Threefold Social Order
GA 24
Spiritual Life, Civil Rights, Industrial Economy
[ 1 ] In the social movement of the present day there is a great deal of talk about social institutions, but very little about social and unsocial human beings. Very little regard is paid to that “social question” which arises when one considers that institutions in a community take their social or anti-social stamp from the people who work them. Persons of a socialistic turn of thought expect to see in the control of the means of production by the community what will satisfy the requirements of a wide range of the people. They take for granted that, under communal control, the co-operation between men will necessarily take a social form as well. They have seen that the industrial system ordered on lines of private capitalism has led to unsocial conditions. They think that, when once this industrial system has disappeared, the anti-social tendencies at work in it will also necessarily be at an end.
[ 2 ] Undoubtedly, along with the modern private capitalist form of industrial economy there have arisen social evils—evils that embrace the widest range of social life; but is this in any way a proof that they are a necessary consequence of this industrial system? Now, an industrial system can, of its own proper nature, effect nothing beyond putting men into situations in life that enable them to produce goods for themselves or for others in a useful, or in a useless, manner. The modern industrial system has brought the means of production under the power of individual persons or groups of persons. The achievements of technical science were such that the best use could be got out of them by a concentration of industrial and economic power. So long as this power is employed in the one field—the production of goods alone—its social working is essentially different from what it is when this power oversteps the bounds and trespasses on the other fields of civil rights or spiritual culture. And it is this trespassing on the other fields, which, in the course of the last few centuries, has led to those social evils for whose abolition the modern social movement is pressing. He who is in possession of the means of production acquires economic dominion over others. This economic dominion has resulted in his allying himself with the forces to be found in the governments and parliaments through which he could procure other posts of vantage also in society, as against those who were economically dependent on him: posts of vantage which, even in a democratically constituted state, bear in practice the character of rights. Similarly, this economic dominion has led to a monopolizing of the life of spiritual culture by those who held economic power.
[ 3 ] Now, the simplest thing seems to be to get rid of this economic predominance of individuals, and thereby do away with their predominance in rights and spiritual culture as well. One arrives at this “simplicity” of social conception when one fails to remember that the combination of technical and economic activity, which modern life demands, necessitates allowing the most fruitful possible expansion to individual initiative and personal worth within the business of economic life. The form which production must take under modern conditions makes this a necessity. The individual cannot make his abilities effective in business if in his work and schemes he is tied down to the will of the community. However dazzling the thought of the individual producing not for himself but for society collectively, yet its justice within certain bounds should not hinder one from also recognizing the other truth, that society collectively is incapable of originating economic schemes that permit of being realized through individuals in the manner desirable. Really practical thought, therefore, will not look to find the cure for social ills in a reshaping of social life that would substitute communal production for private management of the means of production. The endeavour should rather be to forestall evils that may spring up along with management by individual initiative and personal worth, without impairing this management itself. This is only possible if the relations of civil right amongst those engaged in economic industry are not influenced by the interests of industrial and economic life.
[ 4 ] It cannot be said that those who manage the business of economic life can, although occupied by economic interests, yet preserve a sound judgment as to relations of right, and that, because their experience and work have made them well acquainted with the requirements of economic life, they therefore will be able to settle best the life also of civil rights that should grow up in the round of economic business. To hold such an opinion is to overlook the fact that out of any special sphere of life man can only develop the interests peculiar to that sphere. Out of the economic sphere he can develop economic interests only. And if out of this sphere he is called on to produce moral and civil interests as well, then these will merely be economic interests in disguise. Genuine moral and civil interest—interests of Rights—can only spring up upon a ground specially devoted to the life of Rights, where the only consideration will be, what the rights of a matter are. Then, when people proceed from considerations of this sort to frame rules of right, the rule thus made will take effect in economic life. It will then not be necessary to place restrictions on the individual in respect of acquiring economic power; for such economic power will only result in his rendering economic services proportionate to his abilities—not in his using it to obtain special rights and privileges in social life.
[ 5 ] A similar objection is, that relations of right after all show themselves in people’s dealings with one another in business, so that it is quite impossible to conceive of them as something distinct and apart from economic life. Theoretically that is right enough, but it does not necessarily follow that in practice economic interests should be paramount in determining these relations of right. The manager who spiritually directs the business must necessarily occupy a relation of Right towards the manual workers in the same business; but this does not mean that he, qua business manager, is to have a say in determining what that relation is to be. But he will have a say in it, and will throw his economic predominance into the scales if business co-operation and the settlement of relations in Right take place in one common field of administration. Only when Rights are ordered in a field where business considerations cannot in any way come into question, and where business methods can procure no power as against this system of Rights, will the two be able to work together in such a way that men’s sense of right will not be injured, nor economic ability be turned into a curse instead of a blessing for the community as a whole.
[ 6 ] When those who are economically powerful are in a position to use their power to wrest privileged rights for themselves, then amongst the economically weak there will grow up a corresponding opposition to these privileges; and this opposition will, as soon as it has grown strong enough, lead to revolutionary disturbances. If the existence of a special province of Rights makes it impossible for such privileged rights to arise, then disturbances of this sort cannot occur. What this special province of Rights does is to give constant orderly scope to those forces which, in its absence, accumulate within men, until at last they vent themselves violently. Whoever wants to avoid revolutions should study to establish an order of society which shall accomplish in the steady flow of time what otherwise will seek accomplishment in one epoch-making moment.
[ 7 ] People will say that the social movement of modern times is immediately concerned, not with relations of Right, but with the removal of economic inequalities. To such objection one must reply that the demands stirring within men are in nowise always correctly expressed in the thoughts they consciously form about them. The thoughts thus consciously formed are the outcome of direct experiences ; but the demands themselves have their origin in complexes of life that are much deeper-seated, and that are not directly experienced. And if one aims at bringing about conditions of life which can satisfy these demands, one must attempt to get down to these deeper-seated complexes. A consideration of the relations that have come about between industrial economy and civil right shows that the life of civil rights amongst men has come to be dependent on their economic life. Now, if one were to try superficially, by a lopsided alteration in the forms of economic life, to abolish those economic inequalities that the dependence of rights on economics has brought with it, then in a very short while similar inequalities would inevitably result, supposing the new economic order were again allowed to build up the system of rights after its own fashion. One will never really touch what is working itself up through the social movement to the surface of modern life until one brings about social conditions in which, alongside the claims and interests of the economic life, those of Rights can find realization and satisfaction on their own independent basis.
[ 8 ] It is in a similar manner, again, that one must approach the question of the spiritual life and its bearings on that of civil rights and of industrial economy. The course of the last few centuries has been such, that the spiritual life has been cultivated under conditions which only to a very limited extent allowed of its exercising an independent influence upon the political life—that of civil rights—or upon industrial economy. One of the most important branches of spiritual culture—the whole manner of education and public instruction—took its shape from the interests of the civil power. According as State-interests required, so the human being was trained and taught; and State-power was reinforced by economic power. If anyone was to develop his capacities as a human being within the existing provisions for education and training, he had to do so on the ground of such economic power as his sphere in life afforded. Accordingly, those spiritual forces that could find scope within the life of political rights or of industrial economy acquired entirely the stamp of this life. Any free spiritual life had to forego all idea of making itself useful within the sphere of the political state, and could only do so within the industrial economic sphere, in as far as this remained outside the sphere of the political state’s activities. In industrial economy, after all, the necessity is obvious for allowing the competent person to find full scope—since all fruitful activity in this sphere dies out when left solely under the control of the Incompetent whom circumstances may have endowed with economic power. If, however, the tendency common among people of a socialistic turn of thought were carried out, and economic life were administered after the fashion of political and legal ideas, then the result would be that the culture of the free spiritual life would be forced to withdraw altogether from the public field. But a spiritual life that has to develop apart from civil and economic realities loses touch with life. It is forced to draw its substantial contents from sources that are not in live connection with these realities, and in course of time works this substance up into such a shape as to run on like a sort of animated abstraction alongside the actual realities, without having any useful practical effect upon them. And so two different currents arise in the spiritual life. One of them draws its waters from the life of political rights and the life of economics, and is occupied with the requirements which come up in these from day to day, trying to devise systems by which these requirements can be met—without, however, penetrating to the needs of man’s spiritual nature. All it does is to devise external systems and harness men into them, without paying any heed to what their inner nature has to say about it.
The other current of spiritual life proceeds from the inward craving for knowledge and from ideals of the will. These it shapes to suit man’s inward nature. But knowledge of this latter kind is derived from contemplation: it is not the gist of what has been taught by the experience of practical life. These ideals have arisen from conceptions of what is true and good and beautiful; but they have not the strength to shape the practice of life. Consider what conceptions of the mind, what religious ideals, what artistic interests, form the inward life of the shopkeeper, the manufacturer, the government official, outside and apart from his daily practical life; and then consider what ideas are contained in those activities which find expression in his bookkeeping, or for which he is trained by the education and instruction that prepare him for his profession. A gulf lies between the two currents of spiritual life. The gulf has grown all the wider in recent years because that particular mode of conception that in natural science is quite justified has become the standard of man’s relation to reality. This mode of conception sets out to acquire knowledge of laws in things and processes that lie beyond the field of human activity and human influences; so that man is as it were a mere spectator of that which he comprehends in a scheme of natural law. And though in his technical processes he sets these laws of nature working, yet hereby he himself does no more than give occasion for the action of forces which lie outside his own being and nature. The knowledge that he employs in this kind of activity bears a character quite different from his own nature. It reveals to him nothing of what lies in cosmic processes in which his own being is interwoven. For such knowledge as this he needs a conception of the universe that unites in one whole both the world of man and the world outside him.
[ 9 ] It is a knowledge such as this for which that modern spiritual science is striving that is directed to Anthroposophy. Whilst fully recognizing all that the natural science mode of conception means for the progress of modern humanity, anthroposophical science yet sees that all that can be arrived at by the natural science mode of knowledge will never embrace more than the external man. It also recognizes the essential nature of the religious conceptions of the world, but is aware that in the course of the new-age evolution these conceptions of the world have become an internal concern of the soul, not applied by men in any way to the reshaping of their external life, which runs on separately alongside.
[ 10 ] It is true that, to arrive at such a form of knowledge, spiritual science makes demands upon men to which they are as yet but little inclined, because in the last few centuries they have grown habituated to carrying on their practical life and their inner soul-life as two separate and distinct departments of their existence. This habit has resulted in the attitude of incredulity that meets every endeavour to make use of spiritual insight in forming an opinion about life’s social configuration. People have in mind their past experience of social ideas, that were born of a spiritual culture estranged from life: and when there is any talk of such things, they recall St. Simon, Fourier, and others besides. And the opinion people have formed about ideas of this sort is justified, inasmuch as such ideas are the outcome of a tendency of learning which acquires its knowledge not from living experience but from a process of reasoning. And from this people have generalized and concluded that no kind of spirit is adapted to produce ideas that bear sufficient relation to practical life to admit of being realized. From this general theory come the various views which in their modern form are all more or less traceable to Marx. Those who hold them have no use for ideas as active agents in bringing about satisfactory social conditions. Rather they maintain that the evolution of the actual facts of economic life is tending inevitably to a goal of which such conditions are the result. They are inclined to let practical life take more or less its own course, on the ground that in actual practice ideas are powerless. They have lost faith in the strength of spiritual life. They do not believe that there can be any kind of spiritual life able to overcome the remoteness and unreality which characterize the form of it that has predominated during the last few centuries.
It is a kind of spiritual life such as this, nevertheless, which is pursued by anthroposophical science. The sources from which it seeks to draw are the sources of actual reality itself. Those forces which sway the inmost nature of man are the same forces that are at work in the actual reality outside man. The natural science mode of conception cannot get down to these forces, being engaged in working up an intellectual code of natural law out of the experiences acquired from external facts. Nor are the world-conceptions, founded on a more or less religious basis, any longer at the present day in touch with these forces. They accept their traditions as handed down to them, without penetrating to their fountain-head in the depths of man’s being. Spiritual science, however, seeks to get to this fountainhead. It develops methods of knowledge which lead down into those regions of the inner man where the processes external to man find their continuation within man himself. The knowledge that spiritual science has to give presents a reality actually experienced in man’s inner self. The ideas that emerge from it are not the outcome of reasoning, but imbued through and through with the forces of actual reality. Hence such ideas are able to carry with them the force of actual reality when they come to give the lines for social aim and purpose. One can well understand that, at the first, a spiritual science such as this should meet with distrust. But such distrust will not last when people come to recognize the essential difference that exists between this spiritual science and the particular current recently developed in science, and which to-day is assumed to be the only one possible. Once people come to recognize the difference, they will cease to believe that one must avoid social ideas when one is bent on the practical shaping of social facts. They will begin to see, instead, that practical social ideas are obtainable only from a spiritual life that can find its way to the roots of human nature. People will clearly see that in modern times social facts have fallen into disorder because people have tried to master them by thoughts which these facts were constantly eluding.
[ 11 ] A spiritual conception that penetrates to the essential being of man finds there motives for action which in the ethical sense too are directly good. For the impulse towards evil arises in man only because in his thoughts and sensations he silences the depths of his own nature. Accordingly, social ideas that are arrived at through the sort of spiritual conception here meant must by their very nature be ethical ideas as well. And being drawn, not from thought alone, but from life, they possess the strength to lay hold upon the will and to live on in action. In the light of a true ethical conception, social thought and ethical thought become one. And the life that grows out of such a spiritual conception is intimately linked with every form of activity that man develops in life—even in his practical dealings with the most insignificant matters. So, through this spiritual conception, social instinct, ethical impulse, and practical conduct become interwoven in such a way as to form a unity.
[ 12 ] This kind of spirit, however, can thrive only when its growth is completely independent of all authority except such as is derived directly from the spiritual life itself. Legal regulations by the civil state for the nurture of the spirit sap the strength of the forces of spiritual life. Whereas a spiritual life that is left entirely to its own inherent interests and impulses will reach out into everything that man performs in social life. It is frequently objected that mankind would need to be completely changed before one could ground social behaviour on the ethical impulses. People do not reflect what ethical impulses in men wither away when they are not allowed to grow up from a free spiritual life, but are forced to take the particular turn that the politico-legal structure of society finds necessary for carrying on work in the spheres it has mapped out beforehand. A person brought up and educated under the free spiritual life will certainly, through his very initiative, bring with him into his calling much of the stamp of his own personality. He will not let himself be fitted into the social works like a cog into a machine. But, in the long run, what he thus brings into it will not hamper, but increase, the harmony of the whole. What goes on in each particular part of the communal life will be the outcome of what lives in the spirits of the people at work there.
[ 13 ] People whose souls breathe the atmosphere created by a spirit such as this will put life into the institutions needed for practical economic purposes, and in such a way that social needs too will be satisfied. Institutions that people think they can devise to satisfy these social needs will never work socially with men whose inner nature feels itself out of unison with their outward occupation. For institutions of themselves cannot work socially. To work socially requires human beings, socially attuned, working within an ordered system of civil rights created by a living interest in this Rights system, and with an economic life that produces in the most efficient fashion the goods required for actual needs.
[ 14 ] If the life of the spirit be a free one, evolved only from those impulses that reside within itself, then civil life will thrive in proportion as people are educated intelligently, from real spiritual experience, in the adjustment of their civil relations and rights. And then, too, economic life will be fruitful in the measure in which men’s spiritual nurture has developed their capacity for it.
[ 15 ] Every institution that has grown up in men’s communal life is originally the result of the Will that dwelt in their aims; and their spiritual life has contributed to its growth. Only when life becomes complicated in form, as it has under the technical methods of production of the modern age, then the Will that dwells in the thoughts loses touch with the actual social facts. These latter then take their own automatic course. And man withdraws himself in the spirit to a corner apart, and there seeks the spiritual substance to satisfy the needs of his soul.
It is from this mechanical course of affairs, over which the will of the individual spirit had no control, that those conditions have arisen which the modern social movement aims at changing. It is because the spirit that is at work within the civil life of rights and in the round of industry is no longer one through which the individual spiritual life can find its channel, that the individual sees himself in a social order which gives him, as an individual, no scope civically nor economically.
People who do not clearly see this will always raise an objection to the conception of the body social as an organism consisting of three systems, each to be worked on its own distinct basis—i. e., the Spiritual life, the State for the administration of Rights, and the round of Industrial Economy. They will protest that such a differentiation will destroy the necessary unity of communal life. To this one must reply that right now this unity is destroying itself in the effort to maintain itself intact. The life of rights, that grows up out of economic power, in its actual working undermines this economic power, because it is felt by those economically inferior to be a foreign body within the social organism. That spirit coming to be dominant in civil rights and economic life, when these control its workings, condemns the living spirit—which in each individual is working its way up from the soul’s depths—to powerlessness in the face of practical life. If, however, the system of civil rights grows up on independent ground out of the sense of right, and if the Will of the individual dwelling in the spirit is developed in a free life of the spirit, then the Rights system and Spiritual force and Economic activity all work together into a unity. They will be able to do so when they can develop, each according to its own proper nature, in distinct fields of life. It is just in separation that they will turn to unity; whereas, shaped from an artificial unity, they become estranged. [ 16 ] People of a socialist way of thinking will, many of them, dismiss such a conception as this with the phrase that it is not possible to bring about satisfactory conditions of life through this organic formation of society; that it can only be done through a suitable economic organization. In so saying they overlook the fact that the men at work in their economic organization are endowed with wills. If one tells them so, they will smile, for they regard it as self-evident. Yet their thoughts are busy constructing a social edifice in which this “self-evident” fact is left out of account. Their economic organization is to be controlled by a communal will. But this, after all, must be the resultant of the individual wills of the people united in the organization. These individual wills can never find scope, if the communal will is derived entirely from the idea of economic organization. But the individual wills can expand untrammelled if, alongside the economic province, there is a civil province of Rights, where the standard is set, not by any economic point of view, but by the sense of right alone; and if, alongside both the economic and civil provinces, a free spiritual life can find place, following the impulsion of the spirit alone. Then we shall not have a social order going by clockwork, to which individual wills could never permanently be fitted. Then human beings will find it possible to give their wills a social bent, and to bring them constantly to bear on the shaping of social circumstances. Under the free spiritual life the individual will will acquire its social bent. Under a self-based civil state of Rights, these individual wills, socially attuned, will result in a communal will that works aright. And the individual wills, socially centred, and organized by the independent system of rights, will exert themselves within the round of industrial economy, producing and distributing goods as social needs require. [ 17 ] Most people to-day still lack faith in the possibility of establishing a social order based on individual wills. They have no faith in it, because such a faith cannot come from a spiritual life that has developed in dependence on the life of the State and of industrial economy. The kind of spirit that does not develop in freedom out of the life of the spirit itself, but out of an exterior organization, simply does not know what the potentialities of the spirit are. It looks round for something to guide and manage it—not knowing how the spirit guides and manages itself, if it can but draw its strength from its own sources. It would like to have a board of management for the spirit as a sort of branch department of the economic and civil organizations, quite regardless of the fact that industrial economy and the system of rights can only live when permeated with the spirit that follows its own leading.
[ 18 ] For the reshaping of the social order, goodwill alone is not the only thing needful. It needs also that courage which can be a match for the lack of faith in the spirit’s power. A true spiritual conception can inspire this courage: for such a spiritual conception feels able to bring forth ideas that not only serve to give the soul its inward orientation, but which, in their very birth, bring with them the seeds of life’s practical configuration. The will to go down into the deep places of the spirit can become a will so strong as to bear a part in everything that man performs.
[ 19 ] When one speaks of a spiritual conception having its roots in life, quite a number of people take one to mean the sum-total of those instincts in which a man takes refuge who travels along the familiar rails of life and holds every intervention from spiritual regions to be a piece of cranky idealism. The spiritual conception that is meant here, however, must be confounded neither with that abstract spirituality which is incapable of extending its interests to practical life, nor yet with that spiritual tendency which as good as denies the spirit directly it comes to consider the guiding lines of practical life. Both these modes of conception ignore how the spirit rules in the facts of external life, and therefore feel no real urgency for consciously penetrating its rulings. Yet only such a sense of urgency brings forth that knowledge which sees the social question in its true light. The experiments now being made to solve the social question afford such unsatisfactory results because many people have not yet become able to sec what the true gist of the question is. They sec this question arise in economic regions, and they look to economic institutions to provide the answer. They think they will find the solution in economic transformations. They fail to recognize that these transformations can only come about through forces that are released from within human nature itself in the uprising of a new spiritual life and life of rights in their own independent domains.
Geistesleben, Rechtsordnung, Wirtschaft
[ 1 ] Innerhalb der gegenwärtigen sozialen Bewegung wird viel von sozialen Einrichtungen, wenig aber von sozialen und unsozialen Menschen geredet. Die « soziale Frage » findet kaum Beachtung, die sich erhebt, wenn man beachtet, daß gesellschaftliche Einrichtungen ihr soziales oder antisoziales Gepräge durch die Menschen erhalten, die in denselben wirken. Sozialistische Denker glauben, in der Verwaltung der Produktionsmittel durch die Gemeinschaften das sehen zu müssen, was die Forderungen weiter Volkskreise befriedigen werde. Sie setzen dabei ohne weiteres voraus, daß bei einer solchen Verwaltung das menschliche Zusammenwirken sich im sozialen Sinne gestalten müsse. Sie haben gesehen, daß die privatkapitalistische Wirtschaftsordnung zu unsozialen Zuständen geführt hat. Sie meinen, wenn diese Wirtschaftsordnung verschwunden sein werde, müssen auch deren antisoziale Wirkungen aufgehört haben.
[ 2 ] Sicherlich sind mit der modernen privatkapitalistischen Wirtschaftsform soziale Schäden im weitesten Umfange entstanden. Aber ist denn irgendwie erwiesen, daß diese eine notwendige Folge jener Wirtschaftsordnung sind? Nun kann aber eine Wirtschaftsordnung durch ihr eigenes Wesen nichts anderes bewirken, als daß sie Menschen in Lebenslagen bringt, durch die sie für sich und andere Güter in zweckmäßiger oder unzweckmäßiger Art erzeugen. Die moderne Wirtschaftsordnung hat die Produktionsmittel in die Macht einzelner Personen oder Personengruppen gebracht. Die technischen Errungenschaften ließen sich durch die wirtschaftliche Machtkonzentration am zweckmäßigsten ausnützen. Solange diese Macht sich nur auf dem Gebiete der Gütererzeugung betätigt, hat sie eine wesentlich andere soziale Wirkung, als wenn sie auf das rechtliche oder geistige Lebensgebiet übergreift. Und dieses Übergreifen hat im Laufe der letzten Jahrhunderte zu den sozialen Schäden geführt, auf deren Beseitigung die moderne soziale Bewegung dringt. Derjenige, der im Besitze der Produktionsmittel ist, erhält über andere eine wirtschaftliche Übermacht. Diese führte dazu, daß er in den Verwaltungen und Volksvertretungen die ihm helfenden Kräfte fand, durch die er sich auch andere gesellschaftliche Vormachtstellungen gegenüber den von ihm wirtschaftlich Abhängigen verschaffen konnte, die auch in einer demokratischen Staatsordnung einen praktisch rechtlichen Charakter tragen. Ebenso führte die wirtschaftliche Übermacht zu einer Monopolisierung des geistigen Lebens bei den wirtschaftlich Mächtigen.
[ 3 ] Es scheint nun das Einfachste zu sein, die wirtschaftliche Übermacht bei den Einzelnen zu beseitigen, um auch deren rechtliche und geistige Übermacht aus der Welt zu schaffen. Man kommt zu dieser « Einfachheit » des sozialen Denkens, wenn man nicht bedenkt, daß in der von dem modernen Leben gebotenen Verbindung von technischer und wirtschaftlicher Betätigung die Notwendigkeit liegt, im Betriebe des Wirtschaftslebens Initiative und individuelle Tüchtigkeit der Einzelnen zur möglichst fruchtbaren Entfaltung kommen zu lassen. Die Art, wie unter den modernen Bedingungen produziert werden muß, macht dies notwendig. Der Einzelne kann seine Fähigkeiten im Wirtschaften nicht zur Geltung bringen, wenn er in seiner Arbeit und in seinen Entschließungen an den Willen der Gemeinschaft gebunden ist. Möge der Gedanke noch so stark blenden: der Einzelne soll nicht für sich, sondern für die Gesamtheit produzieren; seine Richtigkeit innerhalb gewisser Grenzen sollte nicht verhindern, auch die andere Wahrheit anzuerkennen, daß aus der Gesamtheit heraus keine wirtschaftlichen Entschließungen stammen können, die sich in der wünschenswerten Art durch die Einzelnen verwirklichen lassen. Deshalb kann ein wirklichkeitsgemäßes Denken die Heilung sozialer Schäden nicht in einer neuen Gestaltung des Wirtschaftslebens suchen, durch die ein gesellschaftliches Produzieren an die Stelle der Verwaltung der Produktionsmittel durch Einzelne trete. Es muß vielmehr angestrebt werden, die Schäden, die bei dem Walten der Initiative und Tüchtigkeit der Einzelnen entstehen können, ohne Beeinträchtigung dieses Waltens zu verhindern. Das ist nur möglich, wenn die rechtlichen Beziehungen der wirtschaftenden Menschen nicht von den Interessen des Wirtschaftslebens beeinflußt werden, und wenn auch dasjenige, was für die Menschen durch das Geistesleben geleistet werden soll, von diesen Interessen unabhängig ist.
[ 4 ] Man kann nicht sagen, die Verwalter des Wirtschaftslebens können sich doch, trotz ihrer Inanspruchnahme durch die wirtschaftlichen Interessen, ein gesundes Urteil über die Rechtsverhältnisse wahren; und da sie aus ihren Erfahrungen und ihrer Arbeit die Bedürfnisse des Wirtschaftslebens gut kennen, so werden sie auch das Rechtsleben, das sich innerhalb des Wirtschaftskreislaufes entfalten soll, am besten ordnen können. Wer eine solche Meinung hat, der beachtet nicht, daß der Mensch aus einem gewissen Lebensgebiete heraus nur die Interessen dieses Gebietes entwickeln kann. Aus dem Wirtschaftsleben heraus kann er nur wirtschaftliche Interessen entwickeln. Soll er aus ihm auch die Rechtsinteressen entfalten, so werden diese nur verkappte Wirtschaftsinteressen sein. Wahrhaftige Rechtsinteressen können nur auf einem Boden entstehen, auf dem das Rechtsleben seine abgesonderte Pflege findet. Auf einem solchen Boden wird man nur nach dem fragen, was rechtens ist. Und wenn man im Sinne solcher Fragen Rechtsregelungen vorgenommen hat, dann wird, was so entstanden ist, auf das Wirtschaftsleben einwirken. Man wird dem Einzelnen keine Beschränkung aufzuerlegen brauchen in bezug auf die Aneignung der wirtschaftlichen Macht; denn diese Macht wird nur dazu führen, daß er seinen Fähigkeiten gemäß wirtschaftliche Leistungen vollbringt, nicht aber dazu, daß er durch sie rechtliche Vorteile erwirbt.
[ 5 ] Naheliegend ist der Einwand, daß die Rechtsverhältnisse sich doch in dem Verkehr der wirtschaftenden Menschen offenbaren, daß sie also gar nicht als etwas Besonderes außer dem Wirtschaftsleben erfaßt werden können. Das ist zwar theoretisch richtig, macht aber nicht notwendig, daß auch praktisch die wirtschaftlichen Interessen für die Regelung der Rechtsverhältnisse bestimmend seien. Der geistige Leiter eines Betriebes wird zu den Handarbeitern dieses Betriebes in einem Rechtsverhältnis stehen müssen; das bedingt nicht, daß er als Betriebsleiter bei Festsetzung dieses Verhältnisses mitzusprechen hat. Er wird aber mitsprechen und dabei seine wirtschaftliche Übermacht in die Waagschale werfen, wenn das wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeiten und die Regelung der Rechtsverhältnisse auf einem gemeinsamen Verwaltungsboden sich vollziehen. Nur wenn das Recht auf einem Boden geordnet wird, auf dem eine Rücksicht auf das Wirtschaften gar nicht in Frage kommen kann und das Wirtschaften gegenüber dieser Rechtsordnung keine Macht erringen kann, werden beide so ineinander arbeiten können, daß das Rechtsgefühl der Menschen nicht verletzt und die wirtschaftliche Leistungsfähigkeit nicht aus einem Segen für die Gesamtheit zu einem Unsegen wird.
[ 6 ] Wenn die wirtschaftlich Mächtigen in der Lage sind, ihre Macht zur Erringung von Rechtsvorteilen zu gebrauchen, so wird sich bei den wirtschaftlich Schwachen der Widerstand gegen diese Vorteile entwickeln. Und dieser muß, wenn er genügend stark geworden ist, zu revolutionären Erschütterungen führen. Ist durch das Vorhandensein eines besonderen Rechtsbodens das Entstehen solcher Rechtsvorteile unmöglich, so werden solche Erschütterungen nicht eintreten können. Was von diesem Rechtsboden aus fortwährend geschieht, wird ein geordnetes Ausleben der Kräfte sein, die sich ohne denselben in den Menschen ansammeln und zu gewaltsamen Entladungen führen. Wer Revolutionen vermeiden will, der muß an die Errichtung einer gesellschaftlichen Ordnung denken, durch die im Flusse der Zeit geschieht, was sich sonst in einem weltgeschichtlichen Augenblick vollziehen will.
[ 7 ] Man wird sagen, in der modernen sozialen Bewegung handelt es sich ja zunächst nicht um Rechtsverhältnisse, sondern um Überwindung der wirtschaftlichen Ungleichheiten. Auf diesen Einwand wird erwidert werden müssen, daß Forderungen, die in den Menschen leben, keineswegs immer durch die Gedanken richtig ausgedrückt werden, die das Bewußtsein von ihnen bildet. Diese bewußten Gedanken sind Ergebnisse desjenigen, was unmittelbar erfahren wird. Was aber die Forderungen hervorbringt, das sind tiefere Zusammenhänge des Lebens, die nicht unmittelbar erfahren werden. Wer an die Herbeiführung von Zuständen des Lebens denkt, durch die diese Forderungen befriedigt werden sollen, der muß in die tieferen Zusammenhänge zu dringen versuchen. Die Betrachtung des in der neueren Zeit bestandenen Verhältnisses zwischen Recht und Wirtschaft ergibt, daß das rechtliche Leben der Menschen in Abhängigkeit gekommen ist von dem wirtschaftlichen. Würde man nun darnach streben, die wirtschaftlichen Ungleichheiten, die im Gefolge dieser Abhängigkeit aufgetreten sind, in äußerer Art aus der Welt zu schaffen durch eine einseitige Änderung der Wirtschaftsformen, so müßten sich in kurzer Zeit ähnliche Ungleichheiten ergeben, wenn man den neuen Wirtschaftsformen wieder die Möglichkeit ließe, ihre Rechtsformen aus sich selbst zu schaffen. Nur wenn man Zustände des gesellschaftlichen Lebens herbeiführt, durch die neben den wirtschaftlichen Anforderungen und Interessen die rechtlichen selbständig erlebt und befriedigt werden können, wird man wirklich an das herankommen, was durch die soziale Bewegung sich an die Oberfläche des modernen Menschendaseins drängt.
[ 8 ] Und in der gleichen Art wird man an die Beziehungen des geistigen Lebens zum rechtlichen und wirtschaftlichen herantreten müssen. Unter den Verhältnissen, die sich im Laufe der letzten Jahrhunderte ergeben haben, konnte die Pflege des Geisteslebens aus sich selbst ihre Wirkung auf das politisch-rechtliche und das wirtschaftliche Leben nur in einem sehr beschränkten Maße ausüben. Aus den Interessen der staatlichen Rechtsmacht gestaltete sich einer der wichtigsten Zweige der Geistespflege: das Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesen. Wie es den staatlichen Bedürfnissen entsprach, so wurde der Mensch erzogen und unterrichtet. Und zu der staatlichen trat die wirtschaftliche Macht hinzu. Wer innerhalb der bestehenden Unterrichts- und Erziehungseinrichtungen zur Entwickelung seiner Fähigkeiten als Mensch kommen sollte, der mußte dies auf Grund der wirtschaftlichen Macht, die sich aus seinem Lebenskreise heraus ergab. So wurden diejenigen geistigen Kräfte, die innerhalb des politisch-rechtlichen und des wirtschaftlichen Lebens sich betätigen konnten, in ihrem Gepräge völlig ein Abdruck dieses Lebens. Ein freies Geistesleben mußte darauf verzichten, seine Leistungen in das staatlich-politische Leben hineinzutragen. Und in das wirtschaftliche konnte es dies nur in dem Grade, als sich dieses noch von dem staatlich-politischen unabhängig erhalten hatte. Innerhalb der Wirtschaft offenbart sich ja die Notwendigkeit, den Fähigen zur Geltung kommen zu lassen, weil deren Fruchtbarkeit abstirbt, wenn der Unfähige, aber durch die Verhältnisse wirtschaftlich Mächtige, allein waltet. Würde aber die Tendenz vieler sozialistisch Denkenden verwirklicht, das Wirtschaftsleben nach dem Muster des politisch-rechtlichen zu verwalten, dann würde die Pflege des freien Geisteslebens völlig aus der Öffentlichkeit hinausgedrängt. Ein Geistesleben aber, das sich abseits von der politisch-rechtlichen und wirtschaftlichen Wirklichkeit entwickeln muß, wird lebensfremd. Es muß seinen Inhalt aus Quellen holen, die nicht lebensvoll mit dieser Wirklichkeit zusammenhängen; und es gestaltet diesen Inhalt dann im Laufe der Zeit so aus, daß er wie eine lebendig gewordene Abstraktion neben dieser Wirklichkeit einherläuft, ohne in ihr eine sachgemäße Wirkung zu erzeugen. Auf diese Art entstehen zwei Strömungen im Geistesleben. Die eine holt ihren Inhalt aus den von Tag zu Tag auftretenden Anforderungen des politisch-rechtlichen und des Wirtschaftslebens und sucht Einrichtungen zu treffen, die sich aus diesen Anforderungen ergeben. Sie dringt dabei nicht zu den Bedürfnissen der geistigen Wesenheit des Menschen vor. Sie trifft äußere Einrichtungen und spannt die Menschen in diese hinein, ohne dabei auf das hinzuhorchen, was die innere Menschennatur dazu sagt. Die andere geht von inneren Erkenntnisbedürfnissen und Willensidealen aus. Sie gestaltet diese so, wie das Innere des Menschen sie verlangt. Aber diese Erkenntnisse entstammen der Betrachtung. Sie sind nicht der Niederschlag dessen, was in der Praxis des Lebens erfahren wird. Und diese Ideale sind aus den Vorstellungen darüber entstanden, was wahr, gut und schön ist. Aber sie haben nicht die Kraft, die Lebenspraxis zu gestalten. Man denke, was abseits von seiner Lebenspraxis der Kaufmann, der Industrielle, der Staatsbeamte als seine Erkenntnisvorstellungen, seine religiösen Ideale, seine künstlerischen Interessen innerlich erlebt, und was an Ideen in derjenigen Tätigkeit enthalten ist, die in seiner Buchführung zum Ausdruck kommt, oder für die ihn Erziehung und Unterricht als sein Amt bedingend vorbereiten. Zwischen den beiden geistigen Strömungen liegt ein Abgrund. Er wurde in der neueren Zeit noch besonders breit gemacht dadurch, daß diejenige Vorstellungsart für des Menschen Verhältnis zur Wirklichkeit maßgebend wurde, die in der Naturwissenschaft ihre volle Berechtigung hat. Diese Vorstellungsart geht auf die Erkenntnis von Gesetzen an Dingen und Vorgängen aus, die außerhalb des Bereiches der menschlichen Betätigung und Wirksamkeit liegen. Dadurch ist der Mensch gewissermaßen nur der Zuschauer dessen, was er in den Naturgesetzen erfaßt. Und wenn er in der Technik die Naturgesetze zur Wirksamkeit bringt, so wird er nur der Veranlasser davon, daß geschieht, was durch Kräfte bewirkt wird, die außerhalb seines eigenen Wesens liegen. Die Erkenntnis, durch die er sich auf diese Art betätigt, trägt einen von seiner eigenen Natur verschiedenen Charakter. Sie offenbart ihm nichts darüber, was in den Weltvorgängen liegt, in die sein eigenes Wesen verwoben ist. Zu einer solchen Erkenntnis bedarf er einer Anschauung, die außermenschliche und menschliche Welt in eines zusammenfaßt.
[ 9 ] Nach einer solchen Erkenntnis strebt die moderne anthroposophisch orientierte Geisteswissenschaft. Sie anerkennt vollkommen die Bedeutung der naturwissenschaftlichen Vorstellungsart für den Fortschritt der neueren Menschheit. Aber sie ist sich klar darüber, daß was durch naturwissenschaftliche Erkenntnis vermittelt wird, nur den äußeren Menschen erfaßt. Sie anerkennt auch die Wesenheit der religiösen Weltanschauungen; aber sie wird sich bewußt, daß diese Weltanschauungen im Laufe der neuzeitlichen Entwickelung zu einer inneren Angelegenheit der Seele geworden sind, neben denen das äußere Leben abläuft, ohne von ihnen durch Menschen gestaltet zu werden.
[ 10 ] Um zu ihren Erkenntnissen zu kommen, stellt die Geisteswissenschaft allerdings Anforderungen an den Menschen, für die er zunächst aus dem Grunde wenig Neigung entwickelt, weil er sich in den letzten Jahrhunderten daran gewöhnt hat, in Lebenspraxis und inneres Seelenleben als in zwei voneinander getrennte Gebiete sich einzuleben. Aus dieser Gewöhnung heraus hat die Anschauung sich ergeben, die gegenwärtig jedem Bestreben Unglauben entgegenbringt, das aus geistigen Einsichten heraus über die soziale Gestaltung des Lebens ein Urteil gewinnen will. Man hat im Auge, was man als soziale Ideen erlebt hat, die aus einem lebensfremden Geistesleben heraus geboren sind. Man erinnert, wenn von solchen Ideen die Rede ist, an Saint Simon, an Fourier und andere. Die Meinung, die man über solche Ideen gewonnen hat, ist deshalb berechtigt, weil diese aus einer Erkenntnisrichtung heraus entwickelt sind, die nicht an der Wirklichkeit erlebt, sondern die erdacht ist. Und aus dieser Meinung ist die verallgemeinerte entstanden, daß keine Geistesart geeignet ist, Ideen hervorzubringen, die mit der Lebenspraxis so verwandt sind, daß sie verwirklicht werden können. Aus dieser verallgemeinerten Meinung sind die Ansichten entstanden, die in ihrer heutigen Gestalt mehr oder weniger auf Marx zurückweisen. Ihre Träger halten nichts von Ideen, die in der Herbeiführung sozial befriedigender Zustände tätig sein sollen, sondern sie behaupten, die Entwickelung der wirtschaftlichen Tatsachen müsse zu einem Ziele führen, aus dem sich solche Zustände ergeben. Man will gewissermaßen die Lebenspraxis ihren Gang gehen lassen, weil Ideen innerhalb dieser Praxis ohnmächtig seien. Man hat das Vertrauen in die Kraft des Geisteslebens verloren. Man glaubt nicht, daß es eine solche Art des Geisteslebens geben könne, welche die Lebensfremdheit des in den letzten Jahrhunderten zur allgemeinen Geltung gekommenen überwindet. Eine solche Art des Geisteslebens wird nun aber mit der anthroposophisch orientierten Geisteswissenschaft angestrebt. Diese sucht aus solchen Quellen zu schöpfen, die zugleich die Quellen der Wirklichkeit sind. Die Kräfte, die in der innersten Menschennatur walten, sind dieselben, die in der außermenschlichen Wirklichkeit tätig sind. Bis zu diesen Kräften steigt die naturwissenschaftliche Vorstellungsart nicht hinab, indem sie verstandesmäßig ihre an den äußeren Tatsachen gewonnenen Erfahrungen zu Naturgesetzen verarbeitet. Aber auch die auf mehr religiöser Grundlage ruhenden Weltanschauungen verbinden sich gegenwärtig nicht mehr mit diesen Kräften. Sie nehmen die Überlieferungen auf, ohne bis zu ihrem Ursprung im Menschen-Innern zu dringen. Geisteswissenschaft aber sucht bis zu diesem Ursprunge zu kommen. Sie entwickelt Erkenntnismethoden, durch welche in die Schächte des Menschen-Innern hinuntergestiegen wird, in denen das außermenschliche Geschehen sich in das Menschen-Innere fortsetzt. Die Erkenntnisse dieser Geisteswissenschaft stellen im Innern des Menschen erlebte Wirklichkeit dar. Sie drängen sich zu Ideen zusammen, die nicht erdacht sind, sondern die gesättigt sind von den Kräften der Wirklichkeit. Solche Ideen sind daher auch imstande, die Kraft der Wirklichkeit dann in sich zu tragen, wenn sie richtunggebend sein wollen für das soziale Wollen. Es ist begreiflich, daß man zunächst einer solchen Geisteswissenschaft gegenüber Mißtrauen hat. Man wird dieses Mißtrauen aber nur so lange haben, als man nicht erkennt, wie sie wesenhaft verschieden ist von der Wissenschaftsströmung, die sich in der neueren Zeit herausgebildet hat, und von der heute allgemein angenommen wird, daß sie die allein mögliche sei. Ringt man sich zur Erkenntnis dieser Verschiedenheit durch, dann wird man nicht mehr glauben, daß man soziale Ideen meiden muß, wenn man die sozialen Tatsachen praktisch gestalten will; sondern man wird gewahr werden, daß man praktische soziale Ideen nur aus einem Geistesleben heraus gewinnen kann, das seinen Weg zu den Wurzeln des Menschenwesens nehmen kann. Man wird durchschauen, wie in der neueren Zeit die sozialen Tatsachen deshalb in Unordnung gekommen sind, weil die Menschen mit Gedanken sie zu meistern suchten, denen die Tatsachen fortwährend sich entwanden.
[ 11 ] Eine Geistesanschauung, die in die Wesenheit des Menschen eindringt, findet da Antriebe zum Handeln, die unmittelbar im sittlichen Sinne auch gut sind. Denn der Trieb zum Bösen entsteht im Menschen nur dadurch, daß er in seinen Gedanken und Empfindungen die Tiefen seines Wesens zum Schweigen bringt. Werden daher die sozialen Ideen durch die hier gemeinte Geistesanschauung gewonnen, so müssen sie ihrer eigenen Natur nach auch sittliche Ideen sein. Und da sie nicht nur erdachte, sondern erlebte Ideen sind, so haben sie die Kraft, den Willen zu ergreifen und im Handeln weiterzuleben. Soziales Denken und sittliches Denken fließen für wahre Geistesanschauung in eins zusammen. Das Leben, das solche Geistesanschauung entfaltet, ist innerlich verwandt jeder Lebensbetätigung, die der Mensch auch für die gleichgültigste praktische Handlung entwickelt. Daher werden durch sie soziale Gesinnung, sittlicher Antrieb und lebenspraktisches Verhalten so ineinander verwoben, daß sie eine Einheit bilden.
[ 12 ] Solch eine Geistesart aber kann nur gedeihen, wenn sie in völliger Unabhängigkeit von Mächten sich entfaltet, die nicht unmittelbar aus dem Geistesleben selbst stammen. Rechtlich-staatliche Regelungen der Geistespflege benehmen den Kräften des Geisteslebens ihre Stärke. Dagegen wird ein Geistesleben, das ganz den in ihm liegenden Interessen und Impulsen überlassen wird, ausgreifen bis in alles, was der Mensch im sozialen Leben vollbringt. - Man wendet immer wieder ein, daß die Menschen erst völlig anders werden müßten, wenn man das soziale Verhalten auf die sittlichen Impulse bauen wollte. Dabei bedenkt man nicht, welche sittlichen Antriebe im Menschen verkümmern, wenn man sie nicht aus einem freien Geistesleben heraus erstehen läßt, sondern ihnen eine solche Richtung gibt, durch die ein politisch-rechtliches Gesellschaftsgebilde seine vorgezeichneten Arbeitsgebiete besorgen lassen kann. Ein im freien Geistesleben erzogener und unterrichteter Mensch wird allerdings aus seiner Initiative in seinem Beruf manches hineintragen, das einen von seinem Wesen bestimmten Charakter trägt. Er wird sich in das gesellschaftliche Getriebe nicht hineinfügen lassen wie das Rad in eine Maschine. Aber letzten Endes wird das Hineingetragene die Harmonie des Ganzen nicht verkümmern, sondern erhöhen. Was an den einzelnen Stellen des gesellschaftlichen Lebens geschieht, wird der Ausfluß dessen sein, was in den Geistern der Menschen lebt, die an diesen Stellen wirken.
[ 13 ] Menschen, die in einer von der hier gekennzeichneten Geistesart gebildeten seelischen Atmosphäre atmen, werden die von der wirtschaftlichen Zweckmäßigkeit geforderten Einrichtungen in einem Sinne beleben, der die sozialen Forderungen befriedigt. Mit Menschen, deren innere Natur sich nicht eins weiß mit ihrer äußeren Betätigung, werden Einrichtungen, die man glaubt, zur Befriedigung dieser Forderungen zu treffen, nicht sozial wirken können. Denn nicht Einrichtungen können durch sich sozial wirken, sondern sozial gestimmte Menschen in einer Rechtsorganisation, die aus den lebendigen Rechtsinteressen heraus geschaffen ist, und in einem Wirtschaftsleben, das in der zweckmäßigsten Art die den Bedürfnissen dienenden Güter erzeugt.
[ 14 ] Ist das Geistesleben ein freies, das sich nur aus dem heraus entwickelt, was es in sich selbst als Antriebe hat, dann wird das Rechtsleben um so besser gedeihen, je einsichtsvoller die Menschen für die Regelung ihrer Rechtsverhältnisse aus der lebendigen Geisteserfahrung heraus erzogen werden; und dann wird auch das Wirtschaftsleben in dem Grade fruchtbar sein, als die Menschen für dasselbe durch die Geistespflege tüchtig gemacht werden.
[ 15 ] Alles im sozialen Zusammenleben der Menschen an Einrichtungen Zustandegekommene ist ursprünglich das Ergebnis des von den Absichten getragenen Willens. Das Geistesleben hat in diesem Zustandekommen gewirkt. Nur wenn das Leben kompliziert sich gestaltet, wie es unter dem Einfluß der technischen Produktionsweise der neuen Zeit geschehen ist, verliert der gedankengetragene Wille seinen Zusammenhang mit den sozialen Tatsachen. Diese gehen dann ihren eigenen mechanischen Gang. Und der Mensch sucht sich im abgezogenen Geisteswinkel den Inhalt, durch den er seine seelischen Bedürfnisse befriedigt. Aus dem Gang der Tatsachen, über die der geistgetragene Wille der Einzelmenschen keine Gewalt gehabt hat, sind die Zustände geworden, nach deren Änderung die moderne soziale Bewegung strebt. Weil der im Rechtsleben und im Wirtschaftskreislauf arbeitende Geist nicht mehr der ist, in dem das Geistesleben des einzelnen Menschen seinen Weg findet, sieht sich dieser in einer Gesellschaftsordnung, die ihn als Einzelmenschen rechtlich und wirtschaftlich nicht zur Entfaltung kommen läßt. - Menschen, welche dieses nicht durchschauen, werden einer Anschauung, die den sozialen Organismus in die selbständig verwalteten Gebiete des Geisteslebens, des Rechtsstaates, des Wirtschaftskreislaufes gliedern will, immer wieder den Einwand entgegenhalten: dadurch werde die notwendige Einheit des gesellschaftlichen Lebens zerstört. Ihnen muß erwidert werden: diese Einheit zerstört sich selbst, indem sie sich aus sich selbst erhalten will. Denn das Rechtsleben, das aus der wirtschaftlichen Macht heraus sich entwickelt, untergräbt in seinem Wirken diese wirtschaftliche Macht, weil es von den wirtschaftlich Schwachen als ein Fremdkörper im sozialen Organismus empfunden wird. Und der Geist, der in einem Rechts- und Wirtschaftsleben herrschend wird, wenn diese seine Wirksamkeit selbst regeln wollen, verdammt den lebendigen Geist, der aus dem Seelenquell der einzelnen Menschen sich emporarbeitet, zur Ohnmacht gegenüber dem praktischen Leben. Wird aber in einem selbständigen Gebiet die Rechtsordnung aus dem Rechtsbewußtsein geschaffen und wird in einem freien Geistesleben der geistgetragene Einzelwille entwickelt, dann wirken Rechtsordnung und Geisteskraft mit der wirtschaftlichen Betätigung zur Einheit zusammen. Sie werden dies können, wenn sie in selbständigen Lebensgebieten ihrem eigenen Wesen nach sich ausbilden. Gerade in ihrer Absonderung werden sie den Zug zur Einheit annehmen, während sie aus einer künstlichen Einheit heraus gebildet, sich entfremden.
[ 16 ] Mancher sozialistisch Denkende wird eine Anschauung, wie die gekennzeichnete, mit den Worten abtun: Wirtschaftlich erstrebenswerte Zustände kann doch nicht die Gliederung des sozialen Organismus, sondern allein eine entsprechende wirtschaftliche Organisation herbeiführen. Wer so spricht, der beachtet nicht, daß in der wirtschaftlichen Organisation willenbegabte Menschen betätigt sind. Sagt man ihm dieses, so wird er lächeln, denn er findet es selbstverständlich. Und doch denkt er an eine gesellschaftliche Struktur, in der diese « Selbstverständlichkeit » keine Berücksichtigung finden soll. In der wirtschaftlichen Organisation soll ein Gemeinschaftswille walten. Der aber muß das Ergebnis der Einzelwillen der in der Organisation vereinigten Menschen sein. Diese Einzelwillen werden nicht zur Geltung kommen, wenn der Gemeinschaftswille restlos aus dem wirtschaftlichen Organisationsgedanken kommt. Sie werden aber unverkümmert sich entfalten, wenn neben dem Wirtschaftsgebiet ein Rechtsgebiet steht, auf dem keine wirtschaftlichen Gesichtspunkte, sondern allein die des Rechtsbewußtseins maßgebend sind; und wenn neben beiden ein freies Geistesleben Raum findet, das nur geistigen Antrieben folgt. Dann wird nicht eine mechanisch wirkende Gesellschaftsordnung entstehen, der auf die Dauer die menschlichen Einzelwillen doch nicht angepaßt sein könnten; sondern es werden die Menschen die Möglichkeit finden, die Gesellschaftszustände fortwährend von ihren sozialgerichteten Einzelwillen aus zu gestalten. In dem freien Geistesleben wird der Einzelwille seine soziale Richtung erhalten; in dem selbständigen Rechtsstaate wird aus den sozial gesinnten Einzelwillen der gerecht wirkende Gemeinschaftswille entstehen. Und die sozial orientierten Einzelwillen, organisiert durch die selbständige Rechtsordnung, werden sich gütererzeugend und güterverteilend im Wirtschaftskreislauf den sozialen Forderungen gemäß betätigen.
[ 17 ] Den meisten Menschen fehlt heute noch der Glaube an die Möglichkeit, von den Einzelwillen aus eine sozial befriedigende Gesellschaftsordnung zu begründen. Dieser Glaube fehlt, weil er aus einem Geistesleben nicht erstehen kann, das aus dem Wirtschafts- und dem Staatsleben heraus in Abhängigkeit sich entwickelt hat. Eine Geistesart, die nicht in Freiheit aus dem Leben des Geistes selbst sich entwickelt, sondern aus einer äußeren Organisation heraus, die weiß eben nicht, was der Geist wirklich vermag. Sie sucht nach einer Leitung für ihn, weil sie nicht gewahr wird, wie er sich selbst leitet, wenn er nur die Kraft aus seinen eigenen Quellen schöpfen kann. Sie möchte die Leitung des Geistes als eine Nebenwirkung der wirtschaftlichen und rechtlichen Organisation entstehen lassen und beachtet nicht, daß Wirtschaft und Rechtsordnung nur leben können, wenn der sich selbst folgende Geist sie durchdringt.
[ 18 ] Zur sozialen Neugestaltung gehört nicht nur ein guter Wille, sondern auch der Mut, welcher dem Unglauben an die Kraft des Geistes sich entgegenstellt. Diesen Mut kann eine wahre Geistesauffassung beleben; denn sie fühlt sich fähig, Ideen hervorzubringen, die nicht allein einer inneren Seelenorientierung dienen, sondern die, indem sie entstehen, schon die Keime der praktischen Lebensgestaltung in sich tragen. Der Wille, in geistige Tiefen hinunterzusteigen, kann ein so starker werden, daß er in allem mitwirkt, was der Mensch vollbringt.
[ 19 ] Wenn man von einer im Leben wurzelnden Geistesauffassung spricht, so wird man von vielen auch so verstanden, als ob man die Summe der Impulse meinte, zu denen ein Mensch gedrängt wird, der sich in ihm gewohnten Lebensbahnen bewegt, und der jedes Eingreifen von geistiger Seite her in das Gewohnte für eine idealistische Verschrobenheit hält. Die hier gemeinte Geistesanschauung soll aber weder mit der abstrakten Geistigkeit verwechselt werden, die ihre Interessen nicht in die Lebenspraxis hinein zu erstrecken vermag, noch mit derjenigen Geistesrichtung, die eigentlich den Geist sofort verleugnet, wenn sie an die praktische Lebensorientierung denkt. Diese beiden Vorstellungsarten werden nicht gewahr, wie der Geist in den Tatsachen des äußeren Lebens waltet; und sie fühlen daher kein rechtes Bedürfnis, in dieses Walten bewußt einzudringen. Nur ein solches Bedürfnis aber ist auch der Erzeuger derjenigen Erkenntnis, welche die « soziale Frage » in dem richtigen Lichte sieht. Die gegenwärtigen Lösungsversuche dieser « Frage » erscheinen deshalb so ungenügend, weil vielen noch die Möglichkeit fehlt, zu sehen, was der wahre Inhalt der Frage ist. Man sieht die Frage auf wirtschaftlichen Gebieten entstehen; man sucht nach wirtschaftlichen Einrichtungen, die Antworten sein sollen. Man glaubt, in wirtschaftlichen Umgestaltungen die Lösung zu finden. Man erkennt nicht, daß diese Umgestaltungen nur durch Kräfte kommen können, die in dem Aufleben des selbständigen Geistes- und Rechtslebens aus der Menschennatur heraus befreit werden.
Spiritual life, legal system, economy
[ 1 ] Within the contemporary social movement, there is much talk of social institutions, but little talk of social and antisocial people. Little attention is paid to the "social question", which arises when one realizes that social institutions receive their social or antisocial character from the people who work in them. Socialist thinkers believe that in the administration of the means of production by the communities they must see that which will satisfy the demands of large sections of the people. They presuppose without further ado that in such an administration human cooperation must be organized in a social sense. They have seen that the private capitalist economic order has led to unsocial conditions. They believe that when this economic order has disappeared, its anti-social effects must also have ceased.
[ 2 ] Certainly, the modern private capitalist economic system has caused social damage on the broadest scale. But is it somehow proven that these are a necessary consequence of this economic order? By its very nature, however, an economic system can do nothing other than place people in situations in life through which they produce goods for themselves and others in an expedient or inexpedient manner. The modern economic order has placed the means of production in the power of individuals or groups of individuals. The technical achievements could be utilized most expediently through the concentration of economic power. As long as this power is only exercised in the field of the production of goods, it has a substantially different social effect than when it spills over into the legal or spiritual sphere of life. And in the course of the last few centuries this encroachment has led to the social damage which the modern social movement is pressing for the elimination of. He who owns the means of production gains an economic superiority over others. This led to the fact that he found in the administrations and people's representations the forces that helped him, through which he could also obtain other social supremacies over those economically dependent on him, which also have a practically legal character in a democratic state order. Economic supremacy also led to a monopolization of intellectual life among the economically powerful.
[ 3 ] It now seems to be the simplest thing to eliminate the economic supremacy of individuals in order to eliminate their legal and intellectual supremacy. One arrives at this "simplicity" of social thought if one does not consider that in the combination of technical and economic activity offered by modern life lies the necessity of allowing the initiative and individual ability of individuals to develop as fruitfully as possible in the operation of economic life. The way in which production must be carried out under modern conditions makes this necessary. The individual cannot bring his abilities to bear in economic activity if he is bound in his work and in his decisions to the will of the community. However dazzling the thought may be: the individual should not produce for himself, but for the whole; its correctness within certain limits should not prevent us from recognizing the other truth, that no economic decisions can originate from the whole which can be realized in the desirable way by the individual. Therefore, a realistic way of thinking cannot seek the cure for social damage in a new organization of economic life, through which social production takes the place of the management of the means of production by individuals. Rather, the aim must be to prevent the damage that can arise from the exercise of the initiative and efficiency of individuals without impairing this exercise. This is only possible if the legal relationships of people engaged in economic activity are not influenced by the interests of economic life, and if what is to be achieved for people through spiritual life is also independent of these interests.
[ 4 ] It cannot be said that the administrators of economic life can, in spite of their being taken up by economic interests, maintain a sound judgment of legal relationships; and since they know the needs of economic life well from their experience and their work, they will also be able to best organize the legal life that is to unfold within the economic cycle. Those who hold such an opinion do not take into account that a person can only develop the interests of a certain area of life from within that area. From economic life he can only develop economic interests. If he is also to develop legal interests out of it, these will only be economic interests in disguise. Genuine legal interests can only develop on ground where legal life is cultivated separately. On such a ground, one will only ask about what is right. And if legal regulations have been made in the sense of such questions, then what has arisen in this way will have an effect on economic life. There will be no need to impose restrictions on the individual with regard to the appropriation of economic power; for this power will only lead him to perform economic services according to his abilities, but not to acquire legal advantages through them.
[ 5 ] The obvious objection is that the legal relations are revealed in the intercourse of economic men, that they cannot therefore be grasped as something special apart from economic life. Although this is theoretically correct, it does not necessarily mean that economic interests are also decisive for the regulation of legal relationships in practice. The intellectual manager of a business will have to have a legal relationship with the manual workers of this business; this does not mean that he, as the manager of the business, has a say in determining this relationship. However, he will have a say and use his economic superiority in the process if economic cooperation and the regulation of legal relationships take place on a common administrative basis. Only if the law is organized on a basis on which there can be no question of consideration for the economy and the economy cannot gain any power over this legal system will the two be able to work together in such a way that people's sense of justice is not violated and economic efficiency is not turned from a blessing into a blessing for the whole.
[ 6 ] If the economically powerful are able to use their power to gain legal advantages, resistance to these advantages will develop among the economically weak. And when this resistance has become sufficiently strong, it must lead to revolutionary upheavals. If the existence of a special legal basis makes it impossible for such legal advantages to arise, such upheavals will not be able to occur. What continually takes place from this legal basis will be an orderly acting out of the forces that accumulate in people without it and lead to violent discharges. Whoever wants to avoid revolutions must think of the establishment of a social order through which happens in the flow of time what otherwise wants to take place in a world-historical moment.
[ 7 ] You will say that the modern social movement is not initially about legal relations, but about overcoming economic inequalities. To this objection it will have to be replied that demands which live in men are by no means always correctly expressed by the thoughts which consciousness forms of them. These conscious thoughts are the results of what is directly experienced. But what brings forth the demands are deeper connections of life that are not directly experienced. Whoever thinks of bringing about states of life through which these demands are to be satisfied must try to penetrate into the deeper connections. An examination of the relationship between law and economics in modern times shows that the legal life of mankind has become dependent on the economic life. If one were now to strive to eliminate the economic inequalities that have arisen in the wake of this dependence in an external way by a unilateral change in economic forms, similar inequalities would have to arise in a short time if the new economic forms were again given the opportunity to create their own legal forms. Only if one brings about conditions of social life through which legal requirements and interests can be experienced and satisfied independently alongside economic requirements and interests will one really come close to what is forcing its way to the surface of modern human existence through the social movement.
[ 8 ] And one will have to approach the relationship of spiritual life to legal and economic life in the same way. Under the conditions that have arisen in the course of the last centuries, the cultivation of intellectual life could only exert its effect on political, legal and economic life to a very limited extent. One of the most important branches of the cultivation of the humanities, education and teaching, developed from the interests of the state's legal power. People were educated and taught in accordance with the needs of the state. And economic power was added to that of the state. Those who were to develop their abilities as human beings within the existing teaching and educational institutions had to do so on the basis of the economic power arising from their circle of life. Thus those spiritual forces which were able to work within the political-legal and economic life became in their character completely an imprint of this life. A free intellectual life had to refrain from bringing its achievements into state-political life. And it could only do so in economic life to the extent that the latter was still independent of state-political life. Within the economy, the necessity of allowing the capable to come to the fore is evident, because its fertility dies off if the incapable, but economically powerful by virtue of the circumstances, rules alone. If, however, the tendency of many socialist thinkers to administer economic life according to the political-legal model were to be realized, then the cultivation of free intellectual life would be completely pushed out of the public sphere. But an intellectual life that has to develop apart from political-legal and economic reality becomes alien to life. It must draw its content from sources that are not vitally connected with this reality; and it then shapes this content in the course of time in such a way that it runs alongside this reality like an abstraction that has come to life, without producing an appropriate effect in it. In this way two currents arise in spiritual life. The first draws its content from the demands of political, legal and economic life that arise from day to day and seeks to make arrangements that result from these demands. It does not penetrate to the needs of man's spiritual being. It makes external arrangements and forces people into them without listening to what the inner human nature has to say. The other is based on inner needs for knowledge and ideals of will. It shapes these in the way that the person's inner nature demands. But these insights come from contemplation. They are not the reflection of what is experienced in the practice of life. And these ideals have arisen from ideas about what is true, good and beautiful. But they do not have the power to shape the practice of life. Consider what the merchant, the industrialist, the civil servant, apart from his practical life, experiences inwardly as his ideas of knowledge, his religious ideals, his artistic interests, and what ideas are contained in the activity which is expressed in his bookkeeping, or for which education and teaching prepare him as a condition of his office. There is an abyss between the two intellectual currents. It has been widened in more recent times by the fact that that mode of conception which has its full justification in natural science has become decisive for man's relation to reality. This mode of conception is based on the recognition of laws of things and processes which lie outside the sphere of human activity and effectiveness. As a result, man is to a certain extent only a spectator of what he perceives in the laws of nature. And when he brings the laws of nature into effect in technology, he only becomes the initiator of what is brought about by forces that lie outside his own being. The knowledge through which he acts in this way has a character different from his own nature. It reveals nothing to him of what lies in the world-processes in which his own being is interwoven. For such knowledge, he needs a view that combines the extra-human and human worlds into one.
[ 9 ] Modern anthroposophically oriented spiritual science strives for such knowledge. It fully recognizes the importance of the scientific way of thinking for the progress of modern humanity. But it is clear that what is conveyed through scientific knowledge only grasps the outer human being. It also recognizes the nature of religious world-views; but it realizes that in the course of modern development these world-views have become an inner matter of the soul, beside which external life proceeds without being shaped by them through human beings.
[ 10 ] In order to arrive at its insights, however, spiritual science makes demands on man for which he initially develops little inclination for the reason that he has become accustomed over the last few centuries to living in life practice and inner soul life as two separate areas. This habituation has given rise to a view that currently expresses disbelief in any endeavor that seeks to gain a judgment on the social organization of life from spiritual insights. One has in mind what one has experienced as social ideas born out of a spiritual life alien to life. When we speak of such ideas, we are reminded of Saint Simon, Fourier and others. The opinion that one has gained about such ideas is justified because they are developed from a direction of knowledge that is not experienced in reality, but is conceived. And from this opinion has arisen the generalized opinion that no kind of mind is capable of producing ideas that are so related to the practice of life that they can be realized. From this generalized opinion have arisen the views which, in their present form, more or less point back to Marx. Their proponents think nothing of ideas which are to be active in bringing about socially satisfactory conditions, but maintain that the development of economic facts must lead to a goal from which such conditions result. To a certain extent they want to let the practice of life take its course, because ideas are powerless within this practice. One has lost confidence in the power of spiritual life. It is not believed that there can be such a kind of spiritual life that overcomes the alienation from life that has become generally accepted in recent centuries. However, anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is now striving for such a kind of spiritual life. It seeks to draw from sources that are also the sources of reality. The forces that are at work in the innermost human nature are the same forces that are at work in extra-human reality. The scientific mode of conception does not descend to these forces by intellectually processing its experiences gained from external facts into laws of nature. But even the worldviews based on a more religious foundation no longer connect with these forces. They take up the traditions without penetrating to their origin within man. Spiritual science, however, seeks to reach this origin. It develops methods of cognition through which it descends into the shafts of the human inner being, in which the extra-human events continue into the human inner being. The insights of this spiritual science represent reality experienced within the human being. They coalesce into ideas that are not conceived, but are saturated with the forces of reality. Such ideas are therefore also capable of carrying the power of reality within them if they want to give direction to social will. It is understandable that one is initially suspicious of such spiritual science. But one will only have this distrust as long as one does not recognize how it is essentially different from the current of science that has developed in more recent times, and which is generally assumed today to be the only possible one. If one struggles to recognize this difference, then one will no longer believe that one must avoid social ideas if one wants to shape social facts practically; rather, one will become aware that one can only gain practical social ideas from a spiritual life that can take its path to the roots of human nature. One will see through how in recent times social facts have become disordered because people have tried to master them with thoughts from which the facts have continually slipped away.
[ 11 ] A spiritual view that penetrates the essence of man finds impulses to act that are also directly good in the moral sense. For the impulse to evil arises in man only by silencing the depths of his being in his thoughts and feelings. Therefore, if the social ideas are gained through the spiritual conception meant here, they must by their own nature also be moral ideas. And since they are not only conceived ideas, but experienced ideas, they have the power to seize the will and to live on in action. Social thinking and moral thinking merge into one for a true spiritual view. The life that develops such a spiritual view is inwardly related to every life activity that man develops even for the most indifferent practical action. Therefore, social attitude, moral drive and practical life behavior are interwoven in such a way that they form a unity.
[ 12 ] Such a way of thinking, however, can only flourish if it develops in complete independence from powers that do not originate directly from spiritual life itself. Legal-state regulations of spiritual cultivation deprive the forces of spiritual life of their strength. On the other hand, a spiritual life that is left entirely to the interests and impulses within it will reach into everything that man accomplishes in social life. - It is repeatedly argued that people would first have to become completely different if social behavior were to be based on moral impulses. In doing so one does not consider what moral impulses atrophy in man if they are not allowed to arise out of a free spiritual life, but are given such a direction through which a political-legal social structure can have its predetermined areas of work taken care of. A person educated and taught in a free spiritual life will, however, bring into his profession many things on his own initiative that have a character determined by his nature. He will not allow himself to be inserted into the gears of society like a wheel into a machine. But in the end, what he brings to the table will not diminish the harmony of the whole, but enhance it. What happens in the individual places of social life will be the outflow of what lives in the spirits of the people who work in these places.
[ 13 ] People who breathe in a spiritual atmosphere formed by the kind of spirit characterized here will animate the institutions demanded by economic expediency in a sense that satisfies social requirements. With men whose inner nature is not at one with their outer activity, the institutions which are believed to be made to satisfy these demands will not be able to have a social effect. For it is not institutions by themselves that can have a social effect, but socially minded men in a legal organization created out of the living interests of right, and in an economic life that produces in the most expedient manner the goods that serve the needs.
[ 14 ] If the spiritual life is a free one, which develops only out of what it has in itself as impulses, then the legal life will flourish all the better, the more insightfully men are educated for the regulation of their legal relations out of the living spiritual experience; and then the economic life will also be fruitful to the degree that men are made capable for the same through the cultivation of the spirit.
[ 15 ] Everything that comes about in the social coexistence of human beings in terms of institutions is originally the result of the will borne by the intentions. Spiritual life has worked in this coming into being. Only when life becomes complicated, as has happened under the influence of the technical mode of production of the new age, does the will borne by thought lose its connection with the social facts. These then take their own mechanical course. And man seeks for the content through which he satisfies his spiritual needs in the withdrawn mental angle. From the course of facts, over which the spirit-born will of individuals had no power, have come the conditions which the modern social movement strives to change. Because the spirit working in legal life and in the economic cycle is no longer the spirit in which the spiritual life of the individual finds its way, the latter finds himself in a social order which does not allow him to develop legally and economically as an individual. - People who do not see through this will repeatedly object to a view that seeks to divide the social organism into the independently administered areas of spiritual life, the rule of law and the economic cycle, saying that this destroys the necessary unity of social life. To them it must be replied: this unity destroys itself in that it wants to preserve itself by itself. For legal life, which develops out of economic power, undermines this economic power in its work, because it is perceived by the economically weak as a foreign body in the social organism. And the spirit that becomes dominant in a legal and economic life, when these want to regulate their own effectiveness, condemns the living spirit, which works its way up from the wellspring of the soul of the individual, to powerlessness in the face of practical life. If, however, the legal order is created in an independent area from the legal consciousness and if the spirit-born individual will is developed in a free spiritual life, then the legal order and the spiritual power work together with the economic activity to form a unity. They will be able to do this if they develop in independent spheres of life according to their own nature. It is precisely in their separation that they will take on the trait of unity, while formed out of an artificial unity they become alienated.
[ 16 ] Some socialist thinkers will dismiss a view such as the one described above with the words: Economically desirable conditions cannot, after all, be brought about by the subdivision of the social organism, but only by a corresponding economic organization. Whoever speaks in this way does not take into account that in the economic organization people are active who are endowed with will. If you tell him this, he will smile, for he takes it for granted. And yet he is thinking of a social structure in which this "self-evidence" should not be taken into account. The economic organization should be governed by a common will. But this must be the result of the individual wills of the people united in the organization. These individual wills will not come to fruition if the will of the community comes entirely from the idea of economic organization. They will, however, unfold in an undiminished way if, alongside the economic field, there is a legal field in which no economic aspects are decisive, but only those of legal consciousness; and if, alongside both, there is room for a free spiritual life that follows only spiritual impulses. Then a mechanically operating social order will not arise, to which individual human wills could not be adapted in the long run; instead, people will find the possibility of continually shaping social conditions from their socially oriented individual wills. In the free spiritual life the individual will will receive its social direction; in the independent constitutional state the socially-minded individual wills will give rise to the justly-working community will. And the socially oriented individual wills, organized by the independent legal system, will produce and distribute goods in the economic cycle in accordance with social demands.
[ 17 ] Most people today still lack the belief in the possibility of establishing a socially satisfactory social order on the basis of individual wills. This belief is lacking because it cannot arise from a spiritual life that has developed in dependence on economic and state life. A way of thinking that does not develop in freedom out of the life of the spirit itself, but out of an external organization, does not know what the spirit is really capable of. It seeks guidance for it because it does not realize how it guides itself when it can only draw strength from its own sources. It wants the guidance of the spirit to emerge as a side effect of the economic and legal organization and does not take into account that the economy and legal system can only live if the spirit that follows itself permeates them.
[ 18 ] Social reorganization requires not only good will, but also the courage to oppose disbelief in the power of the spirit. This courage can be enlivened by a true conception of the spirit; for it feels capable of producing ideas that not only serve an inner soul orientation, but which, as they arise, already carry within them the seeds of the practical shaping of life. The will to descend into spiritual depths can become so strong that it contributes to everything a person accomplishes.
[ 19 ] When one speaks of a conception of the spirit rooted in life, it is also understood by many as if one meant the sum of the impulses to which a person is urged when he moves within the familiar paths of life, and who considers any intervention from the spiritual side in the familiar to be an idealistic eccentricity. However, the view of the spirit meant here should not be confused with abstract spirituality, which is unable to extend its interests into the practice of life, nor with that school of thought which actually denies the spirit immediately when it thinks of the practical orientation of life. These two conceptions do not realize how the spirit rules in the facts of external life; and they therefore feel no real need to penetrate consciously into this rule. Only such a need, however, is also the generator of that knowledge which sees the "social question" in the right light. The present attempts to solve this "question" appear so inadequate because many still lack the possibility of seeing what the true content of the question is. The question is seen to arise in economic areas; people are looking for economic institutions that are supposed to be answers. The solution is believed to be found in economic transformations. It is not recognized that these transformations can only come through forces that are liberated from human nature in the revival of independent spiritual and legal life.