Twenty Articles From
The Newspaper:
The Threefold Social Order
Cultivation of the Spirit and Economic Life
Many
people today speak of “socialization”
as though it could imply a number of external institutions in the state
or in the social community, through which certain requirements
of modern humanity might be satisfied. To them, the right institutions
do not yet exist; that is why there is general social discontent and
confusion. Once these institutions are in existence, orderly social life
and social cooperation among men must follow. That so many people harbor
this belief more or less consciously is the reason for the development of
so many harmful notions about “the social question.” There is
no form one can give to external institutions by which these institutions
can, of themselves, enable us to lead a socially satisfying life. Such
institutions will be good in a technical sense if they enable commodities
to be produced and conveyed to human use in the most efficient manner
possible. However, they will be good in a social sense only if socially-minded
people administer the commodities produced in the service of the
community. No matter what the institutions may be, there is always some
conceivable way human individuals or groups can operate them antisocially.
One should
not give oneself over to the illusion that any kind of satisfying social
life can be created without “socially-minded” human beings;
such illusions are a hindrance to really practical social ideas. The
idea of the threefold social order aims at complete freedom from such
illusions; therefore it is not surprising that it is vehemently opposed
by everyone still living within these illusory mists. The first of the
three spheres of the threefold social order aims at a form of cooperation
among men to be based entirely on free intercourse and free association
between individuals. Here human individuality will not be forced into
an institutional mold. How one person assists another, how one helps
another advance will simply arise from what one, through his own abilities
and accomplishments, is able to be for the other. It is no great wonder
that presently many people are still able to imagine nothing but a state
of anarchy as a result of such free human relations in the spiritual-cultural
branch. Those who think so simply do not know what powers of our inmost
nature are stunted when we are forced to develop according to patterns
imposed by the state and the economic system. Such powers,
deep within human nature, cannot be developed by institutions, but only
through what one being calls forth in perfect freedom from another being.
The effect of what arises in this way is not antisocial, but rather
deeply social. The socially active inner person is stunted only when
instincts originating in the prerogatives of the state or in economic
advantage are engrained or handed down.
Through its cultural branch, the threefold social order will uncover
perpetual springs of social initiative. These springs will imbue the
legal relations that are regulated by the democratic state with a social
spirit, and they will spread the same spirit into the conduct of economic
life.
Within
the economy, the forms of modern life afford no means of counteracting
the antisocial tendency. For the whole community is best served when
the individual is left unchecked to apply his abilities to the common
good. To do this, however, it is necessary that individuals should accumulate
capital, and be free to combine with others in utilizing it. The socialists
have been deluded in thinking that these masses of ever-accumulating
capital could in the end simply be transferred from their private owners
to the cornmunity, and that thereby a socialist society would necessarily
be realized. In reality, the economic productivity of capital would
inevitably be lost in such a transference, for this productivity rests
upon the private abilities of the individual. One must admit to oneself
quite frankly that the economy will have the greatest vitality not when
it is deprived of the antisocial element within its own domain, but
instead when it is kept supplied from another domain — the cultural
branch of the social order — with forces that will constantly
correct antisocial tendencies as they arise and convert them back into
social ones.
In my
Toward Social Renewal
I have tried to show that a truly social way of
thinking will not aim at a transference of capital from the control of
private persons (or groups) to the community as a whole; on the contrary,
it is essential that the private individual should have means, by the
use of capital, of placing his abilities, unopposed, at the service
of the community. When this individual is no longer willing or able
to direct his abilities to the use of capital, this use must be transferred
to another person of similar abilities. It will not be transferred by
state prerogative or by economic power, but by finding out, on strength
of the training acquired under the free spiritual life, which person
will make the most suitable successor from the social point of view.
Whoever
speaks in this manner about the remedy for our social malaise sees in
his mind's eye the scorn of all those today who consider themselves
experts in the practicalities of life. For the moment he must endure
this scorn, knowing well that the other's way of thinking is what brought
about the dreadful human catastrophe of recent years. The scorn may
continue awhile; then, however, even the most obstinate of such people
will no longer be able to resist the hard lessons of social realities.
The phrase: “Schemes such as the threefold order may be all very
fine, but the people to carry them out aren't there,” will be
silenced. The coiners of this phrase are certainly not “the people
to do so.” Therefore, it is to be hoped they will retire and will
not, with their brute force, block the way of those who are doing fruitful
work and who would gladly provide a free spiritual life for the development
of social impulses in men.
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