The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. The Current Economic Crisis and the Recovery of Economic Life Through the Threefold Social Order

[ 1 ] I can imagine that it might intrigue the editor of a satirical magazine if, at an event at a trade fair on the economic recovery, the founder of the Dornach School of Spiritual Science—the Goetheanum—were to take the floor. After all, it is already firmly established in the general consciousness that nothing could be further apart than the mental image people with only a superficial understanding of the matter have of the nebulous mysticism of the Dornach Goetheanum, and what is actually regarded as the practice of life. And yet, it might perhaps seem even more paradoxical and ironic that, precisely in recent times, in the last few weeks, in a place in southern Germany—and Switzerland will follow this example very soon—the very spiritual and philosophical movement represented in Dornach is now establishing purely economic enterprises: a corporation for the promotion of real economic and spiritual values.

[ 2 ] As I said, this might seem even more paradoxical. For in a spiritual movement such as this—of which the Dornach building is intended to be the outward expression—one sees something thoroughly impractical, which only comes into play when one must, to a greater or lesser extent, turn away from the real, practical goals of life in order to seek Sunday rest.

[ 3 ] Well, my esteemed audience, I certainly do not wish to keep you waiting long with an introductory discussion of the tasks of the spiritual movement represented by the Goetheanum. But I would just like to say this much: precisely because of its unique character, this spiritual movement aims to be the foundation for the kind of way of life that we so desperately need today in order to escape from the situation into which we have been driven by what has always been regarded as so practical—and which has proven to be particularly “practical” in bringing about the ruin of European civilization over the past five to six years!

[ 4 ] Certainly, in that free school of Spiritual Science referred to here, people’s attention should not be directed solely toward what confronts them in the outer material world; rather, humanity should once again be reminded that everything material is grounded in the spiritual, and that one cannot understand the material at all unless one understands the spiritual that underlies it. But how the spiritual world is to be accessed—what paths the individual must take to reach this true, real spiritual world—that is not what I wish to discuss today. This has been addressed in the various books that have been published in abundance on precisely this subject. But what I would like to discuss is that it is precisely this particular kind of spiritual activity—which must be cultivated—that, through Spiritual Science, brings about something in the human being through this specific form of spiritual activity and effort; something that does not make him impractical, but rather practical, by opening up for him a healthy, illusion-free view of reality. As strange as it may sound, the Dornach School does not aim to provide an escape from reality, but quite the opposite. The Dornach School aims to foster the development of a healthy perspective on reality—a perspective capable of seeing what is actually taking place in every aspect of reality that must be directed by human beings themselves, above all in economic reality.

[ 5 ] And to express myself even more clearly regarding what I actually mean, I would like to illustrate my point with the following comparison.

[ 6 ] Look, ladies and gentlemen, if a chemist were to claim that he had invented a new bleaching agent for laundry—a new way to bleach laundry—and then, upon using this agent, the laundry turned a dirty brown, people would probably not consider him a good chemist, and they would say: “He doesn’t really understand anything about true chemical science.” The same applies today in the fields of technology and practical life, insofar as these fields depend on scientific thinking. However, this certainly does not apply when it comes to the kind of technology that manifests itself in economic life—in the management of economic life—and which is supposed to depend in some way on sound economic thinking, on a genuine, let’s say, national or social economy, or the like. Here is an example—though I could cite many: Some time ago, there was much debate in the international community among those who reflected on economic issues about how best to promote the economic movement known as free trade. From a certain perspective, people examined the harm inflicted on international economic life by the imposition of tariffs at national borders and the like—tariffs based on a wide variety of intentions. In short, there was a time—though those days are long gone—when parliaments viewed the free-trade movement as an ideal, as an economic ideal. People in certain circles then pondered how best to promote free trade—trade without tariffs—above all else. They were at each other’s throats—so fiercely at each other’s throats—that it was said: “Love and the issue of protective tariffs are what drive people most mad in this world.” Back then, the supporters of the gold standard and the supporters of metallism—the gold and silver standard—were at loggerheads. The supporters of the so-called gold standard were those who, based on their scientific and economic insight, argued: “By promoting the gold standard, we promote free trade.”—That was their economic and scientific conviction.

[ 7 ] So what did reality actually reveal? It so happened, however, that just after these scientific and economic pronouncements were made, significant gold discoveries were made in Africa, and those countries that had little gold—precisely the regions where gold was found—were able to mint gold coins in particularly large quantities. But one should actually always expect such things; above all, the chemist’s analogist should have anticipated what I have cited for clarification. But in reality, what has transpired? It turned out that the introduction of the gold standard everywhere set in motion the protectionist movement; that is to say, reality has shown exactly the opposite of what was theoretically predicted on the basis of economic reasoning.

[ 8 ] It turned out exactly as if a chemist, using a bleaching agent intended to whiten the laundry, had instead turned it a dirty brown. As I said, one could cite many such examples where economic thinking fails to even remotely touch reality—where reality actually unfolds in exactly the opposite way. One could cite many such examples.

[ 9 ] Anyone who asks today: Is there an economic crisis, an international economic crisis? — truly need only look at the circumstances. This economic crisis is, after all, right on our doorstep everywhere. People, however, have a wide variety of views on its specific nature and causes. But can one really hope that, given such a mindset toward reality, a phenomenon as complex—a fact as complex—as the international economic crisis can be readily understood?

[ 10 ] Come on, that can’t be true! Now you’ll say: Aha, here’s someone who claims that economic thinkers are all stupid, that they know nothing; the economy is doing well, and yet economic thinkers are all stupid. No, I am by no means claiming that they are all stupid; rather, I claim that there are very intelligent people among economists—in some respects much more intelligent than in any other profession—but that what the monometallists, the advocates of the gold standard, said, and what actually happened was the opposite of what those very intelligent people advocated in their very intelligent sentences, phrases, and theories. No, I certainly do not claim that all economists are stupid; rather, I wish to start precisely from the remarkable fact that modern civilization has given rise to the peculiar phenomenon that one can be a brilliant economic thinker and yet believe exactly the opposite of what is actually the case in economic life! This is a striking phenomenon—one that is also evident in the fact that, when it comes to the current confusion in Europe, one is actually quite helpless, particularly among those who, in the traditional manner, have best mastered economic thought.

[ 11 ] And there you see—that is precisely what I would like to assert: that what one has simply acquired as a technique of thinking, through the healthy Spiritual Science that is driven by the movement of which Dornach is the outward representative—through this technique of thinking, it is possible to to see through things in external reality—things of which one can easily prove, through countless examples, that they are precisely not understood by those whom one regards as experts.

[ 12 ] You see, especially when it comes to economic crises—people usually think of issues that lie somewhere between consumption and production—it is said that an economic crisis occurs when there is overproduction that cannot be absorbed by consumption. One can just as easily prove that an economic crisis does not stem from overproduction, but rather from underconsumption—simply because people, who may not have enough money to buy what has been produced, end up buying too little. And the strange thing is, one can prove both cases. If you look at the economic crises starting in 1919 alone, you’ll find that one was caused by overproduction, another by underconsumption, and the third by entirely different causes, such as an imbalance between capitalism and the working class, or—which also applies to individual cases—that economic crises are bound to occur when people in a large community save too much, and so on. Well, none of these explanations takes into account what is absolutely most important for economic life today.

[ 13 ] I can truly speak from a kind of personal experience here. It was a long time ago now—in the late 1890s and early 1900s—that I got to know the Central European working class thoroughly. I was a teacher at a workers’ educational school, but through that I was able to truly gain insight into the labor movement from all angles. And I came to understand this, first of all, because the various lectures I was asked to give were sometimes followed by very lively discussions that revealed what people in the broadest circles of the younger generation of workers were thinking. On the other hand, I found that my own lectures were well received, and I could see how people there were able to take in ideas that went beyond mere economic matters and so on. And anyone who has, I would say, lived through such experiences with a certain keen sense of human relationships and without prejudice knows that it is a mistake to believe today that in mere economic categories—such as capital and wages and the like, or imports and exports, trade, finance, the balance of payments, foreign exchange, and other such matters—to assume that there is more to these things than what is merely on the surface. No, in these matters, what is merely on the surface is precisely what lies at the heart of the current crisis. For everything that takes place in economic life ultimately stems from human beings, from people’s thoughts, and from what people do—which results in the conditions of capital and wage relations, imports and exports, and so on, as well as fluctuations in exchange rates. Ultimately, this depends on what emerges from people’s thoughts.

[ 14 ] You see, I can really speak impartially on this matter, because I spent five or six years teaching workers and managed to in the end, admittedly, I had a large following among the workers; but one fine day, the leaders of this workforce realized that there was someone they could not tolerate—someone who taught unorthodox Marxism, someone who was striving to instill in their hearts and minds something entirely different from orthodox doctrine.

[ 15 ] A meeting was held with my students. At that time, hundreds of my students were present at the meeting, along with labor leaders—second-tier, to be sure, but skillfully directed by first-tier leaders—who raised all sorts of issues, including the claim that I was, in fact, an unsuitable figure for the labor movement. I said: “Yes, but do you really want to build something here in the future that will be of any use, when you don’t even understand the simplest thing—academic freedom?” Then one of the leaders actually brought it to the point of saying the words: “Academic freedom? No, we know only reasonable coercion!” And even though the vote was unanimous against the four—against the four leaders—my work, of course, remained completely impossible.

[ 16 ] You see, that entitles me, based on the facts, to speak with a certain degree of impartiality about what is actually taking shape today in economic life throughout international Europe.

[ 17 ] But one must also be able to truly study what emerges from within human beings themselves, and what those categories—which I have spoken of and which are usually listed—actually bring about. One must first ask: What are the characteristics of the faith that has gradually spread among the European proletariat?

[ 18 ] You see, the most characteristic feature of the worldview held by millions of people is that, first of all, when it comes to spiritual life, they think that everything a human being produces spiritually, including what he produces from his mind as law, as custom, as religion, and as science—is nothing more than something born in an abstract form by the human brain, a kind of ideological superstructure built upon the sole reality, the foundation, the sole reality: the economic life of production and consumption.

[ 19 ] This has become firmly established among millions upon millions of people. I do not wish to examine here to what extent this stems from the theory of Marx and Engels; the fact remains that it has become firmly established among millions upon millions of people: the entire intellectual life is an ideology, something that has grown out of economic life alone.

[ 20 ] Yes, perhaps those who consider themselves very astute in economic matters will, in light of the current economic crisis in international affairs, look down on this belief held by the proletariat. But that is precisely the great mistake: that people today underestimate the most important things. For one cannot come to recognize the source of the crisis—specifically, what lies in the unconscious of human beings—nor the source of economic calamity, unless one turns one’s gaze toward the inner life of the masses. One must take the inner life of the masses into account; for while one may believe that spiritual life is merely an ideology, one cannot live with that belief, and the human being becomes desolate, losing one’s footing in life.

[ 21 ] And this is what is peculiar: With unparalleled fanaticism, the masses cling to these doctrines—namely, the masses who today set the tone in certain working-class economic circles; with fanaticism, the masses cling to these doctrines; but in doing so, they are becoming increasingly desolate.

[ 22 ] How did this come about? Materialism did not arise from the working class itself; materialism arose over the last four centuries among the ruling classes. However, out of a certain half-heartedness, the ruling classes have preserved the old traditions. On the one hand, they have begun to think materialistically about the external life in which they are immersed; on the other hand, they have preserved the old traditions as their religion, their morality, and so on, and essentially lead a double life.

[ 23 ] The worker cannot do this; he has been torn away from what he once stood for, what he had grown to be one with: the craft whose products he loved, into which he poured his life. He has been summoned to the abstract machine, placed within the abstract factory. He seeks his salvation in what others accept only half-heartedly. One can truly judge this only if one has been through it. This has gradually become apparent. And this is how that great lack of understanding arose in Europe.

[ 24 ] This lack of understanding hangs over Europe today like a terrible fate. There are those at the top who are responsible for managing capital; there are those at the top who are responsible for guiding economic life—who could guide it if only they wanted to—who could also transform materialism into a healthy worldview, one that could also be practical. There are those who could do anything if they wanted to.

[ 25 ] There are those at the bottom who have taken seriously what has emerged as materialism among these leading circles—those who are incapable of anything, who believe, by saying, “We must fight capitalism,” that they can achieve anything with this slogan; who do not realize that economic life in the modern sense of the word is simply impossible without capitalism, and that without capitalism one can only return to barbarism. Helpless in his thoughts, helpless in the face of reality, the worker has become so throughout all of Europe—the worker who has been forced to the machine, who earnestly imagines those theories that, I would say, are byproducts of life among others—with whom one cannot live, nor, indeed, conduct economic affairs—as demonstrated by such concepts as metallism, monometallism, and the like.

[ 26 ] What has this great misunderstanding brought about? Well, you can see what it has brought about by looking at the development of European conditions. Look at Russia. In Russia, something has emerged in accordance with the national character that is difficult to study for anyone who looks at these matters impartially and without prejudice, without being an agitator. There were many nuances to socialist and social ideals in Russia. What existed in Russia up until 1914? Suppressed by Russian militarism, suppressed by the tsarism so hated by so many, what lived among the broad masses—and it was precisely this that formed, within these broad masses, a reality for which no bridge could be found to the reality that existed in the ruling circles. They did not want to achieve what they should have achieved: to build that bridge—as leaders, as intellectuals, to build that bridge. We see modern capitalism on the rise. We see modern individualism on the rise, with the mobilization of millions of people into factories, to the machines. What would have been necessary—to adopt a new practical way of thinking, just as it would have been necessary for the intellectuals to take on a leadership role, to gain trust, and to make it clear to the vast masses that they understood how to genuinely and seriously carry out the demands of economic life—none of that was done. They lived for themselves, as an upper class. They let others do the studying. The proletariat, in particular, studied an extraordinary amount, simply devoting itself in isolation to what were the byproducts of education—materialistic byproducts of education.

[ 27 ] Today, the consequences of this are evident in Europe’s economic crisis. It is a tragic fate rooted in the mind.

[ 28 ] Then, out of what was used to suppress that which people did not wish to penetrate spiritually, that which they did not wish to assert spiritually through rational views, but rather sought to suppress through the external, physical force of militarism, absolute monarchy, or any other Powers, from that which was used to neutralize what one did not wish to conquer intellectually—from that arose the European catastrophes of war.

[ 29 ] And what emerged then? What emerged for Russia was Leninism and Trotskyism. Not from Russian socialism—oh no, Leninism and Trotskyism were certainly not born out of Russian socialism. Nothing like Leninism or Trotskyism could ever have emerged from Russian socialism. Something entirely different would have emerged if the intellectuals had sought understanding in a reasonable manner with the broad masses of the population. No, Lenin and Trotsky did not grow out of the revolution! Lenin and Trotsky emerged from the circles shaped by the consequences of the war—from what the war brought about as the ultimate consequence of militarism; that is where Lenin and Trotsky came from. The consequences of the war took hold in Russia and, more recently, suppressed the very forces rising from below with which one should have sought understanding. Lenin and Trotsky are not heroes of socialism; they are the sons of the European war catastrophe and have only become possible because the misery of the war’s aftermath spread across Russia. And as for what happened in the rest of Europe—read Keynes’s excellent book—though one could cite many other examples—*The Economic Consequences of the European Peace*. What was it that spread across the rest of Europe—what exactly was it? Was it, perhaps, a commitment to economic thinking; was it the economic drive up to 1914 that led us into that terrible catastrophe? No, that is not it; rather, what we are experiencing—including all the currency worries of individual countries—is not a healthy return to sound views, which one might believe can be achieved because the illness has been driven to absurdity by the catastrophes. What we are experiencing is the result of the war. Out of a very, very short-sighted judgment, a German general coined the words that have been repeated many times during this war catastrophe: “War is merely politics carried out by other means.”

[ 30 ] During the war, I repeatedly compared this dictum to the saying: “Divorce is simply marriage continued by other means!” But with a certain accurate variation, one could indeed say: “This peace is, especially in the realm of economic life, simply the continuation of war by other means.” This is certainly not said from a propagandistic perspective or one colored by any particular side’s view of current economic conditions; rather, it is stated by objective analysts themselves—from the very side that today has the greatest reason to judge objectively, namely the British—as Keynes himself states in his book *The Economic Consequences of the Peace*.

[ 31 ] Well, you see, when one really takes these things into account, one has to say: Oh, the causes of the current economic catastrophes lie much, much deeper! And after all, one need only take a look at economic life today, as it has developed. One need not get caught up in one-sided rhetoric about capitalism and anti-capitalism; rather, one need only acknowledge the objective facts—facts certainly justified by modern conditions—that our economic life is intimately intertwined with what we must call the monetary economy.

[ 32 ] Well, I am, of course, far from the foolish idea of wanting to fight the monetary economy. That cannot be the issue, because I would consider that a foolish idea, just as I consider it a foolish idea to want to reform money in any way. No, rather, the issue at hand is that, due to all modern economic conditions, what exists in the form of money has become abstract within economic life.

[ 33 ] An English economic journalist quite rightly said: “The functions that money actually serves in our economic life are extraordinarily complex and, in fact, cannot really be broken down for analysis.” — That is indeed the case. But I could clarify this with an analogy.

[ 34 ] You see, ladies and gentlemen, when someone is a thinker of a rather abstract nature—when they always move directly from the particular to the general—when, for example, they see all kinds of flowers out in a meadow, each with a specific name, and then say: “Plants or flowers”—and compares “flowers” to animals and so on—then he is thinking abstractly. He brings forth abstract thoughts that encompass many things and spreads them out like a carpet over the concrete details.

[ 35 ] That is how money works in real economic life. Money introduces a completely abstract element into real economic life, into reality. Just think: if I am the owner of 50 francs, then I am simply the owner of those 50 francs, and it makes no difference at first whether I have the 50 francs in my wallet, whether I’ll buy a rabbit with them tomorrow, or flour, or some silver watch, or whether I’ll buy a coat or something similar. The concreteness of economic life comes to an end in the face of the abstract nature of money. This becomes apparent the moment money is exchanged for money—when one buys money. One can see this most clearly in the way that, just as abstractions hide from the reality of thought, the abstract nature of money hides from reality. You see, anyone who has been following the newspapers in Germany over the past few weeks could have noticed that people were quite pleased about the slight improvement in the currency’s value. But then it went back down again. And anyone familiar with the deeper connections will not be overly impressed by this temporary improvement in the currency’s value. Well, all sorts of causes were attributed to this development, though in the background there was nothing more than the fact that German banknotes held in Spain were purchased on the stock exchange through some particular set of circumstances—or by a deliberate intention on the part of Americans—and that this caused the slight surge in the German currency. This escaped notice for the simple reason that whenever money circulates as such in trade—whenever money is traded as such—it becomes detached from concrete economic life, and one can no longer see the connections. Just as when someone speaks in abstract terms—with a millwheel turning in one’s head—and one no longer has the slightest idea what they actually mean by their abstractions, so too, in the case of currency manipulation, one no longer knows what is actually happening in economic life.

[ 36 ] You see, in these matters, the problem essentially lies in the fact that money, as a means of exchange, has become alienated from actual economic life; and that is the reason we have fallen into such a terrible economic crisis. For this economic crisis was actually already present before the war, and the war was merely a manifestation of this economic crisis. [Gap.]

[ 37 ] You see, someone might have had, let’s say, in the year 1865, the greatest possible aptitude for air travel—but he couldn’t put that aptitude to use because air travel didn’t exist yet! It’s no use merely being intelligent in any area of life. If circumstances lead one away from the direct experience of what is to be experienced, then no amount of intelligent thought will help at all. And the fact that people have been driven away from real life—in the economic sphere as well as in other spheres—is what modern civilization has brought about by fusing the three main spheres of life—spiritual life, political or legal life, and economic life—more and more into a unitary state.

[ 38 ] The monetary economy was conducive to the unification of the nation-state. As I said, please do not misunderstand me in any way—I do not mean to raise any objections to the monetary economy. I merely wish to point out how precisely those aspects not encompassed by the monetary economy must lead to the recovery of our economic life!

[ 39 ] Time and again in modern thought, it has been asserted that the unitary state is a panacea. This panacea has shone brightly not only for those in power up to now, but also for the socialists; for what do the socialists want? To use the framework—the expanded framework of the state—to build their socialist fallacies [gap] into it. Even Lenin and Trotsky did nothing other than pour their abstract socialist concepts over what the war had left them of the old Russian tsarist state. This idea of the unitary state has, over the last three to four decades—and anyone who truly knows how to look at history knows that it has in reality only been that long—become, so to speak, the very idea of all those who believe they want what is right for all public affairs, and who fail to see what is actually maturing in human reality: that what is maturing in the reality of humanity is the urge—in relation to spiritual life, legal and political life, and economic life—to arrive at entirely different constellations than those we have had up to now. I would like to address the matter from one angle, so to speak.

[ 40 ] In certain areas of European life, what we call inheritance law stands out among the old institutions. Inheritance law is connected to the bonds of kinship among people. If you trace the influence that inheritance law exerts on the entire public sphere—including the structure of state and societal relationships—you will see how much of economic life, too, is tied to this inheritance law. For certain people, the law of inheritance influences this or that branch of the economy; it draws people into these branches—they are part of them—and their abilities give rise to individual enterprises. But ultimately, these individual enterprises in turn make up a large part of the overall economic life. In short, the law of inheritance is closely bound to blood ties, to that which is organized within humanity by nature.

[ 41 ] What, then, has happened specifically in those nations that have regarded themselves as the very paragons of excellence over the last three to four centuries? They have learned to organize from nature. The Germans, in particular, are credited with this ability to organize. They were so skilled at it that they distorted it into mechanization. But it has essentially spread throughout the entire civilized world. This organizing—which is inherent to humanity by nature—has also been carried over into social life. And this organizing, which is linked to blood ties; this organizing, which is very symptomatic—though there are many other examples—in inheritance law; this organizing—it actually emerges very clearly in the organization of intellectual life as well. And finally—although the Catholic Church aims to be a democratic institution that, under certain circumstances, allows even those from the very lowest social strata to rise to the highest positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy — but in practice, the very forces that cemented together things like the old organizations based on blood ties have also crept into Catholic church organizations; for, after all, more archbishops came from the high nobility than from other backgrounds, and so on. In short, we see in many respects how elements stemming from blood ties permeate the modern social order; yet humanity, in its deepest consciousness, has actually outgrown such things as those particularly expressed in matters of inheritance law. If someone were to say, “A human being is a human being,” and point to a seven-year-old child and a forty-year-old adult, you would laugh. You would not say that the forty-year-old is merely the result of the thirty-five-year-old, the thirty-year-old, and so on; rather, you would look at the human being in such a way that you see how what lies in his very nature develops from his innermost depths. It is only in history that people have arrived at the foolish view that the subsequent is always merely the effect of the preceding, whereas for a long time the human race has been such that the successive phases in its innermost being unfold in the same way as, for example, the changing of teeth or sexual maturity in the individual. Thus, simply in recent times—while those elements that arose from the old blood ties and the relationships conditioned by them have remained as inherited traits in spiritual, economic, and legal life, and while the old public laws have remained in place—the urge for a new order, for something different to come into being, has unconsciously taken root within human beings.

[ 42 ] You see, if one tries to discern what people really want, then something like what I wrote in my *Key Points of the Social Question* emerges. People simply fail to notice how, in true reality and true practice—in what life demands today—these things have been distorted. Take, for example, inheritance law, which stems from humanity’s early development. People want to cling to it just as a person might want to cling to their developmental stage at age twelve or fourteen—a person who fails to realize that one must be different at twenty than one was at twelve or fourteen. Of course, people would not want such follies in specific cases. There we have the law of inheritance. It has become something to which people’s consciousness refuses to conform. Out of an elemental feeling, people today value their individuality too highly to accept—even if, outwardly, out of convention, they wish to cling to the conventional means of the law of inheritance [gap]. If one is honest and listens to what humanity actually wants, one arrives at what you will find elaborated in the “Key Points of the Social Question,” where it is shown that, in a social order, humanity tends toward a connection between people who possess certain abilities and the means of production—or, let us say, capital. If he can no longer connect these abilities to them, then the sum of the means of production—or capital—must pass from him to another capable individual. This reveals how the old era must give way to the new. The old era made the economic structure dependent on blood ties. The new era makes the configuration of economic life dependent—and this is already present in people’s consciousness—on what is consciously experienced. Thus, in the new order, one does not speak of inheritance law in the conventional sense. For this reason, inheritance law, for example, is often called into question today; it is doubted that one can even speak of inheritance law. The point is simply this: if, through my own abilities, I have acquired a sum of means of production—through which I can achieve something—and have accumulated capital, then I have an obligation, when I can no longer be the administrator myself, to transfer it to another who, in turn, must be connected to it according to his or her abilities. What was once dependent solely on blood ties must be replaced by reason and human individuality.

[ 43 ] This may sound radical to some, but it is not based on any kind of radicalism; rather, it is simply a reflection of what humanity actually wants on an unconscious level.

[ 44 ] If we view what presents itself today as the development of humanity in this way, we come to the conclusion that, given the level humans have reached in the general science of the human race, in spiritual life, in legal and political life, and in economic life, they have now progressed so far that they can no longer be forced into a unitary state.

[ 45 ] This is where the impulse for the threefold social order begins—precisely because it demands that spiritual life be completely self-reliant, and because it demands precisely what is perhaps most fiercely opposed today, since it is considered particularly clever to make the state the guardian of spiritual life. But this must be demanded by those who recognize today what humanity unconsciously wants: that spiritual life be made entirely self-reliant.

[ 46 ] Let’s take one of the most important areas: the public school system. From the teacher in the lowest grade all the way up to the highest-ranking teacher, everything must be self-governing.

[ 47 ] You see, it was precisely because of those pedagogical and didactic principles that arise from such a way of thinking that I was called upon to found the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. Emil Molt, the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria factory there, established this Waldorf School. It fell to me to provide the Waldorf School with its spiritual foundation, and to this day—even if it is not always apparent from the outside—I have been entrusted with the actual management and leadership of the school. And so I had given a seminar-style pedagogical course for the teachers over the course of several weeks, precisely to set the direction in which this school should operate.

[ 48 ] Yes, I, too, was compelled—you will have the opportunity to see just how far we have come so far—I, too, was compelled, you see, to recognize the downward spiral that intellectual life is currently on in its most important sphere: the school system. Of course, I also had to develop curricula, and in order to get my bearings, I had to examine what was already in place in order to do justice to the current educational goals and curricula.

[ 49 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, I can still remember—though it has certainly been a long time since I was in school myself or associated with teachers—that back then, everything related to the school curriculum, those printed materials, could still fit on a single page; now they have become thick books, and everything is specified down to the last detail. On the one hand, there is what the educational artists and educational scientists put into their books—what they convey to the teacher. That is what comes from subject knowledge and expertise. Then there is the bureaucratic aspect, which comes from the state. This is far more important than one might think! There is no justification for anything other than objective, specialized expertise to influence the administration of spiritual life. This is particularly evident, for example, in the field of education. How differently would people be educated and integrated into economic life if spiritual life could be administered completely freely, based solely on its own foundations! Only those who have truly developed a sound judgment regarding the connection between free spiritual life and the development of human abilities through free spiritual experience—including its significance for economic and political life—can fully appreciate this. —The point is to finally arrive at an understanding of how spiritual life fits into the whole of human development.

[ 50 ] Well, my esteemed audience, spiritual life is organized. And the more elementary a realm is, the more organized spiritual life is within it. Consider the example of the family. Observe how the individual grows out of the family—how a son, for example, develops an artistic inclination, moving away from what his father or mother was like, not only outwardly and physically, but also spiritually and emotionally. The further back one goes in time, the more evident it becomes, in what grows out of families, how spiritual life is organized there by its very nature.

[ 51 ] What, then, is it that we must accomplish for spiritual life? With regard to individual human beings, it consists in bringing the individual out of the organization: we must overcome the organization—the organization that is given by nature—and we must educate the individual into freedom. Freedom must first be acquired in earthly life. Freedom can only be acquired, however, if we are truly able—as teachers, educators, or simply as participants in spiritual life—to understand human beings, to work from their most individual abilities, and to place them within economic life in accordance with the abilities with which they reveal themselves to us, impulsed within the context of nature.

[ 52 ] This is what is peculiar about spiritual life: one must say that it is precisely the person who thinks honestly about democracy who thinks in the same way that sexual maturity comes upon a person in the fourteenth or sixteenth year. In the same way, the trend toward democracy has come over humanity over the course of the last three to four centuries. It is precisely those who think honestly who demand that all the matters people develop once they have come of age be handled in such a way that they must organize things as equals among equals. This will emerge from what human education entails in the realm of spiritual life. It depends so very much on individual human ability and expertise that it must never be the subject of democratic administration or constitutional governance; rather, it must be based solely on the self-governance of this spiritual life. Spiritual life is organized, and it must be freed from that organization.

[ 53 ] And what about economic life? Economic life cannot be organized [gap]. Ideological, out-of-touch people spout all sorts of utopian ideals about the forms economic life should take, thereby attempting to force economic life into this or that structure. That would be the death of economic life! This nonsense began when the so-called German Republic first tried to get off the ground. Just as nonsensical is the way the planned-economy advocate thinks: Economic life can be organized! But anyone who understands anything about economic life knows this: Economic life cannot be organized! Economic life can only grow together into a whole through associations. This means: Economic life cannot be organized from above or from any direction, from any side; rather, economic life can only succeed through associations that grow out of the professions, out of those who belong together—whether in a certain area of production or a certain area of consumption.

[ 54 ] That which has similar interests joins, within associations, with that which has related interests. Related interests form a chain. However, a chain or network does not form through external organization, but rather through one link attaching itself to these associations via other links. It is a chaining and intertwining of people who are immersed in life, who have grown out of life, who possess expertise and ability in a specific area of economic life, who have become integrated into economic life in a certain way, and who can also gain trust because they are part of it, because they are, in a certain sense, related to a particular branch. But it is necessary for this branch to be associatively linked to the next one, so that one is not forced in a haphazard manner to break away from the abstract nature of money-making and to search, but rather because one knows that, by being involved in work within an associative economy, one turns to the representative of another association for this purpose. That person, in turn, knows how things stand there.

[ 55 ] Yes, you see, ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens when you have an economic system based on association: sound economic thinking actually helps! But what good is sound economic thinking when you’re faced with an opaque economic system? You can see this in monometallism and free trade. They have just brought about protective tariffs in their wake. We cannot see through economic life today. First, the conditions must be created that allow us to see through these interrelationships. We will be able to see through economic interrelationships when a member of one association—for example—can communicate with a member of another association from a different vantage point. If one can address this or any other association directly, then one’s intelligence—as it is interconnected through the associations—will be of some help, and these connections, these measures, must be grasped in some way; and the scope could even be expanded as far as reality permits through the chain of associations. That was, after all, the peculiarity of the economy up to now: that one lacked the possibility of proceeding in this way and allowing things to develop fully. That, my esteemed audience, is still not fully understood today.

[ 56 ] I am certainly not saying this out of any sense of self-importance, but because I believe that everyone can see this today. It has not been recognized that this threefold structure of the social organism is necessary for the independence of spiritual life and of economic life—a life built on associations and on nothing other than associations— entirely on associations that grow out of the economic foundation itself, while the state must remain responsible for what lies in between; it must have nothing to do with economic life and nothing to do with free spiritual life. Spiritual life must be built upon the individual’s knowledge and competence. Economic life must be built upon those practical experiences and practices of economic life that can be acquired through the living interaction of association with association. The state has no part in either. The state has a role to play with regard to people who are engaged in economic life in this way, and who are engaged in spiritual life on the other hand—people who will find their place alongside all mature individuals in democratic public life, where public law is established and which then radiates, on the one hand, into spiritual life and, on the other, into economic life. There is no need to fear that the three members of the social organism will fall apart. They will be united through the people. One person belongs to one circle, another to another. The three organizations are separated solely for the benefit of humanity, because the increasingly complex conditions of modern times demand this structure of the social organism.

[ 57 ] This is what can truly have a healing effect on economic life, which has been utterly shaken by crises. As I stated in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question*: The idea of threefold social order is not some utopia; it can be linked to immediate reality everywhere. This immediate reality must be accepted as it is; but it must, in turn, grow into a state of health through a state-free, associative life in the economic sphere. Separating economic life from the organization of the state and placing this economic life on its own laws—which can only arise from association to association—that is what is necessary. This may seem abstract, but, my esteemed audience, it is not abstract; it is the most concrete thing of all.

[ 58 ] Economists are already here; the only issue is that they should strive for appropriate associations—based on the interdependent relationships that exist between production and consumption, between one profession and another, and between one branch of production and another—without regard for political borders. And in the long run, a united effort by people integrated into the international economic system would indeed have to succeed in countering the efforts that arise here and there today to improve the exchange rate and so on. Just consider how purely abstract economic activity in terms of money can become detached from real conditions. Take Germany before 1914. At that time, approximately 5 to 6 billion in capital was saved and earned in a single year. New issuances—including mortgage bonds, land register debts, and everything else spent on luxury buildings, new housing, and the like—totaled approximately 11 billion marks before 1914. Capital of 5 to 6 billion was earned and saved, while new issues amounted to 11 billion—twice as much! What does that mean? It means that we are operating beyond the real economy, because the real economy must be earned: beyond the real economy lies the capital value, which is double the actual real capital value. For the capital value generated should have consisted solely of new issues and mortgage bonds totaling 5 to 6 billion marks. That was, in fact, actually there. Just imagine where this leads when the abstract monetary economy emancipates itself in this way from the concrete reality of economic life!

[ 59 ] This can only be remedied by people reconnecting with the realities of economic life itself—that is, by those engaged in economic activity in one field associating with the system in which others are engaged, with the system in another field. What the threefold structure of the social organism reveals is not an amateurish endeavor; it is not utopian; it is something that directly affects practical life everywhere. And people today cannot come to terms with this idea of threefolding for a very specific reason: they are not yet willing to acknowledge that we are in the midst of great confusion; they would always prefer to help with little concoctions and minor remedies. That will not work, ladies and gentlemen! When someone is seriously ill, they must resort to strong medicine. The social remedies that are usually recommended will not suffice. It must be admitted, however, that what emerges from this idea of the threefold social order is intended to be a strong remedy. But it is not only the proverb that applies: “A rough log requires a rough wedge”; the other proverb also applies: “A serious illness requires a radical remedy.” And I believe that anyone who can see through the ever-increasing confusion of international economic life in Europe—this descent into barbarism—will be serious enough to take a closer look at what believes it can lead us out of this decline and toward a new rise, what believes it can do so not merely by following the circumstances as the monometallists have done, but through a genuine examination of the circumstances, not in the way the monometallists did, but through a genuine examination of the circumstances—so that one does not end up like someone who treats laundry with a chemical agent and then turns it black or brown—in contrast to reality—I believe that once one recognizes the magnitude of the European danger, one will then seriously set about studying the remedy. That is what matters, and what I have been trying to draw attention to in various ways for such a long time now, and what I have once again sought to point out today, my esteemed audience, with these words in the most serious manner. First of all, the question was directed at me:

[ 60 ] Is the ownership of capital abolished in the threefold social organism?

[ 61 ] You see, in reality, it is really about something other than the ownership of capital. It is, first of all, about the possibility of working on a capitalistic basis. It is not possible, in our complex modern life, for capital as such to be abolished, as so many foolishly demand. Of course, capital is needed—even if only in the form of the means of production. Capital is needed to make the modern economic apparatus function effectively. So capital must be there.

[ 62 ] I have elaborated on this in more detail in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question*. But the point is precisely this: regarding the management of capital by the person who, by virtue of his abilities in a particular field, is called upon to manage this capital—who has, so to speak, amassed it or acquired it in some other way—to find the methods described in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life for the Present and the Future* regarding this capital, namely that) the person managing this capital—or, more precisely, managing production (since, from this perspective, land is also a means of production)—does so only for as long as he himself can be involved in the process. Then, whether it be land or other means of production, it passes on to another in the manner that the person concerned can still arrange, who is now in turn linked to it through his or her abilities. Thus, it will gradually become apparent on its own that economic life can become all the more fruitful the more capable people there are, because the management of capital can truly be transferred to capable people.

[ 63 ] You see, it is by no means a matter of being anything other than the steward of what is to be understood as capital. People today cannot yet quite form a mental image of this. But just take something that, I would say, already stands as a model in a certain sense—such as what I’ve had to mention several times in this lecture: the Dornach building.

[ 64 ] The question may arise: To whom does it belong? It does not actually belong to anyone in the traditional sense. It only makes sense if it is eventually passed on to someone who can guide it in the appropriate way. We simply need to find the means and ways to guide it.

[ 65 ] What can be achieved with a more or less ideal institution can also be achieved—especially when done in a practical spirit—with any practical organization, with any factory. And it is easy to imagine a social structure in which the old system of property tied to blood ties is replaced by the management of those who have capital based on their abilities.

[ 66 ] I would like to tie this in right away with the question that was asked here earlier by a gentleman:

[ 67 ] To what extent will these institutions be able to eliminate so-called exploitation?

[ 68 ] It is quite clear that this exploitation can only exist as long as personal power exists in the economic sphere. In my book *The Key Points of the Social Question*, I explain how the social organism is divided into three parts and how economic life is structured entirely from an economic perspective. So, let’s say, within a business, there are the supervisors and the workers—perhaps organized hierarchically into top supervisors, middle management, and so on, down to the actual manual laborers. No one stands in a relationship of economic power over another. For the relationship between one person who has attained maturity and another who has attained maturity is not regulated at all in economic life. In economic life, we are dealing with the economy. But the relationship between one self-determined human being and another is precisely the subject of state or legal life; the extent and duration of work are somehow mutually regulated within the realm of the state, politics, or law. This threefold division of the social organism, it has been objected to me, is precisely what Plato already advocated when he divided human society into the class of producers, the class of warriors, and the class of teachers—so I was told.

[ 69 ] No, ladies and gentlemen. It is the exact opposite of what Plato said, namely that human society is divided into the class of producers, the class of warriors, and the class of teachers; there, he divided people into these three groups, and each individual belonged to one of the three. Today, the point is not that people are divided, but that the organization itself is structured as a threefold entity, and every person, with their own interests, is involved in all three organizations—one in this way, another in that way.

[ 70 ] Imagine a person who has children. As a result, he is part of the intellectual organization through the school system. From the outset, like every other person, they are part of the legal system as a person who has come of age, on an equal footing with others, regardless of who they are or whether they have a different profession or occupation than others. And they are part of the economic organization, for the teacher, insofar as they must eat and drink, belongs to the economic organism. This is what matters: It is not the individuals who are structured, but the social organism that is structured.

[ 71 ] This, however, makes impossible everything that, in today’s sense, leads to exploitation. Today, exploitation results, first, from external political power—including that of the individual—that is, political power that is regulated by political means. Second, from economic power. Economic power, for example, in the context of wage relations—that is impossible. For in the future—that is, I mean, if one could imagine that a sufficiently large number of people would come together and thereby impose the healthy conditions characteristic of the threefold social organism, if it were to be implemented—there could be no real exploitation at all within this threefold social organism. But one thing would certainly become clear: You see, all social ideals, when they appear so comprehensive today, are more or less quackery, for the simple reason that they do not take real conditions into account. People always think: How must the social organism be organized so that everyone prospers? Of course, everyone still has their own subjective views on this. But the idea of the threefold social organism doesn’t ask that at all! For naturally, when you consider a natural organism—the lion’s organism or something like that—you can imagine something much better organized than the lion’s organism. One must simply think of what is possible based on the given conditions. In the same way, the ideas of the threefold social order do not envision a thousand-year kingdom, nor do they believe in a paradise on earth; rather, the idea of the threefold social order asks: What social structure is possible given that people are the way they are? From this, it derives the social structure inherent in the threefold social organism. It is precisely from the associative organization of economic life that you can see how these concepts are conceived entirely on the basis of reality.

[ 72 ] Yes, it’s actually quite easy to set up social programs—comprehensive programs! Oh, I still remember the 1880s: I used to go quite often to the so-called Café Griensteidl in Vienna, which was so famous because even the old ‘Forty-Eighters’ used to frequent it; during the revolution, it became the writers’ café. Karl Kraus—whose name is already familiar in Switzerland—wrote his little book *Die demolierte Literatur* about this rather famous Café Griensteidl. It was indeed true; for everyone who went to Café Griensteidl imagined himself to be a great man. So, in fact, at every table in the afternoon, while people were drinking their coffee—between two and four o’clock—the social question was “solved” three times, and by the same people at night, until after midnight, unless they placed too much importance on the “Sperr-Sechserl”!

[ 73 ] So it is quite possible to find programmatic solutions to this social issue!

[ 74 ] You see, if one completely ignores reality and instead works based on programs and abstract ideals, one can conceive of organizations in abundance.

[ 75 ] Goethe so beautifully satirized the abstract construction of worldviews in his poem: “The world is an anchovy salad!” One might just as well say—instead of claiming that the world consists of abstract atoms, as monists do, for example—that the world is an anchovy salad, and prove it; or one might go as far as Gustav Theodor Fechner, who proved quite precisely in a very nice little pamphlet, a short treatise, that the moon consists of iodine. You’ll find a very precise proof there. So, basically, if you think abstractly, you can prove just about anything. That is precisely why people fall into such errors—because they pursue the abstract rather than engaging with reality. But it’s not enough to be logical. One must also be grounded in reality. True thinking must possess two qualities: logical consistency and grounding in reality. One is inconceivable without the other. But above all: grounding in reality is essential.

[ 76 ] And so it is also necessary not to create a mental image of just any state of the world and then devise programs based on that, but rather to ask: What is possible? That is the fundamental question for the threefold social order! And there is absolutely no possibility that exploitation could take place in the modern sense. You see, everything has two sides! From his own point of view, even the capitalist can say: he is being exploited. Isn’t that right? The point is to look at what is possible. Then there is another interesting question:

[ 77 ] What needs to be done, based on the ideas presented, to avert the danger of Bolshevism?

[ 78 ] You see, this must be said again and again—and it is not for nothing that I repeat it time and again in the Stuttgart *Dreigliederungszeitung*, which is published every week; and I have already elaborated on this idea in the newspaper dedicated to the threefold social order here in Switzerland: in *Soziale Zukunft* (Social Future), which is edited here by Dr. Boos and is specifically tailored to Swiss conditions, and in which the threefold social order is advocated here in Switzerland—that it is necessary, above all else, for the idea of the threefold social order to take root in a sufficiently large number of minds. First, it must be understood. People must be there and understand it so that it can take root. For, my esteemed audience, then this very idea of threefolding—or rather, what becomes of it—is the only true remedy for the evils of the present.