111. Draft of the Essay “International Economy and Tripartite Social Organism”

An obvious objection to the idea of the threefold social order is that a state that proceeds to implement this idea would disrupt its international relations with other states that retain their old institutions. This objection prevents many who understand the timeliness of a threefold social order from approaching the idea of its corresponding practical design.

These misgivings arise from the justified insight that a state which attempts to carry out socialization on its own in the sense of orthodox or modified Marxism would be unable to maintain undisturbed economic relations with states organized differently. It is therefore important to establish whether the concerns that apply to such socialization also apply to the threefold order of the social organism.

This clarity cannot be gained without considering the way in which humanity's economic life has developed in recent times. And the most striking fact here is that this economic life has the most pronounced tendency to regard the historically given state borders as non-existent for itself. National economies tend to merge into a unified world economy. The historical conditions that gave rise to the demarcation of states have gradually ceased to be of decisive importance for the economic interests of the people living in those states. The international tendencies of both capitalist and socialist circles are connected with this tendency towards the formation of a unified world economy. This is most evident in international socialism. However, it fails to recognize what is really demanded by the development of the times because it focuses only on economic life. It sees that this life has taken on forms that cannot be taken into account if the institutions of the state, which have become historical, determine the motives of the individuals and groups of individuals who engage in economic activity. He therefore wants to reshape these institutions so that they correspond to world economic conditions. He has a world economy in mind, in which the individual economic sub-areas are to be the states that have come into being historically. However, he wants to transform these into large cooperatives. He is thus on the way to turning the state into a mere economic society. He does not shrink from pursuing this idea because, under Marxist influence, he has developed the belief that the corresponding legal and intellectual institutions will arise “by themselves” from the economic institutions. Anyone who realizes that this is a fallacy must do justice to the tendency of the latest time after the formation of a world economy in a different way.

The more the unified world economy develops, the more it will require that what happens in its area be dependent on economic considerations. A necessary condition in this regard can be brought about if, within states, the legal relationships of citizens and their intellectual interests are separated from economic life. If, as a result of this separation, economic life is administered only as such within a social organism, it will only enter into relations with other social organisms through institutions that stem from it. The legal and intellectual organizations with which the economic sphere is associated are not considered in terms of economic relations with the outside world. The individuals or groups of individuals of one social area enter into direct contact with those of the other, uninfluenced by state relations.

In more recent times, this contact has been impeded by the fact that the interlinking of economic life with legal and political interests and intellectual interests from older human developmental epochs has been preserved and has opposed the urge for world economy. This interconnection can be seen in the facts that led to the catastrophe of the World Wars. One of these facts was the situation in southeastern Europe, where this catastrophe originated. The spiritual antagonism between the Slavs and the Germans was the underlying cause, leading to conflict. Political events came into play. The old Turkish regime was replaced by the democratically oriented Young Turk regime. The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria and the declaration of Bulgaria as a kingdom were the result of the political upheaval in Turkey. Thirdly, Austria's urge to expand its trade relations to the south worked together with the other two. (The endeavor to lay tracks in this direction in its interest is an expression of this urge.) The concatenation of these three factors in the efforts of the unified states that were interested in them made it possible for the catastrophe to occur. And anyone who has followed the negotiations that have been conducted because of the Baghdad Railway can see how national antagonisms, that is, intellectual interests and state aspirations, repeatedly play a decisive role in a matter that could have been purely economic. These are two striking examples among many. In the southeast of Europe as well as with the Baghdad Railway, measures that would have been undertaken only in the interest of the world economy would not have become causes of world catastrophe in themselves. They became so because the unified states combined different interests with economic ones.

It might now appear that the consideration of these facts fully justifies the objection raised against the threefolding of a social organism in the midst of such states, which retain their old structure, as fully justified. For one might think that the economy of these other states, supported by state power, would crush the social organism, which does not want this state power behind its economy. This applies to an economic state that is organized in line with Marxism, because such a state wants to use the framework of the existing unitary state to impose economic forms that it considers beneficial. The result should be that all the disadvantages that have arisen from the fact that the economies of individual states have opposed the trend of the world economy would be greatly increased. The world economy strives to shape economic relations between individuals and groups of people purely according to their needs. The state economies interfered with this process by shaping what should arise from economic demands according to their own interests. If the states become economic cooperatives, the interference will have ceased to be a determining factor.

The opposite must occur if, in accordance with the idea of the threefold social organism, economic life is completely removed from the state sphere and stands on its own. Then the people belonging to this organism will be able to enter into free economic relations with foreign countries. How these foreign countries enter into relations with them will depend only on which economic interest is present in such a transaction.