The Key Points of the Social Question
GA 23
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I. Die wahre Gestalt der sozialen Frage, erfasst aus dem Leben der modernen Menschheit
[ 1 ] Offenbart sich nicht aus der Weltkriegskatastrophe heraus die moderne soziale Bewegung durch Tatsachen, die beweisen, wie unzulänglich Gedanken waren, durch die man jahrzehntelang das proletarische Wollen zu verstehen glaubte?
[ 2 ] Was gegenwärtig sich aus früher niedergehaltenen Forderungen des Proletariats und im Zusammenhange damit an die Oberfläche des Lebens drängt, nötigt dazu, diese Frage zu stellen. Die Mächte, welche das Niederhalten bewirkt haben, sind zum Teil vernichtet. Das Verhältnis, in das sich diese Mächte zu den sozialen Triebkräften eines großen Teiles der Menschheit gesetzt haben, kann nur erhalten wollen, wer ganz ohne Erkenntnis davon ist, wie unvernichtbar solche Impulse der Menschennatur sind.
[ 3 ] Manche Persönlichkeiten, deren Lebenslage es ihnen möglich machte, durch ihr Wort oder ihren Rat hemmend oder fördernd einzuwirken auf die Kräfte im europäischen Leben, die 1914 zur Kriegskatastrophe drängten, haben sich über diese Triebkräfte den größten Illusionen hingegeben. Sie konnten glauben, ein Waffensieg ihres Landes werde die sozialen Anstürme beruhigen. Solche Persönlichkeiten mußten gewahr werden, daß durch die Folgen ihres Verhaltens die sozialen Triebe erst völlig in die Erscheinung traten. Ja, die gegenwärtige Menschheitskatastrophe erwies sich als dasjenige geschichtliche Ereignis, durch das diese Triebe ihre volle Schlagkraft erhielten. Die führenden Persönlichkeiten und Klassen mußten ihr Verhalten in den letzten schicksalsschweren Jahren stets von dem abhängig machen, was in den sozialistisch gestimmten Kreisen der Menschheit lebte. Sie hätten oftmals gerne anders gehandelt, wenn sie die Stimmung dieser Kreise hätten unbeachtet lassen können. In der Gestalt, die gegenwärtig die Ereignisse angenommen haben, leben die Wirkungen dieser Stimmung fort.
[ 4 ] Und jetzt, da in ein entscheidendes Stadium eingetreten ist, was jahrzehntelang vorbereitend heraufgezogen ist in der Lebensentwickelung der Menschheit: jetzt wird zum tragischen Schicksal, daß den gewordenen Tatsachen sich die Gedanken nicht gewachsen zeigen, die im Werden dieser Tatsachen entstanden sind. Viele Persönlichkeiten, die ihre Gedanken an diesem Werden ausgebildet haben, um dem zu dienen, was in ihm als soziales Ziel lebt, vermögen heute wenig oder nichts in bezug auf Schicksalsfragen, die von den Tatsachen gestellt werden.
[ 5 ] Noch glauben zwar manche dieser Persönlichkeiten, was sie seit langer Zeit als zur Neugestaltung des menschlichen Lebens notwendig gedacht haben, werde sich verwirklichen und dann als mächtig genug erweisen, um den fordernden Tatsachen eine lebensmögliche Richtung zu geben. - Man kann absehen von der Meinung derer, die auch jetzt noch wähnen, das Alte müsse sich gegen die neueren Forderungen eines großen Teiles der Menschheit halten lassen. Man kann seinen Blick einstellen auf das Wollen derer, die von der Notwendigkeit einer neuen Lebensgestaltung überzeugt sind. Man wird doch nicht anders können, als sich gestehen: Es wandeln unter uns Parteimeinungen wie Urteilsmumien, die von der Entwickelung der Tatsachen zurückgewiesen werden. Diese Tatsachen fordern Entscheidungen, für welche die Urteile der alten Parteien nicht vorbereitet sind. Solche Parteien haben sich zwar mit den Tatsachen entwickelt; aber sie sind mit ihren Denkgewohnheiten hinter den Tatsachen zurückgeblieben. Man braucht vielleicht nicht unbescheiden gegenüber heute noch als maßgeblich geltenden Ansichten zu sein, wenn man glaubt, das eben Angedeutete aus dem Verlaufe der Weltereignisse in der Gegenwart entnehmen zu können. Man darf daraus die Folgerung ziehen, gerade diese Gegenwart müsse empfänglich sein für den Versuch, dasjenige im sozialen Leben der neueren Menschheit zu kennzeichnen, was in seiner Eigenart auch den Denkgewohnten der sozial orientierten Persönlichkeiten und Parteirichtungen ferne liegt. Denn es könnte wohl sein, daß die Tragik, die in den Lösungsversuchen der sozialen Frage zutage tritt, gerade in einem Mißverstehen der wahren proletarischen Bestrebungen wurzelt. In einem Mißverstehen selbst von seiten derjenigen, welche mit ihren Anschauungen aus diesen Bestrebungen herausgewachsen sind. Denn der Mensch bildet sich keineswegs immer über sein eigenes Wollen das rechte Urteil.
[ 6 ] Gerechtfertigt kann es deshalb erscheinen, einmal die Fragen zu stellen, was will die moderne proletarische Bewegung in Wirklichkeit? Entspricht dieses Wollen demjenigen, was gewöhnlich von proletarischer oder nicht proletarischer Seite über dieses Wollen gedacht wird? Offenbart sich in dem, was über die «soziale Frage» von vielen gedacht wird, die wahre Gestalt dieser «Frage»? Oder ist ein ganz anders gerichtetes Denken nötig? An diese Frage wird man nicht unbefangen herantreten können, wenn man nicht durch die Lebensschicksale in die Lage versetzt war, in das Seelenleben des modernen Proletariats sich einzuleben. Und zwar desjenigen Teiles dieses Proletariats, der am meisten Anteil hat an der Gestaltung, welche die soziale Bewegung der Gegenwart angenommen hat.
[ 7 ] Man hat viel gesprochen über die Entwickelung der modernen Technik und des modernen Kapitalismus. Man hat gefragt, wie innerhalb dieser Entwickelung das gegenwärtige Proletariat entstanden ist, und wie es durch die Entfaltung des neueren Wirtschaftslebens zu seinen Forderungen gekommen ist. In all dem, was man in dieser Richtung vorgebracht hat, liegt viel Treffendes. Daß damit aber ein Entscheidendes doch nicht berührt wird, kann sich dem aufdrängen, der sich nicht hypnotisieren läßt von dem Urteil: Die äußern Verhältnisse geben dem Menschen das Gepräge seines Lebens. Es offenbart sich dem, der sich einen unbefangenen Einblick bewahrt in die aus inneren Tiefen heraus wirkenden seelischen Impulse. Gewiß ist, daß die proletarischen Forderungen sich entwickelt haben während des Lebens der modernen Technik und des modernen Kapitalismus; aber die Einsicht in diese Tatsache gibt noch durchaus keinen Aufschluß darüber, was in diesen Forderungen eigentlich als rein menschliche Impulse lebt. Und solange man in das Leben dieser Impulse nicht eindringt, kann man wohl auch der wahren Gestalt der «sozialen Frage» nicht beikommen.
[ 8 ] Ein Wort, das oftmals in der Proletarierwelt ausgesprochen wird, kann einen bedeutungsvollen Eindruck machen auf den, der in die tiefer liegenden Triebkräfte des menschlichen Wollens zu dringen vermag. Es ist das: Der moderne Proletarier ist «klassenbewußt» geworden. Er folgt den Impulsen der außer ihm bestehenden Klassen nicht mehr gewissermaßen instinktiv, unbewußt; er weiß sich als Angehöriger einer besonderen Klasse und ist gewillt, das Verhältnis dieser seiner Klasse zu den andern im öffentlichen Leben in einer seinen Interessen entsprechenden Weise zur Geltung zu bringen. Wer ein Auffassungsvermögen hat für seelische Unterströmungen, der wird durch das Wort «klassenbewußt» in dem Zusammenhang, in dem es der moderne Proletarier gebraucht, hingewiesen auf wichtigste Tatsachen in der sozialen Lebensauffassung derjenigen arbeitenden Klassen, die im Leben der modernen Technik und des modernen Kapitalismus stehen. Ein solcher muß vor allem aufmerksam darauf werden, wie wissenschaftliche Lehren über das Wirtschaftsleben und dessen Verhältnis zu den Menschenschicksalen zündend in die Seele des Proletariers eingeschlagen haben. Hiermit wird eine Tatsache berührt, über welche viele, die nur über das Proletariat denken können, nicht mit demselben, nur ganz verschwommene, ja in Anbetracht der ernsten Ereignisse der Gegenwart schädliche Urteile haben. Mit der Meinung, dem «ungebildeten» Proletarier sei durch den Marxismus und seine Fortsetzung durch die proletarischen Schriftsteller der Kopf verdreht worden, und mit dem, was man sonst in dieser Richtung oft hören kann, kommt man nicht zu einem auf diesem Gebiete in der Gegenwart notwendigen Verständnis der geschichtlichen Weltlage. Denn man zeigt, wenn man eine solche Meinung äußert, nur, daß man nicht den Willen hat, den Blick auf ein Wesentliches in der gegenwärtigen sozialen Bewegung zu lenken. Und ein solches Wesentliches ist die Erfüllung des proletarischen Klassenbewußtseins mit Begriffen, die ihren Charakter aus der neueren wissenschaftlichen Entwickelung heraus genommen haben. In diesem Bewußtsein wirkt als Stimmung fort, was in Lassalles Rede über die Ë‚Wissenschaft und die Arbeiter» gelebt hat. Solche Dinge mögen manchem unwesentlich erscheinen, der sich für einen «praktischen Menschen» hält. Wer aber eine wirklich fruchtbare Einsicht in die moderne Arbeiterbewegung gewinnen will, der muß seine Aufmerksamkeit auf diese Dinge richten. In dem, was gemäßigte und radikale Proletarier heute fordern, lebt nicht etwa das in Menschen-Impulse umgewandelte Wirtschaftsleben so, wie es sich manche Menschen vorstellen, sondern es lebt die Wirtschafts-Wissenschaft, von welcher das proletarische Bewußtsein ergriffen worden ist. In der wissenschaftlich gehaltenen und in der journalistisch popularisierten Literatur der proletarischen Bewegung tritt dieses so klar zutage. Es zu leugnen, bedeutet ein Augenverschließen vor den wirklichen Tatsachen. Und eine fundamentale, die soziale Lage der Gegenwart bedingende Tatsache ist die, daß der moderne Proletarier in wissenschaftlich gearteten Begriffen sich den Inhalt seines Klassenbewußtseins bestimmen läßt. Mag der an der Maschine arbeitende Mensch von «Wissenschaft» noch so weit entfernt sein; er hört den Aufklärungen über seine Lage von seiten derjenigen zu, welche die Mittel zu dieser Aufklärung von dieser «Wissenschaft» empfangen haben.
[ 9 ] Alle die Auseinandersetzungen über das neuere Wirtschaftsleben, das Maschinenzeitalter, den Kapitalismus mögen noch so einleuchtend auf die Tatsachengrundlage der modernen Proletarierbewegung hinweisen; was die gegenwärtige soziale Lage entscheidend aufklärt, erfließt nicht unmittelbar aus der Tatsache, daß der Arbeiter an die Maschine gestellt worden, daß er in die kapitalistische Lebensordnung eingespannt worden ist. Es fließt aus der andern Tatsache, daß ganz bestimmte Gedanken sich innerhalb seines Klassenbewußtseins an der Maschine und in der Abhängigkeit von der kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsordnung ausgebildet haben. Es könnte sein, daß die Denkgewohnheiten der Gegenwart manchen verhindern, die Tragweite dieses Tatbestandes ganz zu erkennen und ihn veranlassen, in seiner Betonung nur ein dialektisches Spiel mit Begriffen zu sehen. Demgegenüber muß gesagt werden: Um so schlimmer für die Aussichten auf eine gedeihliche Einstellung in das soziale Leben der Gegenwart bei denen, die nicht imstande sind, das Wesentliche ins Auge zu fassen. Wer die proletarische Bewegung verstehen will, der muß vor allem wissen, wie der Proletarier denkt. Denn die proletarische Bewegung - von ihren gemäßigten Reformbestrebungen an bis in ihre verheerendsten Auswüchse hinein - wird nicht von «außermenschlichen Kräften», von «Wirtschaftsimpulsen» gemacht, sondern von Menschen; von deren Vorstellungen und Willensimpulsen.
[ 10 ] Nicht in dem, was die Maschine und der Kapitalismus in das proletarische Bewußtsein hineinverpflanzt haben, liegen die bestimmenden Ideen und Willenskräfte der gegenwärtigen sozialen Bewegung. Diese Bewegung hat ihre Gedanken-Quelle in der neueren Wissenschaftsrichtung gesucht, weil dem Proletarier Maschine und Kapitalismus nichts geben konnten, was seine Seele mit einem menschenwürdigen Inhalt erfüllen konnte. Ein solcher Inhalt ergab sich dem mittelalterlichen Handwerker aus seinem Berufe. In der Art, wie dieser Handwerker sich menschlich mit dem Berufe verbunden fühlte, lag etwas, das ih'n das Leben innerhalb der ganzen menschlichen Gesellschaft vor dem eigenen Bewußtsein in einem lebenswerten Lichte erscheinen ließ. Er vermochte, was er tat, so anzusehen, daß er dadurch verwirklicht glauben konnte, was er als «Mensch» sein wollte. An der Maschine und innerhalb der kapitalistischen Lebensordnung war der Mensch auf sich selbst, auf sein Inneres angewiesen, wenn er nach einer Grundlage suchte, auf der sich eine das Bewußtsein tragende Ansicht von dem errichten läßt, was man als «Mensch» ist. Von der Technik, von dem Kapitalismus strömte für eine solche Ansicht nichts aus. So ist es gekommen, daß das proletarische Bewußtsein die Richtung nach dem wissenschaftlich gearteten Gedanken einschlug. Es hatte den menschlichen Zusammenhang mit dem unmittelbaren Leben verloren. Das aber geschah in der Zeit, in der die führenden Klassen der Menschheit einer wissenschaftlichen Denkungsart zustrebten, die selbst nicht mehr die geistige Stoßkraft hatte, um das menschliche Bewußtsein nach dessen Bedürfnissen allseitig zu einem befriedigenden Inhalte zu führen. Die alten Weltanschauungen stellten den Menschen als Seele in einen geistigen Daseinszusammenhang hinein. Vor der neueren Wissenschaft erscheint er als Naturwesen innerhalb der bloßen Naturordnung. Diese Wissenschaft wird nicht empfunden wie ein in die Menschenseele aus einer Geistwelt fließender Strom, der den Menschen als Seele trägt. Wie man auch über das Verhältnis der religiösen Impulse und dessen, was mit ihnen verwandt ist, zu der wissenschaftlichen Denkungsart der neueren Zeit urteilen mag: man wird, wenn man unbefangen die geschichtliche Entwickelung betrachtet, zugeben müssen, daß sich das wissenschaftliche Vorstellen aus dem religiösen entwickelt hat. Aber die alten, auf religiösen Untergründen ruhenden Weltanschauungen haben nicht vermocht, ihren seelentragenden Impuls der neueren wissenschaftlichen Vorstellungsart mitzuteilen. Sie stellten sich außerhalb dieser Vorstellungsart und lebten weiter mit einem Bewußtseinsinhalt, dem sich die Seelen des Proletariats nicht zuwenden konnten. Den führenden Klassen konnte dieser Bewußtseinsinhalt noch etwas Wertvolles sein. Er hing auf die eine oder die andere Art mit ihrer Lebenslage zusammen. Diese Klassen suchten nicht nach einem neuen Bewußtseinsinhalt, weil die Überlieferung durch das Leben selbst sie den alten noch festhalten ließ. Der moderne Proletarier wurde aus allen alten Lebenszusammenhängen herausgerissen. Er ist der Mensch, dessen Leben auf eine völlig neue Grundlage gestellt worden ist. Für ihn war mit der Entziehung der alten Lebensgrundlagen zugleich die Möglichkeit geschwunden, aus den alten geistigen Quellen zu schöpfen. Die standen inmitten der Gebiete, denen er entfremdetworden war. Mit der modernen Technik und dem modernen Kapitalismus entwickelte sich gleichzeitig - in dem Sinne, wie man die großen weltgeschichtlichen Strömungen gleichzeitig nennen kann - die moderne Wissenschaftlichkeit. Ihr wandte sich das Vertrauen, der Glaube des modernen Proletariats zu. Bei ihr suchte es den ihm notwendigen neuen Bewußtseinsinhalt. Aber es war zu dieser Wissenschaftlichkeit in ein anderes Verhältnis gesetzt als die führenden Klassen. Diese fühlten sich nicht genötigt, die wissenschaftliche Vorstellungsart zu ihrer seelentragenden Lebensauffassung zu machen. Mochten sie noch so sehr mit der «wissenschaftlichen Vorstellungsart» sich durchdringen, daß in der Naturordnung ein gerader Ursachenzusammenhang von den niedersten Tieren bis zum Menschen führe: diese Vorstellungsart blieb doch theoretische Überzeugung. Sie erzeugte nicht den Trieb, das Leben auch empfindungsgemäß so zu nehmen, wie es dieser Überzeugung restlos angemessen ist. Der Naturforscher Vogt, der naturwissenschaftliche Popularisator Büchner: sie waren sicherlich von der wissenschaftlichen Vorstellungsart durchdrungen. Aber neben dieser Vorstellungsart wirkte in ihrer Seele etwas, das sie festhalten ließ an Lebenszusammenhängen, die sich nur sinnvoll rechtfertigen aus dem Glauben an eine geistige Weltordnung. Man stelle sich doch nur unbefangen vor, wie anders die Wissenschaftlichkeit auf den wirkt, der in solchen Lebenszusammenhängen mit dem eigenen Dasein verankert ist, als auf den modernen Proletarier, vor den sein Agitator hintritt und in den wenigen Abendstunden, die von der Arbeit nicht ausgefüllt sind, in der folgenden Art spricht: Die Wissenschaft hat in der neueren Zeit den Menschen ausgetrieben, zu glauben, daß sie ihren Ursprung in geistigen Welten haben. Sie sind darüber belehrt worden, daß sie in der Urzeit unanständig als Baumkletterer lebten, belehrt, daß sie alle den gleichen rein natürlichen Ursprung haben. Vor eine nach solchen Gedanken hin orientierte Wissenschaftlichkeit sah sich der moderne Proletarier gestellt, wenn er nach einem Seelen-inhalt suchte, der ihn empfinden lassen sollte, wie er als Mensch im Weltendasein drinnen steht. Er nahm diese Wissenschaftlichkeit restlos ernst, und zog aus ihr seine Folgerungen für das Leben. Ihn traf das technische und kapitalistische Zeitalter anders als den Angehörigen der führenden Klassen. Dieser stand in einer Lebensordnung drinnen, welche noch von seelentragenden Impulsen gestaltet war. Er hatte alles Interesse daran, die Errungenschaften der neuen Zeit in den Rahitien dieser Lebensordnung einzuspannen. Der Proletarier war aus dieser Lebensordnung seelisch herausgerissen. Ihm konnte diese Lebensordnung nicht eine Empfindung geben, die sein Leben mit einem menschenwürdigen Inhalt durchleuchtete. Empfinden lassen, was man als Mensch ist, das konnte den Proletarier das einzige, was ausgestattet mit Glauben erweckender Kraft aus der alten Lebensordnung hervorgegangen zu sein schien: die wissenschaftliche Denkungsart.
[ 11 ] Es könnte manchen Leser dieser Ausführungen wohl zu einem Lächeln drängen, wenn auf die «Wissenschaftlichkeit» der proletarischen Vorstellungsart verwiesen wird. Wer bei «Wissenschaftlichkeit» nur an dasjenige zu denken vermag, was man durch vieljähriges Sitzen in «Bildungsanstalten» sich erwirbt, und der dann diese «Wissenschaftlichkeit» in Gegensatz bringt zu dem Bewußtseinsinhalt des Proletariers, der «nichts gelernt» hat, der mag lächeln. Er lächelt über Schicksal entscheidende Tatsachen des gegenwärtigen Lebens hinweg. Diese Tatsachen bezeugen aber, daß mancher hoch-gelehrte Mensch unwissenschaftlich lebt, während der ungelehrte Proletarier seine Lebensgesinnung nach der Wissenschaft hin orientiert, die er vielleicht gar nicht besitzt. Der Gebildete hat die Wissenschaft aufgenommen; sie ist in einem Schubfach seines Seelen-Innern. Er steht aber in Lebenszusammenhängen und läßt sich von diesen seine Empfindungen orientieren, die nicht von dieser Wissenschaft gelenkt werden. Der Proletarier ist durch seine Lebensverhältnisse dazu gebracht, das Dasein so aufzufassen, wie es der Gesinnung dieser Wissenschaft entspricht. Was die andern Klassen «Wissenschaftlichkeit» nennen, mag ihm ferne liegen; die Vorstellungsrichtung dieser Wissenschaftlichkeit orientiert sein Leben. Für die andern Klassen ist bestimmend eine religiöse, eine ästhetische, eine allgemeingeistige Grundlage; für ihn wird die «Wissenschaft», wenn auch oft in ihren allerletzten Gedanken-Ausläufen, Lebensglaube. Mancher Angehörige der «führenden» Klassen fühlt sich «aufgeklärt», «freireligiös». Gewiß, in seinen Vorstellungen lebt die wissenschaftliche Überzeugung; in seinen Empfindungen aber pulsieren die von ihm unbemerkten Reste eines überlieferten Lebensglaubens.
[ 12 ] Was die wissenschaftliche Denkungsart nicht aus der alten Lebensordnung mitbekommen hat: das ist das Bewußtsein, daß sie als geistiger Art in einer geistigen Welt wurzelt. Über diesen Charakter der modernen Wissenschaftlichkeit konnte sich der Angehörige der führenden Klassen hinwegsetzen. Denn ihm erfüllt sich das Leben mit alten Traditionen. Der Proletarier konnte das nicht. Denn seine neue Lebenslage trieb die alten Traditionen aus seiner Seele. Er übernahm die wissenschaftliche Vorstellungsart von den herrschenden Klassen als Erbgut. Dieses Erbgut wurde die Grundlage seines Bewußtseins vom Wesen des Menschen. Aber dieser «Geistesinhalt» in seiner Seele wußte nichts von seinem Ursprung in einem wirklichen Geistesleben. Was der Proletarier von den herrschenden Klassen als geistiges Leben allein übernehmen konnte, verleugnete seinen Ursprung aus dem Geiste.
[ 13 ] Mir ist nicht unbekannt, wie diese Gedanken Nicht-proletarier und auch Proletarier berühren werden, die mit dem Leben «praktisch» vertraut zu sein glauben, und die aus diesem Glauben heraus das hier Gesagte für eine lebens-fremde Anschauung halten. Die Tatsachen, welche aus der gegenwärtigen Weltlage heraus sprechen, werden immer mehr diesen Glauben als einen Wahn erweisen. Wer unbefangen diese Tatsachen sehen kann, dem muß sich offenbaren, daß einer Lebensauffassung, welche sich nur an das Außere dieser Tatsachen hält, zuletzt nur noch Vorstellungen zugänglich sind, die mit den Tatsachen nichts mehr zu tun haben. Herrschende Gedanken haben sich so lange «praktisch» an die Tatsachen gehalten, bis diese Gedanken keine Ähnlichkeit mehr mit diesen Tatsachen haben. In dieser Beziehung könnte die gegenwärtige Weltkatastrophe ein Zuchtmeister für viele sein. Denn: Was haben sie gedacht, daß werden kann? Und was ist geworden? Soll es so auch mit dem sozialen Denken gehen?
[ 14 ] Auch höre ich im Geiste den Einwurf, den der Bekenner proletarischer Lebensauffassung aus seiner Seelenstimmung heraus macht: Wieder einer, der den eigentlichen Kern der sozialen Frage auf ein Geleise ablenken möchte, das dem bürgerlich Gesinnten bequem zu befahren scheint. Dieser Bekenner durchschaut nicht, wie ihm das Schicksal sein proletarisches Leben gebracht hat, und wie er sich innerhalb dieses Lebens durch eine Denkungsart zu bewegen sucht, die ihm von den «herrschenden» Klassen als Erbgut über-macht ist. Er lebt proletarisch; aber er denkt bürgerlich. Die neue Zeit macht nicht bloß notwendig, sich in ein neues Leben zu finden, sondern auch in neue Gedanken. Die wissenschaftliche Vorstellungsart wird erst zum leben-tragenden Inhalt werden können, wenn sie auf ihre Art für die Bildung eines vollmenschlichen Lebensinhaltes eine solche Stoßkraft entwickelt, wie sie alte Lebensauffassungen in ihrer Weise entwickelt haben.
[ 15 ] Damit ist der Weg bezeichnet, der zum Auffinden der wahren Gestalt eines der Glieder innerhalb der neueren proletarischen Bewegung führt. Am Ende dieses Weges ertönt aus der proletarischen Seele die Überzeugung: Ich strebe nach dem geistigen Leben. Aber dieses geistige Leben ist Ideologie, ist nur, was sich im Menschen von den äußeren Weltvorgängen spiegelt, fließt nicht aus einer besonderen geistigen Welt her. Was im Übergange zur neuen Zeit aus dem alten Geistesleben geworden ist, empfindet die proletarische Lebensauffassung als Ideologie. Wer die Stimmung in der proletarischen Seele begreifen will, die sich in den sozialen Forderungen der Gegenwart auslebt, der muß imstande sein, zu erfassen, was die Ansicht bewirken kann, daß das geistige Leben Ideologie sei. Man mag erwidern: Was weiß der Durchschnittsproletarier von dieser Ansicht, die in den Köpfen der mehr oder weniger geschulten Führer verwirrend spukt. Der so spricht, redet am Leben vorbei, und er handelt auch am wirklichen Leben vorbei. Ein solcher weiß nicht, was im Proletarierleben der letzten Jahrzehnte vorgegangen ist; er weiß nicht, welche Fäden sich spinnen von der Ansicht, das geistige Leben sei Ideologie, zu den Forderungen und Taten des von ihm nur für «unwissend» gehaltenen radikalen Sozialisten und auch zu den Handlungen derer, die aus dumpfen Lebensimpulsen heraus «Revolution machen».
[ 16 ] Darinnen liegt die Tragik, die über das Erfassen der sozialen Forderungen der Gegenwart sich ausbreitet, daß man in vielen Kreisen keine Empfindung für das hat, was aus der Seelenstimmung der breiten Massen sich an die Oberfläche des Lebens heraufdrängt, daß man den Blick nicht auf das zu richten vermag, was in den Menschengemütern wirklich vorgeht. Der Nichtproletarier hört angsterfüllt nach den Forderungen des Proletariers hin und vernimmt: Nur durch Vergesellschaftung der Produktionsmittel kann für mich ein menschenwürdiges Dasein erreicht werden. Aber er vermag sich keine Vorstellung davon zu bilden, daß seine Klasse beim Übergang aus einer alten in die neue Zeit nicht nur den Proletarier zur Arbeit an den ihm nicht gehörenden Produktionsmitteln aufgerufen hat, sondern daß sie nicht vermocht hat, ihm zu dieser Arbeit einen tragenden Seeleninhalt hinzuzugeben. Menschen, welche in der oben angedeuteten Art am Leben vorbeisehen und vorbeihandeln, mögen sagen: Aber der Proletarier will doch einfach in eine Lebenslage versetzt sein, die derjenigen der herrschenden Klassen gleichkommt; wo spielt da die Frage nach dem Seeleninhalt eine Rolle? Ja, der Proletarier mag selbst behaupten: Ich verlange von den andern Klassen nichts für meine Seele; ich will, daß sie mich nicht weiter ausbeuten können. Ich will, daß die jetzt bestehenden Klassenunterschiede aufhören. Solche Rede trifft doch das Wesen der sozialen Frage nicht. Sie enthüllt nichts von der wahren Gestalt dieser Frage. Denn ein solches Bewußtsein in den Seelen der arbeitenden Bevölkerung, das von den herrschenden Klassen einen wahren Geistesinhalt ererbt hätte, würde die sozialen Forderungen in ganz anderer Art erheben, als es das moderne Proletariat tut, das in dem empfangenen Geistesleben nur eine Ideologie sehen kann. Dieses Proletariat ist von dem ideologischen Charakter des Geisteslebens überzeugt; aber es wird durch diese Überzeugung immer unglücklicher. Und die Wirkungen dieses seines Seelenunglückes, die es nicht bewußt kennt, aber intensiv erleidet, überwiegen weit in ihrer Bedeutung für die soziale Lage der Gegenwart alles, was nur die in ihrer Art auch berechtigte Forderung nach Verbesserung der äußeren Lebenslage ist.
[ 17 ] Die herrschenden Klassen erkennen sich nicht als die Urheber derjenigen Lebensgesinnung, die ihnen gegenwärtig im Proletariertum kampfbereit entgegentritt. Und doch sind sie diese Urheber dadurch geworden, daß sie von ihrem Geistesleben diesem Proletariertum nur etwas haben vererben können, was von diesem als Ideologie empfunden werden muß.
[ 18 ] Nicht das gibt der gegenwärtigen sozialen Bewegung ihr wesentliches Gepräge, daß man nach einer Änderung der Lebenslage einer Menschenklasse verlangt, obgleich es das natürlich Erscheinende ist, sondern die Art wie die Forderung nach dieser Änderung aus den Gedanken-Impulsen dieser Klasse in Wirklichkeit umgesetzt wird. Man sehe sich doch die Tatsachen von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus nur einmal unbefangen an. Dann wird man sehen, wie Persönlichkeiten, die ihr Denken in der Richtung der proletarischen Impulse halten wollen, lächeln, wenn die Rede darauf kommt, durch diese oder jene geistigen Bestrebungen wolle man etwas beitragen zur Lösung der sozialen Frage. Sie belächeln das als Ideologie˃ als eine graue Theorie. Aus dem Gedanken heraus, aus dem bloßen Geistesleben heraus, so meinen sie, werde gewiß nichts beigetragen werden können zu den brennenden sozialen Fragen der Gegenwart. Aber sieht man genauer zu, dann drängt es sich einem auf, wie der eigentliche Nerv, der eigentliche Grundimpuls der modernen, gerade proletarischen Bewegung nicht in dem liegt, wovon der heutige Proletarier spricht, sondern liegt in Gedanken.
[ 19 ] Die moderne proletarische Bewegung ist, wie vielleicht noch keine ähnliche Bewegung der Welt - wenn man sie genauer anschaut, zeigt sich dies im eminentesten Sinne -, eine Bewegung aus Gedanken entsprungen. Dies sage ich nicht bloß wie ein im Nachdenken über die soziale Bewegung gewonnenes Aperçu. Wenn es mir gestattet ist, eine persönliche Bemerkung einzufügen, so sei es diese: Ich habe jahrelang innerhalb einer Arbeiterbildungsschule in den verschiedensten Zweigen proletarischen Arbeitern Unterricht erteilt. Ich glaube dabei kennengelernt zu haben, was in der Seele des modernen proletarischen Arbeiters lebt und strebt. Von da ausgehend habe ich auch zu verfolgen Gelegenheit gehabt, was in den Gewerkschaften der verschiedenen Berufe und Berufsrichtungen wirkt. Ich meine, ich spreche nicht bloß vom Gesichtspunkte theoretischer Erwägungen, sondern ich spreche aus, was ich glaube, als Ergebnis wirklicher Lebenserfahrung mir errungen zu haben.
[ 20 ] Wer - was bei den führenden Intellektuellen leider so wenig der Fall ist - wer die moderne Arbeiterbewegung da kennengelernt hat, wo sie von Arbeitern getragen wird, der weiß, welch bedeutungsschwere Erscheinung dieses ist, daß eine gewisse Gedanken-Richtung die Seelen einer großen Zahl von Menschen in der intensivsten Weise ergriffen hat. Was gegenwärtig schwierig macht, zu den sozialen Rätseln Stellung zu nehmen, ist, daß eine so geringe Möglichkeit des gegenseitigen Verständnisses der Klassen da ist. Die bürgerlichen Klassen können heute sich so schwer in die Seele des Proletariers hineinversetzen, können so schwer verstehen, wie in der noch unverbrauchten Intelligenz des Proletariats Eingang finden konnte eine solche - mag man nun zum Inhalt stehen wie man will -, eine solche an menschliche Denkforderungen höchste Maßstäbe anlegende Vorstellungsart, wie es diejenige Karl Marxens ist.
[ 21 ] Gewiß, Karl Marxens Denksystem kann von dem einen angenommen, von dem andern widerlegt werden, vielleicht das eine mit so gut erscheinenden Gründen wie das andre; es konnte revidiert werden von denen, die das soziale Leben nach Marxens und seines Freundes Engels Tode von anderem Gesichtspunkte ansahen als diese Führer. Von dem Inhalte dieses Systems will ich gar nicht sprechen. Der scheint mir nicht als das Bedeutungsvolle in der modernen proletarischen Bewegung. Das Bedeutungsvollste erscheint mir, daß die Tatsache vorliegt: Innerhalb der Arbeiterschaft wirkt als mächtigster Impuls ein Gedankensystem. Man kann geradezu die Sache in der folgenden Art aussprechen: Eine praktische Bewegung, eine reine Lebensbewegung mit alleralltäglichsten Menschheitsforderungen stand noch niemals so fast ganz allein auf einer rein gedanklichen Grundlage wie diese moderne Proletarierbewegung. Sie ist gewissermaßen sogar die erste derartige Bewegung in der Welt, die sich rein auf eine wissenschaftliche Grundlage gestellt hat. Diese Tatsache muß aber richtig angesehen werden. Wenn man alles dasjenige ansieht, was der moderne Proletarier über sein eigenes Meinen und Wollen und Empfinden bewußt zu sagen hat, so scheint einem das programmäßig Ausgesprochene bei eindringlicher Lebensbeobachtung durchaus nicht als das Wichtige.
[ 22 ] Als wirklich wichtig aber muß erscheinen, daß im Proletarierempfinden für den ganzen Menschen entscheidend geworden ist, was bei andern Klassen nur in einem einzelnen Gliede ihres Seelenlebens verankert ist: die Gedankengrundlage der Lebensgesinnung. Was im Proletarier auf diese Art innere Wirklichkeit ist, er kann es nicht bewußt zugestehen. Er ist von diesem Zugeständnis abgehalten dadurch, daß ihm das Gedankenleben als Ideologie überliefert worden ist. Er baut in Wirklichkeit sein Leben auf die Gedanken; empfindet diese aber als unwirkliche Ideologie. Nicht anders kann man die proletarische Lebensauffassung und ihre Verwirklichung durch die Handlungen ihrer Träger verstehen, als indem man diese Tatsache in ihrer vollen Tragweite innerhalb der neueren Menschheitsentwickelung durchschaut.
[ 23 ] Aus der Art, wie in dem Vorangegangenen das geistige Leben des modernen Proletariers geschildert worden ist, kann man erkennen, daß in der Darstellung der wahren Gestalt der proletarisch-sozialen Bewegung die Kennzeichnung dieses Geisteslebens an erster Stelle erscheinen muß. Denn es ist wesentlich, daß der Proletarier die Ursachen der ihn nicht befriedigenden sozialen Lebenslage so empfindet und nach ihrer Beseitigung in einer solchen Art strebt, daß Empfindung und Streben von diesem Geistesleben die Richtung empfängt. Und doch kann er gegenwärtig noch gar nicht anders als die Meinung spottend oder zornig ablehnen, daß in diesen geistigen Untergründen der sozialen Bewegung etwas liegt, was eine bedeutungsvolle treibende Kraft darstellt. Wie sollte er einsehen, daß das Geistesleben eine ihn treibende Macht hat, da er es doch als Ideologie empfinden muß? Von einem Geistesleben, das so empfunden wird, kann man nicht erwarten, daß es den Ausweg aus einer sozialen Lage findet, die man nicht weiter ertragen will. Aus seiner wissenschaftlich orientierten Denkungsart ist dem modernen Proletarier nicht nur die Wissen-schaft selbst, sondern es sind ihm Kunst, Religion, Sitte, Recht zu Bestandteilen der menschlichen Ideologie geworden. Er sieht in dem, was in diesen Zweigen des Geisteslebens waltet, nichts von einer in sein Dasein hereinbrechenden Wirklichkeit, die zu dem materiellen Leben etwas hinzufügen kann. Ihm sind sie nur Abglanz oder Spiegelbild dieses materiellen Lebens. Mögen sie immerhin, wenn sie entstanden sind, auf dem Umwege durch das menschliche Vorstellen oder durch ihre Aufnahme in die Willensimpulse auf das materielle Leben wieder gestaltend zurückwirken: Ursprünglich steigen sie als ideologische Gebilde aus diesem Leben auf. Nicht sie können von sich aus etwas geben, das zur Behebung der sozialen Schwierigkeiten führt. Nur innerhalb der materiellen Tatsachen selbst kann etwas entstehen, was zum Ziele geleitet.
[ 24 ] Das neuere Geistesleben ist von den führenden Klassen der Menschheit an die proletarische Bevölkerung in einer Form übergegangen, die seine Kraft für das Bewußtsein dieser Bevölkerung ausschaltet. Wenn an die Kräfte gedacht wird, welche der sozialen Frage die Lösung bringen können, so muß dies vor allem andern verstanden werden. Bliebe diese Tatsache weiter wirksam, so müßte sich das Geistesleben der Menschheit zur Ohnmacht verurteilt sehen gegenüber den sozialen Forderungen der Gegenwart und Zukunft. Von dem Glauben an diese Ohnmacht ist in der Tat ein großer Teil des modernen Proletariats überzeugt; und diese Überzeugung wird aus marxistischen oder ähnlichen Bekenntnissen heraus zum Ausdruck gebracht. Man sagt, das moderne Wirtschaftsleben hat aus seinen ältern Formen heraus die kapitalistische der Gegenwart entwickelt. Diese Entwickelung hat das Proletariat in eine ihm unerträgliche Lage gegenüber dem Kapitale gebracht. Die Entwickelung werde weitergehen; sie werde den Kapitalismus durch die in ihm selbst wirkenden Kräfte ertöten, und aus dem Tode des Kapitalismus werde die Befreiung des Proletariats erstehen. Diese Überzeugung ist von neueren sozialistischen Denkern des fatalistischen Charakters entkleidet worden, den sie für einen gewissen Kreis von Marxisten angenommen hat. Aber das Wesentliche ist auch da geblieben. Dies drückt sich darinnen aus, daß es dem, der gegenwärtig echt sozialistisch denken will, nicht beifallen wird, zu sagen: Wenn irgendwo ein aus den Impulsen der Zeit herausgeholtes, in einer geistigen Wirklichkeit wurzelndes, die Menschen tragendes Seelenleben sich zeigt, so wird von diesem die Kraft ausstrahlen können, die auch der sozialen Bewegung den rechten Antrieb gibt.
[ 25 ] Daß der zur proletarischen Lebensführung gezwungene Mensch der Gegenwart gegenüber dem Geistesleben dieser Gegenwart eine solche Erwartung nicht hegen kann, das gibt seiner Seele die Grundstimmung. Er bedarf eines Geisteslebens, von dem die Kraft ausgeht, die seiner Seele die Empfindung von seiner Menschenwürde verleiht. Denn als er in die kapitalistische Wirtschaftsordnung der neueren Zeit hineingespannt worden ist, wurde er mit den tiefsten Bedürfnissen seiner Seele auf ein solches Geistesleben hingewiesen. Dasjenige Geistesleben aber, das ihm die führenden Klassen als Ideologie überlieferten, höhlte seine Seele aus. Daß in den Forderungen des modernen Proletariats die Sehnsucht nach einem andern Zusammenhang mit dem Geistesleben wirkt, als ihm die gegenwärtige Gesellschaftsordnung geben kann: dies gibt der gegenwärtigen sozialen Bewegung die richtende Kraft. Aber diese Tatsache wird weder von dem nicht proletarischen Teile der Menschheit richtig erfaßt, noch von dem proletarischen. Denn der nicht proletarische leidet nicht unter dem ideologischen Gepräge des modernen Geisteslebens, das er selbst herbeigeführt hat. Der proletarische Teil leidet darunter. Aber dieses ideologische Gepräge des ihm vererbten Geisteslebens hat ihm den Glauben an die tragende Kraft des Geistesgutes als solchen geraubt. Von der rechten Einsicht in diese Tatsache hängt das Auffinden eines Weges ab, der aus den Wirren der gegenwärtigen sozialen Lage der Menschheit herausführen kann. Durch die gesellschaftliche Ordnung, welche unter dem Einfluß der führenden Menschenklassen beim Heraufkommen der neueren Wirtschaftsform entstanden ist, ist der Zugang zu einem solchen Wege verschlossen worden. Man wird die Kraft gewinnen müssen, ihn zu öffnen.
[ 26 ] Man wird auf diesem Gebiete zum Umdenken dessen kommen, was man gegenwärtig denkt, wenn man das Gewicht der Tatsache wird richtig empfinden lernen, daß ein gesellschaftliches Zusammenleben der Menschen, in dem das Geistesleben als Ideologie wirkt, eine der Kräfte entbehrt, welche den sozialen Organismus lebensfähig machen. Der gegenwärtige krankt an der Ohnmacht des Geisteslebens. Und die Krankheit wird verschlimmert durch die Abneigung, ihr Bestehen anzuerkennen. Durch die Anerkennung dieser Tatsache wird man eine Grundlage gewinnen, auf der sich ein der sozialen Bewegung entsprechendes Denken entwickeln kann.
[ 27 ] Gegenwärtig vermeint der Proletarier eine Grundkraft seiner Seele zu treffen, wenn er von seinem Klassenbewußtsein redet. Doch die Wahrheit ist, daß er seit seiner Einspannung in die kapitalistische Wirtschaftsordnung nach einem Geistesleben sucht, das seine Seele tragen kann, das ihm das Bewußtsein seiner Menschenwürde gibt; und daß ihm das als ideologisch empfundene Geistesleben dieses Bewußtsein nicht entwickeln kann. Er hat nach diesem Bewußtsein gesucht, und er hat, was er nicht finden konnte, durch das aus dem Wirtschaftsleben geborene Klassenbewußtsein ersetzt.
[ 28 ] Sein Blick ist wie durch eine mächtige suggestive Kraft bloß hingelenkt worden auf das Wirtschaftsleben. Und nun glaubt er nicht mehr, daß anderswo, in einem Geistigen oder Seelischen, ein Anstoß liegen könne zu dem, was notwendig eintreten müßte auf dem Gebiete der sozialen Bewegung. Er glaubt allein, daß durch die Entwickelung des ungeistigen, unseelischen Wirtschaftslebens der Zustand herbeigeführt werden könne, den er als den menschenwürdigen empfindet. So wurde er dazu gedrängt, sein Heil allein in einer Umgestaltung des Wirtschaftslebens zu suchen. Zu der Meinung wurde er gedrängt, daß durch bloße Umgestaltung des Wirtschaftslebens verschwinden werde all der Schaden, der herrührt von der privaten Unternehmung, von dem Egoismus des einzelnen Arbeitgebers und von der Unmöglichkeit des einzelnen Arbeitgebers, gerecht zu werden den Ansprüchen auf Menschenwürde, die im Arbeitnehmer leben. So kam der moderne Proletarier dazu, das einzige Heil des sozialen Organismus zu sehen in der Überführung allen Privatbesitzes an Produktionsmitteln in gemeinschaftlichen Betrieb oder gar gemeinschaftliches Eigentum. Eine solche Meinung ist dadurch entstanden, daß man gewissermaßen den Blick abgelenkt hat von allem Seelischen und Geistigen und ihn nur hingerichtet hat auf den rein ökonomischen Prozeß.
[ 29 ] Dadurch stellte sich all das Widerspruchsvolle ein, das in der modernen proletarischen Bewegung liegt. Der moderne Proletarier glaubt, daß aus der Wirtschaft, aus dem Wirtschaftsleben selbst sich alles entwickeln müsse, was ihm zuletzt sein volles Menschenrecht geben werde. Um dies volle Menschenrecht kämpft er. Allein innerhalb seines Strebens tritt etwas auf, was eben niemals aus dem wirtschaftlichen Leben allein als eine Folge auftreten kann. Das ist eine bedeutende, eine eindringliche Sprache redende Tatsache, daß geradezu im Mittelpunkte der verschiedenen Gestaltungen der sozialen Frage aus den Lebensnotwendigkeiten der gegenwärtigen Menschheit heraus etwas liegt, von dem man glaubt, daß es aus dem Wirtschaftsleben selbst hervorgehe, das aber niemals aus diesem allein entspringen konnte, das vielmehr in der geraden Fortentwickelungslinie liegt, die über das alte Sklavenwesen durch das Leibeigenenwesen der Feudalzeit zu dem modernen Arbeitsproletariat heraufführt. Wie auch für das moderne Leben die Warenzirkulation, die Geldzirkulation, das Kapitalwesen, der Besitz, Wesen von Grund und Boden und so weiter sich gestaltet haben, innerhalb dieses modernen Lebens hat sich etwas herausgebildet, das nicht deutlich ausgesprochen wird, auch von dem modernen Proletarier nicht bewußt empfunden wird, das aber der eigentliche Grundimpuis seines sozialen Wollens ist. Es ist dieses: Die moderne kapitalistische Wirtschaftsordnung kennt im Grunde genommen nur Ware innerhalb ihres Gebietes. Sie kennt Wertbildung dieser Waren innerhalb des wirtschaftlichen Organismus. Und es ist geworden innerhalb des kapitalistischen Organismus der neueren Zeit etwas zu einer Ware, von dem heute der Proletarier empfindet: es darf nicht Ware sein.
[ 30 ] Wenn man einmal einsehen wird, wie stark als einer der Grundimpulse der ganzen modernen proletarischen sozialen Bewegung in den Instinkten, in den unterbewußten Empfindungen des modernen Proletariers ein Abscheu davor lebt, daß er seine Arbeitskraft dem Arbeitgeber ebenso verkaufen muß, wie man auf dem Markte Waren verkauft, der Abscheu davor, daß auf dem Arbeitskräftemarkt nach Angebot und Nachfrage seine Arbeitskraft ihre Rolle spielt, wie die Ware auf dem Markte unter Angebot und Nachfrage, wenn man darauf kommen wird, welche Bedeutung dieser Abscheu vor der Ware Arbeitskraft in der modernen sozialen Bewegung hat, wenn man ganz unbefangen darauf blicken wird, daß, was da wirkt, auch nicht eindringlich und radikal genug von den sozialistischen Theorien ausgesprochen wird, dann wir man zu dem ersten Impuls, dem ideologisch empfundenen Geistesleben, den zweiten gefunden haben, von dem gesagt werden muß, daß er heute die soziale Frage zu einer drängenden, ja brennenden macht.
[ 31 ] Im Altertum gab es Sklaven. Der ganze Mensch wurde wie eine Ware verkauft. Etwas weniger vom Menschen, aber doch eben ein Teil des Menschenwesens selber wurde in den Wirtschaftsprozeß eingegliedert durch die Leibeigenschaft. Der Kapitalismus ist die Macht geworden, die noch einem Rest des Menschenwesens den Charakter der Ware aufdrückt: der Arbeitskraft. Ich will hier nicht sagen, daß diese Tatsache nicht bemerkt worden sei. Im Gegenteil, sie wird im sozialen Leben der Gegenwart als eine fundamentale Tatsache empfunden. Sie wird als etwas gefühlt, was gewichtig in der modernen sozialen Bewegung wirkt. Aber man lenkt, indem man sie betrachtet, den Blick lediglich auf das Wirtschaftsleben. Man macht die Frage über den Warencharakter zu einer bloßen Wirtschaftsfrage. Man glaubt, daß aus dem Wirtschaftsleben heraus selbst die Kräfte kommen müssen, welche einen Zustand herbeiführen, durch den der Proletarier nicht mehr die Eingliederung seiner Arbeitskraft in den sozialen Organismus als seiner unwürdig empfindet. Man sieht, wie die moderne Wirtschaftsform in der neueren geschichtlichen Entwickelung der Menschheit heraufgezogen ist. Man sieht auch, daß diese Wirtschaftsform der menschlichen Arbeitskraft den Charakter der Ware aufgeprägt hat. Aber man sieht nicht, wie es im Wirtschaftsleben selbst liegt, daß alles ihm Eingegliederte zur Ware werden muß. In der Erzeugung und in dem zweckmäßigen Verbrauch von Waren besteht das Wirtschaftsleben. Man kann nicht die menschliche Arbeitskraft des Warencharakters entkleiden, wenn man nicht die Möglichkeit findet, sie aus dem Wirtschaftsprozeß herauszureißen. Nicht darauf kann das Bestreben gerichtet sein, den Wirtschaftsprozeß so umzugestalten, daß in ihm die menschliche Arbeitskraft zu ihrem Rechte kommt, sondern darauf: Wie bringt man diese Arbeitskraft aus dem Wirtschaftsprozeß heraus, um sie von sozialen Kräften bestimmen zu lassen, die ihr den Warencharakter nehmen? Der Proletarier ersehnt einen Zustand des Wirtschaftslebens, in dem seine Arbeitskraft ihre angemessene Stellung einnimmt. Er ersehnt ihn deshalb, weil er nicht sieht, daß der Warencharakter seiner Arbeitskraft wesentlich von seinem völligen Eingespanntsein in den Wirtschaftsprozeß herrührt. Dadurch, daß er seine Arbeitskraft diesem Prozeß überliefern muß, geht er mit seinem ganzen Menschen in demselben auf. Der Wirtschaftsprozeß strebt so lange durch seinen eigenen Charakter danach, die Arbeitskraft in der zweckmäßigsten Art zu verbrauchen, wie in ihm Waren verbraucht werden, so lange man die Regelung der Arbeitskraft in ihm liegen läßt. Wie hypnotisiert durch die Macht des modernen Wirtschaftslebens, richtet man den Blick allein auf das, was in diesem wirken kann. Man wird durch diese Blickrichtung nie finden, wie Arbeitskraft nicht mehr Ware zu sein braucht. Denn eine andere Wirtschaftsform wird diese Arbeitskraft nur in einer andern Art zur Ware machen. Die Arbeitsfrage kann man nicht in ihrer wahren Gestalt zu einem Teile der sozialen Frage machen, solange man nicht sieht, daß im Wirtschaftsleben Warenerzeugung, Warenaustausch und Warenkonsumtion nach Gesetzen vor sich gehen, die durch Interessen bestimmt werden, deren Machtbereich nicht über die menschliche Arbeitskraft ausgedehnt werden soll.
[ 32 ] Das neuzeitliche Denken hat nicht trennen gelernt die ganz verschiedenen Arten, wie sich auf der einen Seite dasjenige in das Wirtschaftsleben eingliedert, was als Arbeitskraft an den Menschen gebunden ist, und auf der andern Seite dasjenige, was, seinem Ursprunge nach, unverbunden mit dem Menschen auf den Wegen sich bewegt, welche die Ware nehmen muß von ihrer Erzeugung bis zu ihrem Verbrauch. Wird sich durch eine in dieser Richtung gehende gesunde Denkungsart die wahre Gestalt der Arbeitsfrage einerseits zeigen, so wird anderseits sich durch diese Denkart auch erweisen, welche Stellung das Wirtschaftsleben im gesunden sozialen Organismus einnehmen soll.
[ 33 ] Man sieht schon hieraus, daß die «soziale Frage» sich in drei besondere Fragen gliedert. Durch die erste wird auf die gesunde Gestalt des Geisteslebens im sozialen Organismus zu deuten sein; durch die zweite wird das Arbeitsverhältnis in seiner rechten Eingliederung in das Gemeinschaftsleben zu betrachten sein; und als drittes wird sich ergeben können, wie das Wirtschaftsleben in diesem Leben wirken soll.
Versions Available:
The Key Points of the Social Question, Steiner Online Library
3. Capitalism and Social Ideas (Capital, Human Labor)
[ 1 ] It is impossible to arrive at a judgment as to which course of action in the social field is currently demanded by the facts that speak for themselves if one does not have the will to let this judgment be determined by an insight into the basic forces of the social organism. The attempt to gain such an insight forms the basis of the preceding presentation. Measures based solely on a judgment derived from a narrowly defined circle of observation cannot achieve anything fruitful today. The facts which have grown out of the social movement reveal disturbances in the foundations of the social organism, and by no means those which are only present on the surface. In the face of them it is necessary to arrive at insights that penetrate to the foundations.
[ 2 ] To speak of capital and capitalism today is to point to that in which proletarian humanity seeks the causes of its oppression. But one can only arrive at a fruitful judgment about the way in which capital has a promoting or inhibiting effect in the cycles of the social organism if one sees through how the individual abilities of people, how the formation of law and how the forces of economic life produce and consume capital. - When one speaks of human labor, one points to that which, together with the natural basis of the economy and capital, creates economic values and through which the worker becomes aware of his social situation. A judgment as to how this human labor must be placed in the social organism in order not to disturb the worker's sense of his human dignity can only be made if one wishes to consider the relationship that human labor has to the development of individual abilities on the one hand and to the consciousness of rights on the other.
[ 3 ] The question is now rightly being asked as to what needs to be done in the near future in order to do justice to the demands arising in the social movement. It will not be possible to accomplish the next thing in a fruitful way if one does not know what relation the thing to be accomplished should have to the foundations of the healthy social organism. And if one knows this, then one will be able to find the tasks that arise from the facts in the place where one is placed or where one is able to place oneself. The gaining of insight that is being pointed to here is juxtaposed with what has passed from human will into social institutions over the course of a long time, leaving unbiased judgment unaffected. People have become so accustomed to these institutions that they have formed opinions from them about what is to be preserved and what is to be changed. One's thoughts are guided by the facts, which should be governed by thought. Today, however, it is necessary to see that there is no other way to gain a judgment based on the facts than by going back to the original ideas that underlie all social institutions.
[ 4 ] If the right sources are not available, from which the forces that lie in these original thoughts constantly flow anew into the social organism, then the institutions take on forms that are not life-promoting but life-inhibiting. In the instinctive impulses of men, however, the primal thoughts live on more or less unconsciously, even when the fully conscious thoughts go astray and create, or have already created, facts that hinder life. And it is these primordial thoughts, which express themselves chaotically in the face of a life-inhibiting world of facts, that come to light, either obviously or covertly, in the revolutionary upheavals of the social organism. These convulsions will only not occur if the social organism is organized in such a way that there can always be a tendency in it to observe where a deviation from the institutions marked out by the original ideas is forming, and where at the same time there is the possibility of working against this deviation before it has gained a fatal strength.
[ 5 ] In our days, the deviations from the conditions demanded by the original thoughts have become great in a wide range of human life. And the life of the impulses borne by these thoughts in human souls stands as a criticism that speaks loudly through facts about what has taken shape in the social organism of the last centuries. It therefore requires good will to turn energetically to the original thoughts and not to fail to recognize how harmful it is, especially today, to banish these original thoughts from the realm of life as "impractical" generalities. In the life and in the demands of the proletarian population lives the factual criticism of what modern times have made of the social organism. The task of our time is to work against this one-sided criticism by finding the directions from the original thought in which the facts must be consciously directed. For the time has expired in which humanity can be satisfied with what instinctive guidance has achieved so far.
[ 6 ] One of the fundamental questions that arise from contemporary criticism is how the oppression that proletarian humanity has experienced through private capitalism can end. The owner or manager of capital is able to put the physical labor of other people at the service of what he undertakes to produce. In the social relation which arises in the interaction of capital and human labor, we must distinguish three links: the entrepreneurial activity, which must be based on the individual capacities of a person or a group of persons; the relation of the entrepreneur to the worker, which must be a legal relation; the production of a thing which acquires a commodity value in the circulation of economic life. Entrepreneurial activity can only intervene in a healthy way in the social organism if forces are at work in its life which allow the individual abilities of people to manifest themselves in the best possible way. This can only happen if there is an area of the social organism which gives the capable person the free initiative to make use of his abilities and which makes it possible to assess the value of these abilities through a free understanding of them in other people. It can be seen that the social activity of a person through capital belongs to that area of the social organism in which spiritual life is responsible for legislation and administration. If the political state intervenes in this activity, the lack of understanding of individual abilities must necessarily be a determining factor in its effectiveness. For the political state must be based on, and it must put into effect, that which is present in all men as an equal demand of life. It must allow all men in its sphere to assert their judgment. For what he has to accomplish, understanding or non-understanding of individual abilities is out of the question. Therefore, what comes to fruition in it must also have no influence on the exercise of individual human abilities. Nor should the prospect of economic advantage be able to determine the impact of individual abilities made possible by capital. Some evaluators of capitalism place a great deal of emphasis on this advantage. They suppose that it is only through this incentive of advantage that individual abilities can be brought into activity. And as "practitioners" they refer to the "imperfect" human nature that they claim to know. However, within the social order that has brought about the present conditions, the prospect of economic advantage has acquired a profound significance. But this fact is in no small part the cause of the conditions that can now be experienced. And these conditions urge the development of a different drive for the exercise of individual abilities. This drive will have to lie in the social understanding that flows from a healthy spiritual life. Education and school will equip people with impulses from the power of free spiritual life that will lead them to realize what their individual abilities urge them to do by virtue of this inherent understanding.
[ 7 ] Such an opinion need not be swarm spiritism. To be sure, swarm spiritism has brought immeasurable disaster in the area of social will as well as in others. But the view presented here is not, as can be seen from the foregoing, based on the delusional belief that "the spirit" will work miracles if those who think they have it speak of it as much as possible; rather, it arises from the observation of the free cooperation of people in the spiritual sphere. This cooperation is given a social character by its own nature, if only it can develop truly freely.
[ 8 ] Only the unfree nature of spiritual life has so far prevented this social character from emerging. Within the leading classes the intellectual forces have developed in such a way that the achievements of these forces have been completed in an anti-social manner within certain circles of humanity. What has been produced within these circles could only be brought to proletarian humanity in an artificial way. And this humanity could not draw any soul-bearing strength from this spiritual life, because it did not really participate in the life of this spiritual good. Institutions for "popular instruction", the "attraction" of the "people" to the enjoyment of art and the like are in truth no means of spreading the spiritual good among the people as long as this spiritual good retains the character it has assumed in modern times. For the "people" do not stand with their innermost part of their human nature in the life of this spiritual good. It is only enabled to look at it, so to speak, from a point of view that lies outside it. And what applies to spiritual life in the narrower sense also has its significance in those branches of spiritual activity that flow into economic life on the basis of capital. In a healthy social organism the proletarian worker should not stand by his machine and be touched only by its gears, while the capitalist alone knows the fate of the commodities produced in the cycle of economic life. The worker should be able to develop ideas about the way in which he participates in social life by working on the production of commodities. Meetings, which must be counted as part of the working process as the work itself, should be organized regularly by the employer with the purpose of developing a common circle of ideas which embraces employees and employers. A healthy activity of this kind will create an understanding in the worker that the right activity of the capital manager promotes the social organism and thus the worker himself, who is a member of it. The entrepreneur will be induced to conduct his business in an impeccable manner by such publicity of his management aimed at free understanding.
[ 9 ] Only those who have no sense at all for the social effect of the inner united experience of a thing carried out in community will consider what is said to be meaningless. Those who have such a sense will see through how economic productivity is promoted when the capital-based management of economic life has its roots in the area of free spiritual life. The interest in capital and its increase, which exists merely for the sake of profit, can only make way for the objective interest in the creation of products and the production of services if this condition is fulfilled.
[ 10 ] Today's socialist thinkers strive for the management of the means of production by society. What is justified in this aspiration can only be achieved if this administration is carried out by the free intellectual sphere. This will make impossible the economic compulsion which emanates from the capitalist and is felt to be inhuman when the capitalist develops his activity out of the forces of economic life. And the paralysis of individual human capacities will not be able to occur, which must be a consequence if these capacities are administered by the political state.
[ 11 ] In a healthy social organism, the achievement of an activity through capital and individual human abilities must, like every intellectual achievement, result from the free initiative of the active person on the one hand and, on the other, from the free understanding of other people who demand the existence of the active person's achievement. In this field, the free insight of the doer must be in harmony with the assessment of what he wants to regard as the yield of his achievement - according to the preparations he needs in order to accomplish it, according to the expenditures he must make in order to make it possible, and so on. He will only be able to find his demands satisfied if he is met with understanding for his achievements.
[ 12 ] Social institutions along the lines outlined here will lay the groundwork for a truly free contractual relationship between labor manager and labor provider. And this relation will not refer to an exchange of commodities (or money) for labor power, but to the determination of the share which each of the two persons who jointly produce the commodity has.
[ 13 ] What is done for the social organism on the basis of capital is in essence based on the way in which the individual human faculties intervene in this organism. The development of these faculties can receive its corresponding impulse from nothing else but the free life of the spirit. Even in a social organism which harnesses this development to the administration of the political state or to the forces of economic life, the real productivity of everything that necessitates the expenditure of capital will be based on the free individual forces that force their way through the paralyzing institutions. But development under such conditions will be an unhealthy one. It is not the free unfolding of individual faculties acting on the basis of capital that has brought about conditions in which human labor power must be a commodity, but the fettering of these forces by political state life or by the cycle of economic life. To see through this impartially is in the present day a prerequisite for everything that is to happen in the field of social organization. For modern times have brought forth the superstition that the measures which make the social organism healthy should emerge from the political state or economic life. If we continue on the path that has received its direction from this superstition, we will create institutions that will not lead humanity to what it is striving for, but to an unlimited increase in the oppression that it would like to see averted.
[ 14 ] We have learned to think about capitalism at a time when this capitalism has caused a process of illness in the social organism. One experiences the process of illness; one sees that it must be counteracted. One must see more. One must realize that the disease has its origin in the absorption of the forces active in capital by the circulation of economic life. Only those can work in the direction of what the developmental forces of humanity are now energetically beginning to demand, who do not allow themselves to be driven into illusions by the way of thinking which sees in the administration of capital activity by the liberated spiritual life the result of an "impractical idealism".
[ 15 ] In the present day, however, there is little preparation to bring the social idea, which is supposed to steer capitalism in a healthy direction, into a direct connection with spiritual life. It is linked to that which belongs to the circle of economic life. We see how in recent times the production of goods has led to large-scale enterprise, and how this has led to the present form of capitalism. This form of economy should be replaced by the cooperative, which works for the producers' own needs. Since, however, the economy with the modern means of production is to be retained, it is demanded that the farms be merged into a single large cooperative. In such a cooperative, it is thought, everyone produces on behalf of the community, which cannot be exploitative because it exploits itself. And since one wants or has to build on what already exists, one looks towards the modern state, which one wants to transform into a comprehensive cooperative.
[ 16 ] It is not realized that such a cooperative is expected to have effects that are all the less likely to occur the larger the cooperative is. If the integration of individual human abilities into the organism of the cooperative is not organized in the way described above, the commonality of labour administration cannot lead to the health of the social organism.
[ 17 ] The fact that there is currently little disposition for an unbiased judgment on the intervention of spiritual life in the social organism stems from the fact that people have become accustomed to imagining the spiritual as far removed as possible from everything material and practical. There will be quite a few who find something grotesque in the view presented here, that in the activity of capital in economic life the effect of a part of spiritual life is supposed to reveal itself. One can imagine that in this characterization of what is presented as grotesque, members of the hitherto leading classes of men agree with socialist thinkers. In order to understand the significance of these grotesque findings for the recovery of the social organism, one will have to look at certain currents of thought in the present, which in their nature spring from honest impulses of the soul, but which inhibit the emergence of a truly social way of thinking where they find their way in.
[ 18 ] These currents of thought strive more or less unconsciously - away from that which gives the inner experience the right impetus. They strive for a view of life, a spiritual, a thinking, an inner life that seeks scientific knowledge, like an island in the life of man as a whole. They are then unable to build a bridge from this life to that which engages people in everyday life. You can see how many people today find it "inwardly noble", so to speak, to think about all kinds of ethical-religious problems in cloud-cuckoo-land heights in a certain, even scholastic abstractness; you can see how people think about the way in which man can acquire virtues, how he should behave in love towards his fellow human beings, how he can be graced with an "inner purpose in life". But then you can also see the inability to make a transition from what people call good and loving and benevolent and legal and moral to what surrounds people in external reality, in everyday life, as the effects of capital, as the remuneration of labor, as consumption, as production, as the circulation of goods, as credit, as banking and the stock exchange. You can see how two world currents are juxtaposed in people's habits of thought. The one world current is that which wants to keep itself, as it were, at a divine-spiritual height, which does not want to build a bridge between what is a spiritual impulse and what is a fact of ordinary action in life. The other lives thoughtlessly in the everyday. Life, however, is a unified one. It can only flourish if the forces that drive it work down from all ethical-religious life into the most profane everyday life, into the life that seems less noble to some. For if one neglects to build a bridge between the two spheres of life, then one falls into a mere swarm spirituality with regard to religious, moral life and social thinking, which is far removed from everyday true reality. This everyday true reality then takes its revenge, so to speak. Then, out of a certain "spiritual" impulse, man strives for all possible ideals, all possible things that he calls "good"; but man gives himself over to those instincts that are opposed to these "ideals" as the basis of the ordinary daily needs of life, the satisfaction of which must come from the national economy, to these instincts without "spirit". He knows no realistic path from the concept of spirituality to what goes on in everyday life. As a result, this everyday life takes on a form that should have nothing to do with what wants to be held as ethical impulses in noble, soul-spiritual heights. But then the revenge of ordinariness becomes such that the ethical-religious life becomes an inner lie of man's life, because it keeps itself far away from the everyday, from the immediate practice of life, without one realizing it.
[ 19 ] How numerous are the people today who, out of a certain ethical-religious nobility, show the best will to live together with their fellow human beings in the right way, who only want to do the very best for their fellow human beings. But they fail to arrive at a way of feeling that really makes this possible, because they cannot acquire a social imagination that has an effect on practical habits of life.
[ 20 ] From the circle of such people come those who, in this world-historical moment when social questions have become so urgent, oppose the true practice of life as swarming spirits who consider themselves to be real practitioners of life. You can hear them say things like this: We need people to rise from materialism, from the outwardly material life that drove us into the catastrophe of the world war and into misfortune, and to turn to a spiritual view of life. If one wants to show the paths of man to spirituality in this way, one never tires of quoting those personalities who were revered in the past because of their spiritual way of thinking. One can experience that someone who tries to point out precisely what the spirit must achieve today for real practical life, just as the daily bread must be produced, is made aware that it is primarily important to bring people back to the recognition of the spirit. At present, however, it is important that the guidelines for the recovery of the social organism are found from the power of spiritual life. It is not enough for people to occupy themselves with the spirit in a side current of life. It is necessary for everyday life to become spiritual. The tendency to seek such side currents for the "spiritual life" has led the hitherto leading circles to have a taste for social conditions that have leaked into the present facts.
[ 21 ] In contemporary social life, the management of capital in the production of commodities and the ownership of the means of production, including capital, are closely connected. And yet these two relationships of man to capital are quite different in terms of their effect within the social organism. Administration through individual abilities, when applied appropriately, provides the social organism with goods in whose existence all people belonging to this organism have an interest. Whatever a person's situation in life, he has an interest in ensuring that nothing is lost of the individual faculties that flow from the sources of human nature, through which goods are created that serve the purpose of human life. The development of these faculties can only take place, however, if their human bearers can bring them to fruition on their own free initiative. What cannot flow freely from these sources is, at least to a certain extent, withdrawn from human welfare. Capital, however, is the means of bringing such abilities into effect for wide areas of social life. Everyone within a social organism must have a real interest in administering the entire capital property in such a way that the individual gifted in a particular direction, or that groups of people capable of special things, can dispose of capital in such a way that it arises solely from their own initiative. From the intellectual worker to the artisan, every man, if he wishes to serve his own interest without prejudice, must say: I wish that a sufficient number of capable persons or groups of persons should not only be able to dispose of capital entirely freely, but that they should also be able to arrive at the capital on their own initiative; for they alone can have a judgment as to how, through the mediation of capital, their individual capabilities will produce goods for the social organism in an expedient manner.
[ 22 ] It is not necessary in the course of this paper to describe how, in the course of the development of mankind, private property has arisen from other forms of property in connection with the exercise of individual human faculties in the social organism. Up to the present such property has developed under the influence of the division of labor within this organism. And the present conditions and their necessary further development will be discussed here.
[ 23 ] However private property has been formed, through the exercise of power and conquest and so on, it is a result of social creation linked to individual human abilities. Nevertheless, there is currently an opinion among socialist thinkers that its oppressive nature can only be eliminated by transforming it into common property. The question is posed thus: How can private ownership of the means of production be prevented from arising so that the oppression of the dispossessed population caused by it ceases? Those who pose the question in this way do not focus their attention on the fact that the social organism is a constantly growing and developing organism. One cannot ask of this growing thing: How should it best be arranged so that through this arrangement it will then remain in the state that one has recognized as the right one? This is how one can think about something that continues to work essentially unchanged from a certain starting point. This does not apply to the social organism. Through its life it continually changes that which arises in it. If you want to give it a supposedly best form in which it should then remain, you undermine its living conditions.
[ 24 ] A vital condition of the social organism is that those who can serve the community through their individual abilities should not be deprived of the possibility of such service on their own free initiative. Where such service includes the free disposal of the means of production, the prevention of this free initiative would be detrimental to the general social interests. What is usually argued with reference to this matter, that the entrepreneur needs the prospect of profit to stimulate his activity, Öor is bound to the possession of the means of production: this is not to be asserted here. For the way of thinking from which the opinion of a further development of social relations, as presented in this book, flows, must see in the liberation of intellectual life from the political and economic community the possibility that such an incentive may cease to exist. Liberated spiritual life will quite necessarily develop social understanding of its own accord; and from this understanding will arise incentives of quite a different kind from those which lie in the hope of economic advantage. But it cannot be a question merely of the impulses which make private ownership of the means of production popular among men, but of whether the free disposal of such means, or that regulated by the community, corresponds to the conditions of life of the social organism. And here it must always be borne in mind that for the present social organism one cannot take into consideration the conditions of life which one believes to observe in primitive human societies, but only those which correspond to the present stage of development of mankind.
[ 25 ] At this present stage the fruitful exercise of individual faculties by capital cannot enter into the circulation of economic life without the free disposal of the same. Where production is to be fruitful, this disposition must be possible, not because it brings advantage to an individual or a group of people, but because it can best serve the general public if it is expediently supported by social understanding.
[ 26 ] Man is, as it were, connected with what he produces himself or in community with others, as with the skill of his own bodily members. The suppression of the free disposal of the means of production is equivalent to a paralysis of the free use of the dexterity of his bodily members.
[ 27 ] However, private property is nothing other than the mediator of this free disposal. For the social organism, nothing else comes into consideration with regard to property than that the owner has the right to dispose of the property on his own free initiative. We see that in social life two things are connected which are of quite different importance for the social organism: the free disposal of the capital basis of social production, and the legal relation into which the disposer enters with other men by the fact that through his right of disposal these other men are excluded from free activity through this capital basis.
[ 28 ] It is not the original free disposal that leads to social damage, but merely the continuance of the right to this disposal, when the conditions have ceased which bind individual human capacities together with this disposal in an expedient manner. Whoever looks at the social organism as a becoming, growing thing will not be able to misunderstand what is indicated here. He will ask how that which serves life on the one hand can be managed in such a way that it does not have a harmful effect on the other. What lives cannot be fruitfully arranged in any other way than by the fact that in becoming that which comes into being also leads to disadvantage. And if one is to cooperate in a becoming itself, as man must in the social organism, the task cannot consist in preventing the emergence of a necessary institution in order to avoid harm. For this would undermine the possibility of life for the social organism. It can only be a matter of intervening at the right moment when the expedient turns into a harmful one.
[ 29 ] The possibility of freely disposing of the capital base on the basis of individual abilities must exist; it must be possible to change the associated right of ownership at the moment when it turns into a means for the unjustified development of power. In our time we have an institution which takes account of the social demand indicated here, partly implemented only for so-called intellectual property. Some time after the death of the creator, this becomes the free property of the general public. This is based on a conception corresponding to the nature of human coexistence. As closely as the production of a purely spiritual good is bound to the individual talent of the individual, this good is at the same time a result of social coexistence and must be transferred to it at the right moment. But it is no different with other property. That with its help the individual produces in the service of the whole is only possible with the cooperation of this whole. Thus the right to dispose of property cannot be administered separately from the interests of the whole. It is not a question of finding a means by which the ownership of the capital base can be extinguished, but of finding a means by which this property can be administered in such a way that it serves the whole in the best possible way.
[ 30 ] This means can be found in the tripartite social organism. The people united in the social organism act as a whole through the rule of law. The exercise of individual faculties belongs to the spiritual organization.
[ 31 ] Just as everything in the social organism of an outlook that has an understanding of actualities and that does not allow itself to be completely dominated by subjective opinions, theories, desires and so on, gives rise to the necessity of the tripartite organization of this organism, so in particular does the question of the relationship of individual human capacities to the capital basis of economic life and the ownership of this capital basis. The constitutional state will not have to prevent the emergence and administration of private ownership of capital as long as the individual capabilities remain so connected with the capital base that the administration means a service for the whole of the social organism. And it will remain a constitutional state with regard to private property; it will never take possession of it itself, but will ensure that it passes at the right time into the right of disposal of a person or group of persons who can again develop a relationship to the property that is conditioned by individual circumstances. The social organism can thus be served from two quite different starting points. From the democratic basis of the constitutional state, which has to do with what affects all people in the same way, it will be possible to ensure that property rights do not become property injustices in the course of time. By the fact that this state does not administer property itself, but ensures that it is transferred to the individual human capacities, these will unfold their fruitful power for the entirety of the social organism. So long as it seems expedient, such an organization will enable the rights of property, or the disposal of the same, to remain with the individual element. It may be imagined that the representatives in the constitutional state will at different times make very different laws concerning the transfer of property from one person or group of persons to another. At the present time, when a great distrust of all private property has developed in wide circles, a radical transfer of private property into common property is being considered. If one were to go far along this road, one would see how the possibility of life for the social organism would be prevented. Experience would teach us to take a different path later. But it would undoubtedly be better to take steps in the present to establish institutions which would give health to the social organism in the sense indicated here. As long as a person, alone or in connection with a group of persons, continues the productive activity which he has brought together with a capital basis, he must retain the right of disposal over that mass of capital which results from the initial capital as operating profit, if the latter is used for the extension of the productive enterprise. From the moment such a person ceases to manage the production, this capital mass should be transferred to another person or group of persons for the operation of a similar or other production serving the social organism. The capital that is extracted from the production enterprise and is not used for its expansion should also follow the same path from its creation. The personal property of the person in charge of the enterprise should only be that which he acquires on the basis of those claims which he believed he could make on the basis of his individual ability when he started the production enterprise, and which appear to be justified by the fact that he has received capital from the trust of other people by asserting the same. If the capital has been increased by the activity of this person, so much will pass into his individual property from this increase that the increase of the original emoluments corresponds to the increase of capital in the sense of an interest payment. - The capital with which a production operation has been initiated will, according to the will of the original owners, be transferred to the new manager with all the obligations assumed, or will flow back to them if the first manager can no longer or no longer wishes to manage the operation.
[ 32 ] In such an arrangement, one is dealing with transfers of rights. The rule of law is responsible for making the legal provisions on how such transfers are to take place. It will also have to supervise the implementation and manage its administration. One can imagine that the individual provisions regulating such a transfer of rights will be found to be correct in very different ways based on legal awareness. A conception which, like the one presented here, is intended to be realistic will never want to do more than point to the direction in which the regulation can move. If this direction is approached with understanding, one will always find something appropriate in the specific individual case. But the right thing will have to be found from the particular circumstances for the practice of life in accordance with the spirit of the matter. The more realistic a way of thinking is, the less it will want to establish laws and rules for individual things on the basis of preconceived requirements. - On the other hand, one or the other will necessarily result from the spirit of the way of thinking. One such result is that the constitutional state will never be allowed to usurp the disposal of capital through its administration of the transfer of rights. It will only have to ensure that the transfer is made to a person or group of persons who make this process appear justified by their individual abilities. On the basis of this premise, the provision that whoever has to proceed with a transfer of capital for the reasons described above can freely choose his successor in the utilization of capital will also have to apply in general. He will be able to choose a person or group of persons, or transfer the right of disposal to a corporation of the intellectual organization. For he who has rendered appropriate services to the social organism through capital management will also judge the further use of this capital from his individual abilities with social understanding. And it will be more useful for the social organism if this judgment is relied upon than if it is dispensed with and the regulation is carried out by persons who are not directly connected with the matter.
[ 33 ] A regulation of this kind will come into consideration in the case of masses of capital of a certain amount which are acquired by a person or a group of persons through means of production (which include land), and which do not become personal property on the basis of claims originally made for the exercise of individual capacities.
[ 34 ] The acquisitions made in the latter manner and all savings resulting from the performance of one's own labor remain the personal property of the acquirer or his descendants until the death of the acquirer or until a later date. Until that time, the person to whom such savings are given for the creation of the means of production will also have to pay an interest resulting from legal consciousness and to be determined by the rule of law. In a social order which rests on the foundations described here, a complete distinction can be made between the earnings which come into existence on the basis of labor with the means of production and the wealth which is acquired on the basis of personal (physical and mental) labor. This distinction corresponds to legal consciousness and the interests of the social community. What someone saves and makes available as savings to a production enterprise serves the general interests. For it is what makes production management by individual human abilities possible. Whatever increase in capital is produced by the means of production - after deduction of the legitimate interest - owes its origin to the action of the entire social organism. It should therefore also flow back into it in the manner described. The constitutional state will only have to determine that the transfer of the masses of capital in question shall take place in the manner indicated; but it will not be incumbent upon it to decide to what material or intellectual production a transferred or even a saved capital is to be made available. This would lead to a tyranny of the state over intellectual and material production. The latter, however, is guided by individual human abilities in the best way for the social organism. It will only be left to those who do not themselves wish to choose to whom they should transfer the capital they have created, to employ a corporation of intellectual organization for the right of disposal.
[ 35 ] After the death of the acquirer or some time thereafter, assets acquired through savings shall also pass with the interest income to a spiritually or materially productive person or group of persons - but only to such a person, not to an unproductive person for whom it would become an annuity - who is to be chosen by the acquirer by testamentary disposition. Here too, if a person or group of persons cannot be chosen directly, the transfer of the right of disposal to a corporation of the spiritual organism may be considered. Only if someone does not make a disposition of their own accord will the constitutional state intervene on their behalf and have the disposition made by the spiritual organization.
[ 36 ] Within such a regulated social order, both the free initiative of the individual and the interests of the social community are taken into account; indeed, the latter are fully satisfied by the fact that the free initiative of the individual is placed at their service. Whoever has to entrust his work to the direction of another person will, with such an arrangement, be able to know that what has been worked out together with the leader will be fruitful in the best possible way for the social organism, thus also for the worker himself. The social order meant here will create a relationship corresponding to the healthy feeling of men between the rights of disposal, regulated by legal consciousness, over capital embodied in the means of production and human labor on the one hand, and the prices of the products created by both on the other. - Perhaps some will find imperfections in what is presented here. They may be found. The point of a realistic way of thinking is not to give perfect "programs" once and for all, but to indicate the direction in which practical work is to be done. Special indications such as those given here are actually only intended to explain the marked direction in more detail, as with an example. Such an example may be improved. If this is only done in the direction indicated, then a fruitful goal can be achieved.
[ 37 ] Justified personal or family impulses will be reconciled with the demands of human universality through such institutions. It will certainly be possible to point out that the temptation to transfer property to one or more descendants during one's lifetime is very great. And that in such descendants one can create apparent producers who are then, however, inefficient in relation to others and would be better replaced by these others. But this temptation can be minimized in an organization governed by the institutions mentioned above. For the rule of law need only require that under all circumstances the property which has been transferred to one member of the family from another shall, after the lapse of a certain time following the death of the latter, revert to a corporation of the spiritual organization. Or the circumvention of the rule can be prevented in another way by law. The rule of law will only see to it that this transfer takes place; who shall be chosen to inherit should be determined by an institution arising from the spiritual organization. By fulfilling such conditions, an understanding will develop that descendants are made suitable for the social organism through education and instruction, and that social harm is not caused by the transfer of capital to unproductive persons. One in whom truly social understanding lives has no interest in his connection with a capital base having an after-effect on persons or groups of persons whose individual capacities do not justify such a connection.
[ 38 ] No one will regard what is set forth here as a mere utopia, which has any sense of what is really practicable. For it points precisely to such institutions as can arise quite directly at any point in life out of present conditions. It will only be necessary to take the decision to gradually dispense with the administration of intellectual life and economic activity within the constitutional state and not to defend oneself if, as should happen, private educational establishments really come into being and economic life stands on its own foundations. State schools and state economic institutions need not be abolished from one day to the next; but from perhaps small beginnings one will see the possibility of a gradual dismantling of the state educational and economic system. Above all, however, it would be necessary for those personalities who can imbue themselves with the conviction of the correctness of the social ideas presented here or similar ones to ensure their dissemination. If such ideas are understood, confidence is thereby created for a possible salutary transformation of the present conditions into those which do not show their harm. This confidence, however, is the only one from which a truly healthy development can emerge. For whoever is to gain such confidence must be able to see how new institutions can be practically linked to the existing ones. And it seems to be the very essence of the ideas that are developed here that they do not want to bring about a better future by destroying the present even further than has already occurred; but that the realization of such ideas builds on what already exists and, by building on it, brings about the dismantling of what is unhealthy. An enlightenment that does not strive for trust in this direction will not achieve what must be achieved at all costs: a further development in which the value of the goods and abilities acquired by mankind up to now is not thrown to the winds, but preserved. Even the most radical thinker can gain confidence in a social reorganization while preserving traditional values if he sees himself confronted with ideas that can initiate a truly healthy development. He too will have to realize that whichever class of men comes to power, it will not eliminate the existing evils if its impulses are not carried by ideas that make the social organism healthy and viable. To despair because one cannot believe that a sufficiently large number of people, even in the turmoil of the present, will understand such ideas, if the necessary energy can be directed to their propagation, would be to despair of the susceptibility of human nature to the impulses of what is healthy and appropriate. This question of whether one should despair of this should not be asked at all, but only the other one: what should be done to make the enlightenment of trust-inspiring ideas as powerful as possible.
[ 39 ] The effective dissemination of the ideas presented here will initially be hindered by the fact that the habits of thought of the present age will not be able to cope with them for two reasons. Either it will be objected in some form or other that it is impossible to imagine that the unified social life can be torn apart, since in reality the three branches of this life are connected everywhere; or it will be found that even in the unified state the necessary independent significance of each of the three members can be achieved, and that what is presented here is in fact a web of ideas that does not touch reality. The first objection is based on the fact that unreal thinking is assumed. That it is believed that people can only create a unity of life in a community if this unity is first brought into the community by arrangement. But the opposite is demanded by the reality of life. Unity must arise as the result; the activities flowing together from different directions must ultimately bring about unity. This realistic idea ran counter to the development of recent times. Therefore, what lived in people resisted the "order" brought into life from outside and led to the present social situation. - The second prejudice arises from the inability to see through the radical difference in the workings of the three links of social life. One does not see how man has a special relationship to each of the three members, which can only be developed in its own way if there is a ground in real life that exists for itself, on which this relationship, separated from the other two, can develop in order to work together with them. A view of the past, the physiocratic view, held that either men make governmental regulations over economic life which are contrary to the free self-development of this life; then such regulations are harmful. Or the laws run in the same direction in which economic life runs by itself, if it is left to itself; then they are superfluous. As a school opinion, this view has been overcome; as a habit of thought, however, it still haunts people's minds everywhere. It is thought that if an area of life follows its laws, then everything necessary for life must follow from this area. If, for example, economic life is regulated in such a way that people feel the regulation to be satisfactory to them, then legal and spiritual life must also result correctly from the ordered economic sphere. But this is not possible. And only a way of thinking that is alien to reality can believe that it is possible. In the cycle of economic life there is nothing that contains of itself an impulse to regulate that which flows from the consciousness of right concerning the relationship of man to man. And if one wants to regulate this relationship from the economic impulses, one will involve man with his labor and with the disposal of the means of labor in economic life. He becomes a wheel in an economic life that works like a mechanism. Economic life has a tendency to move continually in one direction, in which it is necessary to intervene from another side. It is not when the legal measures run in the direction produced by economic life that they are good, or when they run counter to it that they are harmful; but when the direction in which economic life runs is continually influenced by the rights which concern man only as man, he will be able to lead a humane existence in economic life. And only then, when the individual faculties grow up on their own ground, quite apart from economic life, and continually supply economic life with the forces that cannot be generated from within it, will economic life be able to develop in a way that is beneficial to human beings.
[ 40 ] It is curious: in the field of purely external life one easily sees the advantage of the division of labor. It is not believed that the tailor should breed his own cow to supply him with milk. For the comprehensive organization of human life, it is believed that the unitary order must be the only profitable thing.
[ 41 ] It is self-evident that objections must arise from all sides, especially in the case of a direction of social ideas that corresponds to real life. For real life generates contradictions. And whoever thinks according to this life must want to realize institutions whose contradictions in life are balanced by other institutions. He must not believe that an institution which proves to be "ideally good" in his mind will, if it is realized, also develop without contradiction. - It is a perfectly justified demand of contemporary socialism that the modern institutions, in which production takes place for the sake of the profit of the individual, should be replaced by those in which production takes place for the sake of the consumption of all. But precisely those who fully recognize this demand will not be able to come to the conclusion of this newer socialism: Therefore the means of production must pass from private to common ownership. Rather, he will have to recognize the quite different conclusion: Therefore, what is produced privately on the basis of individual prowess must be brought to the commonwealth through the right channels. The economic impulse of recent times has been to create revenue by the quantity of goods produced; the future will have to strive to find the best mode of production and the ways from the producer to the consumer by association from the necessary consumption. The legal institutions will ensure that a production enterprise remains connected with a person or group of persons only as long as this connection is justified by the individual abilities of these persons. Instead of the common ownership of the means of production, a circulation of these means will occur in the social organism, which will always bring them anew to those persons whose individual abilities they can utilize in the best possible way for the community. In this way the connection between personality and means of production is temporarily established, which has hitherto been effected by private property. For the manager of an enterprise and his sub-managers will owe it to the means of production that their abilities will bring them an income commensurate with their requirements. They will not fail to make the production as perfect as possible, for the increase of this production will not bring them the full profit, but a part of the revenue. After all, the profit flows to the general public only in the sense described above, up to the degree that results after deducting the interest that the producer receives due to the increase in production. And it is actually already in the spirit of what has been described here that, if production decreases, the producer's income must decrease to the same extent as it increases with the expansion of production. But the income will always flow from the intellectual achievement of the leader, not from such profit as is based on conditions which have their foundation not in the intellectual work of an entrepreneur, but in the interaction of the forces of common life.
[ 42 ] It will be seen that by the realization of such social ideas as are here presented, institutions which at present exist will receive a completely new meaning. Property will cease to be what it has been up to now. And it will not be returned to an outmoded form, such as that represented by common property, but will be carried forward to something completely new. The objects of property are brought into the flow of social life. The individual cannot administer them out of his private interest to the detriment of the community; but neither will the community be able to administer them bureaucratically to the detriment of the individual; but the suitable individual will find access to them in order to be able to serve the community through them.
[ 43 ] A sense of the general interest can develop through the realization of such impulses that place production on a sound basis and protect the social organism from the dangers of crisis. - An administration that is only concerned with the cycle of economic life can also lead to balances that arise as necessary from this cycle. If, for example, a business is not in a position to pay its borrowers interest on their labor savings, it will be possible, if it is recognized as meeting a need, to make up the shortfall from other businesses by free agreement with all those involved in the latter. A self-contained economic cycle, which receives the legal basis from outside and the continuous inflow of the individual human abilities that come to light, will only have to do with economic activity. It will thus be able to be the initiator of a distribution of goods that provides everyone with what he can justly have according to the prosperity of the community. If one person appears to have more income than another, this will only be because the "more" benefits the community as a whole due to their individual abilities.
[ 44 ] A social organism organized in the light of the conception presented here will be able to regulate the taxes necessary for legal life through an agreement between the leaders of legal life and those of economic life. And all that is necessary for the maintenance of the spiritual organization will flow to it through the remuneration of the individuals who participate in the social organism, which will be made out of free understanding. This spiritual organization will have its healthy foundation through the individual initiative of individuals capable of spiritual work asserting themselves in free competition.
[ 45 ] But only in the social organism meant here will the administration of justice find the necessary understanding for a just distribution of goods. An economic organism which does not make use of the labor of men from the needs of the individual branches of production, but which has to do business with what the law makes possible for it, will determine the value of goods according to what men render to it. It will not let people do what is determined by the value of goods, which is independent of human welfare and human dignity. Such an organism will see rights arising from purely human conditions. Children will have the right to education; the father of a family will be able to have a higher income as a worker than as a single person. The "more" will accrue to him through institutions established by agreement between all three social organizations. Such institutions can correspond to the right to education in that the administration of the economic organization determines the possible amount of the educational income according to the general economic conditions and the constitutional state determines the rights of the individual according to the opinions of the spiritual organization. Again, it is in the nature of realistic thinking that with such an indication only the direction in which the institutions can be effected is indicated as by an example. It would be possible that for the individual quite different institutions would be found to be correct. But this "right" can only be found through the timely interaction of the three independent members of the social organism. Here, in contrast to much that is considered practical in the present, but is not, the way of thinking on which it is based would like to find what is really practical, namely a structure of the social organism that causes people to bring about what is socially expedient in this structure.
[ 46 ] Just as children have the right to education, so the aged, the disabled, widows and the sick have the right to a livelihood, to which the capital basis must flow into the circulation of the social organism in a similar way to the designated capital contribution for the education of those who are not yet able to work themselves. The essential point in all this is that the determination of what a non-self-earning person receives as income should not result from economic life, but that, conversely, economic life becomes dependent on what results in this respect from legal consciousness. Those who work in an economic organism will have all the less of what they have earned through their work, the more must flow out for those who do not earn. But the "less" will be borne equally by all those involved in the social organism if the social impulses meant here find their realization. Through the constitutional state, separated from economic life, what is a general matter of humanity, the education and maintenance of those not able to work, is also really made such a matter, for in the field of legal organization, that in which all men who have come of age have a say is at work.
[ 47 ] A social organism, which corresponds to the type of conception characterized here, will transfer the surplus performance, which a person achieves on the basis of his individual abilities, to the community, just as it will take the justified maintenance for the reduced performance of the less able from this community. "Surplus value" will not be created for the unjustified enjoyment of the individual, but to increase that which can provide the social organism with spiritual or material goods; and to cultivate that which arises within this organism from its womb without being able to serve it directly.
[ 48 ] Those who incline to the view that the separation of the three members of the social organism has only an ideal value, and that it also arises "of itself" in the case of a uniformly organized state organism or in the case of an economic cooperative encompassing the territory of the state and based on common ownership of the means of production, should direct their attention to the special kind of social institutions that must arise when the threefold structure is realized. There, for example, the state administration will no longer have to recognize money as legal tender, but this recognition will be based on the measures emanating from the administrative bodies of the economic organization. For in a healthy social organism, money can be nothing other than an order for goods produced by others and which can be obtained from the whole area of economic life because goods produced by oneself have been delivered to this area. Through monetary transactions, an economic area becomes a unified economy. Everyone produces for everyone else in a roundabout way through the entire economic life. Within the economic area, one only deals with commodity values. For this area, the services that arise from the intellectual and state organization also take on the character of commodities. What a teacher does for his pupils is a commodity for the economic cycle. The teacher is not paid for his individual abilities any more than the worker is paid for his labor. Both can only be paid for what, starting from them, can be goods and commodities in the economic cycle. How free initiative and the law are to act in order that the commodity may come into existence is as outside the economic cycle as the effect of the forces of nature on the grain yield in a blessed or a lean year. For the economic cycle, the spiritual organization and also the state are individual commodity producers with regard to what they claim as economic yield. But what they produce is not a commodity within their own territory; it only becomes a commodity when it is absorbed by the economic cycle. They do not do business in their own territories; the administration of the economic organism does business with what they produce.
[ 49 ] The purely economic value of a commodity (or of something done), in so far as it is expressed in the money which represents its equivalent value, will depend on the expediency with which the administration of the economy is organized within the economic organism. It will depend on the measures of this administration to what extent economic fruitfulness can develop on the intellectual and legal basis created by the other members of the social organism. The monetary value of a commodity will then be the expression of the fact that this commodity is produced by the institutions of the economic organism in the quantity corresponding to its needs. If the conditions set forth in this paper were realized, the decisive factor in the economic organism would not be the impulse to accumulate wealth by the mere quantity of production, but the production of goods would adapt itself to needs through the cooperatives that would arise and combine in the most varied ways. In this way the relation between the value of money and the means of production in the social organism corresponding to these needs will be established.1Only through an administration of the social organism, which comes about in this way in the free cooperation of the three members of the social organism, will a healthy price relation of the produced goods be established as a result for economic life. This must be such that every worker receives for a product as much in return as is necessary to satisfy all the needs of himself and the persons belonging to him, until he has again produced a product of the same labor. Such a relation of prices cannot be established by official determination, but must result from the living interaction of the associations active in the social organism. But it will arise if the interaction is based on the healthy interaction of the three organizational elements. It must occur with the same certainty as a stable bridge must occur when it is built according to the right mathematical and mechanical laws. But no one will make such an objection who is able to recognize how, in the exposition of this book, social life is thought to be based on living and not mathematical laws. In the healthy social organism, money will really only be a measure of value; for behind every coin or banknote there is the commodity performance on which alone the owner of the money can have arrived at the money. The nature of relations will make it necessary to establish institutions which will deprive money of its value for the holder when it has lost the meaning just indicated. Reference has already been made to such institutions. After a certain time, the ownership of money passes to the general public in a suitable form. And so that money that does not work in production enterprises is not retained by holders by circumventing the measures of economic organization, recoinage or reprinting can take place from time to time. From such conditions, however, it will also result that the interest drawn from a capital will always decrease in the course of the years. Money will wear out, just as goods wear out. But such a measure to be taken by the state will be just. "Interest on interest" will not be possible. He who makes savings has, however, performed services which entitle him to later services in return for goods, just as present services entitle him to the exchange of present services in return; but the claims can only go up to a certain limit, for claims arising from the past can only be satisfied by present labor. Such claims must not become a means of economic violence. The realization of such conditions places the currency question on a sound basis. For no matter how the form of money is formed from other conditions: currency becomes the rational organization of the entire economic organism through its administration. The question of currency will never be satisfactorily solved by any state through laws; present states will only solve it if they renounce the solution from their side and leave the necessary to the economic organism to be separated from them.
[ 50 ] Much is said of the modern division of labor, of its effect as a saving of time, perfection of goods, exchange of commodities, and so on; but little consideration is given to how it affects the relation of the individual to his work. He who works in a social organism based on the division of labor never actually earns his own income, but acquires it through the labor of all those involved in the social organism. A tailor who makes a skirt for his own use does not place this skirt in the same relation to himself as a man who, in primitive conditions, still has to provide himself with everything necessary for his subsistence. He makes himself the skirt in order to be able to make clothes for others; and the value of the skirt for him depends entirely on the achievements of others. The skirt is actually a means of production. Some people will say that this is a conceptual division. As soon as he looks at the value formation of commodities in the economic cycle, he will no longer be able to hold this opinion. Then he will see that in an economic organism based on the division of labor, one cannot work for oneself. You can only work for others and let others work for you. One can no more work for oneself than one can eat oneself. But you can create institutions that contradict the nature of the division of labor. This happens when the production of goods is only geared to handing over to the individual as property what he can only produce as an achievement through his position in the social organism. The division of labor forces the social organism so that the individual lives in it according to the conditions of the whole organism; it excludes economically egoism. If this egoism is nevertheless present in the form of class privileges and the like, a socially untenable condition arises which leads to upheavals in the social organism. We are currently living in such conditions. There may be some who think nothing of it when one demands that legal relations and other things must be based on the egoism-free creation of the division of labor. Such a person may then only draw the conclusion from his presuppositions. This would be: nothing at all can be done; the social movement can lead to nothing. However, one cannot do anything fruitful with regard to this movement if one does not want to give reality its due. The way of thinking, out of which the account given here is written, wants to arrange what man has to do within the social organism according to what follows from the living conditions of this organism.
[ 51 ] He who can only form his concepts according to the accustomed institutions will become anxious when he hears that the relationship of the labor leader to the worker should be detached from the economic organism. For he will believe that such a detachment would necessarily lead to monetary devaluation and a return to primitive economic conditions. (Dr. Rathenau expresses such opinions in his pamphlet "After the Flood", which appear justified from his point of view). But this danger is countered by the threefold structure of the social organism. The economic organism, in union with the legal organism, separates money relations entirely from labor relations, which are based on law. Legal relations cannot have a direct influence on monetary relations. For the latter are the result of the administration of the economic organism. The legal relationship between labor manager and worker cannot be expressed unilaterally in the monetary value, because after the elimination of the wage, which represents an exchange relationship between goods and labor, this is merely the measure of the mutual value of the goods (and services). - From the consideration of the effects which the threefold organization has for the social organism, one must gain the conviction that it will lead to institutions which do not exist in the present forms of government.
[ 52 ] And within these institutions it will be possible to eradicate what is currently perceived as class struggle. For this struggle is based on the incorporation of labor wages into the economic cycle. This writing represents a form of social organism in which the concept of labor wages undergoes a transformation just like the old concept of property. But this transformation creates a viable social context for people. - Only a frivolous judgment will find that the realization of what is described here does nothing more than transform the wages of labor into piece-rate wages. It may be that a one-sided view of the matter leads to this judgment. But here this one-sided view is not described as the right one, but the replacement of the relation of remuneration by the contractual relation of division in relation to the work done jointly by the labor leader and the worker in connection with the whole arrangement of the social organism is envisaged. Those to whom the part of the income due to the worker appears as a piece-wage do not realize that this "piece-wage" (which, however, is not really a "wage") is expressed in the value of the work done in a way which brings the social condition of the worker in relation to other members of the social organism into a quite different relation from that which has arisen from the one-sidedly economically conditioned class rule. The demand for the eradication of class struggle is thus satisfied. - And to those who profess the opinion, which can also be heard in socialist circles, that development itself must bring the solution of the social question, that one cannot put forward views which are to be realized, it must be replied: Certainly development will have to bring what is necessary; but in the social organism man's impulses of ideas are actualities. And when time will have advanced a little and that which can only be thought today will be realized: then this very realization will be contained in the development And those who think "only of development" and not of the production of fruitful ideas will have to take their time with their judgment until that point where what is thought today will be development. But it will then be too late to accomplish certain things which are already demanded by present facts. In the social organism it is not possible to consider development objectively as in nature. One must affect the development. That is why it is fatal for healthy social thinking that it is currently confronted with views that want to "prove" what is socially necessary in the same way as one "proves" in natural science. A "proof" in the social conception of life can only arise for those who can include in their view that which lies not only in the existing, but that which is germinating in human impulses - often unnoticed by them - and wants to be realized.
[ 53 ] One of the effects by which the tripartite organization of the social organism will have to prove its foundation in the essence of human social life is the detachment of judicial activity from state institutions. It will be up to the latter to determine the rights that are to exist between people or groups of people. The adjudication itself, however, lies in institutions that are formed out of the spiritual organization. This judgment is highly dependent on the possibility that the judge has a sense and understanding of the individual situation of the person to be judged. Such a sense and understanding will only exist if the same bonds of trust through which people feel drawn to the institutions of the spiritual organization are also decisive for the establishment of the courts. It is possible for the administration of the spiritual organization to appoint the judges, who can be taken from the most diverse spiritual professions, and who also return to their own professions after a certain period of time. Within certain limits, each person then has the opportunity to choose the personality from among those appointed for five or ten years in whom he has so much confidence that, if it comes to it, he wants to receive a decision from him in a private or criminal case during this time. There will then always be so many judges in the vicinity of each person's place of residence that this choice will have significance. A plaintiff must then always turn to the judge responsible for a defendant. - Consider what a drastic effect such an institution would have had in the Austro-Hungarian regions. In mixed-language regions, a member of any nationality could have chosen a judge of his own nation. Anyone familiar with the Austrian situation will also know how much such an institution could have contributed to the equalization of the nationalities. - But apart from nationality, there are wide areas of life for whose healthy development such an institution can have a beneficial effect. - For a closer knowledge of the law, the judges and courts of justice appointed in the manner described above will be assisted by officials whose election is also to be carried out by the administration of the spiritual organism, but who do not have to judge for themselves. Similarly, courts of appeal will have to be formed out of this administration. It will be in the nature of that life which takes place through the realization of such conditions that a judge can be close to the habits of life and the way of feeling of those to be judged, that through his life outside the office of judge - which he will only preside over for a time - he will become familiar with the circles of life of those to be judged. Just as a healthy social organism will draw on the social understanding of the people involved in its life everywhere in its institutions, so too in its judicial activity. The execution of judgments falls to the rule of law.
[ 54 ] The institutions that become necessary through the realization of what has been described here for areas of life other than those indicated need not be described here for the time being. This description would, of course, take up an unlimited amount of space.
[ 55 ] The individual institutions of life described will have shown that the underlying way of thinking is not, as some might think - and as was actually believed when I orally presented what I have described here and there - a renewal of the three estates, the nurturing, military and teaching estates. The opposite of this division into estates is being sought. People will neither be divided into classes nor into estates socially, but the social organism itself will be structured. But it is precisely through this that man will be able to be truly human. For the division will be such that his life will be rooted in each of the three members. In the member of the social organism, in which he stands through his profession, he will stand with objective interest; and with the others he will have vital relationships, for their institutions will stand in a relationship to him that challenges such relationships. The social organism, which is separated from man and forms the basis of his life, will be divided into three parts; each man as such will be a link between the three members.