The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. The Three Facets of the Social Question

[ 1 ] As I have done in other places in Württemberg and Switzerland, I will take the liberty of speaking here as well about the most pressing and important issue of our time—the social question—specifically in connection with what was published in the appeal that circulated throughout Germany some time ago, “To the German People and to the Cultural World.” Most of you are likely familiar with the appeal, which advocates for the threefold social order. Further elaborations on what could, of course, only be briefly touched upon in such an appeal are provided in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life for the Present and the Future*. Allow me to outline a few points this evening regarding what needs to be said about this appeal.

[ 2 ] The social question—as is surely evident to every human soul that watches the events of our time with alertness—is what has emerged in an entirely new form from the immense, shattering events of the catastrophe of the World War. Admittedly, the so-called social question or social movement, as we speak of it today, is at least more than half a century old. But anyone who considers what is now emerging as a mighty historical wave and compares these things with one another may nevertheless say: This social question has taken on a completely new form in our present time, a form that no one should ignore.

[ 3 ] How often have we heard the following statement over the past four to five years: “There is something about this terrible catastrophe of the World War that people have not experienced since the very beginning of what we call history.” But even now, when this world war catastrophe has entered a crisis, one still hears very little—truly very little—about the necessity of entirely new impulses to reorganize life; that a complete rethinking and relearning is necessary—even though, outwardly speaking, the necessity of this rethinking and relearning is already apparent. For it was precisely the old ways of thinking that led us into that terrible catastrophe of humanity. New ideas, new impulses must lead us out of it again. And where those impulses are to be found is revealed by a truly keen observation of what is emerging as social demands from the minds of more and more people—demands that only those who are asleep to the times can fail to notice; those who wait for events to unfold until, so to speak, the old structure collapses into nothingness.

[ 4 ] Today, social issues are often viewed as something extremely obvious, and at times extremely simple. Anyone who judges not on the basis of abstract theories, nor on the basis of individual personal demands, but rather from a truly broad experience of the necessities of life in the present and future, must see in this social question something into which many forces converge—forces that have developed in the course of human evolution and, one might even say, have in a certain way led themselves toward their own destruction. To anyone who surveys these conditions of life, the social question appears in three distinct forms. It appears, first, as a question of intellectual life; second, as a question of legal life; and third, as a question of economic life. Now, the past few centuries—and especially the nineteenth century, as well as the past two decades of the twentieth century—have led to the belief that almost everything pertaining to the social question must be sought in the economic sphere. The reasons why people see so little clearly lie precisely in the belief that one need only find one’s way in the economic sphere, and then all the rest would follow of its own accord. It will be necessary, therefore, for the first parts of my reflection today to be devoted to an area of life that people—neither on the left nor on the right—are even now willing to acknowledge as socially significant, namely, the realm of intellectual life.

[ 5 ] The demands known as “social” do, in fact, originate from the broad masses of the proletariat, who have endured a threefold ordeal leading up to the present conditions, which we will discuss later. And this proletariat has been almost entirely forced into the realm of mere economic life by the rise of new technology and soul-destroying capitalism, as well as by other cultural conditions. The demands of the proletariat also arose from economic life. Therefore, because it first emerges from the proletariat, the social question of the present takes on an economic form. But it is not merely an economic question. The simple observation of how inadequate traditional ideas are in the face of today’s glaring realities alone can teach us that, within the social movement, we are dealing not merely with an economic and legal issue, but above all with an intellectual one.

[ 6 ] Across much of the civilized world, we are faced with a social reality that speaks for itself. Social party views, party platforms—we have had them, and they have been put forward. Now that we are confronted with the facts, all ideas and all party views prove to be inadequate. Today, it is not a matter of continuing old party views; rather, today it is a matter of confronting the facts directly and with the utmost seriousness, with a sense of reality.

[ 7 ] Let us first take a look at how the lives of “the people”—which ultimately led to catastrophe—have developed in recent times. Above all, we must turn our attention to the deep, seemingly unbridgeable chasm that exists between the proletariat and the non-proletariat. When we look at the cultural life of this non-proletariat, what do we see? Certainly, this cultural life has been lavishly praised as an immense advance in recent times. Time and again, we have heard how, in recent times, means of transportation have carried people across vast swaths of the earth—a feat that, had it been described prophetically in earlier times, would have been dismissed as a utopian fantasy. The idea—so it has been preached and extolled time and again—travels at lightning speed across distant lands and seas, and so on. People have never grown tired of praising progress time and again. But today it is necessary to add a different perspective to all of this. Today we must ask: Under what conditions did this progress come about? It could only have come about by being built upon a foundation of the broadest masses of humanity, who were unable to participate in all that has been so highly praised about this culture—built upon the foundation of broad masses of people who had to do the work for this culture of the few, a culture which, in the form in which it was “created,” could only exist because these masses had no share in it. Now these broad masses have matured, have come into their own, and are rightly demanding their share. Their demands are at the same time the great, historical demands of the present for anyone who truly understands their time. And when the call for the socialization of economic life rings out today, those who understand their times recognize in this call not merely the demands of a particular class of people, but at the same time a historical demand of human life in the present.

[ 8 ] A peculiarity of the ruling classes—who were the participants in the much-praised culture—is that, in recent times, they have missed almost every opportunity and have proven themselves incapable of bridging, in any way, the gulf between themselves and the masses of the proletariat, who are increasingly making their justified demands heard. What has been lacking, in particular, are the ideas that should have flowed into human and social life in order to bridge this gap. It is indeed a peculiarity of this modern intellectual life—which has been so often praised—that it has become increasingly alien to true, real life. The individual pursues only the life that immediately surrounds him. For the broader public, no comprehensive ideas emerged from our intellectual life or from our school education. Here is an example that, viewed from a wide variety of perspectives, could be multiplied not tenfold, but a hundredfold and more.

[ 9 ] At the beginning of the century, a member of the cantonal government named Kolb took his fate into his own hands in a remarkable way. I am happy to mention this State Councilor Kolb because the way he took his fate into his own hands is truly commendable, and because I do not need to say anything derogatory in the process—which I do not like to do. At a certain point in his life, Kolb did something that not many other State Councilors do. The others usually retire when they no longer wish to serve; he, however, resigned from his office, went to America, and got a job as an ordinary worker—first in a brewery, then in a bicycle factory. Based on the experiences he had there, he then wrote a book: *As a Worker in America*.

[ 10 ] There is a curious sentence in this book. It goes something like this: “When I used to meet someone on the street who wasn’t working, I would say, ‘Why isn’t that good-for-nothing working?’ Now I knew better: And now I know something else about many other things as well; now I know that even the most dreadful aspects of life look quite good in the study.” This is a confession that profoundly characterizes the social conditions of the time. A man who emerged from our intellectual life, to whom the fate of humanity was entrusted for many years—for as many years as are necessary to bring it to the level of government action—knows nothing of human labor; that is to say, he knows nothing of human life. He must first forge a destiny for himself in order to know anything about the life he is supposed to govern, in which he is supposed to be active from within the ruling classes. In order to know anything about this life, he must first take a job as a worker, and only then does he arrive at entirely different views of life.

[ 11 ] Doesn’t this example—which could truly be multiplied—point to how our intellectual life, from which our leaders emerge, has become alien to the lives of the broad masses? The broad masses have seen, out of the necessity of their bodies and souls, how the ruling classes manage economic life. They have seen that something is wrong, that these ruling classes lack the necessary spirit to manage economic life. Today the question arises: What needs to change?

[ 12 ] And in many other respects, one can still see how far the ruling class has strayed, over the course of the last few centuries, from what should have been done to avoid being driven into a catastrophe. Certainly, within the ruling circles, people spoke with the utmost seriousness and dignity about all manner of noble ideals—about charity, about brotherhood among people, about the way in which human beings ought to be good in general, and the like. But they had no connection to real life. At most, they ever got as far as conducting surveys. One such survey from the mid-19th century is actually quite significant today. It was initiated by the British government at the time among the mine management. The idea was that the people who sat in their well-heated rooms talking about human existence should learn, for once, what kind of coal they were talking about when they spoke of this “goodness.” They were to learn that this coal—about which they spoke in terms of their advanced morality and their advanced intellectual life—was hauled up from mine shafts into which nine-, eleven-, and thirteen-year-old children were sent before daybreak, before the sun rose, and from which they did not emerge until nightfall, so that the poor children almost never saw the light of day. It was easy to talk about human goodness and love of one’s neighbor in connection with the coal that was brought to the surface in this way. And much more of the same could be told. And the question must be asked: Did the impulses to truly intervene in social life arise among the leading circles of humanity from such circumstances? Some will reply to me today: Yes, many things have indeed improved. But to that I will say: What has improved did not do so through the initiative of the ruling class, but through the arduous struggle of those who suffered under these conditions.

[ 13 ] These are the things we must focus on today. We must turn our attention to what the worker—who labor from morning till night—can see, at most, from the outside as he passes by our universities and our secondary schools. After all, he knows only what goes on in elementary schools, and even there, only what he happens to witness. He does not know how the goals of elementary school are dictated from above; he sees only that these institutions do not produce the kind of people who can lead economic life today.

[ 14 ] This is the first aspect of the social question. Despite all the adulation of our intellectual life, we do not have an intellectual life that is up to the great challenges of our time.

[ 15 ] Let’s take a look at economic life. When the social movement emerged, it was very common to hear the ruling circles dismiss it with the words: “They want to share.” But what comes of sharing? Everyone ends up with very little. — Then this objection fell silent; for on the one hand it is very true, and on the other, very foolish. Lately, it has been cropping up more and more again. But these things are not what matters. Anyone who looks closely at the specific structure of our economic life today knows that the physical and spiritual misery of the broad masses of the proletariat has arisen from entirely different underlying causes. They know that an inadequate development of intellectual life has failed to truly shape the ever-expanding technical machinery of economic life in such a way that every human being could lead a dignified existence within it.

[ 16 ] Certainly, it has been rightly pointed out on many occasions that the modern social movement arose as a result of modern technology, machines, and soul-destroying capitalism. But people have forgotten that everything that has arisen in this way could not be controlled by spiritual life as it has developed.

[ 17 ] Why did this come to pass? Along with the machine, industrialism, and capitalism, a certain impulse took hold of humanity, expressed in the belief that it was progress to allow the state to absorb spiritual life as much as possible. The nationalization of spiritual life was regarded as a great step forward. And even today, one still encounters the sharpest prejudices if one raises any objection to this nationalization of spiritual life. Those whose sympathies lie deeply within today’s intellectual life point out, with a certain arrogance, how much further we have come in intellectual matters than in the old, dark Middle Ages. Now, certainly, we do not want the Middle Ages to return. We want to move forward, not backward. But another question must be raised. It is said that in the Middle Ages, intellectual life—especially science—trailed in the wake of theology or the Church. Today we must ask: Whose wake is contemporary intellectual life following—or perhaps something else entirely? Here again is an example, one that could be multiplied not just a hundredfold, but a thousandfold. Once again, I would like to speak of a man whom I hold in high esteem because, in my opinion, he was a distinguished natural scientist. At the same time, he served as secretary-general of a learned society that marches at the forefront of German intellectual life. In one of his well-crafted speeches, he sought to express what these German scholars—who have the great honor of being members of the Berlin Academy of Sciences—consider their highest honor. When such a thing is described, one naturally wishes to point out a historical fact that is by no means insignificant. This Berlin Academy has, after all, always been an institution capable, in a sense, of intellectually expressing the spirit of the House of Hohenzollern. An 18th-century Hohenzollern once faced the necessity of appointing a president for his Academy of Sciences—I am not telling you a fairy tale, but a historical fact—and he believed he was honoring this Academy of Sciences most by appointing his court jester as its president. But the great scholar of the late 19th century says that the learned gentlemen of the Berlin Academy consider it their highest honor to be the Hohenzollerns’ scientific guard.

[ 18 ] One must view such things as symptoms of the times. One must examine what has become of spiritual life in its dependence on state power and the capitalist power associated with it. For if one can draw inner impulses not from some preconceptions but from the necessities of life, from reality itself, then—contrary to all the preconceptions of the times—one will say to oneself: Intellectual life can only find its strength if it is detached once again from state life, if it is left entirely to its own devices. What lives within spiritual life—especially the school system—must be entrusted to self-administration, from the very top of the administration of spiritual life down to the teacher at the lowest grade level. In the administration of spiritual life, nothing other than the forces of this spiritual life itself can be decisive. Those who are active in this spiritual life and experience it from within must form, out of their own initiative, the body that administers this spiritual life and sets it entirely on its own feet.

[ 19 ] This is the first point of what is referred to here as the threefold structure of a healthy social organism. Such a spiritual life will be able to relate to life in a completely different way than the antisocial spiritual life into which we have gradually found ourselves, and from which, it seems, we have no need whatsoever to emerge.

[ 20 ] Someone who truly has experience in this field is certainly entitled to speak about it based on that experience. For many years, I was a teacher at the Workers’ Educational School founded by Liebknecht in Berlin. So I know how to find the sources of an intellectual life that is not the preserve of a privileged class—nor a luxury—but one from which one can speak to all people who have the urge to achieve a dignified existence for both soul and body. And from this practical experience of my own life, I know something else as well. I know how the workers understood me—and came to understand me better and better—when I spoke to them from a free intellectual life that is there for all people, not just for a privileged class. Because the workers believed they had to go along with this or that, there came times when I was prompted to guide the workers through museums or similar institutions—through places where the artifacts of a culture were on display that existed only for the few, a culture that did not represent a folk culture or a folk spiritual life. There I saw how the divide existed in the spiritual-soul realm as well, and how, deep down, people were not really able to take in inwardly what had arisen on the foundation of a culture intended for the few. Therein lies a misconception to which many still succumb today. People believe they are promoting public education when they throw scraps at the masses of what has emerged from our culture in universities, secondary schools, and other educational institutions—things born solely from the social sensibilities of a few. What efforts have been made to promote such public education! Public libraries, adult education centers, public theaters, and so on. We never manage to overcome the misconception that consists in believing we can carry into the broad masses what is spiritually required by the sphere of feeling of an isolated minority. No, the times call for a spiritual life that encompasses everyone in a social way. But this can only come about if those who are to participate in it form a unity—with their entire emotional life, with all their social foundations—with those who bring this spiritual life into being; if one does not merely toss them scraps, but rather if a unified spiritual effort is made throughout the entire population. This, however, requires the liberation of spiritual life from state and capitalist coercion. Of course, in a short lecture I cannot cite everything—not even all that is written in my book about these key points of the social question—that could be said about the necessity of separating this spiritual life, especially the school system, from state and economic life and establishing it on its own. But this is the first requirement for the threefold social order: a spiritual life that develops out of itself.

[ 21 ] There is no need to fear such a spiritual life. One need not even be afraid if one has a poor opinion of people—perhaps thinking that they will revert to their former state of illiteracy, or something similar—if parents are once again free to send their children to school or keep them out of school, without state coercion. No, the proletariat, in particular, will increasingly recognize what it owes to a school education. And it will not keep its children out of school, even if it is not compelled to send them to school but must do so of its own free will. And in particular, advocates of the unified school system need not fear that the school will be disrupted by a free intellectual life. Nothing other than the unified school system can emerge if a free intellectual life is fostered.

[ 22 ] First, a few words on the separation of spiritual life from political and economic life.

[ 23 ] The second sphere of life that must be considered when studying today’s social issues is the legal sphere. People have developed a wide variety of views on this legal sphere. But anyone who is able to view and experience this legal life directly from reality will say to themselves: To come up with definitions or scholarly theories about the law is just like trying to give all sorts of scholarly instructions about what the color blue is and what the color red is. Anyone with a healthy eye can talk about the colors blue and red. One can speak with any alert human soul about legal consciousness—about the rights that belong to every human being simply because they are human. And it is with alert human souls—with ever more alert human souls—that one is dealing in the modern proletariat.

[ 24 ] With regard to this legal foundation of life, however, modern humanity—insofar as it belongs to the ruling circles—has had a curious experience. These ruling circles had no choice but to extend a certain degree of democracy over life. To advance their capitalist interests, they needed a skilled proletariat—a proletariat whose certain spiritual faculties had been cultivated. The old patriarchal way of life had no place in modern, capitalist economic life. But something highly unpleasant for such a one-sided, capitalist democracy soon became apparent. For the human soul has this peculiarity: when one develops certain abilities and powers within it, others emerge of their own accord. Thus, the ruling class preferred to allow only those spiritual powers to develop that would make the workers skilled at working in the factories. Yet it inevitably followed that souls would awaken from the old patriarchal conditions, and that within them, in particular, an awareness of human rights would awaken. And then they looked into the modern state, which was supposed to embody the rule of law. They asked themselves: Is this the ground on which the rule of law truly flourishes? And what did they find? Instead of human rights, they found class privileges and class discrimination. And from this arose what is called the modern class struggle of the proletariat, behind which lies nothing more and nothing less than the great, just demand for a dignified existence for all people.

[ 25 ] This is the second aspect of the social question: the legal question. One cannot understand what it means unless one looks at the third aspect: the economic question. Two things have found their way into economic life that simply do not belong there. These are capital and human labor, whereas economic life should consist solely of what takes place on the commodity market. I believe that recent years—and the present in particular—could teach people very clearly that the most important element in the proletarian social movement is the proletarian individual himself. But as things stand today, the proletarian individual can truly not be judged by someone who, because the times already suggest this, takes the liberty of speaking about the proletariat based on various mental images. No, these matters can be judged only by those whose fate has led them to think with the proletariat and to feel with the proletariat. One must have seen for oneself how, over the course of decades, the proletarian world gathered in the hours wrested from the evening after hard labor to educate themselves about the economic developments of the new era, about the significance of labor and capital, and about the significance of commodity consumption and production; one must have seen what an immense need for education develops primarily among the proletarian people, while, on the other side of the chasm, within the upper classes, people attended the theater and devoted themselves to various other pursuits, and at most managed to look down from the stage once upon the misery of the proletariat. That is where the proletarian developed; he developed precisely out of his intellectual life. And to anyone who says today that the proletarian question is merely a matter of bread and the stomach, the answer must be: It is a pity enough that it has come to this—that the proletarian question has become a question of bread—that people did not look at something else earlier, namely, that from all his striving, the proletarian’s demand for a dignified existence arose—an existence in which he need not let his body and soul wither away. For all proletarian demands ultimately stem from this, not from a mere question of bread and sustenance. But as the proletarian sought to come to self-awareness in this way, as he engaged with the economic forms of modern times, an awareness developed within him of how he actually stands as a human being in this human life. From his own perspective, he was able to observe how the ruling circles conducted their lives. They told him that history was a divine world order, or a moral world order, or the world order of the Idea. He saw only that the ruling classes lived within their world order in the manner that the surplus value—which he was forced to produce—allowed them to live. That is why the words of the Communist Manifesto struck such a deep chord in the hearts of the proletariat and brought them to an awareness of their situation. Despite all the progress of modern times, despite all the so-called new freedoms, the proletarian is condemned to sell his labor power on the labor market as a commodity and to have it bought and sold. From this arose the demand: The times are over in which a person is still allowed to have a part of himself sold or bought. His feeling—which he perhaps could not always put into clear words—led the proletarian back to ancient times, to the days of serfdom. And he saw how the purchase of his labor power had survived from those ancient times. For nothing other than this lies at the heart of the wage relationship. So he said to himself: Commodities belong on the commodity market. One takes commodities to the market, sells them, and returns with the proceeds. I have to sell my labor power to the employer, but I cannot go to him and say: “Here is my labor power for such-and-such an amount of money; now I’m leaving”—I have to surrender myself! — You see, as a human being, one must go along with one’s labor power. That is what the proletarian perceives as an inhuman existence. |

[ 26 ] This raises the big question: What must happen so that labor power can no longer be a commodity? People today—insofar as they belong to the ruling, leading circles—basically give very little thought to labor power. These people open their wallets and pay with bills of such-and-such denominations. Whether they even consider that what they hand over as banknotes—or perhaps cut off in the form of coupons—embodies a specific amount of the proletariat’s labor power is the big question. In any case, they do not give it enough thought to have a significant impact on social life.

[ 27 ] The point is precisely that human labor power cannot be compared in price to any commodity; that human labor power is something entirely different from a commodity. This human labor power must be removed from the economic process. And the only way to achieve this is to view economic life as a component of the social organism, distinct from the legal or state organism—that is, the political organism. Then what I would like to illustrate to you through a comparison can come to pass. On the one hand, economic life is bound by natural constraints. In a closed economic region, one cannot exploit these resources in any arbitrary manner. Through technical means, one can utilize the soil or the like. But within certain limits, one must conform to the natural foundation. Imagine a number of large landowners—who are, in their own way, also capitalists—who would say: If we are to maintain this balance sheet or even achieve a better one, then we must have a hundred rainy days in the summer, interspersed with sunny days, and so on. Of course, this is complete nonsense, but it draws our attention to how, on the one hand, we cannot alter the natural foundations; how we cannot demand, from within economic life, that the forces of nature prepare the grain of wheat in the soil in one way or another. We must submit to the forces of nature; they exist alongside economic life. On the other hand, economic life must be bounded by the legal system—that is to say: just as the forces of nature do not depend on market conditions, so too must human labor not depend on market conditions. Just as a force of nature, human labor must be removed from economic life and placed on a legal foundation. Once it is placed on this legal foundation, everything in which one human being is equal to another—in which only genuine human rights develop, and in which labor law can also develop—will be able to unfold on this legal foundation. The scope, nature, and duration of work will be determined before the worker enters the economic process. Then, as a free person, he will face the one who—as we shall soon see—will not be the capitalist, but rather the supervisor, the intellectual collaborator.

[ 28 ] No matter how highly one may speak of the so-called employment contract—as long as it is a wage contract, it can only ever result in the worker’s dissatisfaction. Only when contracts can no longer be concluded regarding labor power, but only regarding the joint production of the foreman and the manual laborer—when a contract can be concluded solely regarding the joint product—will a dignified existence for all parties result. Then the worker will stand before the supervisor as a free partner. This is what the worker fundamentally strives for, even if he cannot yet form entirely clear mental images about it today. This is what lies at the heart of the proletariat’s fundamental economic issue, at the heart of its fundamental economic demand: the liberation of labor from the economic cycle, and the establishment of labor’s right within the second member of the threefold social organism—the legal sphere.

[ 29 ] And on this legal foundation, something else must also take on a new form. This is precisely the very thing whose transformation still leaves people today looking quite, quite bewildered—namely, the transformation of capital. When it comes to private property, people today think socially, at least to a certain extent—specifically in the realm that seems least difficult to them: the intellectual realm. For in intellectual matters, at least in principle, there is a social aspect to property. Whatever a person produces—no matter how intelligent or talented they may be—certainly, they are born with their abilities; that is a separate matter—but what we produce that is socially valuable, including in the intellectual realm, we produce by virtue of our place within society, through society. This is recognized in the intellectual sphere by the fact that, at least in principle—the time period could be shortened—of what one produces intellectually, from which one also derives benefit, nothing belongs to the heirs thirty years after one’s death. The period could be shortened, but it is at least recognized in principle that intellectual property must become the property of the general public the moment the individual, with his or her individual abilities, is no longer present to manage it. Intellectual property must not pass in any arbitrary manner to those who then have nothing more to do with its creation.

[ 30 ] Now you say today that it is a historical necessity that the same must happen with material capital in the future! Tell that today to people who have been raised within the capitalist system, and you’ll see the look of bewilderment on their faces! Nevertheless, one of the most important demands of the present is that capital should no longer be integrated into the social process in the same way it is today. The point is that in the future, everyone must be able—based on their individual abilities—to manage what constitutes the means of production in a given field. And the means of production are, in fact, capital. It is in the worker’s own best interest to have a capable intellectual leader serve as administrator; for this is the best way to make the most of one’s labor. The capitalist is then simply the fifth wheel on the wagon—he is not needed at all. This is what one must realize. It is therefore necessary that, in the future, the means of production be mobilized within a specific economic sector or for a cultural purpose; but since the individual abilities of the person or group of people who have provided the means of production no longer justify private ownership, these means of production must now, as I have outlined in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question*, pass on to entirely different people—not to the heirs, but to others who, in turn, possess the greatest abilities to manage these means of production solely in the service of the common good.

[ 31 ] Just as blood circulates in the human body, so too will the means of production—that is, capital—circulate throughout the social organism as a whole in the future. Just as blood must not stagnate in a healthy organism but must flow through the entire body, nourishing everything, so too, in the future, capital must not accumulate in any one place as private property. Rather, once it has served its purpose in one place, it must pass on to whoever manages it best. In this way, capital will be stripped of the very function that has led to the greatest social harm today.

[ 32 ] However, the very intelligent people who speak from a capitalist standpoint rightly say: All economic activity consists of giving up existing goods so that one can obtain goods in the future. — That is quite correct; but if economic activity is to be conducted in this way—namely, so that the past lays the groundwork for the economy of the future, ensuring that the economy does not wither away—then capital must share in the very nature of goods. Yet even today, people look utterly bewildered when these demands for the future are discussed. Real goods, however, have the characteristic that they are consumed. Through consumption, they gradually follow the path of all living things. Our economic system to date has led capital to avoid following this path of the living. One need only possess capital, and then this capital is torn away from the fate of everything else involved in the economic process. Aristotle himself said that capital should not produce offspring, but not only does it produce offspring, the offspring grow until they are fully developed; one can specify the number of years it takes for capital to double if left to its own devices. Other goods—for which capital is merely supposed to serve as a representative—have the peculiarity that they either wear out or can no longer be used if they are not put to use at the right time. Capital, insofar as it is monetary capital, must be imbued with the characteristic of sharing in the fate of all other goods. While our current economic life is geared toward capital doubling in a certain period of time, a healthy economic life would lead to the point where mere monetary capital would disappear within the same period—it would no longer be there. It is still considered something horrifying today to tell people that after fifteen years they should not have double what they have now, but rather that, after a reasonable period of time, what constitutes monetary capital should no longer exist, because what is embodied in that capital must share in the process of wear and tear. Certainly, certain considerations—such as savings or similar factors—can be taken into account in this regard.

[ 33 ] So today we are not facing minor reckonings, but major ones. And we must have the courage to acknowledge these major reckonings. Otherwise, social order—or rather, social disorder, social chaos—will descend upon us. People today have little grasp of the fact that they are, in essence, dancing on a volcano. It is more in their interest to simply carry on with the old ways, while the times demand that we not only reform certain institutions, but also rethink and relearn our very habits of thought.

[ 34 ] When labor power and capital are removed from the economic process—whereupon capital flows to the public and labor power is restored to the rights of free human beings—then the economic process consists solely of the consumption, circulation, and production of commodities. Then the economic process deals solely with the value of commodities. And within this economic process—which is now self-sufficient as a part of a healthy social organism—what will emerge is a situation where one can say: Production is not merely for the sake of production, but for the sake of consumption. Then those cooperatives, those associations, will emerge that are formed from the various professions, but which are specifically composed of consumers, together with the producers. From these corporations will emerge what is today entrusted to the whims of the commodity market. Today, something that is entirely beyond human thought and human judgment on the commodity market determines the outcome: supply and demand. In the future, the corporation must determine what, within the commodity market, determines the pricing and the value of goods. Only in this way will a person produce enough so that what is produced has the value of all the goods he needs to meet his needs until he has produced an equivalent good again. That will be a just economic life. That will be an economic life in which the price of one type of good does not disproportionately outweigh the prices of other types of goods. Today, since wages are still incorporated into the economic process and the worker is not a free partner of the intellectual leader, the situation remains such that, within the economic process, the worker, on the one hand, must constantly struggle to increase his wages; on the other hand, closing one gap opens another: wages rise, food prices go up, and so on. This happens only in an economic process that is tainted by capital and wage relations. Only in an economic process in which corporations and cooperatives determine the value of goods—not according to supply and demand, which are subject to chance, but based on reason—only in such an economic process can every human being find a dignified existence. Deep down, the masses of the proletariat long for such an economic process; that is their true demand in economic life.

[ 35 ] In certain areas, this demand is already being recognized more clearly today. Take, for example, the issue of works councils, which has now been so distorted by legislation. If works councils are to become what the proletariat truly demands, they must not—just as intellectual life did in the past—merely trail behind the state in every direction; rather, they must be able to develop a social, truly productive role within economic life. For this to happen, however, economic life must be placed on its own footing; for this, something other than these works councils must emerge; for this, transport councils and other councils must also be established; these must arise from economic life itself, and they will create constitutions based on economic experience.

[ 36 ] I know that a great many people today say: “Education doesn’t really play a role in economic life when it comes to achieving what one wants to achieve.” That’s how people talk who always speak of ideals so that, in reality, they don’t have to carry out what is possible. That’s how people talk—people for whom ideals are something one shouldn’t strive for, so that they don’t have to strive for what’s right in front of them. Anyone who knows that experiential knowledge, which comes from practice, is infinitely more valuable than anything that can be imposed from above also knows that such works councils must not be established solely for individual companies, but must operate on an inter-company basis. The works councils must connect individual companies with those that are entirely different, facilitate that connection, and develop into a network of works councils, a network of transportation councils, and a network of economic councils. If this grows out of the very fabric of economic life, then we will come to realize that these councils are not merely for show, but that they become a human factor—the very figures of economic life itself. And that is precisely what is necessary.

[ 37 ] What I call the threefold structure of the social organism did not arise from some clever speculation or from a dry theory, but from a genuine observation of the vital necessities of the present and the future. And it is truly a pity that so few people today are capable of turning their eyes away from the intellectual life of the past and toward these vital needs, toward reality itself. People today denigrate precisely what is practical by saying: “That is ideology; that is utopia.” What actually underlies this? Some say: “The socialization of the means of production is necessary.” I say that, too. But I also say: It is necessary to know the path by which one arrives at this. Today I have only sketched out what I mean. Today we need not only goals, but also the paths and the courage to follow them. Many people tell me that what I say is hard to understand. — Well, it is certainly true that understanding what I say requires more than what people are generally willing to invest in understanding today. It is necessary to look into real life, not to judge life based on some subjective demands. It is necessary to summon the inner courage to think radically about certain things, as our times demand of every alert person.

[ 38 ] However, over the past four or five years, I have observed that people have understood things I did not understand. They even framed—in beautiful frames—the very things they claimed to understand when they came from certain places, so that they could always look at them. Things that came from the big headquarters and the like—but, of course, understanding had to be commanded first. You cannot command anyone to understand what is meant to be understood out of an inner courage to face life. Now the time has come when people should no longer allow themselves to be commanded to understand, but when they must be capable of forming a genuine judgment—based on life experiences and on the unbiased observation of life—about what is necessary, before it is too late.

[ 39 ] But these days we’re having some strange experiences. I don’t like to talk about personal matters, but these days it’s precisely these personal matters that dominate our lives. In April 1914, I was compelled to speak at a small gathering in Vienna—and deliberately in Vienna, as you know, since the catastrophe of World War I originated in Austria—about the social situation; at that time, not only the social situation of the proletariat, but the social question of all of Europe. I pointed out that the social situation in Europe was tending toward the formation of an ulcer, and indeed, that is what eventually led to the World War. — I was compelled to summarize my assessment of this, roughly, in the following words—in April 1914, note the date—: Anyone who looks at our social conditions, as they have gradually taken shape, cannot help but feel deep concern for our culture, for they see how a carcinoma is developing in social life—a kind of cancer that is bound to erupt in the most terrible way in the near future.

[ 40 ] So at that time, I had to point out the situation into which global capitalism was driving people in the near future. Anyone who said that back then was, of course, denounced as an impractical idealist, a utopian, or an ideologue, because the pragmatists spoke quite differently at the time. How did the “practical” people speak about the general world situation? They did not speak of a cancerous disease. They spoke much like the German Foreign Minister did in the spring of 1914 to the enlightened gentlemen of the German Reichstag—enlightened as they must have been, since they had, after all, been elected—: “We are heading toward peaceful times, for the general easing of tensions is making encouraging progress.” We are on the best of terms with Russia; the St. Petersburg cabinet pays no heed to the press pack. Promising negotiations have been initiated with England, which will likely be concluded in the near future for the sake of world peace. The two governments are on such good terms that relations will become ever closer and closer. —So spoke the pragmatist, who was not accused of being an idealist. And the general easing of tensions made such progress that what followed was what we have all experienced so painfully. One can’t help but feel a certain way when one hears things like what was said recently at the League of Nations conference, where people spoke about all sorts of things based on old ways of thinking. Yet they failed to discuss in any meaningful way what is the greatest movement of our time—the social movement, which alone is capable of establishing a true League of Nations.

[ 41 ] Then, sometimes, out of old habits of thought, one gets very peculiar answers from very intelligent people. Recently in Bern, a very intelligent gentleman replied to me—and I never wish to underestimate people’s intelligence—saying: “I cannot imagine that a threefold social order would yield anything special; surely everything must be a unity. Justice cannot arise solely on political grounds, and so on.” —What is necessary is precisely that justice develop on the foundation of law; then economic life will also have its rightful place, and spiritual life will have its rightful place. And when people say that the unity of the social organism is being fragmented, I say: That is not the point for me! It is not a matter of cutting the horse into pieces, but of setting the horse on its four legs. It is not a matter of cutting up the social organism, but of placing it on its three healthy legs: a healthy legal life, a healthy economic life, and a healthy spiritual life. Then this unity—which people today worship as an idol in the form of a unitary state, but which must be abandoned immediately if one wants socialism—will develop on its own.

[ 42 ] For more than a century, people have repeatedly spoken of humanity’s great social ideal, of the greatest social ideals: equality, liberty, fraternity. Certainly, very intelligent people of the 19th century proved time and again that these ideals could not be realized, because they were viewed solely through the lens of the unitary state; this is the source of the contradiction. Today, however, is the time when these ideals must be realized, when these three driving forces of social life must be embraced. And they can only be realized within the threefold social organism. In spiritual life, which must stand on its own ground, individual abilities must be developed on the basis of freedom. In the realm of law, what must prevail is the principle that every human being is equal to every other human being—a principle whereby every person of legal age can, on an equal footing, regulate their relationship with other human beings—including the employment relationship—either through themselves or through their representative. And in the realm of economic life, that true brotherhood must prevail which can flourish only in cooperatives, whether consumer or producer cooperatives.

[ 43 ] Freedom, equality, and brotherhood will prevail in the threefold social organism because it has three parts: freedom on the basis of spiritual life, equality on the democratic basis of legal life, and brotherhood on the basis of economic life.

[ 44 ] Today I was able to hint at only a few aspects of what must be considered in these most profound of times; what is most essential to consider if one seriously wishes to take action to emerge from confusion and chaos, so as not to sink deeper into them. What is necessary today is not merely to think of small changes, but to muster the courage to admit to ourselves that major reckonings are now due. Anyone who can truly look with an alert soul at what is only just beginning today must say to themselves: We will not have much time to deliberate. Therefore, let us rather take a path that can be begun every day. And what is provided by the threefold social organism can be begun every day. Only those who wish to sail further into the very practices that have brought us the global catastrophe will want to call what is truly practical an “impractical idealism.”

[ 45 ] If positive change is to take place in social life, it will be necessary to thoroughly break away from that superstitious idolization of practice, which is nothing other than brutal human selfishness. We will have to commit ourselves to that idealism which is not a one-sided idealism, but true living practice. Anyone who is sincere about our times will ask themselves today: How do I find the path to a remedy for the social ills we face? And it is to be hoped that more and more people will take this path before it is too late. And it could very soon be too late.

[ 46 ] Concluding Remarks

[ 47 ] After a discussion in which party and union officials had done most of the talking, Rudolf Steiner spoke again:

[ 48 ] I would have preferred, however, if the speakers had addressed the points I raised. That would have made the discussion more productive. That did not happen. I will therefore only be able to point out a few specific issues and draw attention to them.

[ 49 ] Some speakers have said that nothing new was presented in my remarks. Well, I am very familiar with the development of the social movement. And anyone who claims that the essence of what has been put forward today—based on the experiences of the complete restructuring of the social situation brought about by the global catastrophe—is not something new should realize that they are saying something absolutely incorrect. In reality, the situation is quite different: the speakers have not heard what is new. They have limited themselves to hearing the few points that, of course, because they are correct, were presented as a critique of the established social order. For many years, they have been accustomed to hearing this or that as a catchphrase: that is what they heard. But everything that was said in between—about the threefold structure of the social organism, about what can be achieved through this threefold structure in terms of genuine socialization in every direction—the speakers heard absolutely nothing of that. And that is probably why, in their discussions, they remained so conspicuously silent about precisely what they had not heard. I understand that. But I also understand that, naturally, a fruitful discussion cannot really emerge from such a situation.

[ 50 ] For example, we heard a speaker who, as if he hadn’t lived through the last five or six years, went on and on about the old theories that had been discussed so many times before this catastrophe. He dutifully brought up all the theories about surplus value and so on—theories that are certainly correct, but which have been put forward countless times before. He simply forgot that we are living in a completely, completely different era today. He forgot that, for example, highly respected socialist leaders said just a few months before Germany’s surrender: “Once this catastrophe of the World War is over, the German government will have to adopt a completely different stance toward the proletariat than before. The German rulers will have to take the proletariat into account in a completely different way in all government actions and in all legislation than before.” — But it was also said from the socialist side: “The socialist parties will have to be taken into account.”

[ 51 ] Well, things turned out differently. Those in power have been cast into the abyss; the political parties were there. Today they face a completely different world situation. Faced with this new global situation, however, one should not simply ignore new ideas and listen only to the parties—which, of course, have always been relevant as long as social movements have existed—but rather one must acquire the ability to respond to whatever is most immediately necessary for the present time. Otherwise, we face the great danger that, in essence, has always been present in the old, familiar world order: whenever something emerged that looked at facts, that was drawn from reality, it was dismissed as ideology; people would declare, “That is philosophy; it has nothing to do with reality,” and in doing so, they paved the way for reaction. It would be the worst possible outcome if the Socialist Party were to fall into a kind of reactionary rigidity, if it were unable to move forward in step with the facts that speak so loudly.

[ 52 ] That is what matters today. Marx coined a beautiful phrase after he got to know the Marxists—as is often the case with people who strive to bring something truly new into the world—: “As for me, I am no Marxist.” - And Marx consistently demonstrated—I need only recall the events of 1870–71—how he learned from those events. He consistently showed that he was capable of keeping pace with the times. Today, now that the time is ripe, he would most certainly find a way to recognize the true solution to the social question precisely in the threefold social order. People are constantly talking about new paths, and when a new path is pointed out—one that admittedly requires real courage—then they say: “No path has been shown; only a goal has been shown.” One is tempted to ask: Has anyone even considered this path, which necessitates a kind of liquidation process? That is precisely what is so unfamiliar to people’s habitual ways of thinking. The old governments—even the socialist government—think of nothing else but that they will be the fine, respectable continuation of what the government used to be. What we need is for this government to retain the initiative only in the center—oversight of security services, public health, and the like—and for it to become a “liquidation government” on the left and right: namely, by setting intellectual life free so that it transitions to independent administration, and by putting economic life on its own feet.

[ 53 ] This is not a theory, not a philosophy; it is a pointer to something that must be done. And for that to be done, it first requires an understanding of its necessity. This involves gradually letting go of the old habit of wanting to listen only to what one personally likes at the moment, and not wanting to listen to what is unknown to one.

[ 54 ] When speakers take the stage and, in a strange way, get themselves entangled in practical contradictions without realizing it, they are already demonstrating just how impossible it actually is to find a practical solution. One speaker today managed to say: “Political power, even today, rests on economic foundations.” And then, after adding something—so that it’s no longer so obvious—he said: “The first thing is that we must seize political power in order to gain economic power.”—So, on the one hand, one proclaims: “Whoever has economic power also has political power.” And right after that, a few sentences later, one says: “We must first have political power; then we will also gain economic power.” With such speakers, however, it will not be possible to pursue practical paths. A practical path can only be pursued if one is capable of thinking clearly and does not confuse one’s lines of thought.

[ 55 ] One will get nowhere by rigidly clinging to objections such as: The tendency toward convenience makes it necessary to force people into a one-size-fits-all school system. All those who held power in earlier times have put forward similar arguments. There have been people in government who were truly no smarter than those they governed. Yet they still managed to argue: “If we don’t force people to do this or that, they won’t do it voluntarily.”

[ 56 ] It is a peculiar phenomenon that such things are now coming to light even within socialist circles. What is needed here is precisely what is at stake in reality: the ability to open one’s mind to what is necessary, rather than clinging to long-ingrained theories and the like. That is, after all, what is always being called for. When people say, “Power must be seized!” they are really referring to a dry “theory.” For once power has been seized, one must also know what to do with that power. There is no other way to move forward. Seize power—if you are in power and do not know what to do, then all that power is for nothing. The point is that, just before coming to power, one must know clearly and precisely what to do with that power.

[ 57 ] If, on the one hand, it has been said: “Now that the November 9 revolution has succeeded”—one might just as well say that it has failed. And if, on the other hand, it is said that “foreign countries view the revolution as a sham,” this is precisely because power has been seized and those in power do not know what to do with it. But it must finally be determined what is to be done with this power. If, however, everyone clings to their old party views, then they may well call for unity. There is one way to call for unity, and that is to truly see where the problems lie. In this way, the threefold impulse seeks to bring about unity. It is simply an objective slander to say that a new party or a new sect should be founded. That is nonsense. And even if the resolution has been adopted by numerous assemblies, I am completely confident that this resolution will never be carried out. If it were carried out, it would mean that those currently in power would very soon be shown the door. There is no need to fear that unity could be disrupted in any way. But there is another way to destroy unity: to insist on one’s principles and then say, “If you do not follow me, then we are simply not in agreement.” That, too, is a way of preaching unity, while actually meaning: “We can only be united if you follow me.” Quite a few people actually think that way today.

[ 58 ] As I said, I’m sorry I can’t go into details because, in fact, not a single one of the speakers in the discussion really addressed the points I raised in my presentation. In fact, it was even said at the end that I had been philosophizing. With the kind of philosophizing that this panelist engaged in, one could certainly call it all “fruitless philosophy.” But whether one can actually arrive at something that can truly help through precisely the kind of philosophizing that the last speaker engaged in—that is very much open to question.

[ 59 ] What exists in this threefold social organism was first conceived as an impulse during that terrible catastrophe of war, when I believed that the right time had come. Back then, long before we had the monstrosity of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, it seemed to me to be exactly the right thing to do—in contrast to everything that actually happened afterward—to seek a balance with the East, starting from this impulse toward threefolding. No one understood this. That is why what was subsequently triggered by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk came to pass. What really matters today is that people be found who do not act like all those to whom this threefold social organism was spoken of during the war—at that time, of course, with reference to foreign policy.

[ 60 ] A pamphlet on the responsibility for the war will be published in the coming days. Then the world will learn what actually took place within Germany during the last days of July and the first days of August 1914. People will then see how this great calamity came about because they did not think for themselves, because they let the authorities do the thinking, and because they were content to let the authorities do the thinking. That is what, at that time, instead of leading to a sensible policy, resulted in politics having reached the lowest point of its development on July 26. The world must one day learn about these things. It will learn about them in the coming days through the memoirs of the most important person who was actively involved during those days, in July and August 1914. There, one will see all that was missed because only some—namely, the authorities—thought in their own way, while others, in essence, allowed their convictions to be dictated to them.

[ 61 ] Well, we’ve heard this story many times. The war profiteers were followed by the revolution profiteers. But there was another consequence as well. The war-mongers were followed by the revolution-mongers. And the relationship between the revolution-mongers and the war-mongers is roughly the same as that between the revolution profiteers and the war profiteers.

[ 62 ] We simply have to move beyond idle chatter. And we have to move beyond allowing ourselves to be politically led by any authority, whether they are socialist figures or others. We must strive to become people capable of sound judgment. We cannot become such people if we dismiss everything that is truly grounded in the demands of the day.

[ 63 ] I do not address such things, which have been concocted and are nothing more than a complete distortion of what has permeated my reflections. The claim that I wish to bridge the contradictions with goodwill is an objective slander. I have by no means spoken of bridging the opposites through goodwill. I have spoken of institutions that are to be brought about. What, then, does the autonomy of spiritual life, economic life, and legal life have to do with goodwill? It has to do with the objective description of what is to come.

[ 64 ] I agree with anyone who says that one must first seek power, but I am also fully aware that whoever holds power must know how to use it. And if we simply rush forward and leave the unenlightened masses behind, we will not only end up in the same conditions, but in conditions far worse than those that already existed.

[ 65 ] One can take a philosophical view of the matter and still feel incredibly practical when one says: The French are exhausted; they can’t give us any bread; England, too, has been worn down by the war and can’t give us any bread; America is too expensive for us. But we can get bread from Russia! —- Well, for the time being, the English—as you can surmise despite all the false reports—have much more bread than the Russians themselves. The claim that we should expect bread from Russia is one that has no factual basis.

[ 66 ] What matters is that we now truly understand the situation for what it is. That we tell ourselves: We were unable to integrate the old spiritual life into society; we need a new spiritual life. But this can only be a spiritual life detached from the rule of law. We need a foundation on which the labor force is shielded from conflict. That can only be an independent constitutional state. And we need a balance in the value of commodities; this can only happen on the basis of an independent economic life. These are things one can truly desire. These are things that are not merely revolutionary slogans. These are things that, if one has the courage to bring them about, will truly bring about a state of the world quite different from what it is now.

[ 67 ] I believe that if you think deeply enough about what the threefold social organism entails, you will come to that conclusion. And its introduction is possible in a relatively short time. Well, once this healthy threefold social organism is in place, our circumstances will be quite radically transformed. When the world transitions to this implementation of the threefold social organism, then we won’t need to “thunder” about a world revolution, for it will then unfold in a practical way. The thunderous rhetoric and the calls to storm the system won’t make a difference. Rather, what matters is that we find seed ideas that can develop into real social fruits.

[ 68 ] Today, however, we do not necessarily need to engage in a lot of idle chatter, but rather to reach an understanding about what needs to be done. In the threefold social organism, we are not dealing with ideologies, utopias, or philosophies, but with something that can be done—a plan for real action, not a description of a future state, but a plan for work. You need a plan for every house; you need one for social restructuring. This will not be achieved by those who are always scaling back—whether they be socialists or others—but only by those who are inclined to truly press forward. I fear that those who have heard “nothing new, only the old” today will not lead us out of chaos, but into it.

[ 69 ] Today, let us take seriously the task of embracing that which is so unfamiliar, so new, that we do not even hear it when it is spoken, but instead fall back on our own clichés. New ways of thinking are necessary today; a shift in thinking is necessary. Humanity must call for new ways of thinking, for new intellectual frameworks, before it is too late. And I say it once again: If humanity does not have this inner courage, it could very easily be too late before long.