How Can We Work for the Impulse of the Threefold Social Order?

GA 338 — 14 February 1921, Stuttgart

Fourth Lecture

The first theme proposed for your consideration would be: The great questions of the present and the threefold social organism. It is necessary that we choose these topics that you want to address in such a way that there is an opportunity to get to know as precisely as possible, firstly, what the present needs and, secondly, what the impulse for the threefolding of the social organism has to offer with regard to the great questions of the present. always have the opportunity to point out, on the one hand, that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science must provide the basis for this kind of social thinking, which is to be brought into the world through the threefold social order, and, on the other hand, that the opportunity should always be offered to advocate for the “day to come” and the like. Its activity will have to extend to our movement as a whole, both to the spiritual side and to practical institutions. On the one hand, you will have to make it plausible to the world that it is necessary in the present time to cultivate a truly productive spiritual life; on the other hand, you will have to take into account the practical side, that we simply, as a intervene as a movement in social and economic life, and that we must therefore be strengthened financially as much as possible, not for our own sake but for the sake of the progress of economic life.

Today, in particular, I would like to raise a few points regarding the necessary topics, to set the scene for our further deliberations. It might be best if we then choose a second topic along the lines of: The free system of education and teaching in its relation to the state and the economy. - And if we then choose the third topic: The economic association system and its relation to the state and to the free spiritual life. - By choosing these three topics, we will have the opportunity to present to the world in the next few weeks what really belongs to our movement as a whole in an effective way.

Now let us first talk about something fundamental regarding the first topic. Above all, it will be about showing people that threefolding is, so to speak, already there as a demand, that one is not doing anything other than shaping what is already there in the right way. There it is, but in a form different from what it should be and will be when it has been fully developed; there it is as a demand of three things, but today they are chaotically intermingled and precisely because of this they fight each other internally fight against each other like some kind of monstrosity, which might have come into being in something like this, as if the head of man were in his stomach and the digestive organs in the heart and the like, if the three systems of the organism were mixed up. So what is actually there, what wants to develop, should be given the right form.

To make this clear, let us start with the third link in the social organism, with economic life. This economic life can be characterized, as it exists today, by following its development over the last few centuries. In the last few centuries, economic life itself has only taken on the forms that exist today and out of which the whole social question has arisen. It has certainly been a somewhat longer process. Even if we go back as far as we want, the economic life that we face today does not go back further than the 14th or 13th century. That was the time when European economic life went through a kind of crisis, one might say a creeping crisis. That was the time when European economic life was thoroughly preparing for a change.

If we go back to earlier times, we find that European economic life was thoroughly influenced by the continental trade and traffic movement from Asia through Central Europe to Western Europe. And we find in those older times everywhere that economic life takes place with a certain matter-of-factness, and that traffic also takes place with a certain matter-of-factness. To a certain extent, economic conditions had not yet developed so intensely that it was necessary to restrict and organize the freedom of trade and commerce. But as the population of Central Europe became more and more dense, as economic life became more and more intense, the necessity arose to organize all kinds of things. And out of the freer economic life of the older times, a much more constrained economic life emerged. The freer economic life of earlier times is characterized by the fact that the individual economies, the individual households, which were more like household economies, were run by their private owners, with the help of servants and a population in bondage, according to the instincts of their private owners, and that an extensive trade, which was certainly conducted across from Asia, did not need to be regulated in any particular way either. It could be carried out quite freely, because economic life was not yet intensive.

But, as I said, with the increase in population, and with the development of other conditions, which we can mention in a moment, the intensity of economic life became greater and greater; and it became necessary to take certain protective measures that were not necessary before, protective measures that all had more or less the character of supporting the consumer. It is a curious fact that at the same time as economic life was going through a kind of creeping crisis, as it did in the 13th and 14th centuries, without much ado, a tendency to protect the consumer in some way emerged everywhere. What is it other than consumer protection when the cities through which trade had to pass, through which the trade routes ran, asserted the so-called staple right, so that the passing tradesman had to stay for a certain number of days and only then was he allowed to pass through with the goods he could not sell in the city during those days and then sell them freely? So it is about consumer protection, everywhere it is about consumer protection.

In particular, although it is not immediately apparent, something else in this period is definitely calculated for the protection of the consumer. I have just delved into this question and finally found out – if you approach it with an open mind, you cannot help but find out – that the establishment and development of the guilds, although they seemingly organized production, were basically undertaken to support the consumption of the products manufactured in the guilds. This was done indirectly by organizing the production system. Although the guilds were formed by combining similar trades, the main focus was not so much on organizing production in some way, but rather on ensuring that those who joined the guilds could sell their products at such a high price that their consumption was secured in the appropriate way. The guilds were in fact a protective device for consumption. If you simply take any manuals from the library and look up the data you can find there, you will be able to say to yourself, when you consider the guidelines I am giving you here, that the economic life of that time is characterized in a certain way by this.

And now this economic life developed under such protective measures for several centuries. But it always had a kind of creeping crisis in itself. It just became more and more intense. And that is the peculiar thing: an economic life that becomes more and more intense in a certain territory also makes more and more restrictions, protective measures, and organizations necessary. An economic life that is open in some way, that has access to inexhaustible sources on some side, namely agriculture, land, does not have the urge to organize itself. An economic life that is enclosed on all sides and becomes more and more intensive has the urge to organize itself.

Now, this European economic life would undoubtedly have faced a decadence of enormous significance over the course of the centuries if an event with which you are all familiar had not occurred. What initially saved us from this decadence was, on the one hand, the opening of sea routes and, on the other, the discovery of America. This opened up economic life again towards the West. It cannot be said, because the opening was too great, that an outlet was opened there. That would have been a very large outlet! But this is what in turn took economic life in a completely different direction. Now, of course, the advent of modern technology coincides with the impact of this path to the west. But this modern technology would never have been possible under any other circumstances than through the opening of the whole of economic life to the West. These things simply gave what gave the newer economic life its basic configuration. The most important political events that I mentioned yesterday then take place within this economic life.

Now, in this European economic life, we have two tendencies. One tendency developed under the compulsion of the intensive economy in the second half of the Middle Ages and even beyond, and subsequently took on the character of a certain economic way of thinking. People learned to think economically under the conditions that developed, say, from the 13th to the 16th, 17th century. That is when people absorbed the ideas of how to run a business. What became the driving economic ideas were developed in trade, and very slowly also in industry, and even in agriculture. They essentially took shape during this time. One could also say that those sections of the population who were primarily called upon to think economically in connection with the European territories have developed their economic ideas under the influence of these events. Such things then become deeply ingrained in people. It is precisely in these matters that human souls become conservative. And what sits within people as conservative ideas essentially stems from this period.

Now, on the other side, economic life opened up as I have described to you. And through this, something came into the whole concept of economic life, but it was not immediately incorporated into the way of thinking, but only gave this way of thinking a special economic impetus. It is the connection with the West, with America, with that which came from the opening of the sea routes. That gave economic life strength.

And so, I would say, on the one hand the concrete content of economic life emerged, and on the other hand the momentum. These facts were so strong that they initially gave the configuration to the newer social life in general, and also gave it its materialistic form. And this modern civilization took on more and more the character that must result from these two factors.

Now we have an economic life that simply predominates by the force of events, that makes a strong impression on people and on human development. This economic life also takes on the character that economic life alone can take on, because it is the case that each of the three areas of the social organism takes on its own legitimacy simply through its nature and essence: in economic life, the commodity and the price become the determining factors.

However, social conditions can be distorted by confusing economic life with the other two areas of the social organism. Then each individual area follows only its own laws in conflict with the others. And so it has come about that because economic life predominated, it drew other areas of life, other social areas, into its system of laws. And the conditions arose that then led to the modern social question.

For if we go back in historical development, the proletarian movement as a specific wage movement, as a movement against slavery of labor, does not exist. I explained yesterday that the division of labor, whether one was master or servant, was shaped in older times according to political considerations. Now economic life has been set up in such a way that everything is drawn into the character of a commodity. Everything became a commodity. And so it was only in this period that human labor power became a commodity. Before that it was service, devoted or forced service. But it only became a commodity in this most recent period. For it was gradually paid for in the same way as a commodity is paid for. And economic life cannot help but make a commodity out of everything that enters into its sphere. And in this sense, I believe we have actually always had the threefold social order. We just have to make it real, we just have to introduce into the world that which exists in a false form in its true form. For in the false form it causes mischief and leads to decline. If we are able to give it its true form, it must become the rising sun.

But it is not only that labor power has been turned into a commodity; materialistic intellectual life has also been turned into a commodity in the form of capital. Please take a look at the capital market and the utilization and application of capital in modern times and compare it with the utilization of capital in ancient Greece, for all I care! In ancient Greece, the person who was politically powerful was the one who had the power to carry out something; he had the power to build this or that. For political reasons, he found those who did the work, and his capital consisted simply of the fact that he was the master through his hereditary circumstances and could command a number of people. That was capital in ancient Greece. In the more recent times that we are now considering, essentially what leads to enterprises also becomes a commodity. What is it, after all, that you do when you buy or sell securities on the stock exchange? What are you trading in? You are basically trading in entrepreneurial spirit. What entrepreneurial spirit is essentially becomes a commodity on the stock exchange. You don't even have the specific, the particular entrepreneurial spirit in front of you, you don't even know what you are buying or selling; but in reality you are buying or selling entrepreneurial spirit. You can observe this particularly in the capital market environment. In short, everything becomes commoditized where economic life becomes predominant. Everything becomes a commodity: labor power becomes a commodity, intellect becomes a commodity. That has been the course of recent development.

Now, at the same time, something else is happening. The modern state is emerging for political reasons. First of all, we see, doesn't it, how this modern state is formed from certain earlier freer relationships of the surrounding rural population to the existing cities, which have emerged from ecclesiastical centers or the like in Italy, from a slightly different way of thinking in France and England. So what states are, that is what is emerging.

While the actual concept of the state is already emerging in the West, in Central and Eastern Europe we actually still see different conditions that are freer in this respect. We see how it arises from the old conditions that the former town, which had arisen for some ecclesiastical or similar reasons, becomes the center of the market. And as the old towns become markets, new towns arise in turn. It is interesting to see how cities really do arise under the influence of economic life in the 13th, 12th, 11th century. First of all, the cities arise in such a way that in today's southern Germany and in the west of Europe they arise at distances of five to six hours' travel. In the north and east, they arise at distances of seven to eight hours' travel. In older times, this is something that is taken for granted. Why? Because the farmers who work the surrounding land can get there and back with their products in a day. This arises out of inner necessity. But when something like this arises in history, then later, under the influence of the principle of imitation, something arises that is not connected with such necessity. At first there is the necessity to have towns that are five to six hours' journey apart, or seven to eight. Then the others realize that something can be done and imitate it. And so something arises that is not historically necessary. This affects the healthy thinking of some people about these things. The historians treat the one cities in the same way as the others, that is, those that did not arise out of economic necessity in the same way as the others that arose out of economic necessity. Then everything is mixed up and confused. But the right way to look at such things is to have a sense of distinction. People can very knowledgeably prove to you that this is not true, that this or that city arose out of economic necessity. Of course that is sometimes not true. Because this city did not arise out of economic necessity, but under the influence of the later principle of imitation. But the general truth is nevertheless correct. The development of cities as markets took much longer in Eastern Europe than in the West, where unified states were formed that then sought to incorporate everything into their framework.

Now, basically, historically speaking, as unpleasant as it may sometimes seem today, it is the case that in Italy, out of the spirit of a certain patriarchal togetherness between the peasant population and the urban population, the peculiar territorial areas arose and a certain federalist state system emerged, while another emerged in Spain, France and England. And even if, as I said, it is unpleasant for some to think about, it is nevertheless the case that, more towards Central Europe and the East, the formation of states, like the formation of cities in the past, even came about through imitation. And here we come to something that you cannot tell people today, because otherwise you would not be divided into three, but even into four. But the truth still exists because of that. It was, of course, an economic necessity, but it also came about because of the character of the peoples that the western states emerged as unified states. But the Central European states and the Eastern states actually only came into being through imitation. There was no historical necessity for them. Basically, Austria and the German Reich ultimately perished because there was no historical necessity for their internal centralization, but rather that it was actually an imitation. And the unified state of Italy is an imitation of the same principle, which came into being at about the same time as the unified German state. And North America is another purely external imitation, without having really arrived at the inner reality of what the Central European states are. It is completely dependent on flowing into economic association. Incidentally, anyone who properly considers the economic conditions of North America will be able to predict the course of events.

Now, you see, alongside all that had emerged, so to speak, from the original economy, the new configuration of trade then arose under such conditions as I have just described. And that was where the fusion of political and economic life first arose, not in the field of industry, but actually in the field of trade. The trades were only involved. It is fair to dispute what I am saying now. Because people just need to say: the trades must come first, and then you can act. But that is not the point. Even today, take very developed industries, they often have not grown beyond the commercial sphere. People only create their own products for the trade they do. We are not yet so far advanced that we have already made the transition from the primary production, which is based on nature and is integrated through trade into industry, to the point where industry would now set the tone. Because the moment industry starts to set the tone, association becomes a necessity. The structure of today's business life is still determined by the principles of commercial life; industry, too, is based on the principle of commerce. Basically, manufacturers are traders who merely create opportunities for themselves to trade. They also set up their industrial establishments according to commercial considerations; these are the decisive factors. Because the moment the industrial reaches into the commercial, then association becomes a necessity. The fusion of the state with economic life has actually happened indirectly through the commercial.

And on the other hand, each of the three limbs of the social organism has its own laws and fights against the other limb if it is not detached in the right way. You see, in fact the field of constitutional law has been fighting against the economic field in economic legislation, old-age insurance and so on, for a long time. What does this mean other than that they foolishly want to separate the worker from economic life? It would be sensible to separate them thoroughly right now! But the states are definitely on the march – if I may use the word, which, as you know, has been misused by Wissel – on the march to an independent legal existence. By creating labor protection legislation, old-age insurance legislation, and so on, they are bringing the organization of labor, the regulation of the type and time of labor, out of economic life anyway. Now we see that the second link of the social organism is also on the way to emancipation from economic life.

Now, the matter of intellectual life is somewhat more confused. All real intellectual life has grown out of the old theocracies in its inner essence. Please, you only need to study university life in the 12th and 13th centuries. This is entirely developed out of the ecclesiastical being. And this was an emancipated intellectual life. It only gradually grows into state life. A large part of the European struggles consists of nothing more than the transition of ecclesiastical institutions into the state. And for these ancient times, it must be said that the freedom of educational institutions was much greater in the old ecclesiastical system than it was in the later state system or than it is today. For things develop out of spiritual life with full consciousness. For example, in the year 869 at the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, the Church consciously abolished the spirit, that is, it was elevated to a dogma that man does not consist of body, soul and spirit, but only of body and soul, and that the soul has some spiritual qualities. In those days, this was made conscious. Nowadays, philosophy professors preach that man consists of body and soul and do not know that they are only the executors of an ecclesiastical dogma. What we call philosophy has definitely grown out of the old ecclesiastical life, and Mr. Wundt in Leipzig is definitely only an offshoot of the old ecclesiastical dogmas, even if it no longer appears so in the way he presents it. But it is the same with the other things that have grown out of the old theocratic type of spiritual life. The theological faculties, well, look at them, they have grown out of the former spiritual life to such an extent that today they only present a kind of caricature, and the same applies to the law faculties. If you want to see, you will find the same old theocratic essence in modern civilization everywhere. I will not speak of medicine. It is quite obvious that it has outgrown other affiliations with the old intellectual life, which developed in an ecclesiastical, religious way. We have a current, a branch of intellectual life, that has completely outgrown the ecclesiastical life, which was free in relation to the state and which was the only intellectual life for the older times. Alongside this, I would say, not outgrowing it but standing alongside it, has come what modern science and technology is. There, spiritual life has arisen on its own soil and has only resembled that which grew out of the church in the past. That is why it looks so strange, what has been organized, I would say, spasmodically, in imitation of the old institutions. One after the other, technical colleges, commercial schools, agricultural schools and so on were built. All of this has been spasmodically shaped somewhat similar to what grew out of the earlier church life. And so we have the quite unnatural structure of our higher education system. On the one hand, something that is in many ways old-fashioned, the actual university system; after all, it carries its ancient ecclesiastical heritage with it. On the other hand, there is the modern agricultural school, the technical school, the mining academy and so on, which has been humorously added to the system, which has sought a similarity, even in the outward appearance, in the title system and the like, with the universities.

On the one hand, we have intellectual life as it arises from the old, free ecclesiastical life and is gradually absorbed by the state; and on the other hand, we have the pushing in, I would like to say, again out of a certain freedom, because the mind must indeed be free; the state cannot produce genius, of that intellectual life that in turn places itself in state life. It would have been in keeping with the ideal of many people to educate real artists at the art schools as well. But as you know, the teaching program does not yet exist by which one can educate genius or the real artist, although many people would like it to. So we see how the spiritual life is absorbed with inadequate means. Basically, only the outer form is absorbed. The content must always, if I may say so, creep away on the sly, most certainly creep away. Because, if someone is in the uncomfortable position of having some intellect at all, then, as far as possible, they have to get it through the terrible ordeals of exams and so on with as much secrecy as possible, so that it doesn't freeze during the whole procedure and so that they can still develop it afterwards. Yes, you have to secretly smuggle what the actual intellectual life is. That is just the way it is. And basically, this is nothing more than a kind of emancipation of intellectual life, a latent emancipation.

Here, too, we are facing a looming crisis. The ultimate consequence of the nationalization system is, of course, Marxism, and, radically, Bolshevism. Everything is nationalized; the entire state is turned into a large industrial establishment, into a giant enterprise, at least that is the initial ideal. Now, if you do that, then it is necessary to organize all the technical knowledge into this whole menagerie, machinery I wanted to say, of course, to organize all the machinery into this whole machinery, because without this technical knowledge you cannot make any progress. Modern technology is necessary. But all the Bolshevism and all the ways of introducing the Marxist principle into reality will lead to nothing but plundering in this area. That is, for a time, the technically gifted can be enslaved. But they will gradually disappear if we do not move on to an independent, emancipated, free, productive intellectual life. This is the crisis we face wherever the nationalization of intellectual life is making radical progress. For just as the other two limbs of the social organism have their own laws, the legal-political and the economic life, just as the economic life turns everything into a commodity, just as the state-legal life, after all, brings that which does not fit into the economic life under its organization and subject it to its laws, so too must intellectual life, following its own laws, emancipate itself from the other two.

These three spheres of the social organism are clearly defined: the spiritual, the juridical-political and the economic. Therefore, these are also the three great issues of the present day. The three great issues of the present day are precisely the issues of the proper shaping of spiritual life, the proper shaping of state-political life, and the proper shaping of economic life.

And this is evident wherever today's amateurish attempts arise. Look, for example, at what is happening within Central Europe, within Germany, in terms of religious denominations. In the attempts at a Protestant unity, in the Young Catholic efforts and so on, one tries to galvanize the old, to squeeze something viable out of the old in order to have some kind of spiritual life, because one does not have the courage to be productive in the spiritual life. Everywhere you look, you see amateurish attempts to give birth to a new spiritual life. Of course, the attempt to squeeze something out of the old lemon cannot lead to real spiritual creativity. Only the turn towards a productive spiritual life can lead to this. But we see amateurish attempts everywhere. We see how Americans appear to revive ancient Christianity because they believe that humanity cannot recover from the old principles of the state. But nowhere is there the insight that a spiritual life must be produced anew from its original sources. Everywhere, people are muddling through with what is already there. This shows that people are instinctively on the right path, but that they have not found the courage to really establish an independent spiritual life in its purity.

On the other hand, we see how the old principle of the state, which has developed in Europe since the 15th and 16th centuries, is dying away. For what else is it, what has been taking place since Brest-Litovsk and Versailles in the monsters called peace treaties and the like, what is it but a dying state principle that can no longer create something fruitful out of itself, that creates structures that cannot exist? Czechoslovakia, for example, will not be able to exist because it does not have what it needs to have. The Polish state structure, on the other hand, is to be re-established. It cannot be re-established, and so on. It is only possible for state life to recover if it is built on the democratic principle of equal human beings, that is, if it encompasses the affairs that are the affairs of each person who has come of age.

As long as today's life is chaotically thrown together, we will not get any further. There we see how, in fact, state life is withering away on the one hand, but on the other hand has already shown how it must take up the regulation of work. We see how it takes on new tasks. And then we can say: So we have the spiritual question, which is manifested in the faltering attempts that are expressed in the Protestant unification efforts and in the Young Catholic efforts; we have the constitutional question, which is evident, for example, in the peace treaties; but we also have economic life, which stands as the third great question of the present, from which, after all, the great war broke out towards the West, and which is discharging itself in the form of revolutionary and similar impulses.

This must be treated from the most diverse sides. Among the lectures I have given here, you will find one that deals with these matters. It is from this point of view of the three great contemporary issues that we must approach our first topic. We must show that the great questions are there today: the spiritual question, the constitutional-legal question and the economic question; that therefore the threefold social order is not something that has been invented, but that it is derived from the three great questions of our time; and that on the other hand, what has been prepared as anthroposophical spiritual science is precisely a foundation for a truly productive spiritual life.

What existed as a spiritual life from ancient times in the denominations, of which the university sciences of the present are only a branch, has lived itself out; the other has not yet been able to begin to live as a spiritual life, that is, that which has grown out of science and technology. It has not yet been able to spiritualize itself. It must be driven upwards with the same way of thinking from which the old spiritual life arose. Spiritual science will again be as productive as the earlier one was, which then came into decadence in the religions.

That is what gives spiritual life its content, its momentum. And then, when you see things in this way, when you realize that you can answer the question, “Yes, where should the free spiritual life come from?” with complete conviction: Yes, we not only have to talk about the demand for a free spiritual life, but we also have something that can be placed within the framework of the free spiritual life, that produces the spirit, that is living spirit. You will then be able to point to the anthroposophical source that belongs to it. You can develop something that, if you want to bring it to people, must be brought to them with a certain enthusiasm, so that, in a sense, the inner turns outwards, so that what you are as human beings, what you have grown together with, really goes out to the audience. That must be the one tone that you strike in your lectures. You must be clear about the fact that anthroposophy provides the content, the nourishment, for the free spiritual life.

On the other hand, you will find the other tone when you thoroughly feel that economic life turns everything into a commodity, that what must not be a commodity must be taken out of economic life. Then you will find the dry tone of sober reflection that must pervade your lectures when you speak of economic life. Because there you can speak soberly, dryly, there you must speak as if you had to do arithmetic.

And so you will find the two nuances you need for your lectures, and they will indeed be different from one another: the dry, sober tone of the dry economic commentator and the enthusiastic tone of the person who not only speaks of a political ideal as the free spiritual life, but speaks in such a way that he knows what wants to be included in it.

And then, moving rhythmically back and forth between the two, you will find the third tone, the tone you need for the treatment of the state-legal aspect.

But it is necessary that you, so to speak, are intensively threefolded in your own moods, so that you recognize correctly, that you relate to spiritual life in one way, to state-political life in another way, and to economic life in yet another way. One speaks about spiritual life out of inner strength and conviction; one speaks in such a way that one actually knows: every human being is a rightful participant in the harmonious spiritual life of humanity, in the harmony of the spiritual life of humanity. One speaks about the life of the state in such a way that one lets one's soul swing from one side of the scales to the other: duties - rights, duties - rights! One speaks with a certain cool superiority, which does not necessarily have to be the superior mendacity of the old statesmen; but it is done with a certain superiority, in that one allows one's right to be done to the other in the life of the state and in the life of the law. And one speaks about economic life as if one did not have one's own purse to manage; that leads to nothing sensible, but one speaks to the feeling as if one actually held the purses of other people in one's pocket and had to manage them. One speaks from feeling in this case, that one must proceed as cautiously as possible, that many things can turn out differently than one expects. The secure feeling one has about spiritual life – if one has grasped it correctly, nothing can ever go wrong in spiritual life – one cannot have this secure feeling about economic life. Something can go wrong there. That must also be in the tone with which you speak about the matter. That is why you will find it in the “key points”: intellectual life is spoken of with absolute certainty and certainty; economic conditions are only mentioned by way of example, so that one has the feeling that it could also be different.

This is what will give your speeches a certain inner strength: if you are inwardly intensely threefolded. And that is what I recommend to you, to take it to heart a little, so that you may perhaps strike this note. Since most of you are young, if your attention is drawn to this threefoldness of the human orator, it will be something like a kind of power source for your work.