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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Basic Issues of the Social Question
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Basic Issues of the Social Question
Basic Issues: Chapter Two: Finding Real Solutions to the Social Problems of the Times
On-line since: 13th July, 2002
Finding Real Solutions to the Social Problems of the Times
The characteristic element which has given the social question its
particular form in modern times may be described as follows: The
economy, along with technology and modern capitalism, has, as a matter
of course, brought a certain inner order to modern society. While the
attention of humanity has focused on what technology and capitalism
have brought, it has been diverted from other branches, other areas of
the social organism. It is equally necessary to attain efficacy
through human consciousness in these areas if the social organism is
to become healthy.
In order to clearly characterize certain driving forces by means of a
comprehensive, universal observation of the social organism, I would
like to start with a comparison. It should be borne in mind, however,
that nothing more than a comparison is intended. Human understanding
can be assisted by such a comparison to form mental pictures about the
social organism's restoration to health. To consider the most
complicated of all natural organisms, the human organism, from the
point of view presented here, it is necessary to direct one's
attention to the fact that the total essence of this human organism
exhibits three complementary systems, each of which functions with a
certain autonomy. These three complementary systems can be
characterized as follows. The system consisting of the nerve and sense
faculties functions as one area in the natural human organism. It
could also be designated, after the most important member of the
organism in which the nerve and sense faculties are to a certain
extent centralized, the head organism.
A clear understanding of the human organization will result in
recognizing as the second member, what [ I ] would like to call the rhythmic
system. It consists of respiration, blood circulation and everything
which expresses itself in the rhythmic processes of the human
organism.
The third system is to be recognized in everything which, in the form
of organs and functions, is connected with metabolism as such. These
three systems contain everything which, when properly co-ordinated,
maintains the entire functioning of the human organism in a healthy
manner.*
* The arrangement meant here is not a spatial delimitation of the
bodily members, but is according to the activities (functions) of the
organism. The term head-organism is only to be used in
that one is aware that the nerve-sense faculty is principally
centralized in the head. Of course the rhythmic and metabolic
functions are also present in the head, as is the nerve-sense faculty
in the other bodily members. Nevertheless, the three functional types
are, according to their natures, sharply separated.
In my book Von Seelenrätseln
[Note 4]
I have attempted to characterize, at least in outline, this
triformation of the human natural organism. It is clear to me that
biology, physiology, natural science as a whole will, in the very near
future, tend toward a consideration of the human organism which
perceives how these three members the head-system, the
circulatory system or breast-system and the metabolic system maintain
the total processes in the human organism, how they function with a
certain autonomy, how no absolute centralization of the human organism
exists and how each of these systems has its own particular relation
to the outer world. The head-system through the senses, the
circulatory or rhythmic system through respiration and the metabolic
system through the organs of nourishment and movement.
Natural scientific methods are not yet sufficiently advanced for
scientific circles to be able to grant recognition, sufficient for an
advance in knowledge, to what I have indicated here which is an
attempt to utilize knowledge based on spiritual science for natural
scientific purposes.
This means, however, that our habit of thought, the whole way in which
we conceive of the world, is not yet completely in accordance with
how, for example, the inner essence of nature's functions manifests
itself in the human organism. One could very well say: Yes, but
natural science can wait, its ideals will develop gradually and it
will come to a point where viewpoints such as yours will be
recognized. It is not possible, however, to wait where these things
are concerned. In every human mind for every human mind takes
part in the functioning of the social organism and not only in
the minds of a few specialists, must be present at least an
instinctive knowledge of what this social organism needs. Healthy
thinking and feeling, healthy will and aspirations with regard to the
formation of the social organism, can only develop when it is clear,
albeit more or less instinctively, that in order for the social
organism to be healthy it must, like the natural organism, have a
threefold organization.
Ever since Schäffle wrote his book about the structure of the social
organism, attempts have been made to encounter analogies between the
organization of a natural being the human being, for example
and human society as such. The cell of the social organism has
been sought, the cell structure, tissues and so forth! A short while
ago a book by Meray appeared, Weltmutation (World Mutation), in which
certain scientific facts and laws were simply transferred to a
supposed human society-organism. What is meant here has absolutely
nothing to do with all these things, with all these analogy games. To
assume that in these considerations such an analogy game between the
natural and the social organism is being played is to reveal a failure
to enter into the spirit of what is here meant. No attempt is being
made to transplant some scientific fact to the social organism; quite
the contrary, it is intended that human thinking and feeling learn to
sense the vital potentialities in contemplating the natural organism
and then to be capable of applying this sensibility to the social
organism. When what has supposedly been learned about the natural
organism is simply transferred to the social organism, this only
indicates an unwillingness to acquire the capacity to contemplate and
investigate the social organism just as independently as is necessary
for an understanding of the natural organism. If, in order to perceive
its laws, one considers the social organism as an independent entity
in the same manner as a scientific investigator considers the natural
organism, in that instant the seriousness of the contemplation
excludes playing with analogies.
It may also be imagined that what is presented here is based on the
belief that the social organism should be constructed as
an imitation of some bleak scientific theory. Nothing could be farther
from the truth. It is my intention to point out something quite
different. The present historical human crisis requires that certain
sensibilities arise in every individual, that these sensibilities be
stimulated by education, i.e., the school system, as is the learning
of arithmetical functions. What has hitherto resulted from the old
forms of the social organism, without being consciously absorbed by
the inner life of the mind, will cease to have effect in the future. A
characteristic of the evolutionary impulses which are attempting to
manifest themselves in human life at the present time is that such
sensibilities are necessary, just as schooling has long been a
necessity. From now on mankind should acquire a healthy sense of how
the social organism should function in order for it to be viable. A
feeling must be acquired that it is unhealthy and anti-social to want
to participate in this organism without such sensibilities.
It is often said that socialization is needed for these
times. This socialization will not be a curative process for the
social organism, but a quack remedy, perhaps even a destructive
process, as long as at least an instinctive knowledge of the necessity
for the triformation of the social organism has not been absorbed by
human hearts, by human souls. If this social organism is to function
in a healthy way it must methodically cultivate three constituent
members.
One of these members is the economy. It will be considered first
because it has so evidently been able to dominate human society
through modern technology and capitalism. This economic life must
constitute an autonomous member within the social organism, as
relatively autonomous as is the nervous-sensory system in the human
organism. The economy is concerned with all aspects of the production,
circulation and consumption of commodities.
The second member of the social organism is that of civil rights, of
political life as such. What can be designated as the state, in the
sense of the old rights-state, pertains to this member. Whereas the
economy is concerned with all aspects of man's natural needs and the
production, circulation and consumption of commodities, this second
member of the social organism can only concern itself with all aspects
of the relations between human beings which derive from purely human
sources. It is essential for knowledge about the members of the social
organism to be able to differentiate between the legal rights system,
which can only concern itself with relations between human beings that
derive from human sources, and the economic system, which can only be
concerned with the production, circulation and consumption of
commodities. It is necessary to sense this difference in life in order
that, as a consequence of this sensibility, the economy be separate
from the rights member, as in the human natural organism the activity
of the lungs in processing the outside air is separate from the
processes of the nervous-sensory system.
The third member, standing autonomous alongside the other two, is to
be apprehended in the social organism as that which pertains to
spiritual life. To be more precise, because the designations
spiritual culture or everything which pertains to
spiritual life, are perhaps not sufficiently precise, one could
say: everything which is based on the natural aptitudes of each human
individual; what must enter into the social organism based on the
natural aptitudes, spiritual as well as physical, of each individual.
The first system, the economic, is concerned with what must be present
in order for man to determine his relation to the outer world. The
second system is concerned with what must be present in the social
organism in respect to human inter-relationships. The third system is
concerned with everything which must blossom forth from each human
individuality and be integrated into the social organism.
Just as it is true that modern technology and capitalism have moulded
our society in recent times, it is also imperative that the wounds
necessarily inflicted on human society by them be thoroughly healed by
correctly relating man and the human community to the three members of
the social organism. The economy has, of itself, taken on quite
definite forms in recent times. Through one-sided efficiency it has
exerted an especially powerful influence on human life. Until now the
other two members of society have not been in a position to properly
integrate themselves in the social organism with the same certitude
and according to their own laws. It is therefore necessary that each
individual, in the place where he happens to be, undertakes to work
for social formation based on the sensibilities described above. It is
inherent in these attempts at solving the social questions that in the
present and in the immediate future each individual has his social
task.
The first member of the social organism, the economy, depends
primarily on nature, just as the individual, in respect to what he can
make of himself through education and experience, depends on the
aptitudes of his spiritual and physical organisms. This natural base
simply impresses itself on the economy, and thereby on the entire
social organism. It is there and cannot be affected essentially by any
social organization, by any socialization. It must constitute the
foundation of the social organism, as the human being's aptitudes in
various areas, his natural physical and spiritual abilities, must
constitute the foundation of his education. Every attempt at
socialization, at giving human society an economic structure, must
take the natural base into account. This elementary, primitive element
which binds the human being to a certain piece of nature constitutes
the foundation for the circulation of goods, all human labour and
every form of cultural-spiritual life. It is necessary to take the
relationship of the social organism to its natural base into
consideration, just as it is necessary to take the relationship of the
individual to his aptitudes into consideration where the learning
process is concerned. This can be made clear by citing extreme cases.
In certain regions of the earth, where the banana is an easily
accessible food, what is taken into consideration is the labour which
must be expended in order to transfer the bananas from their place of
origin to a certain destination and convert them into items of
consumption. If the human labour which must be expended in order to
make the bananas consumer items for society is compared with the
labour which must be expended in Central Europe to do the same with
wheat, it will be seen that the labour necessary for the bananas is at
least three hundred times less than for the wheat. Of course that is
an extreme case. Nevertheless, such differences in the required amount
of labour in relation to the natural base are also present in the
branches of production which are represented in any European society,-
not as radically as with the bananas and wheat, but the differences do
exist. It is thereby substantiated that the amount of labour power
which men must bring to the economic process is conditioned by the
natural base of their economy. In Germany, for example, in regions of
average fertility, the wheat yield is approximately seven to eight
times the amount sown; in Chile the yield is twelvefold, in northern
Mexico seventeenfold, and in Peru twentyfold.
[Note 5]
The entire homogeneous entity consisting of processes which begin with
man's relation to nature and continue through his activities in
transforming the products of nature into consumable goods, all these
processes, and only these, comprise the economic member of a healthy
social organism. This member is comparable to the head system of the
human organism which conditions individual aptitudes and, just as this
head-system is dependent on the lung-heart system, the economic system
is dependent on human labour. But the head cannot independently
regulate breathing; nor should the human labour system be regulated by
the same forces which activate the economy.
The human being is engaged in economic activity in his own interests.
These are based on his spiritual needs and on the needs of his soul.
How these interests can be most suitably approached within a social
organism so that the individual can best satisfy his interests through
the social organism and also be economically active to the best
advantage, is a question which must be resolved in practice within the
various economic facilities. This can only happen if the interests are
able to freely assert themselves, and if the will and possibility
arise to do what is necessary to satisfy them. The origin of the
interests lies beyond the circle which circumscribes economic affairs.
They develop together with the development of the human soul and body.
The task of economic life is to establish facilities in order to
satisfy them. These facilities should be exclusively concerned with
the production and interchange of commodities, that is, of goods which
acquire value through human need. The commodity has value through the
person who consumes it. Due to the fact that the commodity acquires
its value through the consumer, its position in the social organism is
completely different from the other things which the human being, as a
member of this organism, values. The economy, within the circumference
of which the production, inter-change and consumption of commodities
belong, should be considered without preconceptions. The essential
difference between the person-to-person relationship in which one
produces commodities for the other, and the rights relationship as
such will be evident. Careful consideration will lead to the
conviction and the practical requirement that in the social organism
legal rights must be completely separated from the economic sector.
The activities which are to be carried out in the facilities which
serve the production and interchange of commodities are not conducive
to the best possible influence on the area of human rights. In the
economy one individual turns to another individual because one serves
the interests of the other, but the relation of one person to another
is fundamentally different in the area of human rights.
It might seem that the required distinction would be sufficiently
realized if the legal element, which must also exist in the relations
between the persons engaged in the economy, be provided for in it.
Such a belief has no foundation in reality. The individual can only
correctly experience the legal relation which must exist between
himself and others when he does not experience this relation in the
economic area, but in an area which is completely separate from it.
Therefore, an area must develop in the social organism alongside the
economy and independent of it, in which the rights element is
cultivated and administered. The rights element is, moreover, that of
the political domain, of the state. If men carry over their economic
interests into the legislation and administration of the rights-state,
then the resulting rights will only be the expression of these
economic interests. When the rights-state manages the economy it loses
the ability to regulate human rights. Its acts and facilities must
serve the human need for commodities; they are therefore diverted from
the impulses which correspond to human rights.
The healthy social organism requires an autonomous political state as
the second member alongside the economic sector. In the autonomous
economic sector, through the forces of economic life, people will
develop facilities which will best serve the production and
interchange of commodities. In the political state facilities will
develop which will orient the mutual relations between persons and
groups in a way which corresponds to human rights-awareness.
This viewpoint, which advocates the complete separation of
rights-state and economy, is one which corresponds to the realities of
life. The same cannot be said for the viewpoint which would merge the
economic and rights functions. Those who are active in the economic
sector do, of course, possess a rights-awareness; but their
participation in legislative and administrative processes will derive
exclusively from this rights-awareness only if their judgement in this
area occurs within the framework of a rights-state which does not
occupy itself with economic matters. Such a rights-state has its own
legislative and administrative bodies, both structured according to
the principles which derive from the modern rights awareness. It will
be structured according to the impulses in human consciousness
nowadays referred to as democratic. The economic area will form its
legislative and administrative bodies in accordance with economic
impulses. The necessary contact between the responsible persons of the
legal and economic bodies will ensue in a manner similar to that at
present practised by the governments of sovereign states. Through this
formation the developments in one body will be able to have the
necessary effect on developments in the other. As things are now this
effect is hindered by one area trying to develop in itself what should
flow toward it from the other.
The economy is subject, on the one hand, to the conditions of the
natural base (climate, regional geography, mineral wealth and so
forth) and, on the other hand, it is dependent upon the legal
conditions which the state imposes between the persons or groups
engaged in economic activity. The boundaries of what economic activity
can and should encompass are therefore laid out. Just as nature
imposes prerequisites from the outside on the economic process which
those engaged in economic activity take for granted as something upon
which they must build this economy, so should everything which
underlies the legal relationship between persons be regulated, in a
healthy social organism, by a rights-state which, like the natural
base, is autonomous in its relation to the economy.
In the social organism that has evolved through the history of mankind
and which, by means of the machine age and the modern capitalistic
economic form, has given the social movement its characteristic stamp,
economic activity encompasses more than is good for a healthy social
organism. In today's economic system, in which only commodities should
circulate, human labour-power and rights circulate as well. In the
economic process of today, which is based on the division of labour,
not only are commodities exchanged for commodities, but commodities
are exchanged for both labour and for rights. (I call commodity
everything which has been prepared by human activity for consumption
and brought to a certain locality for this purpose. Although this
description may be objectionable or seem insufficient to some
economists, it can nevertheless be useful for an understanding of just
what should belong to economic activity.*) When someone acquires a
piece of land through purchase, the process must be considered an
exchange of the land for commodities, represented by the purchase
money. The land itself, however, does not act as a commodity in
economic life. Its position is based on the right of a person to use
it. This right is essentially different from the relationship in which
the producer of a commodity finds himself. This relationship, by its
very nature, does not overlap with the completely different type of
person-to-person relationship which results from the fact that someone
has the exclusive use of a piece of land. The owner puts those persons
who earn their living on the land as his employees, or those who must
live on it, in a position of dependence on him. The exchange of real
commodities which are produced or consumed does not cause a dependence
which has the same effect as this personal kind of relationship.
* It is not the task of a work which intends to serve life to give
definitions which originate in a theory, but to contribute ideas which
illustrate the processes taking place in reality.
Commodity in this sense indicates something which the
human being experiences; any other concept of commodity
omits or adds something, so that the concept does not correspond to
the living process of reality.
Looking at this fact of life impartially, one sees clearly that it
must find expression in the institutions of the entire social
organism. As long as commodities are exchanged for other commodities
in the economic sphere, the value of these commodities is determined
independently of the legal relations between persons or groups. As
soon as commodities are exchanged for rights, however, the legal
relations themselves are affected. It is not a question of the
exchange itself. This is a necessary, vital element of the
contemporary social organism based on its division of labour; the
problem is that through the exchange of rights for commodities the
rights become commodities when they originate within the economic
sphere. This can only be avoided by the existence of facilities in the
social organism which, on the one hand, have the exclusive function of
activating the circulation of commodities in the most expedient
manner, and, on the other hand, facilities which regulate the rights,
inherent in the commodity exchange process, of those individuals who
produce, trade and consume. These rights are essentially no different
from other rights of a personal nature which exist independently of
the commodity exchange process. If I injure or benefit my fellow-man
through the sale of a commodity, this belongs in the same social
category as an injury or benefit through an act or omission not
directly related to commodity exchange.
The individual's way of life is influenced by rights institutions
acting together with economic interests.
In a healthy social organism these influences must come from two
different directions. In the economic organization formal training,
together with experience, is to provide management with the necessary
insights. Through law and administration in the rights organization
the necessary rights-awareness, in respect to the relations of
individuals, or groups of individuals, to each other will be realized.
The economic organization will allow persons with similar professional
or consumer interests, or with similar needs of other kinds, to unite
in cooperative associations which, through reciprocal activities, will
underlie the entire economy. This organization will structure itself
on an associative foundation and on the interrelations between
associations. The associations will engage in purely economic
activities. The legal basis for their work is provided by the rights
organization. When such economic associations are able to make their
economic interests felt in the representative and administrative
bodies of the economic organization, they will not feel the need to
pressure the legislative or administrative leadership of the
rights-state (for example, farmers' and industrialists' lobbies,
economically orientated social democrats) in order to attain there
what is not attainable within the economic sector. If the rights state
is not active in any economic field, then it will only establish
facilities which derive from the rights awareness of the persons
involved. Even if the same individuals who are active in the economic
area also participate in the representation of the rights-state, which
would of course be the case, no economic influence can be exerted on
the rights sector, due to the formation of separate economic and legal
systems. Such influence undermines the health of the social organism,
as it can also be undermined when the state organization itself
manages branches of the economic sector and when representatives of
economic interests determine laws in accordance with those interests.
Austria offered a typical example of the fusion of the economic and
rights sectors with the constitution it adopted in the
eighteen-sixties. The representatives of the imperial assembly of this
territorial union were elected from the ranks of the four economic
branches: The land owners, the chamber of commerce, the cities,
markets and industrial areas, and the rural communities. It is clear
from this composition of the representative assembly that they thought
a rights system would ensue by allowing economic interests to exert
themselves. Certainly the divergent forces of its many nationalities
contributed a great deal to Austria's disintegration. It is equally
certain, however, that a rights organization functioning alongside the
economy would have enabled the development of a form of society in
which the co-existence of the various nationalities would have been
possible.
Nowadays people interested in public life usually direct their
attention to matters of secondary importance. They do this because
their thinking habits induce them to consider the social organism as a
uniform entity. A suitable elective process for such an entity is not
to be found. Regardless of the elective process employed, economic
interests and the impulses emanating from the rights sector will
conflict with each other in the representative bodies. This conflict
must result in extreme social agitation. Priority must be given today
to the all-important objective of working toward a drastic separation
of the economy from the rights-organization. As this separation
becomes a reality, the separating organizations will, each according
to their own principles, find the best means of choosing their
legislators and administrators. This question of how to choose such
representatives, although as such of fundamental significance, is
secondary compared to the other pressing decisions which must be made
today. Where old conditions still exist, these new forms could be
developed from them. Where the old has already disintegrated, or is in
the process of doing so, individuals or groups of individuals should
take the initiative in attempting to reorganize society in the
indicated direction. To expect an overnight transformation is seen
even by reasonable socialists as unrealistic. They expect the healing
process which they desire to be gradual and relevant. However, that
the historical human evolutionary forces of today make a rational
desire for a new social structure necessary is perfectly obvious to
every objective person who observes current events.
He who considers practical only what he has become
accustomed to within the limits of his own horizons, will consider
what is presented here as impractical. If he is not able
to change his attitude however, and has influence in some area, his
actions will not contribute to the healing, but to the continued
degeneration of the social organism, just as the deeds of people of
like mind have contributed to present conditions.
The endeavours which have already begun to be realized by those in
authority to turn certain economic functions (post office, railroads,
etc.) over to the state must be reversed; the state must be relieved
of all economic functions. Thinkers who like to believe that they are
on the road to a healthy social organism carry these efforts at
nationalization to their logically extreme conclusions. They desire
the socialization of all economic means, insofar as they are means of
production. Healthy development, however, requires that the economy be
autonomous and the political state be able, through the process of
law, to affect economic organizations in such a way that the
individual does not feel that his integration in the social organism
is in conflict with his rights-awareness.
It is possible to see how the ideas presented here are based on the
realities of the human situation by directing one's attention to the
physical labour which the human being performs for the social
organism. Within the capitalistic economic form, this labour has been
incorporated into the social organism in such a way that it is bought
like a commodity from the worker by his employer. An exchange takes
place between money (representing commodities) and labour. But such an
exchange cannot, in reality, take place. It only appears to do so.* In
reality, the employer receives commodities from the worker, which can
only come into existence by the worker devoting his labour-power to
their creation. The worker receives one part of the equivalent value
of these commodities and the employer the other. The production of
commodities results from the cooperation of the employer and the
employed. Only the product of their joint action passes into economic
circulation. A legal relationship between worker and entrepreneur is
necessary for the production of the commodity. Capitalism, however, is
capable of converting this relationship into one which is determined
by the economic supremacy of the employer over the worker. In the
healthy social organism it will be apparent that labour cannot be paid
for. It cannot attain an economic value through equivalence with a
commodity. These, produced by labour, acquire value through
equivalence with other commodities. The kind and amount of work as
well as the way in which the individual performs it for the
maintenance of the social organism, must be determined by his own
abilities as well as the requisites for a decent human existence. This
is only possible if the determination is carried out by the political
state independently of economic management.
* It is not only possible for processes in life to be explained
falsely, they can also occur falsely. Money and labour are not
inter-changeable values as are money and the products of labour.
Therefore, if I give money for labour I do something false. I create a
deception. In reality, I can only give money for the products of labour.
Through this determination the commodity will acquire a value basis
which is comparable to that which exists in the conditions imposed by
nature. As the value of a commodity increases in relation to another
commodity due to the acquisition of the raw materials necessary for
its production becoming more difficult, so must its value also be
dependent upon the kind and amount of labour which may be expended for
its production in accordance with rights legislation.** In this way
the economy becomes subject to two essential conditions: that of the
natural base, which humanity must take as it is given, and that of the
rights base, which should be created through a rights-awareness with
roots in a political state independent of economic interests.
** Such a relationship of labour to rights legislation will compel the
economic associations to accept what is just as a
precondition. Thereby a condition will be attained in which the
economic organization is dependent on people, and not vice-versa.
It is evident that by managing the social organism in this way,
economic prosperity will increase and decrease according to the amount
of labour rights-awareness decides to expend. In a healthy social
organism it is necessary that economic prosperity be dependent in this
way, for only such dependence can prevent man from being so consumed
by economic life that he can no longer consider his existence worthy
of human dignity. And, in truth, all the turmoil in the social
organism results from the feeling that existence is unworthy of human
dignity.
A comparison with the means employed to improve the natural base can
be used to find possible means of avoiding steep declines in
prosperity as an effect of the rights sector's measures.
A low yield soil can be made more productive through the use of
technical means; similarly, if prosperity declines excessively the
type and amount of labour can be modified. This modification should
not emanate directly from economic circles, but from the insight which
can develop in a rights organisation which is independent of economic
life.
Everything which occurs in the social organization due to economic
activity and rights-awareness is influenced by what emanates from a
third source: the individual abilities of each human being. This
includes the greatest spiritual accomplishments as well as superior or
inferior physical aptitudes. What derives from this source must be
introduced into the healthy social organism in quite a different
manner than the exchange of commodities or what emanates from the
state. This introduction can only be effected in a sound manner if it
is left to man's free receptivity and the impulses which come from
individual abilities. The human efforts and achievements which result
from such abilities are, to a great extent, deprived of the true
essence of their being if they are influenced by economic interests or
the state organization. This essence can only exist in the forces
which human effort and achievement must develop of and by themselves.
Free receptivity, the only suitable means, is paralysed when the
social integration of these efforts and achievements is directly
conditioned by economic life or organized by the state. There is only
one possible healthy form of development for spiritual life: what it
produces shall be the result of its own impulses and a relationship of
mutual understanding shall exist between itself and the recipients of
its achievements. (The development of the individual abilities present
in society is connected to the development of spiritual life by
countless fine threads.)
The conditions described here for the healthy development of
spiritual-cultural life are not recognized today because powers of
observation have been clouded by the fusion of a large part of this
life with the political state. This fusion has come about in the
course of the past centuries and we have grown accustomed to it. There
is talk, of course, of scientific and educational freedom.
It is taken for granted however, that the political state should
administer the free science and the free
education.
It is not understood that in this way the state makes spiritual life
dependent on state requirements. People think that the state can
provide the educational facilities and that the teachers who occupy
them can develop culture and spiritual life freely in
them. This opinion ignores how closely related the content of
spiritual life is to the innermost essence of the human being in which
it is developing, and how this development can only be free when it is
introduced into the social organism through the impulses which
originate in spiritual life itself, and through no others. Through
fusion with the state, not only the administration of science and the
part of spiritual life connected with it has been determined, but the
content as well. Of course what mathematics or physics produce cannot
be directly influenced by the state. But the history of the cultural
sciences shows that they have become reflections of their
representatives' relations to the state and of state requirements. Due
to this phenomenon, the contemporary scientifically oriented concepts
which dominate spiritual life affect the proletarian as ideology. He
has noticed how certain aspects of human thought are determined by
state requirements which correspond to the interests of the ruling
classes. The thinking proletarian saw therein a reflection of material
interests as well as a battle of conflicting interests. This created
the feeling that all spiritual life is ideology, a reflection of
economic organization.
This desolating view of human spiritual life ceases when the feeling
can arise that in the spiritual sphere a self-containing reality,
transcending the material, is at work. It is impossible for such a
feeling to arise when spiritual life is not freely self-developing and
administering within the social organism. Only those persons who are
active in the development and administration of spiritual life have
the strength to secure its appropriate place in the social organism.
Art, science, philosophical world-views, and all that goes with them,
need just such an independent position in human society, for in
spiritual life everything is interrelated. The freedom of one cannot
flourish without the freedom of the other. Although the content of
mathematics and physics cannot be directly influenced by state
requirements, what develops from them, what people think of their
value, what effects their cultivation can have on the rest of
spiritual life, and much more, is conditioned by these requirements
when the state administers branches of spiritual life. It is very
different if a teacher of the lowest school grades follows the
impulses of the state or if he receives these impulses from a
spiritual life which is self-contained. The Social Democrats have
merely inherited the habits of thought and the customs of the ruling
classes in this respect. Their ideal is to include spiritual life in
social institutions which are built upon economic principles. If they
succeed in reaching their goal, they will only have continued along
the path of spiritual depreciation. They were correct, although
one-sided, in their demand that religion be a private affair. In a
healthy social organism all spiritual life must be, in respect to the
state and the economy, a private affair. But the social
democrats' motive in wanting to transfer religion to the private
sector is not a desire to create a position within the social organism
where a spiritual institution would develop in a more desirable,
worthier manner than it can under state influence. They are of the
opinion that the social organism should only cultivate with its own
means its own necessities of life. And religious values do not belong
to this category. A branch of spiritual life cannot flourish when it
is unilaterally removed from the public sector in this way, if the
other spiritual branches remain fettered. Modern humanity's religious
life will only develop its soul-sustaining strength together with all
the other liberated branches of spiritual life.
Not only the creation but also the reception by humanity of this
spiritual life must be freely determined in accordance with the soul's
necessities. Teachers, artists and such whose only direct connection
with a legislature or an administration is with those which have their
origin in spiritual life itself, will be able, through their actions,
to inspire the development of a receptivity for their efforts and
achievements amongst individuals who are protected by a self-reliant,
independent political state from being forced to exist only for work,
and which guarantees their right to a leisure that can awaken in them
an appreciation of spiritual values. Those persons who imagine
themselves to be practical may object that people would
pass their leisure time drinking and that illiteracy would result if
the state occupied itself with the right to leisure and if school
attendance were left to free human common sense. Let these
pessimists wait and see what will happen when the world is
no longer under their influence all too often determined by a certain
feeling which, whispering in their ear, softly reminds them of how
they use their leisure time, what they needed to acquire a little
learning. They cannot imagine the power of enthusiasm
which a really self-contained spiritual life can have in the social
organism, because the fettered one they know cannot exert such an
enthusiastic influence over them.
Both the political state and the economy will receive the spiritual
performance they require from a self-administered spiritual organism.
Furthermore, practical economic training will reach full effectiveness
through free cooperation with this organism. People who have received
the appropriate training will be able to vitalize their economic
experience through the strength which will come to them from liberated
spiritual values. Those with economic experience will also work for
the spiritual organization, where their abilities are most needed.
In the political area, the necessary insights will be formed through
the activation of spiritual values. The worker will acquire, through
the influence of such spiritual values, a feeling of satisfaction in
respect to the function his labour performs in the social organism. He
will realize that without management organizing labour in a meaningful
way the social organism could not support him. He will sense the need
for cooperation between his work and the organizing abilities which
derive from the development of individual human abilities. Within the
framework of the political state he will acquire the rights which
insure him his share of the commodities he produces; and he will
freely grant an appropriate share of the proceeds for the formation of
the spiritual values which flow toward him. In the field of
spiritual-cultural life, it will become possible for those engaged in
creative activities to live from the proceeds of their efforts. What
someone practices in the field of spiritual life is his own affair.
What he is able to contribute to the social organism however, will be
recompensed by those who have need of his spiritual contribution.
Whoever is not able to support himself within the spiritual
organization from such compensation will have to transfer his
activities to the political or economic sphere of activity.
The technical ideas that derive from spiritual life flow into the
economic sector. They derive from spiritual life even when they come
directly from members of the state or economic sectors. All
organizational ideas and forces which fecundate the economic and state
sectors originate in spiritual life. Compensation for this input to
both social sectors will come either through the free appreciation of
the beneficiaries, or through laws determined by the political state.
Tax laws will provide this political state with what it needs to
maintain itself. These will be devised through a harmonization of
rights awareness and economic requirements.
In a healthy social organism the autonomous spiritual sector must
function alongside the political and economic sectors. The
evolutionary forces in modern mankind point toward a triformation of
this organism. As long as society was essentially governed by
instinctive forces, the urge for this formation did not arise. What
actually derived from three sources functioned somewhat torpidly
together in society. Modern times demand the individual's conscious
participation in this organism. This consciousness can only give the
individual's behaviour and whole life a healthy form if it is oriented
from three sides. Modern man, in the unconscious depths of his soul,
strives toward this orientation; and what manifests itself in the
social movement is only the dim reflection of this striving.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, under different
circumstances than those under which we at present live, a call for a
new formation of the human social organism arose from the depths of
human nature. The motto of this reorganization consisted of three
words: fraternity, equality, liberty. Anyone with an objective mind,
who considers the realities of human social development with healthy
sensibilities, cannot help but be sympathetic to the meaning behind
these words. However, during the course of the nineteenth century,
some very clever thinkers took pains to point out the impossibility of
realizing these ideals of fraternity, equality and liberty in a
uniform social organism. They felt certain that these three impulses
would be contradictory if practised in society. It was clearly
demonstrated, for example, that individual freedom would not be
possible if the equality principle were practised. One is obliged to
agree with those who observed these contradictions; nevertheless, one
must at the same time feel sympathy for each of these ideals.
These contradictions exist because the true social meaning of these
three ideals only becomes evident through an understanding of the
necessary triformation of the social organism. The three members are
not to be united and centralized in some abstract, theoretical
parliamentary body. Each of the three members is to be centralized
within itself, and then, through their mutual cooperation, the unity
of the overall social organism can come about. In real life, the
apparent contradictions act as a unifying element. An apprehension of
the living social organism can be attained when one is able to observe
the true formation of this organism with respect to fraternity,
equality and liberty. It will then be evident that human cooperation
in economic life must be based on the fraternity which is inherent in
associations. In the second member, the civil rights system, which is
concerned with purely human, person-to-person relations, it is
necessary to strive for the realization of the idea of equality. And
in the relatively independent spiritual sector of the social organism
it is necessary to strive for the realization of the idea of freedom.
Seen in this light, the real worth of these three ideals becomes
clear. They cannot be realized in a chaotic society, but only in a
healthy, threefold social organism. No abstract, centralized social
structure is able to realize the ideals of liberty, equality and
fraternity in such disarrangement; but each of the three sectors of
the social organism can draw strength from one of these impulses and
cooperate in a positive manner with the other sectors.
Those individuals who demanded and worked for the realization of the
three ideas liberty, equality and fraternity as well as
those who later followed in their footsteps, were able to dimly
discern in which direction modern humanity's forces of evolution are
pointing. But they have not been able to overcome their belief in the
uniform state, so their ideas contain a contradictory element.
Nevertheless, they remained faithful to the contradictory, for in the
subconscious depths of their souls the impulse toward the triformation
of the social organism, in which the triplicity of their ideas can
attain to a higher unity, continued to exert itself. The clearly
discernible social facts of contemporary life demand that the forces
of evolution, which in modern mankind strive toward this triformation,
be turned into conscious will.
Last Modified: 02-Nov-2024
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