The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Speech to the Swiss Citizens' Association

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! At your request, I would like to discuss with you today the social impulse that seeks to present itself to the world under the name of the threefold social order—an impulse that seeks to present itself, first and foremost, from here. And it is precisely from here that it must be carried out into the world, for the reason that Spiritual Science is to be pursued here, and in fact, even today, the broadest circles could understand that a restoration of general world conditions can come about only through spiritual deepening.

[ 2 ] Following this brief lecture, we will be touring the building, so you will understand that I must keep my remarks brief and can only offer aphoristic insights into the most essential aspects of the threefold social order today.

[ 3 ] This concept of a threefold social order is not entirely new; rather, it has emerged from decades of observation of European conditions—particularly those in Central Europe—and specifically from the observation of the conditions that have led to the horrific catastrophe of the past five to six years.

[ 4 ] For the one speaking to you today, these circumstances—under which a large part of the world is suffering terribly today—came as no surprise. It was in the spring of 1914 that I gave a series of lectures to a small group in Vienna—in Vienna, of all places; as you know, the world conflagration originated in Vienna! —a series of lectures. In the course of these lectures, I felt compelled—out of a sense of duty to the times, I might say—to point out that one should not be content merely to praise, in every possible way, the grandeur of present-day developments, but rather that one should look to what was in the making. And I had to say at the time—it was in early spring of 1914, many weeks before the outbreak of the World War!: Anyone who surveys the social conditions in Europe with a certain expert eye can only compare certain phenomena—particularly in our economic life—to a kind of social cancer that is bound to erupt in a terrible outburst in the very near future.

[ 5 ] You see, anyone who said something like that in the spring of 1914 was regarded as a dreamy idealist harboring pessimistic views. And those who considered themselves “practical” at the time spoke of how the general political situation was easing, how relations between the governments of Europe were at their best, and so on.

[ 6 ] Today, it is safe to say that it was not the idealist of that time who was wrong in his prediction, but rather the ten to twelve million people who have since been killed by the global conflagration, and the three times as many who have been maimed within the civilized world—they surely provide sufficient proof that the “idealist” of that time was justified in speaking such words.

[ 7 ] In a certain sense, we are reminded today of the stance taken back then by people who considered themselves practical. For even today, hardly anyone fully believes those who say that we are by no means at the end of Europe’s decline, but that we will continue to slide further and further down this slippery slope unless a sufficiently large number of people come to realize how to counteract this general decline.

[ 8 ] Even today, some will say that making such a prediction is pessimistic. It is not pessimism; it is simply speaking from an understanding of the circumstances.

[ 9 ] And just as today—strengthened, so to speak, by Spiritual Science—we can gain a deeper insight into these circumstances, so too has this been possible for decades. One could carefully observe how the relationships between individual states in Europe were becoming increasingly antagonistic, and how the measures that had been taken were by no means sufficient to cope with the tensions that were building up everywhere. And one had to foresee what was to come: the years of terror that we now seem to have left behind.

[ 10 ] Today, however, it can be said that just before those terrible years, there were—if I may put it that way—no ears to hear these things. First, the terrible hardship that now prevails had to befall a large part of Europe. So one had to tell oneself back then that there were no ears to hear, and even today one must still wait to see whether one will truly be heard. Nevertheless, despite the hardship, despite the terrible lessons that the last few years have taught us, one cannot say that the very idea of the threefold social order—which arose from a careful observation of conditions—is already being received in an appropriate manner today. And so I would like to speak to you right at the outset about the reason why people resist this idea of the threefold social order so strongly, why they regard it as a kind of utopia, as a kind of fantasy.

[ 11 ] You see, this is the result of circumstances of such a complex nature—circumstances that have spread such devastation and chaos—that have, in fact, never before existed in the entire course of human development! Humanity has been through a great deal; at certain times, much has also befallen Europe. Circumstances such as those we face now have truly never existed before in the course of historical development.

[ 12 ] Circumstances have led to situations in the past where small groups of humanity were affected by signs of decline. Even when the great Roman Empire was heading toward its decline, that was still a small area relative to the entire world. Today, due to the intertwining of conditions that we have essentially spread across the entire civilized world, these signs of decline are becoming more visible. No wonder, then, that what is now needed is not a narrow idea of how to improve this or that limited area—an idea that can bear fruit today—but rather a comprehensive idea, one that truly penetrates as deeply as the confusion itself runs deep. The threefold social order could be such an idea. In addition to having emerged from the observation of actual conditions, it has also arisen from a consideration of the historical junctures at which humanity currently finds itself. And it is also because this idea of threefolding actually takes into account all of contemporary civilized humanity that it is met with such hostility. It is regarded as a utopia; it is regarded as something that has been invented. But it is the most real thing—or at least aims to be the most real thing—that must be brought into the present circumstances.

[ 13 ] For when we survey the development of intellectual, political, and economic conditions in the present, we must view them as part of the same development that has taken place over the last three to four centuries. What lies further back in history has an entirely different character. The past three to four centuries—and particularly the 19th century up to the present day—have brought humanity into a very special stage of development. In some areas, this is not yet apparent. It has been quite rightly noted here that the Swiss people are in good health. We must count on them for the future. But for this health to endure, it is also necessary not to harbor any illusions that a small region could remain isolated in the face of everything that is now collapsing. That cannot be.

[ 14 ] You see, there are large areas in Central and Southeastern Europe today where you know just how much they are suffering from the depreciation of the currency. This depreciation of the currency—which economists view, I would say, as a major phenomenon compared to the minor phenomena that have always existed in the past— It was understood that when the currency falls in a given region, imports into that region are somewhat undermined, while exports are promoted all the more as a result. This principle can no longer be applied to the devastation of economic conditions that has occurred in Central and Eastern Europe.

[ 15 ] But so far, we have only seen what the disadvantages of a falling currency are in certain regions! It won’t take them very long to realize just how great the disadvantages of a rising currency are in a country! Those disadvantages will come, and it won’t be long before the countries with falling exchange rates—where economic conditions are deteriorating—will not be alone in their worries; the countries with rising exchange rates will also look upon their high exchange rates with dread.

[ 16 ] To those who can see beneath the surface of these conditions, these things merely demonstrate how—given that, despite all national divisions, the world’s economic sphere essentially forms a single unit today—the welfare and misfortune of even a small part of the world depend on the welfare and misfortune of the entire world. Therefore, even today, social conditions can only be considered in a truly international sense.

[ 17 ] If one takes stock of what actually brought us to our current situation, one must say: We can see how far we’ve come—though it’s not yet apparent today—but one could actually say that it’s evident in the distortion of Eastern Europe, in the distortion of Russia. One really must say: Such things are deeply revealing, as we now see, for example—I’ll mention a small detail, but it is deeply revealing—as we now read about them from Russia. You may have read that Trotsky called on the people not to celebrate May 1, but to work on May 1. I ask you: over there in Russia, the socialist ideal is supposed to be realized on a grand scale—the people were promised a paradise. That which the proletariat has for decades regarded as its symbol of solidarity—the May Day celebration—is something that must be abolished there. It is merely an expression of everything that must be abolished there! For a long time, people have spoken of the evils of militarism—and certainly with good reason. In Russia, labor is currently being militarized. In Russia, it is currently claimed that it is nonsense for a person here on this earth to have autonomy over their own person. There can be no freedom to dispose of one’s own person. — This truly reveals the fruits of the extreme situation to which the developments of the last three to four centuries have led. One must look closely at these things. One must be clear that this state—and I do not mean the individual state, but the state in general—which has developed from entirely different circumstances over the course of these last three to four centuries, has burdened itself with matters that the state as such cannot handle. Why is that?

[ 18 ] You see, in order to view such things in a truly sober and clear-eyed manner, without fantasy, we must already rise to the idea that the entire life of humanity is something similar to the life of an individual human being. We cannot describe the life of an individual human being in such a way that we always say: Well, when a person is forty years old, at forty they are in the world the effect of the cause that was present at thirty-nine; at thirty-nine, they are the effect of what occurred at thirty-eight, and so on. One cannot say that; rather, it is an inner, law-governed development within the human being. Through an inner law, a person gets their second set of teeth around the age of seven. They go through other stages of development in later years. A certain impulse lives within the human being that makes them ready for something at a certain time. The same is true of humanity as a whole. What has emerged within humanity over the course of the last three to four centuries is something that humanity cannot escape.

[ 19 ] Humanity had no choice but to raise its voice in call for democracy. Whatever ideals may have been put forward in external social life, the ideal of democracy is the one that has most deeply captivated—and must continue to captivate—the people of our time. The very essence of the state must become democratic—democratic to the fullest extent. This should be particularly evident in Switzerland, where the old democracy exists, but where people will also gradually come to recognize the need to relieve this democracy of certain burdens.

[ 20 ] What does democracy mean? Democracy means: the possibility that people, with regard to matters that are common to all—matters that are a matter of life for every person who has attained legal age—decide for themselves on these matters, whether through a referendum or through representation. Ultimately, this is the ideal of democracy—equality among people with regard to decisions concerning everything that is now common to all people who have attained legal age—and this is what the state strove for. But what exactly did the state—which has developed over the course of history and emerged from entirely different circumstances—actually strive for? There are two areas in human life that can never be decided democratically: one is the realm of spiritual life, and the other is the realm of economic life. Precisely those who are sincere about democracy must be clear about this: if full democracy is to be achieved, then spiritual life, on the one hand, and economic life, on the other, must be separated from the realm of the merely democratic state.

[ 21 ] Anyone who observes this field can see, from obvious examples, how impossible it is to bring intellectual life as such into the realm of democratic politics. I do not wish to speak of the conditions here; that is not my place; but it is simply not possible to view these conditions today from just a narrow perspective; rather, one must take in the whole world—or at least the entire civilized world.

[ 22 ] But if you look at the former German Reichstag, which apparently existed until 1914 and beyond, you have a perfect example of how the state—whether it is more or less democratic, which is irrelevant in this case—has overburdened itself with purely intellectual matters. Among the parties in the German Reichstag, there was a very large party, the so-called Center Party. The Center is currently playing a role once again in that metamorphosis of the old Reichstag known as the National Assembly. This Center had no interests other than purely religious—that is, spiritual—matters. Whenever an economic or political issue came up, it was resolved through some compromise that the Center struck with other parties. But it goes without saying that the Center was always concerned solely with promoting its own spiritual interests. In short, if one follows this line of thought to its conclusion, it becomes clear that matters which are purely spiritual do not belong in a political parliament.

[ 23 ] Take the economy, for example. Look at Austria—that is the country that truly illustrates, I would say, a textbook example of what has developed under recent circumstances, proving that countries are bound to collapse. Yet Austria is the textbook example of a country in decline!

[ 24 ] Anyone who, like myself, has spent thirty years of his life in Austria and was able to observe the developments during the last third of the 19th century could see all the conditions that emerged there and witness the advent of all the new social realities. At that time, there were plans in Austria to establish a parliament as well. But how was this parliament organized? Four chambers were established: the Chamber of Cities, the Chamber of Provinces and Municipalities, and the Chamber of Large Landowners—all purely economic chambers. Economic associations were formed and elected into the political parliament. They then decided, from their economic perspective, what public law should be. There you have the other example! In the German Reichstag, you have the example of how a party striving for purely spiritual ideals turns out to be a troublemaker in a purely economic parliament. In Austria, you have a parliament built on purely economic curiae, and anyone who has observed the circumstances knows that this parliament was never capable of addressing what would have been necessary, for example, in Austria: regulating the spiritual conditions, insofar as they manifested themselves in the secular conditions of the nationalities.

[ 25 ] In Austria, one could observe something else as well. There, the state was merely a political entity. There were thirteen official languages. These thirteen official languages—it was impossible to reconcile them; it was impossible to reconcile them under any single impression, because the people speaking the various languages had the most diverse intellectual interests in Austria. People tried to preserve certain things through private initiatives. Oh, I was often there when, you know, those long straw threads found in so-called Virginia cigars—how they were auctioned off in the American style to benefit school associations! That’s how the school associations were founded—to do something, driven by their own intellectual interests, that the state as such could not do. But people were too fixated on the idea of a unified state for such private initiatives to achieve a greater, broader impact. And so I could go on until tomorrow morning telling you about the impossibility of holding certain things together that the modern state wants to hold together.

[ 26 ] The central European states and Russia have had to learn the hard way that this unified state cannot survive as it has existed until now. Those who have not yet been affected by this fate still believe today that it can be averted. It cannot be averted unless one grasps, from a legal perspective, the idea of how conditions can be remedied through human will. This is precisely where, based on extensive observation and consideration of historical circumstances, the idea of threefold social order seeks to take hold. It states: People must become ever more honest in their pursuit of democracy. But then the democratic principle must be limited to the mere principle of the state, in which every person has an equal say in deciding everything that concerns all people who have attained legal age. As I said, either through a referendum or through representation. But then, the entire spiritual life must be separated from this state structure—from that which is to be administered strictly in a parliamentary manner—and set apart on the one hand. This entire spiritual life has, after all, come increasingly under the control of the state in recent centuries, and even today most people regard it as a great advantage of the modern concept of the state to absorb spiritual life—namely, the school system. People are still struggling hard against the most terrible prejudices. But they simply do not see the connections in the world.

[ 27 ] But if you ask yourself: How did it actually come to this—that today we are faced not only with constant class struggles, but also with the condoning of those class struggles? That we are faced with a complete lack of understanding among people? That we are witnessing how, in Russia, a few hundred thousand people today tyrannically rule over millions of people and pretend to be democratic—how did all this come about? It has been slowly brewing. One need only think of a single word—I drew attention to it in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life Today* —to understand why, as a result of this error, a large part of humanity today—the part of humanity that includes the proletariat—is rising up and believing that it can bring about some transformation of conditions solely through what you are, of course, well acquainted with. The only word one needs to mention is the one that could be heard at all—and I mean all—Social Democratic events over the decades: it is the word “ideology.” And this word, “ideology,” ladies and gentlemen, points to the entire course that the materialist worldview has taken in recent times.

[ 28 ] Whatever one may think of humanity’s earlier conditions, we certainly do not wish to return to them; we want to move forward, not backward. But one must still say: Look at the people of antiquity! They knew that something lived within their souls that had a direct connection to the spiritual realm pervading the world. After all, what has humanity known since the mid-15th century about these connections between their inner selves and the spiritual realm in the world! The sun, they are told, is a glowing ball of gas. What do people today know about the stars, about the sun! If one asks our scholars: What was the origin of the Earth’s development? — they will say: It was once a nebula; from it, the sun and the planets coalesced over the course of thousands of years. People have, after all, come to accept this view! I have often referred to the description by Herman Grimm, who said: Future generations will have great difficulty comprehending the madness inherent in this Kant-Laplacean idea of the Earth’s origin from the primordial nebula. — But today this is regarded as a great advancement and science.

[ 29 ] What was cultivated there gave rise to the most diverse currents, and these currents flowed into the proletariat. And, when all is said and done, what Trotsky and Lenin advocate in Russia today is merely the ultimate consequence of what our scholars at the universities have taught as materialism.

[ 30 ] Here in Switzerland, there was a man who ranted a lot—even back in the 1970s—but who saw through what was coming. People didn’t like him because he ranted so much: Johannes Scherr. But amid all his ranting, he also saw what was important. And he said as early as the 1970s: If one looked at economic developments, if one looked at intellectual life—which was bound to decline more and more—one would ultimately come to the point where Europe would have to say to itself: Nonsense, you have triumphed!

[ 31 ] Over the past five to six years, people have been able to say it—and they still can today: “Nonsense, you've won!”

[ 32 ] Ideology—what does that mean? It means nothing other than this: All intellectual life is, in the end, nothing but smoke rising from mere economic life. Economic conditions are the only reality, as Marxism preaches in every possible way. And what arises from economic conditions is what human beings carry within themselves as the substance of their souls. Law, morality, religion, science, art: all ideology. That is the seed that has sprouted: ideology, disbelief in spiritual life.

[ 33 ] Where does this unbelief come from? This unbelief stems from the entanglement of spiritual life with political life over the past few centuries. For spiritual life, my esteemed audience, can flourish only when it is firmly rooted in its own soil. Just imagine—I’ll take the school system as an example, since it is the most important area of public intellectual life—the school system is organized in such a way that those who teach, those who educate, are at the same time the administrators of the educational system. Imagine that the teacher of the lowest grade has to obey no one other than someone whom he does not obey, but whose advice he in turn follows—someone who is himself involved in the system of teaching and education. Someone who is relieved of responsibility to such an extent that he can simultaneously administer the educational system, so that no one from any political department interferes with intellectual life itself—so that intellectual life stands on its own two feet. You can read about this in my book. I have tried to make the point as clear as possible: only such an intellectual life, standing on its own, can free us from all the harmful effects that have plunged us into misfortune. But only such an intellectual life—one drawn directly from the spiritual realm—can, in essence, restore faith in the spirit and reconnect us with the spirit.

[ 34 ] Let me explain. We founded the Waldorf School in Stuttgart because the school law there—I would say—leaves a small loophole. This Waldorf School is a true integrated school, because the children of the workers at the Waldorf-Astoria factory are there alongside the children of the factory owners and so on—all side by side; it has developed into a true integrated school, a comprehensive elementary school, extending into the fourteenth and fifteenth years.

[ 35 ] I conducted a pedagogical course for the teachers I had selected myself, in order to prepare them for this school, where teaching is to be based solely on an understanding of human nature—on an insight into what seeks to emerge from within the human being—and where teaching is not to be guided by any preconceptions, that things must be this way or that way, but rather from observing what enters the world through the human being and what is to be learned from it. I have reported on this in various magazines, including here, describing how the methods at the Waldorf School have been established. But what I want to mention to you now is this: Isn’t it true that when one conducts such a course on the way teaching and education should be carried out, one bases one’s approach on what an understanding of human nature—what genuine Spiritual Science—reveals? Yet in today’s school system, there is something else as well. There is also what educators believe to be the right approach to a child’s upbringing. But then something else has increasingly come into play. I had to examine this myself, precisely because I had to take a very practical approach when I founded the Waldorf School with regard to its spiritual content. There are directives stemming from political life: First grade: this and that must be covered; this and that is the learning objective. Second grade: This and that must be covered; this is the learning objective. — You see, this comes from the political sphere! Isn’t it obvious that this doesn’t belong here—that the person who doesn’t look into the matter, who understands nothing about teaching and education, is the one who has to issue the regulations? The guidelines must be provided solely by the educator, and that person should not be called upon as an expert to the ministry, but should be immersed in the living process of education and teaching. Intellectual life must be established on its own foundation in all areas of the school system, arising from within itself. Then the spirit will once again take hold of people.

[ 36 ] So one must say: The state truly realizes democracy by divesting itself of the intellectual life, which is based entirely on expertise and professional competence—a realm in which decisions cannot truly be made by majority vote, but only on the basis of what one knows. The point here is that decisions are truly based only on technical and factual considerations, and that these decisions arise from the self-administration of the school system. This is the one area that must be separated from the state. The other area is the economic one. Do you see where all of this comes from—the very things that are driving the world more and more into a general economic crisis today? Where do such things come from—as, for example, were very clearly observed by certain individuals in Europe in 1907? But at that time, although not without pain, it still passed without major catastrophes for the global economy; I would say, with only some discomfort. Then, once again, there was widespread jubilation over the great economic progress and “how wonderfully far we’ve come” in recent times. People failed to notice how certain very characteristic phenomena were already revealing what is now gradually developing into a general global crisis. These characteristic phenomena ...

[ 37 ] All these things have been happening everywhere, on both a small and a large scale. They can essentially be attributed to the fact that, since the beginning of the 19th century, money has gradually become the ruler of the entire economic life. Money as the ruler of the entire economic life—what does that mean? You see, whether it’s wheat—because you have to look at the monetary value—it costs so many francs. When you buy skirts, if you look only at the monetary value: francs. In short, money does not specify itself; it does not conform to the concreteness of economic life. It is something that stands apart in an unreal life, much like the abstract concepts in intellectual life, which in reality wouldn’t get anyone off the couch. Except that these abstract, fantastical concepts do not cause as much harm as this generalized abstractness of money. One can point out precisely how, in the course of the 19th century, the moneylender gradually became the actual driving force in our economic life. Whereas previously it was merely the economic man who mattered. Gradually, the possibility also arose for states to become involved in economic affairs, so that the states themselves became economic actors.

[ 38 ] Once the causes of war are examined impartially, one will find that they arose—and were bound to arise—from purely economic conditions, because such conditions, as I have described, had developed. A careful study of this, in turn, provides insight into what is at stake: that we must return to a reconnection of human beings with economic production itself. Human beings must once again be brought into contact with what they produce. Human beings must once again grow together with wheat and rye and with everything else they produce, and they must shape economic life according to what they produce. And people must not force the mere accumulation of money. Without giving these things thought, we will get nowhere. A recovery of economic life is only possible if people are reunited with the economy and work out of the economy’s needs.

[ 39 ] But this can only happen if it is not organized by the state, but rather if people working in the relevant economic sectors are allowed to form associations, if the economy of interests is built solely on expertise, specialized knowledge, and professional competence in economic life. Two things are necessary: first, that one is capable of producing what one intends to produce, and second, that one has the trust of the people. But one can only have that trust if one is deeply embedded in the relevant economic sector and has grown up with it.

[ 40 ] This, however, gives rise to the various professions; this gives rise to the laws governing production and consumption. Conversely, the various economic activities can only be brought into a certain relationship with one another if the individual associations operate independently, without interference from the state or any authority. Just as intellectual life, in particular, must be separated from political life and placed on its own footing, so too must economic life. Intellectual life can flourish solely when the individual who possesses certain abilities is able to develop those abilities for the benefit of his fellow human beings. Intellectual life functions most ideally and most socially when the gifted individual is able to work in the service of his fellow human beings. Economic life functions best when those who produce in any given field, or when consumer groups, connect with one another in such a way that—simply through the existence of these associations and connections—there is a genuine trust that is not dependent on money; when the credit system is a real one, not a mere fiction, as was the case in the past period, and when one knows that one can support a particular branch of production because that branch is staffed by people one has come to know and who have grown together with their branch of production.

[ 41 ] This is certainly still the case on a small scale; on the large scale—which has actually brought about the decline—it is not the case. You see, I could only give you a rough outline of what the threefold social order is all about. I could only show you that, in a sense, human development has reached the point where what has been imposed on the state as a unified entity now seeks to be separated into three independent spheres: the self-governing spiritual life, the self-governing democratic political life—which will consist, in particular, of the legal sphere—and the economic life, which is standing on its own two feet and constitutes a separate sphere in its own right. Yet this is the essential point: it reveals the direction toward which the civilized world should be striving today—and indeed does wish to strive—only that people have not yet become aware of it, and that they wish to cling to the old conditions.

[ 42 ] You see, it is very strange how one can see, particularly in social democracy as it is developing today, the most conservative principle. For what does this social democracy want? It wants to turn the state into one big cooperative, through which it could militarize everything. One could say that today, looking at Russia, where everything is being militarized. People are already talking about the militarization of labor in the context of Russian conditions, because it is precisely Marxist-leaning social democracy that says: The state is here. We will now entrust everything to it—education, economic life, and everything else. — That is what is unhealthy! It is precisely the socialist idea that represents the ultimate, most unhealthy consequence of what has developed over the last few centuries.

[ 43 ] The sensible approach is to recognize that what has been imposed on the state—what it cannot decide on its own as a democracy—must be separated from it and made self-sufficient: intellectual life and economic life. Of course, one can understand that very many people today cannot accept such ideas, for people today have been conditioned to view the state as that which functions best through a certain omnipotence. One is not really serious about the democratic ideal if one wants to saddle the state with everything. One is serious about the democratic ideal only when one wants to see treated democratically that which can be treated equally among all mature human beings. When it comes down to the individual human being—to the abilities he brings into this world from other worlds through his birth—then the point is that this world, this spiritual world, must also be organized on the basis of these abilities. In economic life, the point is not to impose an abstract organization—which is what the monetary economy is by its very nature—on everything, but rather to manage economic affairs based on concrete economic life. However, it is only from concrete economic life that associations can form—associations that come together and, through their mutual relationship, truly achieve what a healthy relationship between consumers and producers can be. Certainly, such an idea—which, in a sense, addresses everything that is currently driving us toward decline, and which recognizes that this decline cannot be halted except by thoroughly seeking a new form of organization—cannot be understood immediately. One realizes that it cannot be understood immediately. For people are, after all, essentially programmed to always think: “Yes, things are bad now, but they’ll get better again.” They believe that improvement will come from some direction or another. That is how things were handled, for example, in Germany during the war. Whenever things went badly, people waited for improvement to come from some direction or another. It did not come! So today, too, we should not wait for conditions to improve again, coming from somewhere—we don’t know where! No, humanity today—as the emergence of democracy itself attests—is, to a certain extent, called upon to behave in a mature manner. But one is mature only when one does not expect improvement to come from some vague source, but rather tells oneself: Improvement can come only from one’s own will—a discerning will that sees through the consequences. [Gap] If only one percent of today’s civilized humanity could bring itself to clearly recognize the danger facing the entire civilized world, and could see—could see—how necessary it is for conditions to strive toward threefolding! But the threefold social order is trampled underfoot everywhere. If only one percent of people could grasp these things to a certain degree, things would improve. For improvement can come only through human beings! Fatalism has always been the worst thing for humanity.

[ 44 ] But the very worst thing today is precisely this fatalism! Recently, you could read a letter here in a newspaper published in Basel from a German who says: “We in Germany simply have to accept that we must go through Bolshevism. Then, once we have gone through Bolshevism, something better will come—though no one knows from where!”

[ 45 ] This is the most dreadful fatalism. It is the consequence of the fact that, deep down, the very essence of Christianity is still not understood today. Christ came into the world for all people. He did not come into the world merely for the one people from whom he came; he did not fight merely for the one national god, for he taught: It is not this one national god, but rather what God is for all people—that is what matters. Have people not, in the last five or six years, looked back to the old Jehovah; have they not fought everywhere for the national gods, having bestowed the name of Christ upon these national gods? Was it the true Christ, who belongs to all people, of whom they spoke? - No, it was not the Christ intended for all people of whom they spoke; it was the individual national gods! And indeed, one speaks of the individual nations in this sense today, just as in the past, as those who embody their distinct ideals. One must once again understand Christianity as a universal concept; but not merely with words, but with mature ideas.

[ 46 ] You see, although I’ve only offered a few sketchy thoughts today in this short time, and although I’ve spoken to people again and again about the threefold social order, there were also those who presented themselves today as “good Christians”—that is, they spoke in clichés. They spoke of all sorts of things; but they felt it should be said today that Christianity must be fulfilled, that Christ must truly come to be. — I could only reply: There is a commandment: You shall not take the name of your God, the name of your Lord, in vain. — Is one therefore a bad Christian because one does not always have the name of Christ on one’s lips? Christ did not want to be addressed merely as “Lord! Lord!”—but rather, he wanted to instill in people a mindset that, once fully developed, takes concrete forms; forms that do not merely invoke his name, but that, in his spirit, bring about social conditions that embrace all people equally.

[ 47 ] On the surface, the term “Christianity” may not appear to be mentioned in connection with the threefold social order, but this threefold social order is conceived in the spirit of genuine, true, and practical Christianity. And people will yet come to realize—this is my deep conviction, my esteemed audience—that the idealists who speak of the threefold social order today are the true practitioners. And the others, who say, “Oh, that’s just fanciful nonsense!” — those are the very people who speak that way today, just as, for example, the Foreign Minister of the German Reichstag and the Austrian delegation spoke in almost identical terms in June 1914. These two “practical” gentlemen said something along the following lines, almost word for word, in Berlin and Vienna: “Our friendly relations with St. Petersburg are the very best there are. The political situation has eased; we are moving toward peaceful conditions in Europe—in May and June 1914! Negotiations with England are underway, according to the “practical” minds in Berlin, and will soon lead to satisfactory results. — The “satisfactory results” then came in August 1914! That is how the “practical” minds spoke; that is how they foresaw things.

[ 48 ] One should bear this in mind, my esteemed audience, when one views a proposal such as this threefold social order today as mere idealism on the part of a few dreamers, whereas one should see in it the most practical of all ideas, the one that takes reality most seriously, and the one that seeks to take its place in our time!

[ 49 ] I thank you, distinguished audience, for taking the time to listen to what I had to say. I can only ask for your forbearance, since in the short time available to me I was, of course, able to present to you only a few raw ideas without the necessary evidence—though you can find this evidence in the relevant books and journals, which are also available here in Switzerland, and which you can also find in *Soziale Zukunft*, published by Dr. Boos. I was able to present only a few guiding principles to you; and I can only hope that these guiding principles might perhaps evoke in you the sense that, at any rate, this impulse toward the threefold structure of the social organism is not a random, off-the-cuff idea, but rather that this threefold social order has been drawn from the deepest needs of humanity today—needs that, at the same time, can truly lead humanity out of its distress, out of chaos and decline, toward a genuine new order for which so many people today—and rightly so—yearn.

[ 50 ] [Closing remarks by the organizer.)