APPENDIX
I
The system of
collectivist economy developed through governmental administration in
Russia since 1917, (these lectures were given in 1919) has proved
that the effort of “the abstract community at large”
could not he substituted for individual initiative. The latter had to
be re-introduced, at least to a limited degree, in connection with
the promotion of certain incentives to individual initiative. These
incentives were not, nor are they now, drawn from the concept of an
abstract community which, because of its very nature, cannot be
raised efficiently to the level of a true motive of action. They are
to be drawn from quite different sources. The latter can be found
partly in the depths of the Russian people's nature, and partly in
the old incentives, more or less disguised by opportunistic ideology.
These old incentives are, for instance, individual egotism with all
its political and economical ramifications, integrated and fostered
by the nationalistic accumulation of egotistic tendencies.
The emphasizing of the
above is necessary, since the number of people is large who believe
that the development and outward political success of the Russian
collectivistic system offers evidence provided by history that Rudolf
Steiner's statement is wrong. It seems wrong only to a superficial
and wishful thinking which has lost the basis of an unprejudiced
observation of facts.
APPENDIX
II
It is necessary to
discriminate between what Rudolf Steiner has characterized here as
“company principle” and the “principle of
association”. This becomes clearer by taking into account the
fact that the companies (corporations, big business) start their
practice with a method of financing, the aim of which is to increase
the amount of monetary capital (by means of profit) with little or no
consideration for genuine economic needs. The principle of
association is inherent in the incentive for those having the
individual capacities to associate in order to provide for the
genuine needs of consumers. Investment-capital, placed freely at the
disposal of able and trustworthy persons, in conformity with this
associative principle, becomes the monetary medium for the
realization of a conscious social purpose instead of remaining a
purpose in itself.
In accordance with
other numerous expositions given by Rudolf Steiner on this subject of
capital accumulation, transfer, and administration, without
government interference, it can be said that the “company
principle” means a maintenance of an artificial, lifeless
separation of finance-capital from the human being in his true social
relationships, whereas the “principle of association” in
the economic sphere starts from the human being with all his a is
capacities and abilities, working by means of capital placed at his
disposal for really productive purposes for the common benefit of
all.
APPENDIX
III
This was pointed out in
face of the postwar condition of European economy which already
showed inflationary tendencies but, nevertheless, gave evidence of
the possibility of halting them and avoiding the full-scale inflation
of later years by following the expert advice given by Rudolf Steiner
on many other occasions. This advice supported by every imaginable
reason fell on the deaf ears of those who were
responsible.
APPENDIX
IV
In his course on
World Economy,
Rudolf Steiner not only gave the reasons
for the inescapable necessity of considering the question of price as
the central problem in economy, but also the ideas whose realization
is indispensable for the timely solution of this problem on the basis
of a threefold membering of the body social.
APPENDIX
V
Rudolf Steiner's repeated
warning that outworn habits of thinking will prove stumbling blocks
to many who seek to understand his ideas, refers especially to this
recommendation of taxes on expenditure, preferably when applied to
the investment of capital. This recommendation can only be rightly
appreciated when it is borne in mind that the full realization of
this tax principle demands the threefold membering of the social
organism as a prerequisite. If this prerequisite is taken fully into
account, it becomes evident that taxes on expenditure would not be
inimical to the consumer nor to the producer. For it is presumed that
the consumer enjoys a sufficient income so that when he is taxed on
his expenditures, he will find it fair and equitable to pay taxes to
the extent that advantage is taken of society's labor as a whole. He
does this by buying goods, and investing money in their production.
In any case, the amount of capital put at the unrestricted disposal
of the producer will be sufficient for the production of essential
gods, because decisions on capital transfer intended for productive
investment will come from sources quite different from those to which
we are accustomed at present.
APPENDIX
VI
This paragraph is exposed
to the danger of being completely misunderstood. It could be taken as
not being in conformity with democracy at all, because Rudolf
Steiner's ideas on the appointment of judges by the cultural
administration seem to make the judge a representative of the
cultural life only, divesting the state and its government of all
judicial power and transferring the latter to the cultural
sphere.
Such an opinion is
only possible to those who continue to hold the traditional static
concept of democracy and have failed to learn from the events of this
century that only an organic and dynamic idea of democracy will
permit the necessary development of the social organism. Such an
evolving democracy, by its very nature, calls for the threefold
social order as a guarantee of the democratic practice of life and,
therefore, for the transfer of the judicial power to the cultural
sphere, just as it calls for the re-transference of the economic
control from the political government to the economic sphere of life.
The legislative function is relegated to the political organism (the
state). This function should be concerned only with the democratic
preparation, formulation, and acceptance of laws through an adequate
representative system as a legal guarantee of equal rights. The
executive power should also be left to the state in as far as the
government has to care for the upholding of the law and the execution
of sentences issued by law courts, independent of political
interference.
To what degree and how
conscientiously the essence of true democracy is safeguarded by
Rudolf Steiner's suggestions can be seen from the fact that they
include the proposal that everyone should have the right to choose
his own judge from the panel of judges nominated by the
spiritual-cultural organism.
Rudolf Steiner's
additional suggestion for safeguarding true democracy can be found in
the following quotation from his book, The Threefold
Commonwealth, pages 177, 178:
“For more
detailed acquaintance with points of law, the judges thus appointed
and the courts will be assisted by regular officials whose election
will also be determined by the spiritual administration, but who will
not themselves decide cases.”
APPENDIX
VII
For a deeper
understanding of this, the reader is referred to Rudolf Steiner's
The Story of My Life, page 274:
“It is my
impression that if the workers' movement had been followed with
interest by a greater number of unprejudiced persons, and if the
proletariat had been dealt with understandingly, this movement would
have developed quite differently. But we have left the people to live
in their own class, and we have lived in ours. The conceptions of
each class of men held by the others were merely theoretical. There
was discussion of wages when strikes and the like forced it; and all
sorts of welfare movements were established. These latter were
exceedingly creditable.
“But the submerging of these world-stirring questions into a
spiritual sphere was wholly lacking. And yet only this could have
taken from the movement its destructive forces.”
We offer this
quotation in order to show that the many remarks made by Rudolf
Steiner in these lectures, characterizing the proletarian movement
and its Marxian ideology, should not give the impression that he was
hostile toward the proletariat. Quite the contrary was the case. His
untiring efforts in 1919 and later were deeply concerned with the
need of establishing a mutual understanding between the two classes
— the bourgeoisie and the proletariat — which were
fighting one another for political power.
In 1919, when the
workers were in power in Central Europe — in Russia since 1917
— Rudolf Steiner continued this effort by offering a cultural,
instead of a political-economic viewpoint. In doing this, he found it
necessary for an understanding of the problem to make clear to the
proletariat the nature of the destructive forces at work in their
midst, embodied in an erroneous materialistic ideology. It must be
emphatically stressed, too, that Rudolf Steiner made it clear that
the same destructive forces were at work with an equal degree of
fatality in the egotistic and unintelligent attitude of the members
of the other class — the bourgeoisie — toward life and
its world problems.
APPENDIX
VIII
The original statement
about the nature of the nerves can be found in the appendix of Rudolf
Steiner's previously mentioned book,
The Riddles of the Soul,
(Von Seelenraetseln, not
translated [Riddle of the Soul
was translated in 1996]).
This most important
statement shows how Anthroposophy solves the crucial problem of
modern physiology and psychology, that is to say, it explains the
relation between body and soul. The reader will learn that the human
body functions in a threefold way, or one may say, there are three
systems of organic activity: (a) the nervous system, including the
senses; (b) the metabolic system, in connection with the limb-system;
and (c) the rhythmic system, i. e., blood circulation and
breathing.
The important
discovery made by Rudolf Steiner reveals the fact that the human soul
in her entirety is not limited to a mere relationship with the
nervous system, for this is only one of her several special
functions, manifest in thinking, in so far as this activity depends
on sense perception. Another function of the soul — feeling
— is supported by the bodily rhythmic system, and a third soul
function — willing — finds its bodily counterpart in the
metabolic system. All this means that the human soul, as a whole,
with her three functions is connected with the bodily organism as a
whole. She functions through three systems which are intimately
interwoven and mutually interplaying.
Rudolf Steiner's
statement shows further that by devoting herself to a certain
training, the soul is able to detach herself, bond by bond, from the
connection with the body and to turn her perceptions with transformed
thinking, feeling, and willing toward the spiritual world.
It must be emphasized,
however, that the discovery of the threefold physiological and mental
organism of man did not lead Rudolf Steiner to develop forthwith the
idea of the three-fold social organism. The threefold structure of
the body-social was discovered by him through independent research
without taking the human organism into account. To quote the words of
Rudolf Steiner:
“The present
comparison is not an attempt to take some natural science truth and
transplant it into the social system. Its object is quite different:
namely, to use the human body as an object lesson for training human
thought and feeling to a sense of what organic life requires, and
then to apply this perceptive sense to the body social.”
(The Threefold Commonwealth.)
Bernhard
Behrens.
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