Social Ideas, Social Reality, Social Practice II

GA 337b — 5 October 1920, Dornach

10. Questions on Economic Practice I

on the occasion of the first anthroposophical university course

The two lectures by Arnold Ith on October 4 and 5, 1920, on “Banking and pricing in their current and future significance for the economy” serve as the basis for the evening. The discussion will be opened:

Rudolf Toepel starts from two passages in the “Key Points”. He comments on the problem of ascertaining needs and, linked to this, on the question of pricing. Roman Boos: I must refute Dr. Toepel's view; the two passages from the “key points” are taken out of context. Dr. Toepel's presentation lacks an anthroposophical basis. This is not the way to move forward. The state cannot prescribe administrative measures for the economy; we will not advance in economic life if we cannot embrace other ways of thinking. People who live in such an economic system rebel against it, because statistics are used to determine people's needs. And there is another danger to be considered. Perhaps new needs could arise the day after tomorrow that are not yet known today. As Dr. Steiner always emphasized, it is important that we do not interfere with needs as such. The state should not interfere, nor should statistics in the question of needs as such, otherwise we are still in the old way of thinking. It is precisely this old way of thinking that seems to me to be partly alive in Director Ich's remarks. I would therefore like to refer once more explicitly to Dr. Steiner's basic idea of the economic primordium: the price set should enable the person who has produced a particular economic product to be able to produce the same again afterwards. Price policy as such is something that the state should not simply interfere with, otherwise it will destroy economic life altogether. Werner Zimmermann speaks as a representative of the free money and free land theory of Silvio Gesell. Roman Boos interrupts the speaker: What is important is not the goal, but the beginning. And there it is about creating associations; we must create associations. Arnold Ith: There are several points on which I would like to have greater clarity and which need to be discussed in more detail. Firstly, what role does trade play in the threefold social organism? Secondly, how does capital arise in the threefold social organism? Thirdly, can factories and real estate also be sold? Is private capital even possible after the introduction of threefolding? Fourthly: Is there still money in the threefolded social organism? Money is then only an order for goods. And now to what the previous speakers said. What Mr. Zimmermann said about the free money theory cannot be understood or followed at all. Some objections must also be raised regarding the comments of Dr. Toepel; the same applies to Dr. Boos and his presentation of the economic primal cell. And in this context, returning to Dr. Boos' objection to my remarks, I would like to ask: to what extent should this relate to the remarks I have made here, and to what extent should something appear to be incorrect in them? That as a specific question. Roman Boos: I would like to ask a counter-question: what role do you think the state should play in setting prices? Arnold Ith: I only wanted to show with this breakdown of the price how some of the price goes to the laborers and the other part is distributed among the producers. In this respect, the state will have a say in prices by determining what the individual needs for his or her livelihood. Interjection: Senseless. Roman Boos: I actually just picked up on this point and felt compelled to object. I have always been of the opinion that in the tripartite social organism the state has something to determine only with regard to the type of work and the time, but does not have any kind of price to determine or needs to assess; the state should only create the facts from the outside, with which economic life has to reckon as with given facts. Arnold Ith: It is not a matter of the state fixing the nominal price level, but of a proportionate, real distribution, a percentage allocation. Perhaps I may ask Dr. Steiner about this question.

Rudolf Steiner: Dear ladies and gentlemen! I would very much like to speak about some of the individual matters that have been touched on here. However, it is hardly possible to speak about them briefly, and it is especially difficult to do so when a number of people have already clashed with each other. This usually complicates even those things that are otherwise simple. I would therefore just like to make a few brief comments that answer some of the questions or at least attempt to point in the right direction.

I would like to point out that in economic life it really matters to think economically. But thinking economically means having ideas about production and consumption that have certain effects in one direction or the other in the course of their development; and we are part of this economic process with our physical well-being and woe. Favorite opinions are of no use here. Anyone who thinks, for example, that something can be achieved simply by reducing [or expanding] the money supply, depending on whether prices are rising or falling, shows that he has little real understanding of the economic process. Nothing is achieved by such a fixing of the value of money, by a reduction, as it were, of the money supply or by a very specific expansion or the like. Because the moment money can no longer be used for speculation, speculation shifts to commodities. You see, only now are we getting close to reality with our ideas. We have to be able to look at reality. And there is absolutely no need to change the money supply. , but it can very easily be brought about by all sorts of machinations that the prices of a particular type of product fall or rise, while other products need not give any cause for such a fall or rise. In any case, the whole idea of indexing money – apart from the fact that as long as there is a gold standard in any of the countries involved, there can be no question of it – the whole idea is a purely utopian one. I will only hint at this, it would have to be discussed in detail, but the whole of Gesell's idea is nothing but an idea born out of a complete ignorance of economic life as such. If you really want to intervene in economic life in a way that yields results, then you have to intervene not in money but in consumption and production in a living way. What is needed is the formation of associations that have the opportunity to exert a real effect on the economic process. Of course, if associations form here and there, they may be right in principle, but they will not be able to exert a favorable influence; they can only exert a favorable influence when the associative principle can really take effect through the threefold social order. But people keep asking: How do associations form?

Dear attendees, as long as people are still arguing about whether, on the one hand, producers should join together to form associations and, on the other hand, consumers should form cooperatives, and as long as they are stipulating something to each other, the idea of association will not be remotely realized. Of course, the idea of an association is not about some kind of commission getting together to form associations and the like, but about these associations emerging from economic life itself. I would like to give two examples that I have given before.

Some time before the war, there was a member of ours who was a kind of baker; he baked bread, so he produced bread, with all that that entails, of course. Now, it occurred to them to make something that could initially be a kind of model example. We had the Anthroposophical Society, Anthroposophists also eat bread, they were already united, and nothing was easier than to put the bread producer together with the Anthroposophists. This gave him consumers, and an association was ready. Of course, when such a thing stands alone, it can have all kinds of shortcomings. In this case, it had shortcomings because the producer also had quirks and eccentricities, and this put the whole thing on an uneven footing. But that is not what ultimately matters. An association arises by itself out of an organic connection between consumers and producers, whereby, of course, the producer usually has to take the initiative – and then this association will prove itself all by itself.

And then I often give the example of a different kind of work, that created by the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House in Berlin. It consists in this publishing house not working like other publishing houses. How do the other publishing houses work? They work by concluding contracts for books with as many authors as possible, good and bad. Right, then they set about printing these books. But when books are printed, paper has to be available, typesetters have to be employed, and so on. Now try to imagine how many books are printed each year, let's say just in Germany, that are not sold, for which there are no consumers at all. Just do the math, just add up how much poetry is printed in Germany and how much poetry is bought, and you will get an idea of how much human labor has to be expended to produce paper that is wasted, how many typesetters work for the corresponding books and so on – all work that is done for nothing. That is what matters: we have to enter economic life by thinking economically, that is, by thinking in such a way that we avoid unnecessary work, wasted labor. In the case of the association between the Anthroposophical Society and the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press, this is not possible because the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press does not print a single book that is not sold. There are consumers. Why? Because work is done so that consumers are there? On the contrary, the publishing house does not have the necessary means to produce enough for the consumers. But at least no work is wasted. We do not have paper produced in which wasted work is involved; we do not have typesetters employed who work for nothing, and so on.

And exactly the same thing that you have seen in these two examples can be done in all possible fields. That is what it is about, that the association is thought about correctly. If it is thought about correctly, then above all unnecessary labor is avoided. And that is what matters. The aim is to create the right relationship between production and consumption in all possible areas through real measures. Then this original cell of economic life comes about, then a price comes about that will be appropriate for the whole of life, so that the person who produces something, any product, let's say a pair of boots, gets as much for it as he needs for his needs, until he has manufactured an equally good pair of boots again. It is not a matter of somehow stipulating the price, of drawing up statistics and the like, but rather of working in such a way that consumption is commensurate with production. And that can only happen if consumption determines production. If examples are given, this can be seen quite clearly. What matters is not to talk in circles about wants and needs and the like, but to be grounded in needs. What matters is to be related to [consumption] on the one hand and on the other hand to be able to intervene in production in such a way that it leads directly to the satisfaction of needs. What is important is not creating so-and-so many numbers and moving them from one place to another, but having active people in the association who can see how they have to mediate between consumption and production.

We have caused such terrible damage to our economic life precisely because we have dumped everything on the value measure of money. But money has only the value that it has, depending on the nature of the economic process. Of course you cannot start with the most abstract thing of all, with money, and introduce any kind of reforms. You don't even need to discuss whether money should be an order for goods or something else. I would like to know what the money I have in my wallet is other than an order for goods. And if I didn't have it in my wallet, the payment for a job I did could also be written in a book somewhere; you could always look it up for my sake; but instead of just being written in there, it could also be written out to me. All these things must be thought of not as secondary and partial, but as primary, and it must be clear to oneself that money by itself becomes a kind of walking bookkeeping in economic life when one thinks economically — not theoretically, but economically — that is, when one is able to dynamically relate economic conditions to one another.

Interjection: Very rich!

That's it. But this practical thinking, which should be thrown into the cultural development of the present day by the “core issues”, this practical thinking, is terribly far removed from today's people. They immediately fall back into theorizing, they immediately have everything possible to schematize and theorize, while it is important to approach people in such a way that they are fully involved in life, that is, in economic life - then the right conditions will be able to develop in this economic life. Of course, we were not allowed to found other associations because we were not allowed to found any other associations than those with the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House. But please consider in an hour of quiet reflection, my dear attendees, what this means as an effect for the whole economic life, if there is anything that prevents unnecessary work from being done - that affects the whole economic life. The typesetters, whom we have spared by not keeping them unnecessarily busy, have done other work in the meantime, and the people who worked in paper production have done other work in the meantime. So we are involved in the whole economic process. You can't think so briefly that you only think of one company, but you have to be clear about the effect it has on the whole economy. That is what matters.

I just wanted to point out that we have to try to think in truly economic terms. And if questions are raised about how it will work with the economic associations, it is the case that everyone would find sufficient reason in their own position to form such economic associations if they wanted to, based on the matter at hand. Of course, you can't say to me or to Dr. Boos or to others: How should I form associations? – and then assume that an empire should be created for the purpose of forming associations.

What is important is not that, but that we finally try to think and reflect objectively – that is what is important. Of course, the old way of thinking sometimes still strikes you in the neck a little; and even though Mr. Ith undoubtedly understood the issues extremely well and presented them quite well in essence, we still had to hear, for example, that he had included wages among his accounting costs. Of course, there is no question of wages when drawing up balance sheets in line with the threefold order – there can be no question of wages, nor of any kind of valuation of raw materials; after all, it is merely a matter of somehow accounting for the difference between what are work products and what are raw materials, and the like. So it is not true that sometimes the old way of thinking comes through; but that does not matter if one only has the will to think one's way into positive economic life, then the right thing comes out.

It is also self-evident that such enterprises as Futurum or the Coming Day cannot be built in all respects according to the “core principles” in the same way; one is, after all, in the middle of a different economic life, which makes its waves everywhere. But in that such enterprises are established, in which, on the one hand, the one-sided banking principle is overcome, on the other hand, the one-sided commercial or industrial principle – that is, on the one hand, the principle of lending money from the bank, on the other hand, the principle of the bank lending – that is, the divergence of the bank and the industrial, commercial enterprise – these are combined into one, and in doing so, the path to the associative principle is taken. For the time being, it is only a path. The real associative principle would be achieved if you could implement it in reality as I have shown in the two examples. Of course it would be necessary for the producers alone, that is, people who understand how to create a particular article, to take the initiative to do so; that is, the initiative cannot of course come from the consumers if an association is to be formed. But on the other hand, whoever takes the initiative to establish an association will essentially depend on the needs of consumers to shape the association; after all, they can only address certain needs that no one has to regulate. If, for example, there are luxury needs and so on for my sake, they will take care of themselves.

Recently I was asked: It was said of me that one should take needs into account; but now there are strange needs; for example, one person has a need for particularly high riding boots, riding boots and so on; [how to behave towards them].- Yes, my dear audience, all this takes into account only a very small part in his thinking. What is needed is to really think our way into economic life; and when you think your way into it, you move away from these details, because a healthy economic life also regulates needs to a certain extent. We can wait and see what these needs will be when a healthy economic life comes about under the associative principle, when, above all, unnecessary employment, unnecessary work that goes nowhere, is prevented. That is what it is all about.

Of course, these few hints do not yet say anything very substantial; but I want to point out at least that one can only understand the “key points” correctly if one understands them in a practical sense, if one thinks about how to bring about such an association in concrete terms, in life, that is built on combining consumption and production in the most organic way possible. If we know how such an economic structure, which is economically based on the principle of association, has an economizing effect on the whole of economic life, then we can actually create economic foundations where some no longer have to do so much unnecessary work and where others can no longer satisfy so many needs. In the world, it is already the case – this could be explained in great detail and even presented as a kind of axiom – that in the life of the world, it is already the case that certain things, if one does not take away the possibility of following their own laws, regulate themselves in a very strange way.

Dear attendees, if tomorrow someone were to come up with a way of seriously influencing the birth of a boy or girl in embryonic development, then, I am firmly convinced, the most terrible chaos would result. The ratio between the number of girls and boys that are born would create a terrible, catastrophic situation; crises and catastrophes would occur in a truly horrific manner. Only by keeping this, so to speak, from people's rational judgment, only in this way does the strangely wonderful relationship arise – which is, of course, approximate, like everything in nature – that every woman can find her man and every man his woman. And if a man remains unmarried, then a woman must also remain unmarried for him. Of course, where human will comes into play, disastrous results occur; but if we have a social life, we must look with a certain interest at that which works to a certain extent through its own laws. And you can be quite sure that when associations with real understanding are able to shape economic entities in which consumption and production take place in such a way that only the necessary work is done in the most rational way, then, as far as possible, people's needs will also be able to be satisfied, because one thing leads to the other. Real thinking makes this clear.

I would also like to point out that when discussing such questions, one must think in real terms above all and get rid of abstractions. In the scientific field, it is also bad when people think up all kinds of theories. If, for example, someone in the scientific field were to develop a theory as Gesell does in the economic field, then facts would soon become too much for him; he would only have to belittle the value of theories a little. In the economic sphere, the aim is to intervene in real life and to think practically. Practical thinking is precisely what spiritual science demands. Spiritual science thinks practically in the spiritual realm; it teaches people to think practically. This does not result in complicated theories. It educates people, and it will also educate them to think practically in economic life. And this practical thinking is the task.