Work Councils and Socialization

GA 331 — 8 May 1919, Stuttgart

1st Assembly of the Workers' Committees of the Large Enterprises of Stuttgart

Introductory words by Rudolf Steiner

Dear attendees! In light of what the chairman has told you, I imagine that our evening could preferably unfold in such a way that the esteemed attendees ask specific questions. In this way we shall best achieve our purpose, which has just been explained to you. So it will perhaps be best if I say just a few words in advance to give you a little background for the discussion that follows, which, I believe, should be the main thing today.

You will, as the chairman assumed, have taken note of what I, based on a lifetime of experience, had to do for a truly practical way to socialization, which only came to a conclusion under the loudly speaking facts of the present. Just briefly, I would like to characterize some things.

The point is that in the future we must strive radically for what I have called the threefold social order in an Appeal and in my book. This can be achieved much more quickly than many people think. This threefold social order would lead to the existence in the future of an independent spiritual organism that would govern itself and would have the task of caring for the natural foundations of the human being, that is, his or her individual abilities, in the same way that the natural foundations must otherwise be cared for in economic life. The second would be the organization that has to take the place of the present state, the actual legal organization. In the first place, it would have to regulate all the present conditions of ownership and property, which are the main thing in the actual socialization of property. On the one hand, there would be the question of what should take the place of the State. The present conditions of violence, property and ownership would have to be transferred into conditions based on the law in which all men are equal. And on the other hand, everything that comprises the entire field of labor law would be regulated in this intermediate link of the social organism that replaces the state.

I see labor law as being endangered whenever it is to be regulated within the cycle of economic life itself. The damage that occurs in today's economy, in particular, is usually misjudged. I have made a great effort to form a corresponding picture not from what has been written about the things – because in truth very little can be learned from that – but directly from life. I would like to briefly discuss these matters today so that we can move on to specific questions. I have explained it in detail in my book: as long as there is a belief that the question of what constitutes working hours, and the extent and type of work, should be regulated within the economic body itself, the worker cannot obtain his rights. The worker must already have his labor law fully regulated when he comes face to face with the labor manager. Only then will he be in a position to draw up a real contract in place of today's sham contracts, the wage contract, or whatever you want to call it, which is not a free contract because the worker does not have the labor law behind him, which is what enables him to conclude a truly free contract. In this economic system, the worker cannot obtain justice, but only through the separation of the entire legal system from economic life and its transfer to what should take the place of the state.

The third possibility is the independent economic organism. In this case, we shall no longer have to deal with any dependence of labor law on any kind of economic situation, price formation, and so on, but all economic consequences, especially all economic price formations, will arise not as a cause but as an effect of what is already established in labor law, or rather, in labor law itself. Labor law will be to economic life what natural conditions are to the natural world. Through this alone you will create a sound basis for the socialization of the economic cycle.

You see, this view is truly not an ideological one, not a utopian one, but one that has emerged from my involvement – and that is almost as old or quite as old as my life – in the proletarian movement. Of course, one then looks back at how the social movement has developed. The social movement is truly not of today. It is something, even in the form in which it lives today, quite old. One might think that if one wants to understand the social movement today, one only has to go back to the Communist Manifesto. But anyone who wants to get a proper grip on things today, when we are at such a tremendous turning point, when we are not facing a small reckoning but a great reckoning, and not just wants to understand them, must actually trace back economic life and the ideas that people have formed about it to earlier times.

Because, you see, it is truly not a matter of indifference that, for example, in 1826, at a time when most people in Europe had not yet thought of anything like a social question, a person like Thünen already predicted in a certain way what then occurred as a consequence of our world catastrophe. Thünen was a person who worked the land himself, but not in the usual way. He did so with full understanding and with a relationship to economic life that was based on reality. As early as 1826, this Thünen said: If people do not decide to do what is necessary in social terms, then Europe is heading for terrible devastation and barbarism. — So people already knew this, but there were only a few who spoke like this. This was said in 1826.

Now, in the course of the 19th century, honest and sincere people repeatedly struggled with what is called the social question, and I would like to emphasize once again – this was not decisive for me but nevertheless something that throws back a light – that the one who objectively deals with what has emerged on the part of some as the demand of socialism – yesterday was indeed spoken about in more detail – could only say to himself: socialism must come one day. Socialism is a necessity. It must come, it will come. And then he also had to realize that the arguments put forward by people who are sincere about socialism are important. And, if you have gone through all the nonsense of the economists who thought they had to refute Marx, you can say: the most important claims of Karl Marx cannot be refuted, are quite impossible to refute. But if you turn to the other side, not to the mercenaries and servants of the capitalists, of course, but to those who had social understanding, you will also find among them those who, out of the reality of practical life, raised objections to socialism that could make one stop and think. It is not uninteresting that in the same year that the Communist Manifesto went out into the world, a book was published by Bruno Hildebrand, an honest person who has put forward weighty arguments against socialism. And especially if you are an honest socialist, you may have some strange thoughts when you read such things. I do not want to attach any importance to what this or that other person from bourgeois circles has said, that is mostly nonsense, but when you have something like Bruno Hildebrand's account in front of you, you do end up saying to yourself: On the one hand, you can't object to socialism, it's bound to come. However, the concerns that people like Hildebrand have are extremely difficult to refute. For Hildebrand does not raise his objections out of any dislike of socialism, but rather, in view of socialism as he knew it in 1848 – and the same would apply to Hildebrand today, at least until 1914 – he has merely expressed his concerns. He imagined that if socialism were introduced in the old style, it would not be the middle classes who would somehow suffer, but those who wanted socialism would ultimately achieve nothing. In a sense, people like Hildebrand already foresaw what could happen when precisely such people from the circles of the Socialist Party come to the top, because the desires of the broad masses of the proletariat cannot arise from that background.

You see, there are of course many different views on this. And if we are completely honest about it, we have to say: Yes, it is a general defect of our current human thinking that we are not able to find something that is not just made up, because, despite what is said, socialist programs are often just made up. Today we need something that is not made up.

What I have just told you now sheds some light on what has emerged for me from practical life. If I look at the development of socialist thought in the 19th century and also take into account Hildebrand and revisionist thought in the 19th century, then I come to the following conclusion: If socialism is to be implemented in such a way that economic activity continues under the hypnosis of the unified state, that is, if the unified state is merely extended to cover economic matters, then the broad masses will suffer all the harms that Hildebrand foresaw. That means that we need a socialism that is realized in such a way that these things do not occur. Therefore, the social organism, the economic organism, must not contain anything that could lead to such concerns. And then I said to myself: this is precisely where this threefold division applies, because I take out spiritual life on the one hand and legal life on the other, thereby creating an economic organism that can no longer give rise to concerns because generous socialization can be carried out in the threefold organism. You will see this in all the specific questions, especially when we then go into the most concrete questions.

Let us take the question of works councils as an example of a question that is becoming topical today, which I hope we will discuss in more detail later. You see, my proposals are based on reality and are therefore not a finished program, but something that is to be tackled and that is to be developed bit by bit, not slowly, but perhaps also quickly bit by bit, as the circumstances of the time will require. The possibility of really making progress arises from what I have tried to present as a three-pronged impulse for real socialization.

The question of works councils – I hope that it will be discussed in detail later – is a real one today, and practically speaking, we can start from any point in reality today to realize what is set out in my book. Those who think in the old socialist way, for example, imagine these works councils primarily – I have been told this – as being more or less introduced by law, that is, they think of the works councils as a state institution. Now, once again, I am of the opinion that if they are introduced in this way, they will most certainly be a fifth wheel on the wagon. It is only possible to create the works councils out of economic life itself.

I recently said: Let the works councils arise, and do not interfere in their creation by passing laws about them! They should come into being first, they should arise first in the individual companies, but they must create a position for themselves, especially during the transition period, that makes them completely independent of the previous bosses and plant managers. They must, of course, have an independent position.

Then the next step will be to ensure that the companies that are set up today form their own corporate body across the economic territories in question. For anyone today who still understands socialization as merely wanting to socialize individual companies would very soon see the strange position we would be in in five years if we only socialized individual companies. If we were to socialize only individual enterprises, we would end up with the wildest individualism of the individual enterprises, and the most dissatisfied would be the workers. There would be such inequality among workers in terms of income that it would be unbearable. You can only socialize if you socialize the entire economic entity, of a certain size, as such.

So, first of all, it is a matter of establishing works councils for certain similar businesses in a certain area. A very important act of overall socialization emanates from the works councils, so that not only is a bond created between the works councils of similar businesses, but across all businesses. Then a real socialization of economic life can gradually occur. Only then will things be a blessing. If, therefore, we begin to develop an understanding of the extraordinarily important appointment of works councils, we will see that we are on the right track with the idea of tripartism. We shall only achieve something if we do not tolerate the intervention of that which replaces the state in the functions of the works councils in any way other than merely with reference to the fact that the state has to ensure that the works councils can function, just as it naturally has to ensure that I can walk down a street without being attacked. But otherwise than the state otherwise relates to the personal rights of the individual, it should also not relate to the works councils with some kind of limitations of functions and so on. The functions must arise from the self-constitution of the works council within the economic body. That alone leads to success. With this example I wanted to show you how threefolding is actually meant. It is meant to be practical, that is, everything we have to do tomorrow and the day after tomorrow can only lead somewhere if it is handled from the point of view of threefold division. Then things will interact in the right way.

You see, my suggestion assumes that socialism, now that it is here, cannot be taken off the agenda. Anyone who is familiar with the conditions in both economic and political life, and thus in legal and intellectual life, can no longer imagine, because that is an unrealistic notion, that socialism can be introduced today and then it will be here tomorrow. No, once socialism is in place, it will have to be continuously worked on. Socialism will always have to be handled in a new way. It is something very much alive. We must have precisely those organizations that work again and again in the spirit of socialism. People do not yet come up with their thoughts in line with what is actually happening in this area.

A long time ago, a strange sentence emerged from a school of economics. It is considered overcome today, but it still haunts people's minds. It was the Physiocrats who said that there was no need to prescribe laws for economic life, because either it develops by itself in line with these laws, in which case they are not needed, or you prescribe different laws that do not correspond to the development. But then you would harm the economy. It seems that, when stated in this way, it is absolutely right and yet is totally wrong, namely for the reason that economic life is not something that remains stationary, that is, remains as it once was. It is an organism, and just as a natural organism grows older and older and changes, and one must recognize its change as a condition of life, so it must be with economic life. That means that laws must be there, but they must arise from economic life itself. Thus, the impulses must always be there to counteract the damage to economic life that it must inflict on itself. Anyone who believes that he can introduce socialism once and for all is like a person who says: I ate yesterday, and that was enough to fill me up. Now I don't need to eat anymore. You have to eat continuously because the organism is constantly undergoing certain changes and because it is a living thing. And so it is with what socialist measures are. You have to continually socialize because the social organism is a living thing. And that is also what leads to the necessity for us to create something like works councils and much more right from the start.

You see, the greatest mistake that has been made so far is that people have believed that social life is something like a reproduction of an organism made of papier-mâché. So they imagined it was a mechanism; it is not alive. But it is alive, only people have given the social organism such laws that should apply to something that is dead. But the organism went further, and now people are surprised when revolutions come. That which must be continually improved upon accumulates when it is not improved upon and breaks out in revolutions. Revolutions have been made by those who were short-sighted enough not to recognize the liveliness of social life. I do not mean those who are pushed to do one thing or another, but those who are the leaders and do not understand how to exercise leadership. That is why it is so important today that, if sooner or later the call is really made again to take matters into our own hands, we do not approach the matter with empty heads again, but come up with constructive proposals. It is not enough to say that power must be acquired. That is certainly true, but then, what can we do with that power once we have it? I wanted to say that first. Now I hope that the discussion can become a very lively one through your questions.

Discussion

Debater Beierat explains, among other things: When it comes to socialization, the entrepreneurs must also be asked, because the workers cannot solve all the questions on their own. In order to have a handle so that the previous owners help to create the works councils, it is necessary that a legal basis is created that is the same for the whole Reich.¹

Rudolf Steiner: I would like to say a few words about this, because perhaps we can best move forward by addressing the individual questions.

You see, what the previous speaker just said is not fundamentally inconsistent with what I have put forward. I just tried to approach the matter not theoretically, but in such a practical way that it really leads somewhere. If you want to achieve something practical, you should not let yourself be discouraged by not wanting to make a definite start somewhere. The beginning of something practical must always be made somewhere, and after all, before we came here, there was a meeting down in a small room where all the works councils that already exist were gathered. So at least a start has been made. The only thing that matters is that something practical comes out of such a beginning. Of course, you can think of this beginning as you like, you can make another one. In this connection I would remind you that I spoke about this yesterday: that for the practical implementation of the threefold order, it is of course necessary first of all to set up a kind of liquidation government. I certainly do not think that we can decide today to implement the threefold order by tomorrow!

Since we are living in a time when people can only think in terms of a unitary state, we must, under all circumstances, not because we love any particular government, but because people have lived together in the state until now, have a government for a wide range of different things. Contrary to what the previous speaker said, I must say: Whether it is one government or the other is not important to me. So it is very important to me that it is a government that makes proposals in the sense of real socialization. So I do not feel that is a correct statement: “It does not matter to me whether it is one government or the other.” Because precisely when there is a government, it will have to be clear that in the future it will have to stand only on the legal ground and liquidate, on the one hand, intellectual life and, on the other, economic life. Then, in the form of such a liquidation government, the right authority will be there to create that transitional period, and to do so with reasonable measures. These would then form the basis on which the works councils can be built up, which, instead of some of the other things that various governments are doing today, could in fact use their power to somehow persuade the recalcitrant employers - forgive the expression - to take up reasonable socialization ideas. That would be the task of a reasonable government during the transition period.

These foundations, which still have to be laid today by the liquidation government, could already be in place. But in doing so, this liquidation government in particular would have to be thoroughly imbued with the realization that government laws must never interfere with the development of a healthy economic life, so that this economic life can truly build itself up from the ground up. Therefore, it is necessary that the liquidation government ensures that works councils can emerge. However, it must not interfere in their entire formation. This must happen from within the works council itself.

The government has no other task than to ensure that the works councils can constitute themselves beyond their economic territories, that is, out of economic necessity. This will be the best foundation if the government ensures that the works councils can work properly. The works councils can constitute themselves if the government creates a basis and does not want to rule over them.

Today, the actual difference between ruling and governing is not known, and one can actually be very surprised that, as a result of the November events, people have learned so little about this distinction. There is – this distinction is not mine, but Karl Marx's – a very considerable difference between governing and ruling. And when a government learns to govern and no longer believes that it is only a government when it can rule, then even what the broad masses can imagine under socialization will be possible. For in the future it is not a government that must rule, but the whole broad mass of the people. The government must govern and learn how to govern when the whole broad mass of the people actually rules. The people have not yet got out of the habit of associating the term 'ruler' with a single personality or body. This is something that must be thoroughly eradicated from the people's way of thinking. When a body is set up with socialization in mind – and it must be set up in the same way as works councils – the difference between governing and ruling must be understood above all. Everything that belongs to the powers of the works councils must be formed from the broad masses of the workers. Governance will only consist of creating a real basis, not a legal basis, so that the works council can form freely, purely out of economic necessity, out of knowledge and insight.

You see, the peculiar thing about my proposals for threefolding is that I do not draw up programs, but rather that I try to give such suggestions based on reality so that something reasonable can arise. I say openly: in this way my impulses for threefolding differ from all the rest. Yesterday it was said here that they contain nothing new. They contain something fundamentally new. People who spoke of socialization and other reforms in the past were clever and knew exactly what should be done. I do not claim to be cleverer than the others, but I firmly believe that conditions can be brought about in which those who know something about the matter can come into their own. I do not want to show the way to what the works councils should do, but how they can educate themselves. Then they will recognize for themselves what they have to do. I want to put the right people in the right place. I do not claim to know anything new, but I want the new to come into being.

Various participants in the discussion take the floor.

Rudolf Steiner: With reference to the two esteemed previous speakers, it gives me a certain satisfaction to note that I myself have little left to say, because the discussion between these two speakers has progressed in such a gratifying way that one has completely complemented the other and what actually needs to be said has already been said. I would just like to add the following.

When it is said that there is a difference between focusing all thoughts on the path: How do we gain the power of domination? – and the other way of thinking: What do we do when we have gained power? I must say that I am always reminded of what played such a strong role in the discussions of the 1880s. In those years I had occasion to discuss many questions that were already being dealt with on socialist ground at the time, for example with Adler in Vienna, who recently passed away, and also with Pernerstorfer, who also died last year. And of course, these socialist thinkers of the past were even closer to the great socialist impulses that came from Marx and Engels. It was not yet the time of so-called revisionism, which I believe has done a lot of harm to the development of socialism. I don't want to be misunderstood, but I have always thought that this gentle transition of real socialism into a somewhat unclear, bourgeois way of thinking, which was called revisionism, has actually done a great deal of harm, for the simple reason that some people are so terribly satisfied when they can say: We want what is practical and achievable for tomorrow. These people do not consider that what is achieved for tomorrow can, under certain circumstances, undermine all ground for the day after tomorrow. I often had to object to Adler and Pernerstorfer that I recognize everything that they mention as criticism of the present social order, but one must also have something that one would do when what these socialist leaders themselves assumed finally occurred. These socialist leaders always predicted: This present social order will dismantle itself, it will destroy itself. That was an absolutely correct view. And that is why these socialist leaders always waved away any suggestion that something should be done to forcibly replace the current order with another. They were, in the most eminent sense, developmental socialists, and they said: the dismantling will be taken care of, then it will be the proletariat's turn. — I have always been of the opinion that if you assume what will happen, then you should know.

Are we not actually in a different situation today? We have the November events behind us, and you can be quite sure that those people who were leaders at the time had already imagined something like the November events, but now there was nothing that could be done positively. This shows that it is of some importance not just to keep asking the question, 'How do we gain power?' like a hypnotized chicken, but to ask ourselves, 'What do we do with power?' I keep asking this: How do we act?

The previous speaker said that economic collapse is coming. I don't actually share this view. I believe that it has long since arrived, and that what is being done by the ruling circles is just a continuous covering up and concealment of the economic collapse that has long since occurred. The economic collapse has been there since the time when it was officially declared that it was best for the German Reich to no longer produce for the needs of the people, but for what is blown up into the air. Thus, the economic collapse has actually taken place. And it was always inexplicable to me how little the

people have actually realized that with a measure such as the Auxiliary Service Act, which corresponds well to the subjective needs of the old rulers, a terrible blow has been dealt to economic life that cannot really be cured by anything. They have only ever thought of other things, but had no sense of the economic consequences of such a measure.

So, I believe that economic collapse is here, and we are facing events that will only be delayed as long as it is still possible to disguise or conceal certain things through this or that. But then we will have to know how to set up the new structure. I therefore have nothing against what the previous speaker, Mr. Schreiber, said, but I say to you: It will come about of itself that the leadership must turn from the circles that have been leading up to now to the circles that the previous speaker had in mind. But all the more must these circles feel the sense of responsibility, so that when they come to power they are able to do the right thing. So that is what I want to emphasize again and again and what is of very special importance to me.

It has been said, not as a reproach, but in agreement with me, that I first want the institution of the works councils and then it will become clear what their functions will be. But then we must not have any illusions, because what the new structure will demand will not be very easy, and it will not be possible without real factual knowledge of the economic body. The previous speaker has just given us a number of useful examples. We must not fall back on amateurism; we must be properly prepared when we make the observation, for example, that the work of the works council is not completed when individual businesses are socialized. What the previous speaker said about the right of co-determination, about profit, which must take on a completely different form, and what he said about the right of co-determination in relation to price, shows us that as soon as these concrete things come up, we have a great deal of work to do in the factual field. For it is precisely with these things, which are peculiar to capitalist, private capitalist ownership, that it has not dealt with, but has simply left humanity to a wild competition of interests, of income and so on.

We must not continue in this direction, otherwise we will soon revert to the old conditions. Whether those who then manage the means of production are called capitalists or something else is irrelevant. There is also the possibility that people will come to the top from the ranks – I don't want to say necessarily from the proletariat, but from those who lead the proletariat – who then, under certain circumstances, are in no way inferior to the practices of old capitalists; well, that is something that can only be avoided if we are firmly in the saddle.

You will not hold it against me if I mention something that seems theoretical, but is in fact practical. When it comes to the right of co-determination in pricing, two things come into particular consideration. In a random economic system that is not socialized, the price is regulated from two sides, because it is a kind of law of nature that the price is not based on one force, but on two forces. For example, suppose a certain amount of butter is produced in an economic context. Let us assume that more butter is produced than is necessary for human needs. Then, under certain circumstances, it may well happen that the rest of the butter that people do not need, say, for example, is used to make cart grease. This causes the butter to become much cheaper than it is, for example, when less butter is produced than the total number of people needs. Such things are included in the formation of prices in the most eminent sense. That is one direction from which pricing is determined. The other direction, namely that pricing is based on production costs, is quite separate from the above-mentioned direction in economic life; what is taken into account is what production costs. A completely different price system is formed there, and this price system intersects with the random economic system, that is, with the other. And as a result, we get mutual competition not only of prices but also of price systems, and that is where we are today.

Now just think about this: if the regulation of a worker's income is based on only one price system, then you may find that the worker gets higher and higher wages, but never a better standard of living, because the prices of housing and all the other things rise to the same extent. You can close one hole, but another one opens up by itself. We can only create order here if we are properly equipped.

In the future, one thing must be taken into account, namely how the causes converge from the most diverse sides. This will be necessary if socialization is to really live, not as a mere heartfelt demand, but in a practical way as an impulse. And if the works councils are to have a say in pricing, they will have to be prepared for these things. They will have to work at it, and not say, “Oh, the speeches, the idealistically conceived speeches, they achieve nothing.” No, these are not idealistically conceived speeches, but practical instructions for what has to be done. People cannot simply take on a task without first agreeing on how to do it. Things, including in economic life, must really be learned. And today there is not much knowledge available. We must make a great effort in this regard, must have the good will to come to institutions, and then try to relearn in the most diverse circles. I consider it terribly necessary that the works councils set up cooperatives as quickly as possible, in which people work together with good will, so that we can achieve a real, economically appropriate reconstruction.

We will have to do a great deal of intellectual work if we want to make progress. I ask you to bear this in mind. It was therefore very satisfying that the previous speakers drew attention to this matter. It will be a matter of really putting ourselves in their shoes, of not wanting to be clever and know something alone, so that attention is drawn to the fact that we must bring people to the point where they can share with each other the life experiences that individuals have gained while working. Then, precisely through this collaboration of people in the right positions, socialization will take place.

Further contributions to the discussion follow, and a motion is put forward that Dr. Steiner would like to give further lectures to discuss the important questions further. Dr. Steiner agrees.

Final words from Rudolf Steiner: Yes, my dear attendees, the motion has been accepted that this discussion may continue. So there will be an opportunity to talk about some of the questions that have arisen in the course of the discussion, perhaps later in a more favorable way than today, when time is already too far advanced for me to say anything significant or to expect you to understand. I will therefore only very briefly address a few points that arose during the last part of the discussion.

First there was the question of how I envision further development when workers' councils exist but mean nothing, that is, when the workers' councils are merely a kind of decoration until the political upheaval. - Well, I do believe that in such matters one does harm with all too much pessimism. I believe that in practical life, in such a serious situation as the one we find ourselves in, it is eminently important that we help each other. This does not at all preclude the works councils, when they bring to the surface of the social movement what they have learned and experienced in the factories – and there will be a wealth of social insight in this – essentially also contributing to bringing about the time when the necessary upheavals can bring us. We should not be content with saying: We have to wait until the revolution has occurred. Instead, we have to recognize that if the works councils remain in their posts, we will have a very important means of moving forward.

I believe you should not think too little of what the works councils can be. They will not be a decoration if they stand their ground. Much will arise precisely as a task for the works councils, in which even the most malicious employers will not be able to interfere. They will not be able to somehow eliminate the matter. I believe, therefore, that we should start in practice at some point — and this is an important point. We should not hold back, being overly cautious or even fearing that the works councils might be merely decorative, but we should take action. This is also what the “call” and the impulse of threefolding contain. We should not just carry on talking, but the words should be the seeds of deeds, and that is the essence of the whole series of lectures that I have given, and that will be the essence if I really have the honor of speaking to you in more detail about these things. And another thing: there has been a lot of talk about intellectual workers, especially in the last part of the discussion. Well, I can claim some experience in this field. It is based on what I have lived through over many years. The intellectual workers have ended up in an actually dreadful situation due to the circumstances that I am describing in my lectures. It is almost impossible, even after these terrible experiences of world war catastrophe, to talk to the great mass of those who call themselves intellectual workers about political issues. I am not flattering you when I say – as I have already said in my lecture – that, in terms of political training and education, the manual laboring proletariat is far ahead of the intellectual workers, and that the intellectual workers' political education is almost non-existent. This must be taken into account. In this context, something else must be considered.

I am of the opinion that it will not have a fundamentally favorable effect if a council of intellectual workers develops separately alongside the actual workers' councils. Perhaps this will have to be an important point in the discussion when it comes to the lectures that were requested of me. I believe that nothing can come of the segregation of intellectual workers as special “intellectual workers” from the other workers. The workers who work in a particular area of a company belong, even if they are intellectual workers, to the workers of that branch of the company. There must be a sense of belonging between all the workers in the individual branches of the company. We will not make progress if the intellectual workers of the various branches of the company isolate themselves and act as if they are something special, because the category, the term “intellectual workers” has no justification. One should awaken understanding for the fact that the intellectual workers of the individual branches of industry should join the other workers. Only then will something sensible come of it.

I do not agree with what has been said, namely that intellectual workers and manual workers are on the same ground when they jointly recognize the program of threefolding. This is, after all, a general social policy program, and they are not yet on solid ground! One can jointly recognize many programs, but one only stands on solid ground when this ground is a living ground, when one does not, in turn, form an aristocratic class out of what belongs together. I see an aristocratic class formation in this separation of the spiritual workers, and this should be understood. And if what I actually mean were implemented, then the intellectual worker would gain an enormous amount, above all in political education, which I would generally emphasize in the near future, so that each person learns from the other.

I would therefore not wish to be as pessimistic as the previous speaker, who said: Yes, it is above all important that a certain specialized education and training is the absolute basis for the works councils. – It is indeed the case today that anyone familiar with the situation knows that not much can be gained from the usual specialized training, which today is, after all, a thoroughly bourgeois product. I expect more from practical collaboration, from what arises when everyone contributes what they can from their life experiences. We will train each other, and something completely new will arise. I could imagine that the best results will be achieved when the workers' councils work together in the right way and without maintaining the philistine prejudice that one should first go to school, and when there is a sincere will to learn from each other and to learn from both mistakes. Above all, we will need to socialize in this way, from person to person. Socialization means working together, helping each other, developing brotherhood, and that is precisely what we need in the spiritual realm. In recent years, I have often said to my audiences that the world believes that those who are to learn can only learn from those who have so many diplomas. Those who really want to learn – they may have already learned a great deal – can learn an awful lot from a child of two or three years old, or even younger. This is learning from life, and we will have to cultivate it especially. We must get beyond the Philistinism of the old technical school system, then the works councils will be able to achieve something tremendously important for the new structure. The matter should not be viewed pessimistically, but with trust. From trust will grow efficiency. Then the works councils will not be a decoration, if they do not want to be a decoration themselves.

However, I fully agree that the works councils will be a buffer on two sides. I do not believe that the time we are heading for, if we want to work seriously, will be one in which we let ourselves be carried by the waves of life, possibly even lying down on a soft bed of rest from time to time. We shall have to work very hard and we must not shrink from being storm-troops in all directions. It will not be easy to create something new out of the collapse. We need only remember that the old economic system, especially in Germany, led us into sheer nonsense. We are not only in a state of collapse, but also in a state of nonsense. Just consider what it means if, in the next few years, only the interest is to be paid on everything that has accumulated as a result of the devastation of the war! It is much more than Dernburg calculated. It will be at least 30 billion marks a year; where will it come from? 30 billion marks, which of course will not be available! If we think of continuing anything from the past, then we are not only heading for impossible conditions, but also for sheer nonsense. It will be difficult, very difficult, but I think that anyone who has a slight understanding of the spirit of the times must say to himself: we just have to work, we have to work seriously. Only in this way can we get out of this situation.

Now I would just like to point out that I do not want to go into Mr. Remmele's reply, and that is because it is not yet clear to me what the main point of his objections is. What has been said makes the whole matter seem strange to me, because, you see, you can call anything a false doctrine. I was immediately suspicious when it was said that it was a heresy like the teaching of Dühring, who taught the same thing decades ago. I know Dühring and suspect that the speaker knows him little, because I can safely recommend to you: read him, then you will see that he did not want the same thing, but something completely different from what I consider necessary. I consider Dühring's teachings to be the outburst of a man who was somewhat angry with human society and who did not know much about reality. It is sometimes witty, but it is not something that can be applied in reality. Such objections are then fleeting. I believe it is perhaps not advisable to go into these things at length, because in time it will become apparent from the way in which the words, which can initially be spoken out of reality, can also be transformed into deeds and become part of reality. I am reassured when reality tests what I say. I believe it will know how to take in what I have to say.

Mr. Molt has already spoken to you about what was said against the signatures of the appeal, and I believe that in this respect, through your consent to Mr. Molt, you have truly shown your fundamental understanding of something that is absolutely necessary. You can be quite sure that not many entrepreneurs will act out of the kind of attitude shown by those who signed this “appeal”. But those who do act in this way are fully aware that, on the one hand, this “appeal” and these impulses were certainly not created for the sake of the factory owners, but if the factory owners are to have anything to do with them, then they must commit to them for the freest of human reasons. At the most, the factory owners can profess their support for the “appeal”, but the “appeal” has no consideration for them and will not do so. That is one thing. On the other hand, it must be seen that it will be necessary to work precisely with those people who, out of the most earnest will, profess the cause of socialization, of social progress in the objective sense at all, because otherwise you only have the choice – since, after all, those who have some expertise will still be needed – either to occupy the top positions and leave everything else as it was, as we have seen in some examples, or you run the risk of everything being sabotaged by those on the inside.

It is therefore not only a matter of our being able to appreciate the right attitude in a feeling-based way, but we must also be able to see what is necessary, to see that we are not working towards the sabotage of those who, out of the old way of thinking, do not want to develop the new. We must realize that we are compelled to work together with those who have joined the “call” not out of selfish interest but for the sake of the cause. This has happened with the signatories, otherwise they would not be on it. For I have not yet found that anyone has placed themselves behind me in order to satisfy their selfish interests. That is an experience I have had all my life. They will not make any too bad experiences. Forgive this personal remark, but we will be able to discuss many a factual question in detail, just as the seriousness of the times demands. In this brief closing address, I could only hint at a few things, but I hope that the discussions will be able to continue.