Preface to the Fourth German Edition — 1920
The challenges which
contemporary society presents will be misunderstood by those who
approach them with utopian ideas. It is of course possible to believe
that any one of diverse theories, arrived at through personal
observation and conviction, will result in making people happy. Such a
belief can acquire overwhelming persuasive power. Nevertheless, as far
as the social question of the times is concerned, it becomes irrelevant
as soon as an attempt is made to assert it.
The following example,
although seeming to carry this proposition to an extreme, is
nevertheless valid. Let us assume that someone is in possession of a
perfect, theoretical ‘solution’ to the social question. In spite of
this, in attempting to offer it to the public he becomes the victim of
an unpractical belief. We no longer live in an age in which public life
can be influenced in this way. People's minds are simply not disposed
to accept the ideas of another as far as this subject is concerned.
They will not say: here is someone who knows how society should be
structured, so we will act according to his opinions.
People are not interested
in social ideas which are presented to them in this way. This book,
which has already reached a fairly large audience, takes this
phenomenon into consideration. Those who accuse it of having a utopian
character have completely misunderstood my intentions. It is
interesting to note that such criticism has come principally from
people who themselves indulge almost exclusively in utopian thinking
and are inclined to attribute their own mental habits to
others.
Truly practical people know
from experience that even the most convincing utopian ideas lead
absolutely nowhere. In spite of this, many of them seem to feel obliged
to propound just such ideas, especially in the field of economics. They
should realize that they are wasting their breath, that their fellow
men will not be able to apply such propositions.
The above should be treated
as a fact of life inasmuch as it indicates an important characteristic
of contemporary society, namely, that our present notions concerning
economics, for example, have little relation to reality. How can we
then hope to cope with the chaotic condition of society if we approach
it with a thought process which has no relation to reality?
This question can hardly
meet with favor as it requires the admission that our thinking is
indeed remote from reality. Nevertheless, without such an admission we
will not get to the bottom of the social question. Only when we
understand that this divorce of thought from reality is a condition of
the utmost seriousness for contemporary civilization, can we become
clear in our own minds as to what society really needs.
The whole question revolves
around the shape of contemporary spiritual life. Modern man has
developed a spiritual life which is to a very large extent dependent
upon political institutions and economic forces. While still a child he
is given over to a state educational system, and his upbringing must
correspond to the economic circumstances of his environment.
It is easy to believe that
this situation results in the individual becoming well-adjusted to
contemporary life, that the political state is best qualified to
organize the educational system – and cultural affairs in general – for
the benefit of the community. It is also easy to believe that the
individual who is educated according to the economic conditions of his
environment, and who is then placed according to these conditions
becomes the best possible member of human society.
This book must assume the
unpopular task of showing that the chaotic condition of our public life
derives from the dependence of spiritual life on the political state
and economic interests. It must also show that the liberation of
spiritual life and culture from this dependence constitutes an
important element of the burning social question.
This involves attacking
certain wide-spread errors. For example, the political state's
assumption of responsibility for education has long been considered to
be beneficial for human progress. For people with socialistic ideas it
is inconceivable that society should do anything but shape the
individual according to its standards and for its service.
It is not easy to accept a
very important fact of historical development, namely, that what was
proper during an earlier period can be erroneous for a later period.
For a new era in human relations to emerge, it was necessary that the
circles which controlled education and culture be relieved of this
function and that it be transferred to the political state. However, to
persist in this arrangement is a grave social error.
The first part of this book
attempts to indicate this. Human culture has matured toward freedom
within the framework of the state, but it cannot exercise this freedom
without complete autonomy of action. The nature which spiritual life
has assumed requires that it constitute a fully autonomous member of
the social organism. The administration of education, from which all
culture develops, must be turned over to the educators. Economic and
political considerations should be entirely excluded from this
administration. Each teacher should arrange his or her time so that
they can also be an administrator in their field. They should be just
as much at home attending to administrative matters as they are in the
classroom. No one should make decisions who is not directly engaged in
the educational process. No parliament or congress, nor any individual
who was perhaps once an educator, is to have anything to say. What is
experienced in the teaching process would then flow naturally into the
administration. By its very nature such a system would engender
competence and objectivity.
Of course, one could object
that such a self-governing spiritual-cultural sector would not be
perfect either. But we cannot expect perfection; we can only strive
toward the best possible situation. The capabilities which the child
develops can best be transmitted to the community if its education is
the exclusive responsibility of those whose judgment rests on a
spiritual foundation. To what extent a child should be taught one thing
or another, can only be correctly determined within a free cultural
community. How such determinations are to be made binding is also a
matter for this community. The state and the economy would be able to
absorb vigor from such a community, which is not attainable when the
organization of cultural institutions is based on political and
economic standards.
Even the schools which
directly serve the state and the economy should be administered by the
educators: law schools, trade-schools, agricultural and industrial
colleges, all should be administered by the representatives of a free
spiritual life. This book will necessarily arouse many prejudices,
especially if the consequences of its thesis are considered. What is
the source of these prejudices? We recognize their antisocial nature
when we perceive that they originate in the unconscious belief that
teachers are impractical people who cannot be trusted to assume
practical responsibilities on their own. It is assumed that all
organization must be carried out by those who are engaged in practical
matters, and educators should act according to the terms of reference
determined for them.
This assumption ignores the
fact that it is just when teachers are not permitted to determine their
own functions that they tend to become impractical and remote from
reality. As long as the so-called experts determine the terms of
reference according to which they must function, they will never be in
a position to turn out practical individuals who are equipped for life
by their education. The current antisocial state of affairs is the
result of individuals entering society who lack social sensitivity
because of their education. Socially sensitive individuals can only
develop within an educational system which is conducted and
administered by other socially sensitive individuals. No progress will
be made towards solving the social question if we do not treat the
question of education and culture as an essential part of it. An
antisocial situation is not merely the result of economic structures,
it is also caused by the antisocial behavior of the individuals who are
active in these structures. It is antisocial to allow youth to be
educated by people who themselves have become strangers to reality
because the conduct and content of their work has been dictated to them
from without.
The state establishes law
schools and requires that the law they teach be in accordance with the
state's own view of jurisprudence. If these schools were established as
free cultural institutions, they would derive the substance of their
jurisprudence from this very culture. The state would then become the
recipient of what this free spiritual life has to offer. It would be
enriched by the living ideas which can only arise within such a
spiritual environment. Within a spiritual life of this nature society
would encounter the men and women who could grow into it on their own
terms. Worldliness does not originate in educational institutions
organized by so-called ‘experts,’ in which impractical people teach,
but only in educators who understand life and the world according to
their own viewpoints. Particulars of how such a free culture should
organize itself are outlined in this book.
The utopian-minded will
approach the book with all kinds of doubts. Anxious artists and other
spiritual workers will question whether talent would be better off in a
free culture than in one which is provided for by the state and
economic interests, as is the case today. Such doubters should bear in
mind that this book is not meant to be the least bit utopian. No hard
and fast theories are found in it which say that things must be this
way or that. On the contrary, its intention is to stimulate the
formation of communities which, as a result of their common experience,
will be able to bring about what is socially desirable. If we consider
life from experience instead of theoretical preconceptions, we will
agree that creative individuals would have better prospects of seeing
their work fairly judged if a free cultural community existed which
could act according to its own values.
The ‘social question’ is
not something which has suddenly appeared at this stage of human
evolution and which can be resolved by a few individuals or by some
parliamentary body and stay resolved. It is an integral part of modern
civilization which has come to stay, and as such will have to be
resolved anew for each moment in the world's historical development.
Humanity has now entered into a phase in which social institutions
constantly produce antisocial tendencies. These tendencies must be
overcome each time. Just as a satiated organism experiences hunger
again after a period of time, so the social organism passes from order
to disorder. A food which permanently stills hunger does not exist;
neither does a universal social panacea. Nevertheless, people can enter
into communities in which they would be able to continuously direct
their activities in a social direction. One such community is the
self-governing spiritual/cultural branch of the social
organism.
Observation of the
contemporary world indicates that the spiritual/cultural sector
requires free self-administration, while the economy requires
associative work. The modern economic process consists of the
production, circulation and consumption of commodities. Human needs are
satisfied by means of this process and human beings are directly
involved in it, each having his own part-interest, each participating
to the extent he is able. What each individual really needs can only be
known by himself, what he should contribute he can determine through
his insight into the situation as a whole. It was not always so, and it
is not yet the case the world over; but it is essentially true as far
as the civilized inhabitants of the earth are concerned.
Economic activity has
expanded in the course of human evolution. Town economies developed
from closed household economies and in turn grew into national
economies. Today we stand before a global economy. Undoubtedly the new
contains much of the old, just as the old showed indications of what
was to come. Nevertheless, human destiny is conditioned by the fact
that this process, in most fields of economic endeavor, has already
been accomplished. Any attempt to organize economic forces into an
abstract world community is erroneous. In the course of evolution
private economic enterprise has, to a large extent, become state
economic enterprise. But the political states are not merely the
products of economic forces, and the attempt to transform them into
economic communities is the cause of the social chaos of modern times.
Economic life is striving to structure itself according to its own
nature, independent of political institutionalization and mentality. It
can only do this if associations, comprised of consumers, distributors
and producers, are established according to purely economic criteria.
Actual conditions would determine the scope of these associations. If
they are too small, they would be too costly; if they are too large,
they would become economically unmanageable. Practical necessity would
indicate how inter-associational relations should develop. There is no
need to fear that individual mobility would be inhibited due to the
existence of associations. He who requires mobility would experience
flexibility in passing from one association to another, as long as
economic interest and not political organization determines the move.
It is possible to foresee processes within such associations which are
comparable to currency in circulation.
Professionalism and
objectivity could cause a general harmony of interests to prevail in
the associations. Not laws, but people using their immediate insights
and interests, would regulate the production, circulation and
consumption of goods. They would acquire the necessary insights through
their participation in the associations; goods could circulate at their
appropriate values due to the fact that the various interests
represented would be compensated by means of contracts. This type of
economic cooperation is quite different from that practiced by the
labor-unions which, although operational in the economic field, are
established according to political instead of economic principles.
Basically, parliamentary bodies, they do not function according to
economic principles of reciprocal output. But in the associations,
there would be no ‘wage earners’ using their collective strength to
demand the highest possible wages from management, but artisans who,
together with management and consumer representatives, determine
reciprocal outputs by means of price regulation – something which
cannot be accomplished by sessions of parliamentary bodies. This is
important! For who would do the work if countless man-hours were spent
in negotiations about it? But with person to person, association to
association agreements, work would go on as usual. Of course, it is
necessary that all agreements reflect the workers' insights and the
consumers' interests. This is not the description of a utopia. I am not
saying how things should be arranged but indicating how people will
arrange things for themselves once they activate the type of
associative communities which correspond to their own insights and
interests.
Human nature would see to
it that men and women unite in such economic communities, were they not
prevented from doing so by political state intervention, for nature
determines needs. A free spiritual life would also contribute, for it
begets social insights. Anyone who is in a position to consider all
this from experience will have to admit that these economic
associations could come into being at any moment, and that there is
nothing utopian about them. All that stands in their way is modern
man's obsession with the external organization of economic activity.
Free association is the exact opposite of this external organizing for
the purpose of production. When people associate, the planning of the
whole originates in the reasoning of the individual. What is the point
of those who own no property associating with those who do! It may seem
preferable to ‘justly’ regulate production and consumption externally.
Such external planning sacrifices the free, creative initiative of the
individual, thereby depriving the economy of what such initiative alone
can give it. If, in spite of all prejudice, an attempt were made today
to establish such associations, the reciprocal output between owners
and non-owners would necessarily occur. The instincts which govern the
consideration of such things nowadays do not originate in economic
experience, but in sentiments which have developed from class and other
interests. They were able to develop because purely economic thought
has not kept pace with the complexities of modern economics. An unfree
spiritual-culture has prevented this. The individuals who labor in
industry are caught in a routine, and the formative economic forces are
invisible to them. They labor without having insight into the wholeness
of human life. In the associations each individual would learn what he
should know through contact with others. Through the participants'
insight and experience in relation to their respective activities and
their resulting ability to exercise collective judgment, knowledge of
what is economically possible would arise. In a free spiritual life,
the only active forces are those inherent in it; in the same sense, the
only economic values active in an associatively structured economic
system would be those which develop through the associations
themselves. The individual's role would emerge from cooperation with
his associates. He could thereby exert just as much economic influence
as corresponds to his output. How the non-productive elements would be
integrated into economic life will be explained in the course of the
book. Only an economic system which is self-structured can protect the
weak against the strong.
We have seen that the
social organism can be arranged into two autonomous members able to
support each other only because each is self-governing according to its
inherent nature. Between them a third element must function: the
political state. Here is where each individual who is of age can make
his influence and judgment felt. In free spiritual life each person
works according to his particular abilities; in the economic sphere
each takes his place according to his associative relationship. In the
context of the political rights-state the purely human element comes
into its own, insofar as it is independent of the abilities by means of
which the individual is active in spiritual/cultural life, and
independent of the value accrued to the goods he produces in the
associative economic sphere.
I have attempted to show in
this book how hours and conditions of labor are matters to be dealt
with by the political rights-state. All are equal in this area due to
the fact that only matters are to be treated in it about which all are
equally competent to form an opinion. Human rights and obligations are
to be determined within this member of the social organism.
The unity of the whole
social organism will originate in the independent development of its
three members. The book will show how the effectiveness of capital,
means of production and land use, can be determined through the
cooperation of the three members or sectors. Those who wish to solve
the social question by means of some economic scheme will find this
book impractical. However, those who have practical experience and
would stimulate men and women to cooperative ventures through which
they can best recognize and dedicate themselves to the social tasks of
the day, will perhaps not deny that the author is in fact advocating
something which is in accordance with the practical facts of
life.
This book was first
published in 1919. As a supplement I published various articles in the
magazine “Dreigliederung des Sozialen Organismus,” which subsequently
appeared as a separate volume with the title, In Ausführung der
Dreigliederung des Sozialen Organismus [In Ausführung der
Dreigliederung des Sozialen Organismus. These 22 essays by Rudolf Steiner, along with
44 others on the subject, are now contained in a volume entitled
Aufsätze über die
Dreigliederung des Sozialen Organismus (Essays on the Triformation of the Social
Organism) published in 1961 by the Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach,
Switzerland.] In both of these
publications much more emphasis is placed on the means which should be
employed than on the ends, or ‘objectives’ of the social movement. If
we think realistically, we know that particular ends appear in diverse
forms. Only when we think in abstractions does everything appear to us
in clearly defined outlines. The abstract thinker will often reproach
the practical realist for lack of distinctness, for not being
sufficiently ‘clear’ in his presentations. Often those who consider
themselves to be experts are, in reality, just such abstractionists.
They do not realize that life can assume the most varied forms. It is a
flowing element, and if we wish to move with it we must adapt our
thoughts and feelings to this flowing characteristic. Social tasks can
be grasped with this type of thinking. The ideas presented in this book
have been drawn from an observation of life; an understanding of them
can be derived from the same source.