Chapter Two
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 our 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 coordinated, 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, separated.]
In my book “Von
Seelenrätseln” [Von
Seelenrätseln. Extracts from this book have been published by the Rudolf
Steiner Press, London. 1970, under the title The Case for
Anthroposophy, selected, translated, arranged and with an introduction
by Owen Barfield.] 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 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 way of
thinking, 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 these will
be recognized. It is not possible, however, to wait where these things are
concerned. In every human soul – for every human mind takes part in the
functioning of the social organism – and not only in the minds of a few
specialists, at least an instinctive knowledge of what this social organism
needs, must be present. Healthy thinking and feeling, healthy will and
aspirations with regard to the organization 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 analogy games. To assume that in my 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 rather 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 soul, will cease be effective 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 tri-formation of the social organism has not been
absorbed by human hearts, by human minds. 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 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 order that, as a consequence of
this sensibility, the economy be separate from the political 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 sphere, the economic, is
concerned with what must be present in order for man to determine his
relation to the outer world. The second sphere is concerned with what must
be present in the social organism in respect to human inter-relationships.
The third sphere 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 molded 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 or she 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 labor 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 labor 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 labor which must be expended in order to make the bananas consumer
items for society is compared with the labor which must be expended in
Central Europe to do the same with wheat, it will be seen that the labor
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 labor 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 labor
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 twelve-fold, in northern Mexico
seventeen-fold, and in Peru twenty-fold. [Carl
Jentsch, Volkswirtschaftslehre (Economics) published 1895.]
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 labor. But the head cannot
independently regulate breathing; nor should the human labor system be
regulated by the same forces which control 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 rights 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 rights 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 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 people 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 guarantee human
rights. Its acts and facilities will serve the need for commodities; they
are therefore diverted from the actions 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 judgment 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 rights and economic bodies will ensue in a
manner similar to that at present practiced by the governments of different
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 history and which, by means of the machine age and modern
capitalism has given the social movement its characteristic stamp, economic
activity encompasses more than is good for a healthy social organism. In
today's economic sphere, in which only commodities should circulate, human
labor and rights circulate as well. In the economic process of today, which
is based on the division of labor, not only are commodities exchanged for
commodities, but commodities are exchanged for both labor 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.
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 labor; 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 life is influenced by
rights institutions [states] 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,
will organize the 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 will be provided by the rights-state. 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 rights systems. Such influence
undermines the health of the social organism, as it can also be undermined
when the state 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.
One 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 endeavors which have already begun
to be realized by those in authority to turn certain economic functions
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 labor which the human being
performs for the social organism. Within the capitalistic economy, this
labor 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 labor. But such an
exchange cannot, in reality, take place. It only appears to do so.
[It is not only possible for
processes in life to be explained falsely, they can also occur falsely.
Money and labor are not inter-changeable values as are money and the
products of labor Therefore, if I give money for labor, I do something
false. I create a deception. In reality, I can only give money for the
products of labor.]
In reality, the employer receives commodities from the worker, which can only
come into existence by the worker devoting his labor-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, converts 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 labor cannot be paid for. It cannot attain an economic value
through equivalence with a commodity. These, produced by labor, 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
independent of economic interests.
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 labor which may be
expended for its production in accordance with rights legislation.
[Such a relationship of labor 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-verse.]
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.
It is evident that by organizing the
social organism in this way, economic prosperity will increase and decrease
according to the amount of labor 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 interests 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 labor can be modified. This
modification should not emanate directly from economic circles, but from
the insight which can develop in a rights organization 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 political state. 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 paralyzed
when the social integration of these efforts and achievements is directly
conditioned by economic interests or organized by the state. There is only
one possible healthy form of development for spiritual-cultural 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 and social 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 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 element, is at work. It
is impossible for such a feeling to arise when spiritual life is not freely
self-developing and administered within the social organism. Only those
persons who are active in the development and administration of
spiritual-cultural 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-cultural
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 she
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-cultural life in social institutions which are organized 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 state legislature or 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 among 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, 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-cultural 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 that
will come to them from liberated spiritual values. Those with economic
experience will also work for the spiritual-cultural 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 labor performs in
the social organism. He will realize that without management organizing
labor 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 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
threefold formation 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 behavior and whole life a healthy form if it is oriented from
three sources. 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 live at
present, 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 practiced in society. It was clearly demonstrated, for
example, that individual freedom would not be possible if the equality
principle were practiced 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 threefold formation 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 state, 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 threefold
formation of the social organism, in which their ideals 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 threefold formation, be turned into
conscious will.