The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. The Promotion of the Threefold Social Order

[ 1 ] Rudolf Steiner: Ladies and gentlemen! It is, I suppose, in the nature of such a study evening that I do not deliver a formal lecture, but rather begin by presenting a few aphorisms, so that this may be followed by as wide a discussion as possible on the topics that are close to the hearts of one or another of the esteemed listeners and that seem necessary in the interest of continuing our advocacy for the threefold social order. I have been informed that an important question at this time concerns the specific manner in which advocacy for this idea of threefolding should be organized in the near future. I was not present at the last study evenings, and in a sense, what I have to say today may be somewhat out of context. But this very question of advocacy was presented to me as something of great significance.

[ 2 ] It is hardly productive today to discuss how the threefold social order should be promoted if one does not base one’s intentions on the experiences that have been gained so far. In discussing such a matter, I would like to point out that, given the current state of the world, it really cannot be a question of how one should conceive of one or another highly detailed matter—particularly in the economic sphere—in all its particulars; indeed, one should no longer expect much from small-scale measures today. Today, we should cultivate an understanding of how, fundamentally, anything can be achieved only by—I would say—focusing on the big picture. We have, after all, had some remarkable experiences with our propaganda. And the underlying message that has repeatedly emerged from these experiences is just how difficult it actually is today—even in this time of need—to reach people’s souls with what one must absolutely consider necessary in spiritual, political, and economic terms.

[ 3 ] Last time, I pointed out how certain plans had indeed failed and how we were therefore compelled to tackle certain details, which have gradually come together in our undertaking “The Coming Day.” We know, of course, very well that if our overall propaganda for the idea of threefolding cannot have a decisive impact, this initiative can, at first, essentially be nothing more than a rather unsatisfactory substitute—in every respect. For what matters most today—and this must be emphasized again and again—is that an understanding of the driving force behind the idea of threefolding takes root in as many minds as possible. We cannot do without a sufficiently large number of people who truly understand this idea of threefolding. And this understanding, my dear friends, pertains to many things. I would like to point out something specific here.

[ 4 ] You see, when we began our propaganda here, we initially tried to work in the direction I just mentioned—to win over as many sympathetic souls as possible. The concrete issues of economic life have indeed been discussed. For example—and not just once, but on several occasions—I raised a very specific issue of economic life for discussion: the issue of price formation. I pointed out that this issue of price formation is a fundamental one; the point is that, within the economic process, certain other issues—even the wage question and the like—cannot be resolved primarily on their own, but only on the basis of the price question. I have pointed out that only a very specific price for any given article can be regarded as a sound reality in economic life. In other words: A specific article must be obtainable at a specific price within an economic context. Economic conditions must be regulated accordingly. The most unhealthy approach is to view prices as something that can be raised at will and then to set off on a never-ending spiral: adjusting wage conditions according to prices that rise at will. If prices rise, then wages rise; [if wages rise, then prices rise] and so on. The whole matter is being approached from the wrong end. At the time, I discussed such a concrete issue from an economic perspective. What was the result? We held meetings back then, at which, for the most part, only proletarians attended. The bourgeois circles stayed away because they believed we would arrange everything to please only the proletariat. In short, we found some understanding among the proletarians who listened to us back then. But that understanding has completely dried up; people gradually stopped coming. They brought up their old, stale party clichés as questions, and then they gradually stopped coming. And so one of the cardinal issues simply dried up.

[ 5 ] I’ll single out one example—though many others could be cited. I recently had the opportunity to speak with a shrewd, business-savvy man from a European country—not Germany—who is deeply involved in the business world. It turned out that, based simply on his practical experience as a businessperson, he had come to the conclusion that the most important issue to address is the problem of pricing. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am convinced of this: you can get along well with people who are businesspeople and who also think for themselves. I must admit, however, that I have found very few people of this sort so far. I have often encountered businesspeople who do not really think for themselves, but who still cling to the mindset that what matters above all is being a “practitioner.” And one is considered a “practitioner” when one assumes that the state or someone else will do the thinking for you; they believe, “They’ll take care of it.” That is, after all, how things were done in Germany during the war. People thought that the folks at the High Command would understand the situation. So, as I said, I have found few people who are both businesspeople and thinkers, but if you do find such people today, they will undoubtedly arrive at the same conclusions—based on their thinking about practical business conditions—as you’ll find outlined in my “Key Points.” You don’t need to compare my “Key Points” with those and examine them in light of what’s contained in the convoluted party platforms. These platforms of the ten parties that have now been elected to the Reichstag—which will, of course, be an impossible entity—are all equally useless and impractical. The point is to compare what is stated in the “Key Points” with real-life practice—with what is actually necessary in real life. One must, of course, be willing to reflect on this real life and not merely be a preacher of old clichés and stale ideas. But this kind of propaganda—it doesn’t aim to take hold; it doesn’t really seek to examine what [in the “Key Points”] could, of course, only be said on a limited number of pages, since one cannot write an entire library at once; that would be read even less than the “Key Points.” But instead of comparing what is said in the “Key Points” with what one can learn in the factory as a manager or a technician, we instead dabbled in the old—in old party clichés and platforms. And the practical aspects that the “Key Points” refer to—instead of being compared with actual practice—are compared with whatever prejudice is lodged in this or that person’s mind and regarded as practice.

[ 6 ] What we must achieve first is this: We must resolve to work toward making people realize that it really isn’t so easy to cope with the current state of public affairs. I tried back then to write this book out of the necessities of the time, and I must say, it’s a bitter pill to swallow—a bitter experience—that people are now coming forward who demand that what is contained in the “Key Points” be boiled down and crammed onto just a single sheet of paper. For that is what people want: they want to receive, on a single sheet of paper or, if possible, even just on a short leaflet, what is already stated as concisely as possible in the “Key Points.” If you ask me what the misery of our times lies in today, I would say: it lies precisely in the fact that people still demand such a thing today. - People do not want to move toward thoroughness. But they want to have, on a sheet crammed together like a leaflet—as it has already appeared as an excerpt from the “Key Points”—everything that they would actually have to study carefully. As long as this mindset prevails, nothing will be achieved along the path that is necessary to achieve anything today. Certainly, I will soon publish the “Key Points” in such a way that, in a special preface on a single sheet, I briefly summarize what is contained in the “Key Points.” But then it is intended only as a kind of preparation, printed before the “Key Points,” so to speak, to prepare readers for reading the entire text. But anyone who believes they can understand what is necessary today in even fewer pages [than in the preface] simply has no heart for what truly must happen today. That is what must be considered first and foremost if we are serious about what we might call the “propaganda question.”

[ 7 ] Consider this specific fact: Our journal *The Threefold Social Order* has published forty-nine issues to date. Forty-nine issues! Take these forty-nine issues, read through them in order, and you will see how much we have essentially compiled there of everything that humanity first needs to know about the question of the threefold social order. We have published forty-nine issues. Everything that is initially necessary to know is truly already contained within them. But people still ask us for information on this or that question. And what must we say to ourselves today? We have, in essence, written these forty-nine issues of “The Threefold Social Order,” but all of this material has, for the time being, come to nothing. Are we not almost faced with the necessity of having to start over with our journal from the beginning, of having to publish Issue One and the subsequent issues exactly as they were originally published? Since, in essence, much of what we have said has gone to waste and has not at all taken root in people’s minds, are we expected to come up with something new time and again? Well, after all, the people out there cannot expect us to come up with too many new ideas. What is at stake, first and foremost, is actually promoting the idea of the threefold social order exactly as it is. Of course, there are countless obstacles to this, but all of these obstacles lie solely in human will. It is necessary for souls to awaken today and for people to take seriously what is actually at stake.

[ 8 ] You see, there is a question that people today continually avoid. It is the very question on which the “Key Points” were based from the outset, and on which, in essence, the entire propaganda for the threefold social order must rest—not in terms of facts, but in terms of the nature of the propaganda itself. It is the realization that, when it comes to the so-called social question today, we are truly not dealing with what most people are talking about. After all, when most people speak of the social question, they ask: What should be done with this or that institution? What should be established in this or that area? Anyone who speaks this way has absolutely no understanding of what is happening in our time—for the simple reason that they fail to realize that you can create the most brilliant institutions today, and that once you have created them, you will nevertheless very soon face exactly the same agitation afterward as you had before. Now, the nature of humanity is such: Take, for example, the current majority Social Democratic Party, which was an opposition party for a long time. The moment these majority Social Democrats came to power, the so-called Independent Social Democratic Party was formed. If that party were to come to power, a new opposition party would form in turn—the Communists. If they were to come to power, yet another new opposition party would emerge. The issue today is not at all about coming up with proposals for individual institutions, but rather that the social question today is truly a question of humanity—a question of human dignity and human consciousness.

[ 9 ] And one sees more clearly what the social question is when one looks around at countries where not everything has collapsed yet, but is about to collapse. On the one hand, there are the formerly ruling circles. These circles see, first of all, that all business activity has ground to a halt, that enormous stockpiles are accumulating in the warehouses, that it takes a great deal of effort just to generate enough revenue to pay the workers, and they begin to worry: If things continue this way, they will soon no longer be able to pay the workers. Nor will they be able to sell off the goods they have stockpiled in the warehouses. They see all this, of course, but they tell themselves: A miracle will happen, and then things will soon change for the better. They wait for this miracle so that they won’t have to think about what they should actually do. On the other side stand those who speak a completely different language—the broad masses of the proletariat of the civilized world. The leading circles just described have not the slightest idea of what is going on among these broad masses. But there is a will within this proletariat—a will that clothes its questions in concepts, in ideas—and the moment these are realized, they would destroy everything we have in the way of human civilization, destroy everything, everything, sweep it all away. And the ruling classes imagine that they will soon be able to return—perhaps to the year 1913 or early 1914—to pick up again where they left off back then, and that people would then willingly emerge from these broad masses who would once again work just as they did back then. No, what we are dealing with today is not a question of institutions, but a question of humanity. And we must realize that for a long, long time now, we have found not the slightest understanding among the ruling classes regarding what their task actually is. Yes, do you really believe that anything other than what we have had to witness here in Stuttgart—where we began our campaign for the threefold social order—will emerge from the masses?

[ 10 ] You see, under two conditions, what we began in April of last year could very well have continued—under two conditions. One would have been that we succeeded in winning over the broad masses of the proletariat to an enlightened outlook on life, without taking the proletarian leaders into account. That was well on its way. On the other hand, it would have required that those who had a certain influence within the bourgeoisie would have reached out to us, placed their trust in us, and said to themselves: “Here, at last, an attempt is being made to build a bridge between the proletariat and the others.”

[ 11 ] What should have happened? You can imagine that the matter is not easy, for the proletariat will under no circumstances ever place its trust in those who, like Stresemann or people of his ilk, speak in such a manner today—or who are in any way suspected of leaning toward that side. But, ladies and gentlemen, we were, after all, on the path to being able to speak to the proletariat simply on the basis of reason. And all that would have been necessary was for the bourgeoisie to show us enough understanding to say: “All right, let’s try to wait and see what you are capable of.” We’ll admit that there are many among us who cannot earn this trust because they have forfeited it, but if we proceed in this way, we will be able to build a bridge.

[ 12 ] What happened instead? The people who should have shown such understanding stood there with their legs spread wide and declared: “These are people who are leading us almost—or entirely—toward Bolshevism!” “These are people who are all on the side of the proletariat!”—Not the slightest understanding could be found on that side. And under such circumstances, the leaders of the proletariat—with whom one was not allowed to have anything to do—could then easily alienate this proletariat from us once again. That is what caused the whole thing to fail back then.

[ 13 ] And everything we could do in terms of propaganda would, in turn, be doomed to failure if, for example, the view were to gain ground that what is written in the *Dreigliederungszeitung* is simply too difficult to understand. When someone says that to me, I consider it my duty to explain to them, with the utmost courtesy—one must, after all, usually be polite to such people—to explain to them with the utmost courtesy: Precisely because people have long sought to find incomprehensible what stems from real-life practice and have constantly demanded: ‘You should lower yourselves to a different level in order to write’—that is precisely why we are in this miserable state. And you are the representative of those who have brought us into this misery. By demanding that people write in a way that suits your own level of understanding, you reveal yourself to be a pest from the circle of those who have brought us into our current situation. As long as we are not able—with all due courtesy, of course, when dealing with an individual case—as long as we are not able to find enough people who have the heart to finally say: A new dawn must come with new people; everything associated with these terrible old parties must be swept away; something entirely new must emerge!”—until then, all talk of the most effective means of propaganda is simply a waste of time.

[ 14 ] We do not live today in an age in which petty means are of any use; rather, we live in an age in which it is urgently necessary for a sufficiently large number of people who share the same language and the same ideas to take action—not merely to be enthusiastic. I believe, my esteemed audience, that some of you are wondering why things are actually escalating to the point where we are speaking in ever stronger and stronger terms—especially I myself. Well, there is a very simple reason for this. Just think about it: When one has organized events intended to awaken a portion of humanity, and when one notices how more and more people are gently drifting off to sleep, then one’s voice rises in proportion to what one has to say, because one has the instinctive need to overcome the sleepiness of one’s fellow human beings. And with regard to the necessary understanding of contemporary social issues, we truly cannot say that our fellow human beings’ need for sleep has diminished in recent times. Even within our movement, the matter is being approached from the very, very wrong end. I recently gave a lecture on the idea of the threefold social order, on the necessity of placing spiritual life on its own foundation. I received a response in an extraordinarily good-natured, well-meaning manner: “Here among us, it is actually not necessary to complain about the lack of freedom in spiritual life; we have a high degree of freedom in spiritual life; the state actually interferes very little in what we undertake in the field of education.”

[ 15 ] Ladies and gentlemen, the people who speak this way are the best proof of how necessary the liberation of spiritual life is. For those who still feel how unfree they are—they are the ones we need even more. But those who no longer even sense how unfree they are—those who mistake the state-imposed educational ideas that have been drummed into their heads for their own inner freedom, and who have no idea how far the slavery of mass education extends—these are the ones who are actually holding everything back. One must simply be able to tackle the matter from the right end. Those who unconsciously mistake slavery for freedom are, of course, the ones who prevent us from moving forward. And so one must say: Above all, it is a matter of realizing that all mutual understanding has been lost between the broad masses and those who, over long periods of time, would have had the task of speaking out in the world in such a way that these broad masses would not today be expressing in their newspapers and so on the very views they do express. In particular, one must not believe that any [true spiritual life] comes from the broad masses of the proletariat.

[ 16 ] I recently read a socialist newspaper in another country during Pentecost. It contained the strangest Pentecost articles; everything, absolutely everything, was rejected as “spirit,” and it was pointed out that the only “spirit” was the one that emerged from the broad masses. Reading these Pentecost articles in a social-democratic newspaper with a Bolshevik slant makes one feel as if transported [into a scene], so that one says to oneself: Now I should catch a glimpse somewhere of this spirit that rises like smoke from the broad masses. - Yes, ladies and gentlemen, when one then sets out to even think about, let alone grasp, anything of this spirit of the broad masses, one cannot help but feel: This is a far worse form of superstition than the kind that sees some demon, elf, or the like in every bush or every tree. Modern people have absolutely no idea what forms of superstition they are actually living in. And what does that ultimately amount to? You see, it amounts to the fact that people are simply too complacent to think about how a new spiritual life must truly be built. You see, we have been able to experience this thoroughly for decades now. If one then approaches people with the demand that a new spiritual life must now be built, well, at best one finds people who decide that, in addition to what they normally do in life, they will devote themselves to this new spiritual movement on Sunday afternoons, at branch meetings, or during the time they spend reading anthroposophical books. But they simply cannot bring themselves to seek a connection between this new spiritual movement and the rest of their lives.

[ 17 ] But there are also many—very many, in fact—other people who come along and say: “Yes, what you’re aiming for is, after all, what the better Catholics and the better Protestants want as well; there was a pastor who spoke from the pulpit entirely in the anthroposophical spirit; basically, you can find everything you’re after here and there as well.”—There are indeed a great many people who are willing to compromise to such an extent that they would actually like to let anthroposophy be absorbed into what people are accustomed to. There are also many people who, when faced with what must be done—precisely in the spirit of yesterday’s public lecture—still adhere to the principle: “Wash my fur, but don’t get me even a drop wet”—these people are particularly numerous today. And as long as we do not gain the ability to instill in as many minds as possible the awareness that, above all, a new spiritual life is necessary—a spiritual life that is far-reaching—we will not make progress. When we have this new spiritual life, when we are no longer compelled to struggle with the uncomprehending intellectuals, then we will once again have something that can speak to people in such a way that what is said can bring about social change.

[ 18 ] Ladies and gentlemen, people should just try to create a mental image of what an impact this word can have. Look out today across the entire civilized world—as far as it is accessible—when you’re traveling by train or car: everywhere you see villages and towns, and in these villages and towns you see churches—churches that have been built. None of these churches existed there not so long ago. In the first centuries of our Christian era, something quite different existed in this Europe that is now dotted with churches. And there were few at that time who stepped among the people—albeit among a more vibrant, less complacent humanity—and these few, through their words, brought about the fact that Europe has taken on its present form. Had the people who brought this about possessed the same mindset as, say, the dozen or so leaders of our fourteen parties—certainly not even a dozen churches would have been built. It is, after all, the inner power of the spirit that must create social realities. But then this inner power of the spirit must be carried by people who truly have the courage to bear it. And today we are faced with the fact that the old spiritual life, which was established in its content back then, can only be sustained through coercive measures, through prejudices, through habit; yet, fundamentally speaking, if people are truly and honestly sincere within themselves, it cannot be sustained—it must be replaced by a new spiritual life; we cannot move forward in any other way than by replacing it with a new spiritual life. Any kind of compromise is impossible today. And until we realize that it must become necessary to replace all these old things with something entirely new—something that, however, develops the power for social shaping from within the spirit—we will not make any progress. Therefore, my esteemed audience, I regard it in a certain sense as of very secondary importance whether one discusses the minor means of propagation in one way or another, or whether one goes about it one way or another—from a certain point of view, everything can be very good or utterly worthless. That is not the point; rather, the point is—as I have repeatedly stated in our *Threefold Order* journal—that we find a sufficiently large number of people who are determined to courageously advocate our ideas, who are determined not to keep falling back on the old, complacent ways.

[ 19 ] Now, my esteemed audience, we find ourselves right in the midst of initiatives that are summarized under this “Day to Come.” What strikes me most about this is that, time and again, well-meaning people come up and say: “Yes, actually, you have to do it completely differently; you have to appoint an expert, you have to appoint a practitioner.”—It is the most lamentable thing one can experience when one finally gives in to such a suggestion. For such a suggestion actually reveals an attempt to reintroduce the old, impractical sloppiness into our midst. The point is not to bring the old so-called “practitioners” into our institution, but to be clear about this: Those who, under certain circumstances, may have the best reputation today in any given field simply because they knew how to handle the old routine are the least useful to us. And those who are most useful are those who are willing to do new work out of the most immediate, innermost initiative, and who do not pride themselves on what they have learned from the old circumstances. Unless we shed this conceit about what has been gleaned from the old circumstances, we will not make any progress at all. That is what we must recognize today. And finally, I say to you: Let us, above all, promote what has now truly been attempted to create for more than a year. One shouldn’t constantly try to be overly clever by merely attempting to reshape the old to fit some other form, while—pardon the expression—licking one’s fingers in self-satisfaction at how clever one is, and believing: “They’re starting everything in an impractical way; this or that needs to be done.”

[ 20 ] Just try for a moment to [consider] what it means that forty-nine issues of the *Dreigliederungszeitung* have come to nothing. Why have they come to nothing? In reality, the *Dreigliederungszeitung* should be at a stage today where we could publish it every day as a daily newspaper. Why do I say this? Because I must, in fact, still stand on the same ground today as I did in April and May of last year, when we began this endeavor. Do you think it was just a figure of speech, just a phrase, that I concluded a large number of speeches back then with the words: “Let us resolve to do something before it is too late!”—Back then, the point was that one had to recognize the right moment for certain things. For many things, it is simply too late today. Today, of course, we cannot make any progress by following the paths we took back then, when we tried everything possible. The point today is not at all that we should somehow still engage in a discussion with all the old has-beens, whether they be the adherents of creeds or the members of political parties. Today, the point is that we stand firmly on the ground of what we have to say and get it into as many minds as possible. Otherwise, we will not make any progress. For it has simply become too late for many things. And under certain circumstances, it may soon be too late for some things that can still happen—namely, the dissemination of our ideas—if we continue to focus time and again on trivial matters rather than on the main point: spreading our ideas.

[ 21 ] I said earlier: What we have defined as the Coming Day can, after all, really only be an unsatisfactory substitute. Why is that? Because we do not delude ourselves into thinking that we can be practical without basing ourselves on practical actions. We try to be economically active, but then people come and ask: “Well, how exactly should one set up a spice shop so that it fits as well as possible into the threefold social organism?”—Certainly, we want to establish economic enterprises in the Coming Day, but the point is that we must actually tackle them in a practical way. And how could one practically go about this today when one has to admit: If I manage a certain type of enterprise, then—in order to manage it rationally—I must also have another group of enterprises—for example, for a certain group of industrial enterprises, I must have a certain group of agricultural enterprises. Well, can you actually do that? All of that is impossible today. The state makes it impossible for you to establish such a practical arrangement. That is how great the powers of the state are today. The issue is not that the approach is impractical, but that coercion on the other side makes the matter impossible.

[ 22 ] Therefore, those people who are actually active in any area of economic life should truly not be discussing minor issues today, but rather they should be discussing how the various economic professions and economic associations can free themselves from the political state altogether, how they can break away from it. As long as, for example, engineers—as long as these and those people—think of nothing else but establishing institutions that best fit into current state life, we will not make any progress. We will only move forward when we discuss: How do we break free? How do we establish a truly free economic life in which organization does not come from the top down, but rather through association, where professional groups objectively join together with other professional groups? In fact, not even the very basics of the threefold social order have made their way into practical discussions; instead, people keep quacking and rambling on, always taking current circumstances into account. But all this rambling leads nowhere today. Let us resist those who keep saying, over and over again: “What about this or that?” —We will only begin to be able to speak sensibly once we have made further progress with the threefold social order, once we are truly so deeply immersed in this advocacy for the threefold social order that a sufficiently large number of people engaged in economic activity realize: We cannot say anything sensible at all as long as we continue to rely on state institutions to shape our economic life for us. Only to the extent that one is fully immersed in a free economic life that has nothing to do with politics can one speak sensibly—before that, it is nonsense. Likewise, one cannot speak of reforms in spiritual life as long as one is not clear that one cannot even begin to discuss the matter until one is fully immersed in a free spiritual organization. One must at least be aware of this: As long as one is part of an intellectual organization that depends on the state, one is bound to speak nonsense, and one cannot bring about reform. You see, this sharply highlights the crux of the matter. These are not trivialities, but matters of great importance. And the more one comes to realize this, the more one will achieve, particularly in the realm of practical life.

[ 23 ] You will say: What good does it do us to hear such a tirade on the question of how we should conduct propaganda? But if you consider what I have said, you will find that as long as people in our circles are discussing the minutest details of propaganda—I would call this “twenty-seven kreuzer” propaganda, as they say in Austria, because there were once stores there where every item cost twenty-seven kreuzer—as long as that continues, we will not make any progress. We’ll only make progress when we have the heart and mind for the great, driving forces, because those great, driving forces are what matter today.

[ 24 ] Well, my esteemed audience, I have already spoken at length—to no avail—about how it all comes down to the great, driving forces. But I will not grow weary of continuing to take a fundamentally critical stance against everything that seeks to make compromises today and get bogged down in trivialities. I will never tire of pointing out, time and again, how necessary it is today to truly bring the great, world-shaking issues to the understanding of the broadest masses. That is why I always feel compelled to deliver public lectures in the style I used yesterday and to defy all those “super-smart” people who say one must speak more understandably to the masses. By this, they usually mean only themselves, their own level of understanding. I will always hold to this view: the people who speak this way are precisely the pests; they are the ones we must overcome.

[ 25 ] And to do that, we must find the courage to tell ourselves: Yes, something entirely new must be established. It is just as I wrote recently in our magazine: that the old parties are, in essence, no longer even there; that they exist only as lies and empty phrases, and consist of people who, because they know nothing new, cloak themselves in the slogans of the old parties. The whole [party] machinery, even in recent days, proves precisely how necessary something new is in the most radical sense.

Following Rudolf Steiner’s remarks, various individuals take the floor to offer comments and ask questions:

Siegfried Dorfner: What has been happening over the past few days makes it abundantly clear: what comes from the political parties is nothing but petty nonsense. What is needed is a fundamental critique of the parties’ entire policy to date. It is a matter of promoting the truth. In this regard, the Jesuits’ uncompromising stance is remarkable. They proclaim: Even if countless believers turn away from the Church, what matters is that not a single truth is lost. The Jesuits care only about upholding the truths—and nothing else. Shouldn’t we adopt a similar stance with regard to promoting the threefold social order? After all, one cannot rely on people’s thinking; there is no thinking among the masses. So a path must somehow be found out of life itself. One must speak to the people standing at the machines. One can count on their trust, but only as long as one belongs to the same class oneself.

Mr. Roser: The impact really only spreads from person to person. People don’t want to read about the idea of threefolding in a newspaper; they want to experience it through personal relationships. It has now been a year since efforts were made to realize the idea of the threefold social order. If anyone failed back then, it was the middle class; it is responsible for the failure of those efforts. One cannot blame the circumstances; rather, it is always people who fail.

A participant in the discussion: What is Dr. Steiner’s position, and what is the position of the Threefold Social Order regarding syndicalism?

Another participant in the discussion: I would like to ask how Dr. Steiner envisions the threefold social order continuing to spread through the organization “Der Kommende Tag”?

Georg Herberg: First, regarding the question of proper propaganda. We must develop practical solutions from the perspective of the threefold social order—for example, regarding clothing and housing—so that the people have practical guidance. Government architects and licensed engineers are actually responsible for solving the housing problem. But this raises another important problem: the imbalance between technicians and lawyers that prevails in our society. Lawyers occupy the leading positions; they are decisive in political decisions. It is from them that the high-sounding words come, and it is from them that the edifying rhetoric resounds. What is represented by the lawyers and what is represented by the technicians must grow together. After all, the cycle of production, distribution, and consumption of goods must also be closed; and it is the technician who is responsible for the area of production. In order to properly address the interests and responsibilities of technicians in society, an “Academic Association for Technicians” would need to be established.

Robert Wolfgang Wallach: It is, frankly, depressing that there is even a propaganda issue surrounding the threefold social order. We should carry this idea so vividly within us that we could have an immediate impact on people, simply by addressing the human being within each person. The street sweeper needs the homeowner, and the homeowner needs the street sweeper; both depend on each other. It should therefore no longer happen that the street sweeper looks askance at the homeowner, and vice versa.

[ 26 ] Rudolf Steiner: Ladies and gentlemen! Unfortunately, in this discussion, far too little has been said about the actual idea of threefolding, but rather about many other things. I would like to return briefly to the idea of threefolding and what is connected with it by picking out individual questions that have been addressed, and in doing so, I will come back to the lecture.

[ 27 ] The question has been raised as to what my position is on syndicalism, or what the Threefold Social Order’s position is on it. You see, we have tried—truly—to take a stance on the most diverse currents of thought. I myself would still have to say today what I have often said about syndicalism: that in certain syndicalist circles there is an awareness of how the unification of individual professions, individual occupational sectors, and so on—that is, the syndicalist idea—can be a certain path toward achieving something fruitful, at least in economic life. I fully acknowledge all of this—including, for example, that syndicalism has a less subservient relationship to the concept of the state than, say, conventional Marxist socialism. I fully acknowledge that as well, and have acknowledged it many times. However, I would like to say: All these movements—I am not referring to the present—all these movements do not belong to the present, but to the past, and they only still extend into the present because the people who used to identify with them [in one way or another] are simply unable to change their ways. One could say that, in fact, all these party labels have already lost their relevance in light of present-day conditions. Only the people who used to belong to these movements—who are characterized by these party labels—have not yet brought themselves to identify with anything other than [the names of] the old party labels. You see, up until 1914, it made a certain amount of sense for people to identify themselves by such names—as, for example, Mr. von Heydebrand still calls himself “and der Lasa” today, and so on. But today it no longer makes sense. Likewise, clinging to such things of the past as syndicalism no longer has any real significance.

[ 28 ] And as long as it was possible to try to reach people whose minds were believed to be still “malleable” enough to break free from these old party stereotypes, that’s exactly what was done. But we must learn something from the circumstances. And today, it is truly urgent that we learn something from the circumstances. And so I must say, I no longer feel the weight of the question “How do I relate to syndicalism?” at all; rather, I’ll explain to you: I have tried to engage with syndicalism as well—that is, to find people within syndicalism who, thanks to a still “malleable” mind, would be capable of grasping the threefold social order—but even that was in vain. That is why we must speak today—as I have done this evening—in such a way that the focus is on standing on the firm ground of the threefold order and not concerning ourselves with anything else. For what matters today is that we must find a sufficiently large number of people who understand the threefold order; whether they come from this or that camp, from the syndicalist camp or from another, is of no consequence to us. We no longer concern ourselves today with how the threefold social order relates to the syndicalists; rather, we will wait and see how the syndicalists intend to relate to the threefold social order. Over the course of the past year, we have learned that everything else is futile, and today only those who are capable of learning can make a difference.

[ 29 ] The question was then raised as to how the threefold social order is intended to spread further through the organization “The Coming Day.”

[ 30 ] I would ask you, especially when considering such a specific question, to bear in mind that the idea of the threefold social order, in its entire structure, is something thoroughly practical and does not float in some blue mist, but is, in fact, something concrete. Der Kommende Tag was founded because it was recognized that the modern, conventional banking system had gradually become a harmful element in our economic life over the course of the 19th century. I also pointed this out during my last visit at a study evening. I showed that, roughly since the first third of the 19th century, money has played a role in the economic life of modern civilization similar to that of abstract concepts in our thinking; that it has gradually extinguished all concrete striving; and that it lies like a veiling curtain over what must find expression in economic forces. And this is why there is a need today to establish something that is not merely a bank, but that concentrates economic forces in such a way that they function simultaneously as a bank and engage in concrete economic activity. Thus, there is a need to establish something that brings together truly concrete economic activity and the organization of these economic sectors, just as economic life is otherwise brought together in a bank—but without taking economic conditions into account, only in an abstract manner. This means that here, in the coming days, a practical attempt will be made to overcome the harms of the monetary system.

[ 31 ] We see today that all sorts of people—journeymen and others—there are, after all, strange “journeymen” in life—are running around talking about “free money.” These are utopians. These are dreamers. What it really comes down to is that, through an understanding of practical life, one comes to realize where the actual harm lies. And one source of harm is that the banking system has developed economically into what it is today. In economic life today, the banking system is as deeply embedded as thoughts are in the inner life of a person who immediately translates everything into abstractions and who does not concern himself with the individual, concrete things one has to deal with, but instead translates everything into lofty abstractions. A person who reduces everything to lofty abstractions—and that is most people today—such a person never arrives at a true grasp of reality. You see, you can hear such abstractions every Sunday from every pulpit. Such abstractions—which make people feel so incredibly comfortable because they can escape from life for a Sunday afternoon—have nothing to do with life anymore. And just as insubstantial abstraction—which takes refuge in a cloud-cuckoo-land—is to the life of the individual soul, so too is the banking system, which finds its sole expression in money, to economic life.

[ 32 ] That is why, by conducting a small-scale experiment—one that will hopefully grow into something much larger—it was possible to structure things in such a way that, so to speak, money is brought back into the economy and the economy is brought up to the level of money, so that money once again becomes something that serves to facilitate and set economic activity in motion. Just as our thoughts should not serve to elevate us to abstract heights and make us feel comfortable there, but rather to set the concrete facts of life in motion, so too must we place money within real economic life. We want to operate economic sectors and not sit in a bank and merely engage in financial transactions, for financial transactions in and of themselves have been the greatest harm to our economic life since the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. So, *The Coming Day* simply takes up a practical idea. And until people realize that this is about thinking ideas through in a very practical way, down to the smallest detail, they will not understand the Society for the Threefold Social Order either.

[ 33 ] And now I would like to draw attention to something that is somewhat related to the overall tone I tried to set today—to a group that Mr. Dorfner mentioned: the Jesuits. There, even if it’s for a cause with which I truly want nothing to do, one finds an effective way of advocating for things. You can hear it time and again from that side: “And even if thousands upon thousands of our followers fall away, even if we lose thousands upon thousands, it doesn’t matter to us. It would only matter to us if we lost a single truth!” - Time and again, you can hear this from the side Mr. Dorfner referred to: Let thousands upon thousands of followers fall away, but not a single truth must be lost. One could see that where such words are spoken in defense of a cause with which I truly want nothing to do, there lies an effective form of propaganda. So one could take the position: It means nothing to have many followers, but it means everything to be able to stand on the ground of one’s truths, without compromise, without looking elsewhere [and thinking], “If you want to win that one over, you’ll have to sugarcoat it a bit.” This is not the kind of propaganda involved in the threefold social order. It is about winning over as many people as possible to what the threefold social order embodies—truly not because one is in love with the threefold social order or because one is stubborn, but because one realizes: Only in this way can we move forward.

[ 34 ] Well, there is probably no need to go into what Dr. Herberg said about “certified architects” and “government architects” in relation to lawyers. These issues have long since been settled by the most basic discussions within the Federation. And, isn’t it true, it is also completely out of the question that, when we discuss the threefold social order, we should, as it were, place ourselves entirely outside the framework of that threefold social order? For you see, it would ultimately make a rather strange impression if, for example, we were to speak of the free spiritual life and then raise a discussion about whether it would be right to replace the old designations for those working in high schools with titles such as “Studienassessor” and so on. These are all questions that are rooted in the old system of government. The same is true of the “government architects”; the issue cannot be how they relate to the jurists. For the moment one addresses the threefold social order, one can no longer speak of “government architects”; rather, we are then standing on the ground of that political state which, in a strictly democratic sense, encompasses a system where every responsible individual stands as an equal before every other responsible individual. It cannot be a matter of how this democratic state relates to the person to whom such a title is to be given, and so on. In general, we must get into the habit of delving a little more into reality.

[ 35 ] You see, all sorts of things happen to you in life, and you can remember all sorts of experiences. For example, I was once with a socialist figure—who was a good socialist—and I spoke with her about a very, very high-ranking government official. I considered this very, very high-ranking government official to be completely incompetent, a totally impossible person. And I said that, in my opinion, [the best thing] for that very high-ranking government official would actually be for him to leave his post and become a street sweeper—that would be the right profession for him. You should have seen the horror that gripped the socialist figure at the thought that this man, whom she knew so well, would now have to become a street sweeper. Yes, that was, of course, just a thought, but it seems to me to point to more reality than the idea—forgive me—that was just expressed: that the homeowner shouldn’t look askance at the street sweeper, and the street sweeper shouldn’t look askance at the homeowner!—Yes, we certainly don’t solve the social question by simply not looking askance at one another. The real issue is that, in our current social order, the homeowner needs the street sweeper and the street sweeper needs the homeowner; but if they simply don’t look askance at one another, the social question will probably still not be resolved. And whether one fancies oneself to be something or nothing—these are, after all, questions that, at the very core, have absolutely nothing to do with the practicalities and serious realities of contemporary life. It’s really not just a matter of making it clear to people today that the homeowner needs the street sweeper and the street sweeper needs the homeowner. We always have this idea lurking in the background: the street sweeper should remain a street sweeper, and the homeowner should remain a homeowner; they just shouldn’t look at each other askance—which will certainly be easier for the homeowner than for the street sweeper. But I believe that with all these things, which reek rather strongly of moralizing, we won’t get anywhere today; rather, today it is not merely a matter of not looking askance at one another, but of rolling up our sleeves to bring about change—above all, to achieve, once again, mutual understanding across class lines. And this understanding will lead to a complete transformation of life—not merely a shift from a skewed perspective to a straight one, but to something entirely different. And if you examine what is intended in the idea of the threefold social order, you will see that what emerges is indeed something humanity must yearn for today, if it understands anything of what is seeking to be realized in world history. And it is such things that we must look to today, not to something that is merely moralizing and that, in turn, ties back to the old forms that still play out in contemporary social life. No, we must be clear today that we need a new spiritual life that springs from the very soil of this spiritual life itself. No matter how poorly the threefold social order may have been implemented in specific cases, it must be said again and again that this threefold social order is grounded in the following: We will owe any improvement solely to a change in thinking, solely to a transformation of human thoughts and feelings down to their very depths, and to nothing else.