Workers' Councils

GA 331a — 17 May 1919, Stuttgart

Council Organization in the Sense of the Threefold Social Order II

Third Lecture for the Members of the Greater Stuttgart Workers' Council

SOURCE INFORMATION: There is no transcript of this lecture, only a few keywords recorded by Rudolf Steiner in his notebook regarding his lecture concept. The present text is an attempt at reconstruction based on these keywords and should therefore be regarded as incomplete and only partially authentic. The documents used are printed in Appendix I. The text passages taken from them are set in italics in the present text.

Rudolf Steiner: As I showed the day before yesterday, the idea of social threefolding can be used to develop the understanding necessary for a reorganization of the social organism. This applies in particular to the establishment of a comprehensive council system. If we distinguish between the three areas of state life, economic life, and spiritual life in accordance with the threefold social order, we will also be dealing with three different councils: workers' councils, professional councils, and cultural councils.

The workers' councils will have to develop in accordance with legal life. Initially, absolute majority will apply rather than relative majority. The professional councils will have to develop in line with economic life. Decisions there will initially be made according to the principle of relative majority. Cultural councils will be responsible for regulating matters of spiritual life; there can be no majority there. When embarking on the path to realizing the threefold social order, it must be clear that Progress cannot be achieved until the broad majority of the population is ready to understand what the threefold social order entails. The only prejudice that needs to be overcome is the idea that the broad masses must first be made “ready.”

If we now look at economic life, we see that the organs of economic life are the professional councils. These are composed of three different types of councils: the works councils, the transport councils, and the economic councils. In individual companies, the works council stands between the workers and the management. Externally, in public, it faces the economic council, together with the transport councils. The economic council, for its part, is concerned with the procurement of raw materials and so on in individual companies. And in external life, it faces the works council, together with the transport councils. A balance of interests is necessary here. No branch of production may, by its very existence, contribute to the devaluation of its raw materials. Proper economic management is needed to prevent the raw material stock from spoiling, and no hidden reserves may be formed through write-offs on raw materials. The whole question of raw materials points to the fact that we are dealing here with a conflict between industry and agriculture. An estate must not have a mortgage, as the land cannot be sold. Similarly, a factory must not be an object of purchase, as capital cannot have the character of a commodity.

It is the responsibility of the specialist councils to balance the different interests of industry and agriculture. On the one hand, there is the purchase of raw materials and semi-finished products, and on the other hand, there is the sale of these products. The Economic Council must work to maintain the prices of agricultural and industrial products at their current level, so that they do not fall too low. The Transport Council is there to regulate the distribution of agricultural and industrial products. The works council is there to determine, based on the needs of those who do not produce agricultural products, how to cope with the prices of agricultural and industrial products, i.e., to ensure that they are not too high. The Economic Council represents the production interests of agriculture. It will determine the maximum prices for the sale of raw materials and semi-finished products. The works council represents the consumer interests of industry. It will determine the minimum prices for the procurement of raw materials and semi-finished products. The views of the two councils will be combined to arrive at a middle price, which will be healthy and fair.

From a purely economic point of view, what has led to the devaluation of money? It is the rising value of the means of production, as they are capable of producing more goods. This value is, so to speak, inserted between the goods, but these goods can only exchange their values, expressed in money, with each other, because what can money be? It can only represent the equivalent value of consumer goods. It cannot be the equivalent value of the means of production, but only the wear and tear of the means of production should have a monetary equivalent.

All surplus value generated should initially flow only into the improvement of the means of production and not into the means of production as such. However, it is also conceivable that part of this surplus value would flow into the education system, for example into the financing of teaching. But: All financial circumstances should be transparent, which means that we should not talk about nonsense such as free education. Everyone should know that education costs money. And they should know how much they have to spend on their children's education, for example, and then ultimately spend that amount. This transparent presentation of financial flows is a matter of legal life. Otherwise, if this does not happen, the legal basis is nothing more than a factory of lies. Everyone must be in a position to know the taxes they have to pay. And then, for example, those without children can be called upon to contribute to reducing the cost of education or to work towards something else.

In economic life, boycotts should be the means of coercion used to prevail against those who oppose the balancing of interests. However, this boycott actually arises by itself; no one can produce anything other than as a member of an economic cooperative. And because the normal price is set by the interaction of this cooperative with others, a non-member could not sell at this price, but only at a higher price. Thus, they would be unable to sell anything and would have to go hungry. And if a member of a cooperative that is too large, with too many workers, were to strive to sell his products at below cost, this would mean that he would have to force his own workers to sell him their products too cheaply, which would mean that they would have to go hungry. So the law applies: those who have to sell at too high a price condemn themselves to hunger. Those who want to sell too cheaply condemn others to starvation.

In order for the true value of consumer goods to come to light, a certain condition must be met: the means of production must not cost anything, because only then will the values not be distorted. This means that as soon as a manufactured product becomes a means of production, it ceases to be saleable; it can no longer be sold, but can only be freely transferred. If the means of production are reported in the balance sheet and their value as goods must therefore be assumed, this makes consumer goods more expensive and, of course, worsens people's living conditions. Excessively high values and thus excessively high prices for consumer goods impoverish the people, while excessively low values or excessively low prices for consumer goods impoverish the culture. The first case requires cheap money, the second case requires expensive money. However, a balance between these conflicting interests can only be achieved through the cooperation of the cooperatives directly involved in economic life.