managed by the person who accumulated them only as long as he is able to manage them himself. At the moment—or at least shortly after that moment—we need not go into the specifics today—when the person in question can no longer personally oversee the management of the capital with his own abilities, he must ensure—or, if he feels incapable of doing so, he must have some corporation of spiritual life, which must exist, to ensure that this enterprise can in turn be transferred to the most capable person who can manage it for the service of the community. This means: The transfer of an enterprise to an individual or a group of individuals is not tied to a sale or any other transfer of capital, but is tied to what arises from the abilities of the people themselves—from the capable to the capable, from those who can work in the service of the community to those who, in turn, can work in the service of the community in the best possible way. The social well-being of the future depends on this transition. However, this transition will not be an economic one, as it is now, but will arise from the impulses of people derived from an independent spiritual life and an independent legal life. There will even be corporations in the spiritual realm, connected to all other areas of spiritual life, which will, so to speak, be responsible for the administration of capital.

[ 31 ] Thus, I was able to replace the transfer of the means of production to the community with the circulation of the means of production within the social organism—the transfer from one capable individual to another, that is, circulation; and this circulation depends on the independence of spiritual life, to which it is, so to speak, subject and by which it is brought about. So that one can say: What is present as a force in spiritual life and in legal life is at work in what, in the most eminent sense, lies at the very heart of the economic cycle. One cannot conceive of a more complete unity in economic life than that brought about by such measures. But the current that integrates itself into economic life originates from the independent spiritual life and from the independent legal life. Human beings will no longer be at the mercy of chance—which operates there through mere supply and demand—or through the other factors active in economic life today; rather, reason and legal relationships between human beings will come to bear within this economic life. Thus, spirit, law, and the economy will work together, even if they are administered separately, because human beings will carry into each sphere—since they belong to all three—what needs to be carried there. Of course, people will have to free themselves from certain prejudices if these things are to come about gradually.

[ 32 ] Today, it is still quite clear that the means of production—that is, land—are elements of economic life. The principle of the threefold social order demands that economic life be limited to the administration of mutual values, to which prices should be approximated, so that price determination is ultimately the only outcome of economic administration.

[ 33 ] However, it is impossible to make this price-setting process a just one if, within the economic system, the means of production as such and land as such play a role. The disposal of land—which today is concentrated in the right of ownership of land—and the disposal of finished means of production cannot be purely economic matters; rather, they should be partly spiritual and partly legal matters. This means that the transfer of land from one person or group of people to another should not take place through purchase or inheritance, but rather through a transfer based on legal grounds or on the principles of intellectual life. The means of production—that is, that which is used for production in industry or similar sectors and which primarily forms the basis of capital formation—can only have a cost until it is completed. Once it is finished, it is managed by the person who brought it into being, because that person understands it best, for as long as that person can personally participate in its management using their abilities. Furthermore, it is not an asset that can be sold, but rather one that can only be transferred from one person or group of people to another person or group of people through legal or spiritual determination, which is realized through the law.

[ 34 ] Thus, what is today wrongly embedded in economic life—the right to dispose of property, the right to dispose of land, and the right to dispose of the means of production—is placed on an independent legal foundation with the cooperation of an independent spiritual foundation.

[ 35 ] These ideas may still seem foreign to people today. But that is precisely what is so sad and bitter—that they seem foreign to people today. For only when these things truly take root in people’s minds, in their souls, and also in their hearts—so that people behave in accordance with them in their social lives—only then can what so many people wish to bring about in a completely different way, but will never be able to bring about, actually come to pass. This is what we should finally come to realize: that many things which still seem paradoxical today will appear self-evident in a truly healthy social life.

[ 36 ] The impulse for the threefold social order does not derive its social demands from the passions, drives, and emotions that often underlie social demands today. Rather, it derives them from a study of the actual development of humanity from modern times up to the present. It observes, for example, how, over the course of many centuries, one social form has succeeded another. If we go back beyond the late Middle Ages—it extended somewhat into the late Middle Ages, particularly in the civilized world of Europe—we find social life structured in such a way that we can speak of a power-based society. This power-based society had arisen because—to cite just one example—let us say some conqueror with a retinue settled somewhere and, in a sense, turned his retinue into his workforce. Then, because the leader was held in high regard by virtue of his individual qualities, individual competence, or supposed individual competence, a social relationship was established between his power and the power of those whom he initially led and who then became his servants or, respectively, his workforce. In a sense, what arose within an individual or within an aristocratic group—and which, in turn, extended to the whole—served as the defining factor for the social organism; it continued to live on within the whole. The will that existed within the whole was, in a sense, in this power-based society merely the reflection, the projection, of the individual will.

[ 37 ] Under the influence of modern times—the division of labor, capitalism, and technological culture—the exchange society replaced this power society, while nonetheless continuing to channel its impulses among people and in human coexistence. What the individual produced became a commodity that he exchanged with others. After all, the monetary economy is nothing else, insofar as it involves interaction with other individuals or groups. It is an exchange economy. Society has become a society of exchange. Whereas in the power-based society the collective deals with the will of the individual, which it absorbs, the society of exchange—in which we are still immersed and from which a large part of today’s humanity is striving to break free—deals with the will of the individual that stands in opposition to the will of the individual, and it is only from the interaction of individual wills that the collective will emerges, as if by chance. From what takes place from individual to individual springs forth what takes shape as an economic community, what takes shape as wealth, what emerges in the plutocracy, and so on. But at the heart of all this lies that which has to do with the clash of individual wills against individual wills.

[ 38 ] It is no wonder that the old power-based society could not strive for any kind of intellectual emancipation. For whoever was the leader was, by virtue of his competence, also recognized as the leader in intellectual matters and as the leader of the legal system. But it is also understandable that the legal, state, and political principles took on particular prominence in the exchange society. After all, we have seen what the law is actually intended to be based on, even if this intention is not properly expressed in today’s social order. Law is actually concerned with what the individual, as an equal, must determine in relation to another who is his equal. In a barter society, the individual deals with the individual. Thus, the barter society has an interest in transforming its economic life—where the individual also deals with the individual—into a legal life; that is, in reshaping economic interests into legal statutes.

[ 39 ] Just as the old power-based society gave way to a society of exchange, so today—driven by the innermost impulses of human development—this society of exchange is evolving into a new society, particularly in the economic sphere. For the exchange society has gradually—by appropriating spiritual life, enslaving it, and making it alien to life—become a mere economic society, and as such it is advocated by certain radical socialists. But driven by the deepest impulses of humanity today, this exchange society—particularly in the economic sphere—seeks to transition into what I would like to call—even if the name is somewhat inadequate, for it is, after all, a new phenomenon, and one generally lacks precise terms for new phenomena, which must, of course, be formed from language itself—the communal society. The exchange society must evolve into the communal society.

[ 40 ] What form will this communal society take? Just as in the power-based society the individual will—or the will of an aristocracy, which is also a kind of individual will—continues to operate, so to speak, within the whole, so that the individuals, in their volitions, merely represent continuations of the will of the individuals; and just as the exchange-based society had to deal with the clash of individual wills against one another, so too will the economic order of the communal society have to contend with a kind of collective will that now, in turn, exerts an influence back on individual will. For I explained in the second lecture how, in the realm of economic life, associations of the various branches of production are to arise—associations of branches of production with consumers—so that everywhere those engaged in economic activity and also those who consume economically are to join together. These associations will enter into contracts with one another. A kind of collective will will form within groups, whether large or small. Many who yearn for socialism are, in fact, striving for this collective will. However, they often create a highly unclear and by no means rational mental image of the matter.

[ 41 ] Just as in the society of violence—in the society of power—the individual will operated within the whole, so too in the communal society of the future a common will, a collective will, must operate within the individual.

[ 42 ] But how will this be possible? What must be contained within the collective will—which must, after all, arise from the interaction of individual wills; these individual wills must produce something that is not tyranny, not a democratic tyranny for the individual, within which the individual can feel free—what, then, must be contained within this collective will? This collective will must contain what the individual soul and the individual human spirit can accept, what they can agree to, and what they can come to terms with. That is to say, what lives within the individual human being—spirit and soul—must also live within the collective will of society. This is only possible if those who shape this collective will carry within themselves—arising from the individual will—a complete understanding of the individual human being in their willing, in their feeling, and in their mental image. What the individual human being experiences as their own spiritual, soul, and physical being must flow into this collective will. But then it must be incorporated into it.

[ 43 ] The situation was different in the instinctive power society, where the individual was recognized by the collective because the individuals did not assert their own will within the collective; it was different in the barter society, where individual wills clashed and a kind of random commonality emerged; but it must be different if an organized collective will is to influence the individual. Then no one who participates in shaping this collective will may be ignorant of what is truly human. Then one must not approach one’s view of life with an abstract natural science—a natural science that is directed solely toward external nature and can never understand the whole human being. Then one must approach one’s outlook on life through Spiritual Science—that Spiritual Science which, because it encompasses the whole human being in body, soul, and spirit, also evokes an understanding of this individual human being in accordance with feeling and will.

[ 44 ] If, therefore, one wishes to bring about a communal economic order, one will only be able to do so if one can infuse it with life from an independent spiritual life. Thus, it will only be possible to shape a prosperous future if, on the other hand, what is conceived in a free spiritual life can radiate back out into economic life. And this free spiritual life will not prove to be impractical; it will prove to be very practical indeed. Only those who remain in an unfree spiritual life can live in such a way that they reflect on the good, on the evil, on what is right and true, on the beautiful and the ugly—and this exists only within the depths of their soul. But the person who views the spirit as something living through Spiritual Science, who grasps it through spiritual scientific knowledge, becomes practical in all his actions, especially with regard to human life. What he takes in from this spiritual vision flows directly into his hands; it permeates every activity of life; it truly takes shape in such a way that it can be lived out in immediate, practical life. Only a spiritual culture that has been pushed aside from practical life becomes alien to life. A spiritual culture that is allowed to influence practical life develops into practice. I would like to say: Whoever truly knows spiritual life knows how little that spiritual element—when left to its own impulse—is removed from practical life. I would like to say: One is not a good philosopher if one cannot also chop wood at the right moment, for whoever seeks to establish a philosophy without being able to lend a hand in immediate practical life is not establishing a philosophy of life, but rather a philosophy alien to life. The true spiritual life is practical.

[ 45 ] Given the influences that have emerged over the centuries, it is understandable that today, precisely those people who are at the heart of contemporary cultural life and leading intellectual life—such as Robert Wilbrandt, who wrote about his socialization out of a genuine sense of goodwill and a genuine social ethos—still say: “No practical work of building can be accomplished because the soul is missing”—if they cannot bring themselves to ask about the reality of soul formation and soul development, if they cannot bring themselves to ask: What effect does a truly free spiritual life have on political life and on economic life? This free spiritual life will interact in the right way, as I have shown, with economic life. But then economic life, which can interact with political and spiritual life, will also be able at any time to nurture people who, in turn, will provide the impetus for spiritual life.

[ 46 ] A free, directly real form of communal life is brought about by the threefold structure of the social organism. Therefore, one would like to call out to those people who today, out of instinct but by no means out of a genuine courage to face life, long for an undefined soul and an undefined spirit: Learn to recognize what the reality of the spirit is; give to the spirit what belongs to the spirit, give to the soul what belongs to the soul, and then economic life, too, will appear as what it truly is.

Q&A Session Following the Fifth Lecture

[ 47 ] The question posed here is:

[ 48 ] I fear that the threefold structure of the social organism will give rise to a perpetual schematism, such as that of German idealism—specifically Kant’s—which forced the entire rich life of the spirit into the schema of the threefold division of thinking, feeling, and willing.

[ 49 ] Please forgive me if I begin by making a personal remark. In a wide variety of books—and it is indeed a large series that I have written, far too large—I have set myself the task of exposing what is incorrect and, in a certain sense, even reprehensible about Kantianism as a worldview. This is still a rather unpopular endeavor today. And I have, in particular, had to point out time and again the unhealthy nature of the Kantian way of thinking, precisely because I sensed how a way of thinking shaped and formed out of reality is the exact opposite of the Kantian one. One might say: Kantian thinking is so popular precisely because it schematizes. Anyone who has followed my lectures here will find that, while I must indeed use words, one could only find a schematic spirit in these words, in these discussions, if one were to introduce it oneself. There is truly nothing schematizing in the way I attempt to view reality; rather, if one speaks at all—and one might consider speaking to be useless, though few people do so today—then one must make use of words, and the only thing that matters is being understood correctly. I do not speak with any particular philosophical topic in mind, but rather I wish to take in the whole of life.

[ 50 ] On this occasion, it is indeed necessary to touch on something personal. I have, after all, soon to complete my sixth decade of life and have indeed been through a great deal; fate has carried me into many different spheres of life, allowing me to come to know what lives within the most diverse classes and social strata of people today—and to know it in such a way that there was truly no schematism at its core, but rather that I was able to embrace life in its fullness. And out of this full life, views have therefore emerged for me that some people do not immediately find understandable, precisely because the schematism that is so popular today is not sufficient for their understanding—but rather because one needs a certain instinct for life to know these things in the right way. However, there is one thing I have never managed to do—even though I have gotten to know party members ranging from the far right to the most radical left, as well as those in the center—and that is to belong to a party myself. Perhaps it is precisely to this circumstance that I owe—at least in my own belief—a certain impartiality.

[ 51 ] Now, what I put forward regarding the threefold structure of the social organism is truly not meant to correspond to any kind of schematism; rather, wherever one examines life, this threefold structure reveals itself. Look it up in my book On the Mysteries of the Soul: this is not a matter of schematism, whereby I seek to divide the entire natural human organism, just as Kant so neatly divided the spiritual life into its three sections; rather, it is the case that there are truly three members interacting with one another. It is not schematism to describe any aspect of reality where these three elements are at play and to name them as such. It is quite different to classify things according to subjective criteria than to attempt to reflect reality. And this is precisely the foundation of the way of thinking being asserted here: that reality is taken as such, that nothing is asserted that is not dictated directly by reality itself. I’d like to illustrate this with an example: I once gave a lecture in a small town in southern Germany on the wisdom of Christianity. Two Catholic priests were also present. And because the lecture contained nothing they could challenge in terms of content, they came up to me afterward and said: “Well, you see, we can’t really say anything against what you presented today; but you present it in such a way that you’re speaking only to certain people who, precisely because of their education, are predestined to listen to these things, whereas we speak to everyone.” — I said at the time: “Yes, you know, the fact that you and I imagine we’re speaking to everyone—that’s subjective; essentially, anyone could imagine that; for why else would they speak to people at all if they didn’t believe that what they’re saying is universally valid and plausible? But this subjective aspect isn’t what matters at all. What matters is whether the objective facts speak for themselves and whether one acts in accordance with these objective facts. And now I ask you: You say you speak to all people; that is your subjective opinion, and, for my sake, also your subjective aspiration; but do all people come to your church? That would be the proof that you speak to all people. - Of course, they couldn’t say, “Yes, that’s the case.” For it was the facts that spoke, not subjective opinions. So I said: “Let’s take that as a fact for now, and I speak to those who do not come to your church, for they, too, have a right to hear about Christ.”

[ 52 ] This is how one lets reality speak. One certainly does not oversimplify here, nor does one rely on subjective considerations at all, but rather attempts to interpret what real temporal impulses are. It is from such real temporal impulses that one seeks to speak.

[ 53 ] Do you envision the threefold social order being implemented within existing states, or how? In other words, will today’s state—with its political boundaries—also serve as the framework in the new order?

[ 54 ] Well, it is only possible to make something fruitful if one does not seek to tear everything to pieces, but rather if one is mindful of true development and works in the spirit of true development. You may have already noticed how, particularly within the ideas of the threefold social organism, efforts are directed toward shaping life on the basis of Spiritual Science. These spiritual scientific foundations will also yield what distinguished thinkers today find lacking, namely, a true economic science. What is called economic science today is, after all, merely a collection of fragments gathered from individual observations. It is not something that could truly become an impulse for social will. A true economic science can only grow out of the foundations of Spiritual Science.

[ 55 ] Various issues will arise regarding the demarcation of social organizations. For example, laws will emerge organically from economic life itself, specifying how economic spheres and economic territories are to be demarcated, so that one can look toward a future that might be described in the following manner. A true science of economics shows that if the associations I discussed in the second lecture and in today’s lecture become too large, they are no longer economically viable; if they become too small, they are also no longer economically viable. The size of an economic territory is determined by its internal conditions, by the diversity of production, and by the diverse branches and sectors that exist within it. If I were to articulate the law governing this size, I would have to say something like this: economic territories of any kind that are too small are harmful in that they do not allow the associated people to make a living—in a sense, they let the associated people starve; economic territories that are too large, on the other hand, have the effect of harming those outside the territory, causing them to starve. In fact, one can determine the size of economic territories based on inner laws, whether for smaller economic perspectives or for larger ones. And it is by no means necessary—I will have more to say about this later—for the spiritual boundaries to coincide with the economic boundaries or with the legal boundaries, provided the social organism is truly threefold. A large part of the calamity of the present, which has erupted in this terrible catastrophe of the World War—which, as I explained at the end of yesterday’s lecture, is by no means over—stems from the fact that, under the unitary state, economic, political, and spiritual-cultural boundaries have been allowed to coincide everywhere. The point, then, is that the size of territories will arise from an inner lawfulness, from life itself.

[ 56 ] But one must take development into account. That is why one must begin, for the time being, with what is already given. And here one can say: At first, it will certainly become apparent that historical institutions and structures must work toward this impulse toward the threefold structure of the social organism. But then, once they have—not that they have “carried it out” in a healthy way, but rather have it within themselves—the other will already emerge from the law of life that results from this.

[ 57 ] So these matters should not be answered theoretically, but in a way that is true to life. So that one might say: Whatever happens tomorrow, for example, will only serve as the foundation for the day after tomorrow. So it’s a matter of pointing toward a way of life, not of inventing some kind of program. Such programs are terribly shallow, and truth be told, enough of them have already been invented.

[ 58 ] Will the treatment of agricultural means of production differ significantly from that of industrial ones?

[ 59 ] The treatment of agricultural means of production—that is, primarily land—for insofar as other means of production are considered, they are, after all, industrial means of production—is particularly evident today in the context of the struggle waged by land reformers. You can easily grasp what is at stake here if you go back to the most original land reformer, Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, and his effort to use the so-called “single tax” to compensate for and eradicate the injustices of the social order that can result from rising land prices. Under certain circumstances, the one who has not contributed the slightest bit of labor to land ownership may profit. Thus, from this perspective, an attempt is made to place the means of agricultural production—at least within certain limits—at the service of the common good.

[ 60 ] Many years ago, I once had a discussion with Damaschke—who, in a certain sense, is very much rooted in the ideas of Henry George—and I told him at the time: Agricultural means of production must not be readily confused with industrial means of production, for there is a considerable difference that determines a difference in the effect of these two means of production on the entire social order. Land has a finite amount; land is not elastic. If two houses stand next to each other, adjoining one another, one cannot simply pull apart the land on which they stand so that a third house can be built between them. In contrast, industrial means of production—I would say—can be maintained in a state of elasticity; they can be increased. This makes a big difference. Therefore, the two must be treated differently. Thus, the Social Democratic theory—which is primarily tailored to industrial means of production—must not simply be applied to land as a means of production. What matters is what I just said in today’s lecture: that land, just like finished means of production, should not be an object of economic activity, but rather an object of legal transfer based on intellectual considerations. If this is the case for both, then the differences do not arise in a theoretical sense, but from real-life experience. Just consider the following, for example: Industrial means of production wear out; they must constantly be replaced. With agricultural means of production, however, the situation is somewhat different; not only are they not elastic, but they also wear out to a much lesser extent and must, at the very least, be treated quite differently from industrial means of production.

[ 61 ] But there is another, fundamentally different relationship between agricultural means of production and industrial means of production. One might consider that a portion of industrial output must be used to advance that industry, to develop it further and further. Here we see that a portion of what we might call the capital management of industry is, in turn, absorbed by industry itself. This is not the case in the same way with agricultural means of production. If the books were kept as comprehensive records of economic life, they would reveal two poles: One pole would point roughly toward coal production; starting from coal production, one would have roughly all those items that flow into the industrial sector. The other pole points to bread; if one were to list all the items relating to bread—in the broadest sense, of course, as indicated by the other foodstuffs produced by the land—and were to record them, one would arrive at roughly what the land produces.

[ 62 ] Much of what would be contained in this comprehensive book—if land, as well as the means of production, were removed from the economy and allocated to the legal order and the spiritual order—is obscured today by the fact that industry is conflated with the administration of land. After all, one need only be an industrialist and hold mortgages on land for the confusion to already exist. But there are also numerous other factors at play. If that were not the case, one would clearly see that the global economy today stands—as paradoxical as this may still seem to some—in such a way that land is truly productive; while industry as a whole is not productive in itself, but is in fact sustained by the yields from land. As strange as this may sound to some today, it is nevertheless the case. Every industrial enterprise is, in essence, what is called in agriculture a “consuming good”—that is, a good that actually consumes its own yields.

[ 63 ] Today, the economy as a whole is by no means taken into account. It is obscured by a wide variety of circumstances. In real life, however, the factors that could be decisive in the transfer of both agricultural means of production, on the one hand, and industrial means of production, on the other, would become apparent.

[ 64 ] In the industrial sphere, it is primarily people’s individual intellectual abilities—what they are capable of, what they have learned, and what they are naturally inclined toward—that are taken into account in this transfer. In the agrarian transfer, other factors come into play; for example, the deep connection between people and the land is a key consideration. It must certainly be taken into account that the person best suited to continue working the land cannot be chosen in an abstract manner based on his intellectual aptitude, but must, in a certain sense, have grown together with the soil. If the meaning of the threefold order could be made clear in the right way, especially out in the countryside, the entire farming community would agree. Of course, if someone comes along who has the bad reputation of being a scholar, then people naturally won’t listen to him, and he will have nothing to say; but if the matter is presented to the people in the right way, they will have no objection at all. For in fact, this principle is already being put into practice, particularly among the farming community. Not among large landowners, but among the peasantry—insofar as the state does not interfere disruptively—people essentially think and act in this spirit.

[ 65 ] The point, then, is that these perspectives arise in concrete reality and from it. In a viable social order, programs should not be created; rather, the task is to shape that order in such a way that life can exist. Life then still has a role to play.

[ 66 ] You see, this is what distinguishes the impulse toward social threefolding presented here from all sorts of programs that are, after all, as common as blackberries these days. These social programs lay out: first, second, third, and so on. They essentially reduce everything to a formula. The idea of the threefold social order does not claim such omniscience for itself; rather, it seeks to enable people to interact in such a way that they can shape the social organism accordingly. It merely aims to place people in circumstances from which an appropriate social order can emerge. If only people would grasp that this is a fundamental difference between the impulse toward threefolding and the other approaches that exist today, they would see how this threefolding draws precisely from the fullness of reality.

[ 67 ] That is why I have often told people: It doesn’t matter at all whether one thing or another should be this way or that way. For my part, I’d even go so far as to say: Let’s tackle the matter head-on; perhaps it will turn out that no stone will be left unturned, but something will emerge that is certainly stable, because reality has been grasped at its very core. Precisely when one grasps reality, something may emerge that is entirely different from what was initially stated in a programmatic way. But the point is not to draw up a program, but to point out how reality is to be grasped.

[ 68 ] At the beginning of the question-and-answer session, a visitor had taken the floor to make a lengthy statement. Dr. Steiner replied:

[ 69 ] Now a few words regarding what the esteemed speaker before me said. He said, for example, that the threefold social order has always existed. I understood very well why he said that, because he confused what I said with something else. He also clearly indicated that he had made this mistake: namely, he kept speaking of the “threefold social order of socialism,” if I heard him correctly.

[ 70 ] Of course, I would never speak of the “threefold social order of socialism.” That strikes me as a complete impossibility. For socialism, as a worldview, can naturally be nothing but a unified whole. And only when one thinks in such abstract terms is one tempted to say: Well, life has always been divided into three parts, so why should we even talk about this threefold division of life?

[ 71 ] Yes, that is precisely what this is all about! Certainly, life has always been threefold, and the point is not that one should deliberately divide life into three parts. It divides itself. The point is that, in the management of life, one has not always done what is right to manage, organize, and direct this threefold life in the proper way. It goes without saying that life is threefold. That is precisely why we are talking about it! Because life is threefold, we ask: How should we go about it so that, if a unity is to emerge, it truly does emerge?—It has not emerged over the past few centuries or in the present. So that is what it is all about: finding a new path. It is, in the highest sense—even if one believes it to be in harmony with reality—an abstract, unrealistic way of thinking when one seeks to dismiss with “self-evident truths” that which certainly takes these self-evident truths into account, yet precisely because of these self-evident truths recognizes the necessity that life itself must be shaped in accordance with them. In life, it happens all too often that such self-evident truths are steered onto the wrong course, and this is what leads to life crises. That is what I would particularly like to draw attention to.

[ 72 ] Likewise, it is really just a figure of speech to say: “Law arises from the interplay of the spirit and the economy.” Well, certainly, it will come; once the threefold social order is in place, then the law will also come. But it will come in such a way that people will have to figure out how it should come about. People must bring it about. So one must reflect on the method by which they are to bring it about.

[ 73 ] Much else worth taking to heart has been said about the connection between spiritual life and practical work. I do not wish to go into personal matters; otherwise, I could easily demonstrate to the esteemed speaker who spoke before me how I have strived my entire life to combine practical work with spiritual life. But please do not expect of me what has been expected of me in some discussions—namely, that practical life in this area consists of working within the framework of some political party. That is precisely what some people have understood by “practical social work.” This so-called practical social work is sometimes a very theoretical and impractical form of social work. So these things must by no means be confused with genuine practical living.

[ 74 ] It was then said that if there were truly to be an improvement, a recovery in conditions, it would require the working class to genuinely engage with the intellectual foundations of social life. I fully agree with this, but I also believe that in these lectures I have already indicated the proper means by which the working class can indeed engage with these intellectual questions. I have already pointed out that for years I was a teacher at a workers’ educational school, that there I certainly found the working class and also the right tone to speak scientifically in a way that resonates with workers’ hearts. But then the leaders came; they kicked me out—to put it bluntly—because they wanted people to listen only to them and to hear only what they commanded and what they advocated. I have already told you this in these lectures. When I said, “If academic freedom is not to prevail even here, where is it to prevail?”—one of the leaders replied, “Academic freedom—that cannot exist among us; reasonable coercion—that is what it’s all about!”

[ 75 ] Yes, you see, along with this, I could cite many things that would serve as effective means to actually enable the current working class to grasp the intellectual foundations for a social transformation. This means would be this: to break away from most of the current leaders, who have no intention whatsoever of bringing about a social reconstruction in an honest way, but who have something entirely different in mind—and yet, in many respects, they are still obeyed far more today—as the practice of working within the threefold social order has shown—than Catholics obey their archbishops. This is something that should be taken to heart. And I am convinced that there is so much sound judgment among the broad masses of the people today that the moment certain leaders were to fall, a great deal of genuine, sound social insight would emerge.

[ 76 ] What we need today is for people to rally once again around ideas—around genuine, idealistic impulses from which life can be shaped—and for us to move beyond the old party stereotypes and party platforms, for these are the main obstacles to sound judgment and to sound action in accordance with such judgment. One must simply seek out, from the full reality of the situation, what could lead to healing. Mere demands are not enough—just as the mere demand for the “abolition of capital” is not enough—but rather, one must see how capital should function. For “abolition” is easy. That is to say, it is not easy precisely because it leads to ruin. But if we are to move beyond the harms of capitalism, then something else is necessary. Just as it is necessary to look into reality in this specific area, so too is it necessary to look into the full reality of human life today and to recognize that political parties often survive only on the abstract continuation of their programs, yet they are no longer connected to real life. This is particularly necessary when it comes to a genuine reconstruction in the realm of social life.

[ 77 ] That is what I would like to say today, although there are still many other points that would need to be touched upon to shed light on such questions.