At the end of the first world war, in striking contrast to President
Wilson's self-determination of nations, Rudolf Steiner was
proposing for the settlement of Europe the division of the social
organism into three separate spheres, dealing respectively with
cultural and educational affairs, with matters of human rights, and
with economics and production. Each sphere was to have its own
frontiers, character and objective.
The present volume deals
principally with the economic sphere, but it has also much to say
concerning its relation with, and dependence on, the other spheres as
well.
Although the form in which Steiner first developed his proposals
for a threefold commonwealth was oriented towards Central
Europe and the context of the time, they are based on deep insight
into the new social and economic forces which were then so plainly
emerging but were so little understood.
The world was not then ready
for Steiner's radical proposals; but today we are being forced by the
failure of our social and economic programmes to look for solutions
which grow from a deep understanding of man himself. It is in the
light of such an understanding that Steiner approaches such crucial
questions as the relation of wages to production, the proper function
of capital, finance and the different forms of money, the ownership of
land and many other matters of vital importance to our modern
industrial society. Behind this economic analysis stands the picture
of a truly human society, in which man can find himself as producer,
as citizen, and as free agent in harmony with his fellow men.