Current Social and Economic Issues

GA 332b — 27 January 1919, Hildesheim

Discussion on Questions of Threefolding II

The discussion ties in with the memorandum written by Roman Boos, “Principles of an Objective Development Policy”.

Rudolf Steiner: People are demanding something more specific than is given in the memorandum, at least in political terms. When I wrote my memorandum on the threefold order, it would still have been possible to maintain the old conditions to some extent and simply to expel the economic and spiritual conditions from the political part. Today, however, one has to reckon with the fact that basically everything old has gone. The rights that still exist today will disappear, including private rights. One will have to reckon with an absolute carte blanche. Even today, there are no realizable rights left. The whole system of councils, which is a provisional arrangement but nevertheless plays a role today, has come about through generatio aequivoca, it has sprung up, it cannot be derived from old rights. What rights are there today? Private rights to land, to the means of production, patents, monopolies. That is there. But it cannot be realized. At present, only twelve express trains are to run in Germany. That means that so and so much is not available in the way of real transport documents. The entire state right to build railways thus exists only on paper. The rights of the state have been reduced to absurdity. All these things should have been anticipated under the old conditions. Nothing remains of them.

The following approach should be taken: when calling for democracy as a political system, one should not rely too heavily on the democracy of foreign countries. Rather, the following must be expressed: the major damage has actually only occurred in the course of the last five, six, seven decades, by usurping what does not belong to the state. The idea of universal suffrage, which was only adopted by Bismarck, came from a completely different state system. At the time, this right was not conceived incorrectly. Today, with regard to the structure of the state (political system), one could go back to it. One could draw attention to a modern reform of this right to vote. It would have to be pointed out that under all circumstances, when the economic and spiritual organism are integrated into the state, universal suffrage will not work. If you throw that out, however, then the state really only has those tasks that everyone can help decide. Only then is the possibility of a general right to vote created. - Likewise, it would have to be said that the state has the full right to make demands of its officials. The state must be able to say: I will only accept into my organization those who meet these and these conditions. But it must not train the people itself for this. It could organize examinations for its civil servants. The scholastic training would fall to the spiritual culture. The state would only have rights of claim. It does not employ those who have no knowledge. The right to vote would also have to be restricted in this way. Those who have not gone through elementary school are not allowed to vote. One need only tell the leaders that this would not make a practical difference in Germany. It would only be a rearrangement of the circumstances. (The fact that so many votes were cast for the Center Party is a positive damage that cannot be underestimated.) One must insist on the same, general right to vote (that it be secret is not essential); but the illiterate must be excluded. The Social Democrats will also agree to this.

It must be said that these very practical things can be traced back to anthroposophical spiritual science. People need to realize that either they will accept this or they will suffer shipwreck.

Regarding the details of the “principles”

p. 1: “If we look unclouded at the present-day scene of devastation, we see that we have succumbed to the superior strength of the enemies because we have not been able to counter their physical and spiritual weapons with weapons of equal caliber.

Rudolf Steiner: We would have had the weapons. Our weapons would have been superior if we had countered the Wilson program with our own. Our physical weapons would not have been unequal if we had had spiritual weapons. It is no use saying: Wilson is wrong and the Entente is lying. — We have been defeated because faith in our own spirit has disappeared.

It should also be said that the spiritual weapons of the West are often corpses of thoughts.

Principles: Quote Balfour: “The Germans win the battles, we win the war.

Rudolf Steiner: The battles were only seemingly won. The war could not be won by battles.

Principles: “... the awakened powers of the fully thinking, feeling and willing human being must set about the work of building up, not to surpass others, but to strengthen Germanness within themselves in such a way that they cannot be thrown into economic or spiritual bondage by any power in the world.

Rudolf Steiner: Is there any possibility at all of preventing this enslavement? You can always conquer Germanness, purely in a military sense. You can't promise that. You have to work towards something else: when the tripartite division has been carried out, the other states will be in such a relationship that they will harm themselves if they attack such a state. Today, because the tripartite division has not been carried out, the most nonsensical comparisons are made. For example, it is said that the siege of Paris and the blockade of Germany are to be valued equally. This is like saying that the head and the leg are the same weight. It is necessary to differentiate; because only in this way do differences in value become apparent. One should not say, “to consolidate Germanness in such a way that...” but rather, “to bring Germanness into such an economic and intellectual interrelationship with all the other powers that no other power would want to enslave it because it would thereby harm itself.” If one limits the matter to a single country in the real conditions of life, then one remains in a shell. What is urgently needed today, but is not even being considered, is that Germany should enter the real peace negotiations as a tripartite entity. A manifesto should be issued declaring that we are not acting as representatives of 'Germany', which no longer exists, but as representatives of:

1. a political entity that wants to form,

2. an economic organism, with which opportunistic talk is to be held,

3. an intellectual organism.

One should not put politicians forward, but one should select people according to the principle of threefolding and then put them forward.

Question: How can this be realized?

Rudolf Steiner: You would have to have a number of personalities from the whole of Germany. They would have to issue a proclamation of the German people, so that foreign countries would know what the will of the German people is. It would have to be known that this is the answer to Wilson's program. It is important to have a following, even if it is small.

Emil Molt: Should this matter not be dealt with in Stuttgart in the form of a meeting, with the intellectual originator himself explaining the whole matter? It is beyond our strength to do the matter from the beginning.

Rudolf Steiner: I expect a great deal from having a certain following behind me, which first has to be created. I want to draw your attention to a phenomenon: if you have followed the mood in the Entente in recent years, you will have seen the enormous role played by the manifesto of 93 intellectuals. Today, all you need is to have a good 90 people signed up to such a thing. I would like to be able to say in Zurich that so and so many people are behind me, for example 90 men.

In 1916, I told the man who was Ludendorff's right-hand man that he should give me the opportunity to work for official Germany in Switzerland. This was thwarted at the last moment by Ludendorff because I am not German. At that time, it was enough to be able to say: official Germany is behind me. Today it would be good to be able to say: so-and-so many people are behind me. You need 90 signatures from different parts of the Reich. Then sensible people abroad will say to themselves: at last there are some people who want something real. Because they know that they themselves are facing a short reprieve.

I could give you a kind of draft by the end of the week. Based on this rally, a meeting could then take place in Stuttgart.

They should not feel like amateurs (in reference to a comment by Emil Molt), but like the first masters. Today, it takes more than one person to advance such a cause, but a hundred can do it.

I am convinced that people could be found among the less compromised labor leaders who would be open to such ideas. But I didn't want them for abroad. Labor leaders would be good inside Germany. Among the 90 to 100 should also be simple people: “N.N., previously active in the printers‘ union, the metalworkers’ union, etc. in X.” Our member Fischer in Hanover, a Social Democrat, would certainly be elected. There will only be those among the nameless who can be found.

Ehrenberg wrote confused articles in the “Vossische Zeitung”, but they do show good approaches. Eisner would be favorable. Lerchenfeld would no longer have to try to play hide and seek. Foerster would work well. Rade and Rittelmeyer would be good. As few professors as possible.

Principles: “In the field of political life, realistic thinking demands the unreserved recognition of the fact that the political forms of the West have won the decisive victory...”

Rudolf Steiner: The actual fact is this: in the West, or in the English-speaking areas, victory in this field has been achieved by the fact that, due to the peculiarity of the population, economic life has absorbed the political. They are economic entities, not states. Because today the economy plays this role, these states have had the opportunity to push through their political form because economic life predominates in them. They are economic entities in the guise of state entities. This should be reflected in the wording. — We must not base our political structure on Western democracy, but on Lassalle's ideas. It is only because Lassalle erroneously conflated everything that nothing came of it.

Principles: “... in the course of the last century, there was an increasing overgrowth of production compared to consumption...”

Rudolf Steiner: This is contestable. It is not a question of an overgrowth of production over consumption, but of the fact that pricing and the formation of the value of the goods have been based on production and not on consumption.

“Principles” deal with the concepts of “private property” and “free labor contract”.

Rudolf Steiner: If we think realistically in this area, we only need to create external recognition of what is there. In reality, the correct approach in the world economy is for each person to own that part of the land and the means of production that results when the total amount of land and the means of production is divided by the population. It turns out that the wealth of the people does depend on the population, in that a piece of land is better utilized when it is smaller. When the population in a territory increases, each person ideally becomes the owner of a smaller piece of land. Private property cannot be eliminated from the world, but only masked. I do not want all to become proletarians, but everyone to be a proprietor, of what belongs to him. Private property should not be abolished, but put on such a basis that its beneficial effect works collectivistically. The entrepreneur must have the private profit. The rest comes into consideration at the tax. The “right to the full yield of labor” eliminates all free movement. It is necessary that the entrepreneur has a certain added value. The fact that private property has an effect on the whole in terms of its utility is achieved through tax regulation.

Only expenses are taxed. Determining the tax is the responsibility of the political authority. The entrepreneur does not pay according to his property, but according to his expenses. If, for example, he has 100 workers, he pays tax for each quota he pays to them. The tax on expenses must be implemented radically. No tax on income or property, only tax on expenses. Then all the harm of private property will be eliminated. The harmfulness of profit will also be eliminated if the person in question is forced to pay a certain amount of tax to hire 100 workers. Then the fact that he is able to hire 100 workers will benefit the community. It must be necessary to have, so to speak, a reserve fund for the progress of civilization. Then it is also not necessary for the spiritual workers to join the trust organism, as proposed in the “Principles”. This organism, like everything merely economic, leads to a dead end. Spiritual production, including factory management, is in the realm of the free spiritual life. This must have the possibility of having the proceeds, which remain when everything else is taken care of, at its completely free disposal. Only by allowing complete freedom in the spiritual realm can you create the possibility of true progress. Every economic body leads to a dead end. The only way out of this is through freedom in the spirit. We must always admit this to ourselves. In the realm of spiritual production, I can do no other than create for the general good.

Question Emil Molt: But what if the entrepreneur uses his benefit for himself?

Rudolf Steiner: This danger is easy to prevent. Such action is not isolated. There is taxation of expenses for such expenditures, for example, for rent. Taxes must be kept very liquid, for example, large rent taxes for larger rental claims. The harmfulness arises only at the moment when the expense is made. Example: In the time when there is still primitive exploitation of the sea, someone invents a boat with which ten times more can be caught; that is entirely based on his invention. He thereby increases the prosperity of all those who work in the area where he utilizes the invention. He can only become harmful if he is not bought out, if he exploits. If he only leaves what he earns, it will never be economically harmful. The misers are the least dangerous social boarders. All those who hide countless money in their straw bag do no harm.

Interjection Emil Molt: What happens after the miser's death?

Rudolf Steiner: Money undergoes the same process as goods. You can no longer wear a coat in 14 to 15 years. Simply because the money bears the stamp “1903”, it must become worthless in 1918. This should become law. The important thing is the many consequences that arise from the tripartite division. Money is only the representative value for goods.

Emil Molt: Gold and silver?

Rudolf Steiner: There is no need for metallic money any more. At least it has no advantage.

Interjection Emil Molt: Would the metal money also have to bear the stamp?

Rudolf Steiner: When the matter is beyond the first stages, it will be a matter of creating a comparative scale for the goods. Today everything is corrupted because we have an ideal comparative scale. We need a real one, the covetous value of which is indisputable. For example, a banknote means so many loaves of bread. It would then be necessary to have an agreement between the three areas, between the economic and state bodies, that what is a sign for goods, what is money, is just as stinky as the goods themselves.

Such an economic system would initially be suitable for Central Europe and the East. The West would not accept it. One has to reckon with the fact that one only deals with the West as a whole, on the basis of treaties. But I cannot imagine that it will be any different. We will only deal with the West through goods. Because they will take away our money, for example the gold treasure.

Taxation today is based on the completely wrong premise. When people talk about expenditure taxes, they think of indirect taxes. I, however, think of expenditure taxation. The most important necessities of life should be taxed less, the less important ones more. A bank deposit is an expenditure.

Hans Kühn: Wouldn't all the money then flow into the state, jeopardizing cultural endeavors?

Rudolf Steiner: It is a matter of being specific. The spiritual worker will need certain things for his work. They will be taxed at a low rate. Those who are also industrial entrepreneurs will have to pay high taxes on everything they need for their industrial enterprises. Spiritual production will be able to live from itself. It just needs to be allowed to do so and not hindered by the state interfering. If it can develop freely, then everyone must pay tribute to intellectual production out of what they earn in the other spheres. The other two spheres need specialists, who must be educated. This entire education must be paid for by the other two spheres. The economic viability of the intellectual sphere will also be left entirely to its own devices.

Question: Who pays for intellectual services if expenses are taxed?

Rudolf Steiner: Those who receive them. Those who create intellectually are remunerated for their achievements, not for their work. The others pay. It is likely that less will have to be paid for intellectual services than is the case today. There is a great difference between material and spiritual economic goods. The spiritual ones can be multiplied to infinity. Books! Words addressed to many! Therefore, this must be placed under completely different laws. The loaf of bread must always be produced again by human labor. For the individual book, there is no need to produce it spiritually again and again.

(Inserted from a later private conversation: The economic value of material goods consists in the labor crystallized in them, that of spiritual goods in the labor saved by them.

Hans Kühn: Would it not be right to finance a school through the “trust”?

Rudolf Steiner: Only if it turns out that a class or a class does not pay. It would always have to be kept so that the individual would have to pay for it in the books. You could then always take what you want from this individual, including this service, by having a trust agency step in for him. The teaching profession must support itself, not be maintained by the “trust agency” or the state. The teaching profession as such will undertake to maintain the other things (i.e. teaching materials in the broadest sense) from its earnings. It must have free rein in this. There must be no socialization in the field of teaching. If a free university is set up somewhere out of a teaching post, there is nothing to be said against it.

Principles: “It is a sleepy aberration to think that a factory needs to be socialized in the first place; a factory is a social entity, despite ghostly concepts of ownership and employment contracts...”

Rudolf Steiner: Here we would anticipate an objection from the contemporary social writer, the objection that it does not depend on something being a social entity, but rather on the individual human being being understood as a social being. Through Marxism, it has become clear to people that it does not matter that something is a social entity, but rather that it matters how the share is distributed. It is no exaggeration to say that the only change brought about by Trotsky is that a large ledger is set up for the entire business community. Only the bookkeeping is done differently. Even in foreign countries, only the unified accounting system is used. You can't nationalize either production or intellectual life, only the bookkeeping.

Roman Boos: Is it correct to understand the social carcinoma as a proliferation of production (growth) over consumption (reduction), which characterizes the disease of usury?

Rudolf Steiner: One should not compare production with building up, but only with inhalation. The overgrowth of inhalation over exhalation leads to cancer. This is how the image becomes correct.

Principles: “... the right of co-determination of the untrained worker in entrepreneurial matters, ... the workforce that is not yet mature enough to become self-employed...”

Rudolf Steiner: The worker may not be able to tolerate being told that he is untrained in entrepreneurial matters. The concept of “mature” must be treated esoterically today.

Principles: “A trust organism in the sense of the preceding statements would place itself with such physical and moral power in the midst of the turmoil of the world that a guarantee of life would be created for the incorporated German people.”

Rudolf Steiner: This reference to Germanness should be avoided. Especially in the economic sphere. The economic part has nothing at all to do with the German character. This leads too strongly into Wilsonism.

Principles: “The spiritual core of man, unhindered by all the creatures he has made, unfolds his creative power - demanding nothing more from his creatures (law and economics) than protection and a livelihood: state protection and economic fulfillment of needs.”

Rudolf Steiner: The state and economic life should not demand anything of the spiritual part of the social body. They should only be required to support the individual. The spiritual life should not be prevented from living itself out. Care should be taken to ensure that spiritual life is not suppressed anywhere. And care should be taken to ensure that it can circulate freely. The state has only the task of releasing spiritual life from all compulsion. It is only a policeman towards spiritual life. It maintains itself, also economically. One should not speak of “state protection” and “economic satisfaction of needs”. The state must ensure that spiritual goods reach their consumers. In parliaments, it will be mentioned quite naturally that there and there is spiritual life.

If the intellectual production turns into harm (for example, black magic), the state must take action against the effects.

Regarding the appendixes to the principles:

Rudolf Steiner: A “restriction of the private share of the production profit to a fixed or profit-based annuity”,

as proposed by Boos, is not feasible. The tax must remedy this.

In response to a question from Emil Molt, Rudolf Steiner explains:

Rudolf Steiner: It is not a “share of the profits”, but a “share of ownership”. When someone enters a business, a portion of ownership is attributed to them, regardless of whether they are a worker or an entrepreneur. However, earning is completely independent of this. The minimum subsistence level must arise out of the economic process. It is not to be regulated by law or contract. What is necessary is to take into account the fact that, in the process of piling up, more and more of the pure manual labor approaches intellectual performance. From this point of view, the entrepreneur's profit is transformed into payment for intellectual performance. The three spheres merge completely. In the company, the entrepreneur has his entrepreneurial profit from intellectual performance.

In answer to a question from Emil Molt:

Rudolf Steiner: If the workforce were to elect the entrepreneur, freedom would be suppressed. What must be absolutely guaranteed is this: you must give me what I consider necessary for my spiritual work. The entrepreneur receives his full income for being the spiritual leader.

Emil Molt: Who decides who becomes an entrepreneur?

Rudolf Steiner: In practice, continuity is maintained. Entrepreneurs remain to a certain extent. The entrepreneur will be removed from office if the state is harmed. The entrepreneur must be protected from removal as long as he does not do anything that harms the general public. The three spheres do not stand side by side. The state organism is superior to all of them. In the economic body there are only economic workers, in the spiritual body only spiritual workers. The removal of the entrepreneur would have to take place through legal channels.

We must first found free schools out of the money we still have in order to teach people what they need.

Regarding what was said about the unions:

Rudolf Steiner: The unions are not organized by profession, but by abstract contexts. One would have to study the transition of the old professional associations into the modern unions. In the modern class associations, it is no longer the profession that is essential, but the position of the property-less worker in relation to the entrepreneur.

The trade unions particularly support you (Boos). But the biggest philistines are in the trade unions.

Instead of saying that the cheapening of food is more important than the increase of wages, it should be said that consideration for consumption is more important than the increase of wages, which is also related to production.

January 27, 1919, afternoon

Rudolf Steiner: I am not authorized to simply publish the story of the outbreak of war. Mrs. von Moltke is also not fully authorized. It is not certain that she will give her consent. The notes are testamentary, with the proviso that they are written only for Mrs. von Moltke.

However, I can relate almost everything that is important, because Moltke told me the same.

A publication of this kind would be sufficiently covered by 90 men, who would have to be scattered across Germany. One would have to have support. An order from the Foreign Office, Rantzaus, would not be a particular recommendation. Rantzau is certainly not well regarded. They would have to be people whose name works; even if only so that one comes across a respectable person when making inquiries. But these people who sign should not be united in a league. They should be people who are completely independent of each other. A party can develop from that.

What needs to be said about the genesis of the war is, so to speak, finished.

Question: Is there no fear of the Entente marching in?

Rudolf Steiner: Because this is possible, I think it is perhaps important that this matter be at least somehow centered from Switzerland outwards. It would be important to me to be able to say in Zurich that there are people behind me. If this matter is done from Switzerland, it would not be a hindrance if the Entente were to invade.

Question: Could the Council of Intellectual Workers or the Commission for Social Policy of this Council be used to decentralize the socio-political work?

Rudolf Steiner: My freedom of disposition must not be compromised. I must retain the possibility of being able to direct the matter myself. I must always have the matter in hand. It must always be apparent that the matter comes from me.

Whether you use the advice of spiritual workers depends entirely on whether you believe that there are people in the advice whom you can rely on in a certain sense, and whether you think you can do it alone. But it is better to do it without these people. The councils will disappear in some time, and in a gruesome way. As long as they are there, you have to deal with them on real ground. I would not give such an organization such important things. I am not opposed to lectures being given at the council. But to hand it over to it, in the belief that it can be realized by it, I consider that to be utopian. It would be more favorable to have a memorandum signed by the “90”. But this would have to be shorter. It could be initiated by an ad hoc committee, which could also work towards the founding of a federation. Dr. Unger's lecture could also be initiated by this committee.

An understanding with the Russians is only possible on the basis of these ideas.

Question: How do we get close to the proletariat?

Rudolf Steiner: It is necessary to “eliminate” the leaders. This is the only way with the independents. The followers of the independents seem to me to be the easiest to win over. You have to talk to the people.

Emil Molt presents Rudolf Steiner with the guidelines of the [Württemberg] socialization commission (Fritz Elsas).

Rudolf Steiner: I can't really do anything with today's concept of socialization. When I read these rubber paragraphs, I ask myself: What is real about them?

Regarding point I, 1 by Fritz Elsas:

Rudolf Steiner: “Something depends on this, not something else, that the worker truly wants.” If you run the economy solely “for society”, it is only a change in the economic system, but there is no increase in productivity. Because today only a few people are the profit-takers, it makes very little difference what is taken from these people. How should the workers benefit from this? If I were on this commission, I would calculate how much is gained in the profit interest of private capital and how many workers there are. Then I would show people how little the status has increased.

You have to propagate such thoughts that nothing is gained from this stuff. I will answer the guiding principles that are here in about the same length.

Emil Molt: Should socialization be tackled immediately?

Rudolf Steiner: Yes, in the sense that socialization means a kind of preparatory work to put the economic body on its own feet. Socialization would have to begin by first creating associations between producers and consumers, between employers and workers.

Question: Promotion of workers in the company?

Rudolf Steiner: This will play a role in the future. It is necessary to detach any kind of remuneration from the work. What needs to be remunerated is the position, the place where one stands. And it is necessarily linked to this that everyone has the hope of advancing. In principle, this is very important for later. But at the moment it is particularly important that a common social body is formed from the company, so that even the last worker is informed about the whole process of his work, from raw material to consumer. This is the most urgent thing: that the worker does not work as an animal or as a machine, but as a human being. He must be interested spiritually. Everyone must know: “What am I actually?” It is the greatest omission of the bourgeoisie that it has failed to do so. It is a completely false principle to prevent competition by keeping things secret.

Question: Is there not a danger of the creative intelligentsia migrating abroad?

Rudolf Steiner: What harm would it do? But it won't happen at all. People won't earn more abroad than in Germany. The objection only applies if socialization is carried out in the sense of Dr. Elsas. If you implement our ideas, those who are capable will not be worse off. Of course, we have to bear in mind that we are in an exceptional situation due to tribute and war reparations. For example, implementing our ideas will not put people with technical training at a disadvantage.

The only thing is that inefficient entrepreneurs will be somewhat restricted. But the efficient entrepreneur who is able to make his business flourish will not be at a disadvantage compared to anyone in the Entente simply because he is the one who employs the workers. The idea of “electing” the entrepreneur will not even arise. People will gather under some human being who has initiative. In England, the people who will profit are the entrepreneurs. With us, they will have the corresponding benefits. They will have the benefits because the economic body supports each other. Entrepreneurial sectors balance each other out so that the lower-level sectors receive something from the higher-level sectors. You have to imagine this in reality: the activity changes somewhat. You are then never a one-sided entrepreneur. You are, as such, in a certain relationship with your own consumers. This brings you a compensation. The consumer cooperative honors you. This is in addition to the entrepreneur's fee. The economic body is an interweaving of associations. The leading entrepreneur is no worse off than the entrepreneur is today.

Setting the subsistence level is one of the most complicated things that only arises from the economic organism. To do this, it is necessary for all economic organizations within a territory to come to an understanding. The subsistence level cannot be reduced to a formula. It arises as a result.

Private property remains, but private capital ceases to exist. I will never be able to deprive the community of any income. It would be of no use to me to accumulate capital without introducing it into the circulation process.

Everyone has an equal say in the physical work. But in addition, there is what you achieve spiritually by being here in this position. It goes without saying that if you are a leader in a larger workforce, you must be able to do more.

Emil Molt: Socialization of banks?

Rudolf Steiner: This is only fruitful if we think of socialization in terms of our ideas. The bank is nothing in itself. It is only an expression of the rest of socialization.

Emil Molt: There is a danger that the banks will crush us. They will terminate the credit of those who work in the spirit of your ideas. The bank will only give money if the people suit them.

Rudolf Steiner: If you socialize, as Dr. Elsa wants, then the bank cannot lend and therefore cannot exist. But why should the bank refuse to lend to industrial enterprises that arise under the influence of our ideas?

Emil Molt: There are no more profit-making securities, no more speculation.

Rudolf Steiner: Speculative transactions will cease.

Emil Molt: But the big bankers will resist that.

Rudolf Steiner: Among the ideas on which my cause is based, the only one that comes into question is what someone deposits as their property at the bank. All the lending business can be left to run itself. They don't need any money at all. They only need workers.

Emil Molt: The bank has 200 shares in Waldorf. It would then have to lose them.

Rudolf Steiner: Why do you need the shares? You can force the bank to lose the shares. You can reclaim your own shares. If the bank is the owner of the shares, it is simply a pensioner. This is a matter that can only be decided by goodwill. The people who live as drones depend entirely on goodwill. That will simply stop.

Emil Molt: Don't you then have to pay them a pension for a certain number of years?

Rudolf Steiner: But that depends on goodwill. Let's assume you don't give anything at all.

Emil Molt: Then the bank will go bust and thus harm those who have given their money.

Rudolf Steiner: It can only be a matter of goodwill to compensate people. But you cannot agree to postpone something that does not belong in our thoughts. The banks will not be able to work at all under our thoughts. You will not win over the bankers to a social reform.

Hans Kühn: There are private capitalists who depend on rents.

Rudolf Steiner: They would have to be replaced. It would be a matter of goodwill.

Hans Kühn: How would the workers benefit from their participation in the business?

Rudolf Steiner: Property as such has a moral value. You can only make a profit from what the means of production yields, only from the service. The fact that you are the 'owner' has only a moral value: it is a step forward if, in the economic process, you progress from nomadization to rooting. To get into a state of being interested at all, you have to create a similar bond between the worker and the means of production. This cannot be done through communism, but only through individualism. I am not opposed to freedom of movement. What I mean has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that every person has an interest in the means of production on which they work. By entering the factory, you make him a person who is as involved in his business as a farmer is in his estate. The worker must be able to say to himself: Nothing can be changed there without my consent. In real terms, only services bring income. Property has only a moral value. You should not be able to sell land so easily. That is not something that man achieves. According to our ideas, you can only transfer land from one owner to another by means of an economic corporation, and only if the individual transfers his property rights to a corporation by contract. Land is continuously in individual ownership. However, this does not prevent the contractual establishment of large-scale farming operations in individual places. Through contractual assignment. This assignment cannot be inherited. When it comes to running the business, if someone leaves the business, they lose their ownership rights. These are tied to the location. This is something that is self-evident. In practice, the consequence of ownership is that someone who can sell a factory today will be restricted in the future. Everyone would have to agree to the sale. The individual cannot simply leave his post because it does not suit him. Otherwise, the individual is completely free. If he wants to leave, he has to leave his post. But he cannot sell the company. Tell the people: You see, with the current system, as with a nationalization, you are only tools. Today, the entrepreneur sells his entire company with his company and with it all the workers. But if everyone is a co-owner, that cannot happen.

Emil Molt: How are inactive shareholders treated in the company?

Rudolf Steiner: They have different positions in ascending order. Manual workers – foremen – technical managers – commercial managers – at the top a director. Now you can put together those from the top three levels of the hierarchy who are today the “supervisory board”. There can no longer be people who are only drones. Pure pensioners - like Taube, the mute - must be maintained by pure goodwill.

If you set up a purely socialist program today, you can feign, you can satisfy the opinions of many people. Likewise with a pure entrepreneurial program. But it all leads to impossibilities. Only with our program can you satisfy the person who understands the inner nature and essence of the matter, regardless of whether he is an employer or an employee. These concepts simply cease to exist. People will see for themselves what they belong to, whether they are manual laborers or technical managers and so on.

Roman Boos: Is it important for workers today to move up in the company?

Rudolf Steiner: Socialists are not concerned with getting into leading positions, but with gaining political power in subordinate positions. People just want to restructure. But five people can rule 1000, but not 1000 people five.

Emil Molt: Who will collect the tax when it is spent?

Rudolf Steiner: Everyone is obliged to buy a certain number of revenue stamps at the beginning of the month. When you then make an expense, you have to hand over the stamp. These stamps must then be redeemed again, like train tickets. The tax is not paid by the producer. It is paid before the expenditure is made. Categories of tax rates will be established. The system will be very simple. But human judgment will come into play everywhere. Questions will always arise. When a new need arises, a new production arises. Now the new question arises: how should such an article be taxed? There will never be a production detached from human judgment.

At the beginning of February [1919]

When the socialization program was presented (response to Elsa Kohl):

Rudolf Steiner: This program is so different from others that it is necessary to create common ground first. We must first make it clear to people that they achieve nothing with their bungling. Elsa's program is Bolshevist. Bolshevism is everything that uses old forms to pour in new content. Lenin wants to use the old form of dictatorship to pour in new content.

Regarding taxes on spending:

Rudolf Steiner: Money that goes abroad should have to pay tax at the border.

From a later conversation (Boos with Rudolf Steiner)

Rudolf Steiner: Labor law will never arise from economic life alone, but only from the legal system. However, a certain form of modern socialism seeks to perpetuate the disease. The political state must set economic life straight, as breathing does the other systems, so that the human being is not consumed. (NB.: Compare what was said earlier about carcinoma! Carcinoma through over-inhalation! B.)

Question: Payment of war reparations by Germany:

Rudolf Steiner: There are two ways to raise the money: either it can be imposed directly on the economic body or on the political body, which must then raise it from the economic body. It would be good in all circumstances if the war reparations were discussed with the representatives of the economic body.

Question: How can influence on the peace negotiations be gained?

Rudolf Steiner: We must wait to see what the Entente says about the appeal. Everything formulated by Germany has no basis. The arguments about the necessity of the structure of the peace negotiations will be included in the brochure.

Question: What is your opinion of the council system?

Rudolf Steiner: It is impossible for the same council to have a political and economic effect. It is possible for the same people to sit on the two councils. As soon as the competencies are separated, it turns out - it happens naturally - that the interests of the workers go hand in hand with those of the managers. Then the workers can sit next to the manager in the constitutional state. Even the difference between the liberal and conservative parties will disappear because people will only talk about facts.

An important thing that will arise in labor law: there will not be a normal working day, but a maximum and minimum working day. Workers in heavy jobs will work less than others. That will happen naturally.

Question: How can we respond to the objection that the system of associations in economic life hinders or even prevents free trade with its undeniable advantages?

Rudolf Steiner: The associations I have in mind can have a membership of anything from one to infinity. Coalitions will arise between such production associations and such consumer associations. And everything is oriented towards consumption. Rainer started with the production of bread at the consumer level. I said to him: gather so many consumers that you can produce the bread! The Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press does the same. It is based solely on the fact that people want the books. Here the Anthroposophical Society itself is the association that brings about production. The ideal association is one in which a leading personality can find a circle of consumers for a particular production. But because economic life is so complicated, there must be a system of associations.

Question: But if the aim is to create demand, then surely advertising will be needed, which you otherwise decry?

Rudolf Steiner: In the threefold social organism, it will automatically follow that advertising will only be possible as product advertising. Agencies will be in place. If I want to manufacture a new shoe, I have to turn to a shoe agent who has an independent agency. He will take my shoe on his journey. Such a product advertisement will always be financially viable.

Question: But won't people who want to get ahead faster resort to suggestive advertising again?

Rudolf Steiner: That will not be the case. When I answer such a question in detail, I do not take the answer from a purely logical consideration, but I see the whole threefolded social body concretely before me. And from this it follows that mere suggestive advertising will not be financeable. There will simply be no money available for it.

I would very much like to discuss all the details, for example, regarding liens, mortgages, bonds and so on, especially regarding those matters in which it is not clear today what needs to be clarified; the confusion of capital interest and land rent is having a disastrous effect today.

Question: So it would be our job to travel with your brochure and, as agents, draw attention to the fact that the brochure contains things that could be covered in detailed lectures and so on?

Rudolf Steiner: That's right.

Boos: Next Monday I will meet with the people who have registered for your last Zurich lecture. Can you give me guidelines for this meeting?

Rudolf Steiner: The people must be won over to do something for the brochure. It would not be a bad thing if people came together and provided clarification that the social question cannot be solved in any other way than through the thoughts of the lectures. As soon as you have enough people who have this opinion, the matter will take care of itself.

It would be of the utmost importance to determine the state of the social movement in Switzerland today by setting up a committee on Monday that would have to determine the nature of the relationship between the old Social Democracy and the Bolsheviks in Switzerland. We should have material to show exactly how many people, for example, support the Basler Vorwärts.

Boos: I recently put together: law - salt, economics - mercury, spiritual culture - sulfur.

Rudolf Steiner: One has to be careful here. It means:

Salt: in the head of the individual human being, in the social body of the economy,

Mercury: in the chest of the individual human being, in the social body of law,

Sulfur: in the lower human being of the individual human being, in the social body of spiritual culture.

Furthermore, we must consider the relationship between the individual human being and the social body, and here

salt means social body, sulphur means individual, and mercury is in between.

The social body is upside down. The productions of the individual human head are to the social body what food and drink are to the individual. Primary production is to the social body what talents are to the individual. Through his head system, the human being feeds the spiritual limb of the social organism. The legal system corresponds to the chest human in that it acts as a regulator between the other two - albeit not rhythmically.

From a later discussion

Roman Boos requests some guidelines for a lecture on spiritual science to students, which is meant as preparation for the lecture by Rudolf Steiner planned for eight days later.

Rudolf Steiner: It should be made clear to people that ordinary knowledge and anthroposophical knowledge are different in nature. The latter can only come from an awakening. It is experience, not speculation. In Theosophy, I speak of body, soul and spirit. The objection was raised: How can one make such a distinction? Answer: One must only consider the human life cycle in its reality:

Child – more body

Adult – more soul

Old age – (decline of the body) more spirit

It would be good to clarify the concept of intuition in such a way as to show that “justice” is precisely the opposite of intuition. In justice, man loses himself completely in external objectivity. Turn that around: man loses himself completely in the spirit, and you have intuition. From there you could start: if you grasp the concept of the human being who loses himself in the physical world, if you turn it around, you have the concept of the prenatal and post-mortal human being.

Question: Does such a definition of the law not coincide with the formulation “The spirit in its otherness”? (Hegel)

Rudolf Steiner: Yes. Rightness is spirit in its otherness, its being outside of itself. If Hegel had said it like that, he would have been right. But he didn't call rightness rightness, he called it nature. And nature is not spirit in its otherness, but spirit in its very corresponding negativity. Nature relates to spirit as debt relates to capital. Nature is a hole in spirit. Hegel knew spirit only as ideology with the last breath of life. For Hegel, it is precisely the ideologies that are the objective spirit. Therefore, he did not arrive at a destiny of the soul.

Boos: Ehrenberg (Heidelberg) is working on a critique of German idealism in which he proceeds in a similar direction. He calls idealism “paganism in Christianity”.

Rudolf Steiner: Much nonsense is done today with such abstract concepts. The essence of paganism is that the divine is not grasped in its connection with the human I. In Judaism, the I is grasped. Other beings are included in the I.