Twenty Articles From
The Newspaper:
The Threefold Social Order
What the “New Spirit” Demands
Judging
from the fruitless discussions
now going on in many circles over the Works Councils [Betriebsräte],
it is plain to see how very little understanding there is of the demands
that the historical evolution of humanity has created for the present age
and the near future. That democracy and a social form of life represent two
impulses struggling to realize themselves within present-day human nature
is an insight that has escaped entirely the vast majority of participants
in such discussions. Both impulses will continue to cause unrest and
destruction in public life until institutions are provided within which
they can unfold themselves; but the social impulse that must live in the
economic process cannot, because of its essential nature, manifest itself
democratically. The aim of this social impulse is that people engaged
in economic production should pay attention to the legitimate
needs of their fellows. The kind of management that this impulse demands
is one that regulates the economic process on the basis of what individuals
engaged in it actually do for one another. What they do, however, must
be based upon contractual agreements that arise from the economic
positions of the individuals concerned. If these contractual agreements
are to have a social effect, two things are necessary. First, these
agreements must originate as a free initiative of those concerned —
an initiative that is based on insight. Second, these individuals must
live in an economic body that enables one through such agreements to
convey in the best possible way the services of each to the community.
The first demand can be fulfilled only when there is no sort of political
influence intervening between those working within the economy and their
personal relationship to the sources and interests of economic life
itself. The second demand will be satisfied when agreements are made
not according to the demands of an unregulated market, but rather according
to the conditions that result when branches of industry associate with
each other and with associations of consumers as dictated by real needs,
so that the circulation of goods is managed as these associations see
fit. Such associations represent a model for determining how, in each
particular case, economic activity should be governed
contractually.
There
can be no politicking when the economy is run in this way. There is
only the competence and skill of each person in some special branch
of industry, and the structuring of these to the best possible social
advantage. What is done in an economic body of this kind is decided
not by counting votes, but by the voice of real needs: it will necessarily
concern itself with finding those most competent to perform certain
tasks, and then conveying products to the consumers deemed appropriate
by the cooperating associations.
However,
just as in a natural organism one single organic system would destroy
itself through its specific activity if there were no other systems
to keep it in balance, so does one function of the social organism need
to be kept in balance by another. Work within the economic sphere would,
over time, inevitably lead to comparable damage, unless it were counteracted
by the political system of laws — that must rest on a
democratic basis, just as the economic life cannot. In the
sphere of democratic law-making, politicking is appropriate. What is
done there works within economic activity to counteract its innate tendency
to cause damage. If one were to harness economic life to the administration
of the state, one would deprive it of its efficiency and freedom of
movement. Those engaged in economic work must receive the law
from somewhere outside of economic life, and only apply it
in the economic life itself.
It is
matters such as this that should be taken up by those who are busy planning
Works Councils. Instead, there is a great deal of oration on viewpoints
consistent with the old principle of shaping political legislation according
to economic interests. That presently there happen to be different groups
pursuing this same principle does not change the fact that a new
spirit is still lacking today in places where it is already so
urgently needed.
Today's
circumstances are such that there can be no return to health in public
life until a sufficiently large number of people recognize the
real social, political and spiritual demands of the times, and have
the good will and energy to pass on this vital understanding to others.
To the extent that this understanding is spread, the remaining obstacles
to social health would disappear. For it is merely a political superstition
that these obstacles have any objective existence beyond the reach
of human insight; it is an assertion made only by people who can never
understand the actual relationship between theory and praxis. They are
the people who say, “These idealists have quite excellent, well-meant
ideas. However, as matters now stand, these ideas cannot be put in practice.”
This is not at all the case; the only obstacle to the practical realization
of certain ideas at present are those who hold this belief and have
the power to use it as an obstacle. And such power is possessed also
by those who have gathered around them the masses of the people from
former party groups; the masses obediently follow them, their “leaders.”
Therefore, one of the fundamental conditions for a return to social
health is the disbanding of these old party groupings, and a heightened
understanding for the kinds of ideas that grow out of real practical
insight in-dependent of any connection with old parties and groups.
An immediate and burning question is how to find ways and means to replace
the old party creeds with this independent judgement so that they can
become a nucleus around which people of all party affiliations can gather
— people who are able to see that the existing parties have had
their day and that the present social conditions are sufficient proof
that their day is over.
It is
understandable that those who need to recognize this do not find it
easy. The rank and file do not find it easy because they do not have
the time or the leisure (and very often not the training) this recognition
requires. It is not easy for the leaders because both their prejudices
and their power are bound up with all they have stood for until now.
This situation obliges us all the more urgently to look beyond the party
traditions of the day and seek the real progress of humanity outside,
not within them. Today it is not enough merely to know what should
take the place of existing institutions. What is necessary is to elaborate
this new way of thinking in a way that will lead as quickly as possible
to the disbanding of the old party system and will guide people's efforts
toward new goals. Whoever lacks the courage to do this can contribute
nothing toward a new and healthy social order. Whoever is deluded by
the belief that such efforts are utopian, builds on sinking ground.
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