The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. International Necessities of Life and Social Tripartism

[ 1 ] One objection that is often raised against the idea of the tripartite structure of the social organism is that a state that implements this tripartite structure must disrupt its international relations with other states. The significance of this objection can only be recognized if one considers the nature of international relations between states in the present day. The most striking observation in this respect is that the economic facts of recent times have taken on forms which are no longer in harmony with the delimitation of states. The historical conditions from which these state boundaries have arisen have little to do with the interests of the economic life of the peoples living in the state territories. The consequence of this is that the state governments establish international relations, the establishment of which would be more natural if they were established directly by the economic individuals or groups of individuals. An industrial enterprise that needs a raw product from a foreign state should have no other need to obtain this raw product than to deal with the administration of the same. And everything involved in this dispute should only take place within the economic cycle. It can be seen that in recent times economic life has assumed forms which point to such self-containedness. And that in this self-contained economic life, which is gradually striving to become a unity over the whole earth, the interests of the state interpose themselves as a disturbing element. What have the historical conditions under which England came to dominate India to do with the economic conditions under which a German manufacturer obtains goods from India?

[ 2 ] The catastrophe of the world war reveals that the life of modern mankind cannot tolerate the disruption of the world economy, which is striving for unity, by the interests of national territories. The conflicts that Germany has entered into with the countries of the West are based on this disruption. And it also plays a role in the conflicts with the countries of the East. Economic interests demanded a railroad from the Austro-Hungarian territories to the south-east. The national interests of Austria and those of the Balkan countries asserted themselves. And the question arose as to whether these interests did not run counter to economic demands. Capital, which is supposed to serve the economy, is thus linked to the interests of the state. The states want their capitalists to serve them. The capitalists want the power concentrated in the state to serve their economic interests. Economic life is thus caught up in the territories of the state, while in its newer phase of development it strives beyond all state borders to a unified economic life.

[ 3 ] This internationality of economic life indicates that in the future the individual areas of the world economy will have to enter into relations which are independent of the relations in which the peoples will stand as a result of the liveris interests lying outside the economic area. The states will have to leave the establishment of economic relations to the persons or groups of persons involved in the economy.

[ 4 ] If intellectual cultural relations are not to become completely dependent on economic interests, these relations must develop their international life from their own preconditions. It is certainly not to be denied here that economic relations can also provide a basis for intellectual intercourse. But it must be recognized that spiritual intercourse effected in this way can only become fruitful if it is accompanied by international relations which arise solely from the needs of spiritual life itself. In the individual people the spiritual life of personalities escapes from its economic foundations. It takes on forms that have nothing to do with the forms of economic life. These forms must be able to relate to the corresponding forms in other peoples, which only emerge from their own lives. It cannot be denied that at the present moment in the development of mankind the egoistic urge of the peoples for unity in their nationality is opposed to the international organization of the spiritual spheres of life. The peoples strive to carve out for themselves state formations whose borders are those of their nationalities. And this striving extends to the change of making the closed national state into a closed economic area as well.

[ 5 ] The marked tendency of the world economy will work against these national egoisms in the future. And if this counteraction is not to give rise to never-ending conflicts, the spiritual cultural interests expressed in the nationalities will have to manage themselves independently of economic conditions and form international relations out of this management. This will be possible only if the territories in which a common spiritual life prevails establish boundaries that are relatively independent of the territorial boundaries that arise from the conditions of economic life.

[ 6 ] It is now quite natural to ask how spiritual life is to derive its sustenance from economic life if the administrative boundaries of the two areas do not coincide. The answer arises when one considers that a self-governing spiritual life stands opposite the independent economic life as an economic corporation. The latter, however, can for its economic foundations enter into relations with the economic administrations of its area, no matter to which larger economic area these administrations belong. Whoever imagines as practically possible only what he has seen so far will regard what is presented here as gray theory. And he will believe that the order of the corresponding relations must fail because of their complexity. Now, whether the relations will be complicated or not will depend only on the skill of those personalities who will have to deal with their organization. But no one should, because he shrinks from such a supposed complexity, oppose measures that are demanded by the world-historical necessities of the present. (Compare this with the remarks in my book "Die Kernpunkte der sozialen Frage", p.141.)

[ 7 ] The international life of mankind strives to shape the spiritual relations of the peoples and the economic relations of the individual regions of the earth independently of one another. This necessity in the development of mankind is taken into account by the tripartite structure of social organisms. In the tripartite social organism, legal life on a democratic basis forms the link between economic life, which establishes international relations out of its needs, and spiritual life, which shapes such relations out of its powers.

[ 8 ] No matter how strongly one may cling to the belief that the transformation of these relations is "practically impracticable" due to the habits of thought to which one is devoted from the previous state relations: historical development will proceed destructively over everything that wants to be preserved or newly emerge as measures from these habits of thought. For for the vital needs of modern mankind the further fusion of the spiritual, legal and economic spheres will become an impossibility. The catastrophe of the world war has revealed this impossibility. It is based on the fact that economic and intellectual-cultural conflicts arose in the form of state antagonisms and thus had to come to a head in a way that is not possible if only intellectual life is opposed to intellectual life and economic interest to economic interest.

[ 9 ] The fact that it is possible, without coming into conflict with international life, to proceed with the implementation of the threefold structure in a single state structure, even if this structure initially stands alone with this implementation, can be shown in the following way.

[ 10 ] An economic area that wanted to form itself as a large cooperative within the framework of a state could not maintain economically advantageous relations with foreign countries that continue to operate on a capitalist basis. Institutions that are similar to state institutions and are subordinate to central economic administrations deprive the management of the possibility of supplying foreign countries with products that meet their requirements. Even if the plant manager is granted a high degree of autonomy with regard to receiving orders, he would have to abide by the cooperative administrative institutions in the procurement of raw materials. In practice, this squeezing between the demands of foreign countries and the course of business of the internal administration would create impossible conditions. Imports would have to face the same difficulties as exports. Whoever wants to prove that a profitable economic intercourse between a country that wants to do business according to abstract socialist principles and a capitalist foreign country is not possible need only point out these things, and he will have to be proved right by unbiased people.

[ 11 ] The idea of the tripartite organization of the social organism cannot be affected by such objections. It does not impose a state-like plan of organization on the relations which are given by the economic interests themselves. It is in its spirit that the administrations of similar branches of the economy should unite in associations, and that such associations should join with others through which their products can find the distribution corresponding to the consumer needs of the economic area. A management working for export will be able to act on its own initiative in its dealings with foreign countries; and it will be in a position to enter into such connections with other associations at home as will be most beneficial to it in the supply of raw materials and the like. The same will apply to an import company. The only decisive factor in this organization of the economic cycle will be that, through trade with foreign countries, products are not manufactured or imported whose production costs or purchase price adversely affect the standard of living of the domestic working population. The worker who works for a foreign country must receive as payment for his products as much as is necessary for his standard of living. And products obtained from abroad must generally be available at prices that make it possible for the domestic worker who needs them to acquire them. The difference in economic conditions at home and abroad may, however, make it necessary to charge too high prices for certain products that have to be obtained from abroad. You will find, if you look carefully, that such facts are taken into account in the ideas on which the threefold organization of the social organism is based. Read what is said on p. 126 of my "Kernpunkte der sozialen Frage" for a fact of economic life similar to the one described here: "An administration that is only concerned with the cycle of economic life will also be able to lead to compensations that arise as necessary from this cycle. If, for example, a business is not in a position to pay interest to its borrowers on their labor savings, then, if it is recognized as meeting a need, it will be possible to make up the shortfall from other businesses by free agreement with all those involved in the latter." In the same way, the excessively high price of a foreign product can be compensated for by subsidies that come from enterprises that can deliver yields that are too high for the needs of those working in them.

[ 12 ] Whoever strives for thoughts on the leading features of economic life will not be able to provide information on all the details, especially if these thoughts are to be practical. For these details of economic life are immeasurably many. But he will have to formulate the ideas in such a way that anyone who applies them appropriately to an individual case will be able to cope with them practically. One will find in the suggestions made in my "Key Points of the Social Question" that the more appropriately one proceeds, the better this "coming to terms" will be. In particular, one will find that the proposed structure of an economic body belonging to the tripartite social organism allows unrestricted economic intercourse with foreign countries, even if these foreign countries do not have the tripartite structure.

[ 13 ] Those who realize that the self-government of the economic cycle must be the result of an economy striving for unity throughout the world will not maintain that this intercourse could prove impossible. The fact is that the earth economy, forced into individual forms of government, strives to overcome these forms of government. An economic area that first fulfills this striving cannot possibly be at a disadvantage compared to other areas that oppose the general economic development. What will result can only be this. In the tripartite social organism the proceeds of foreign trade will be able to benefit the standard of living of the whole population; in the capitalist community it will accrue to a few. The balance of trade itself, however, will not be affected by the fact that in the tripartite social organism it is distributed differently over the population circles than in the unstructured one.

[ 14 ] You can see from this that the threefold structure is not an unworldly utopia, but a sum of practical impulses, the realization of which can begin at any point in life. This distinguishes this "idea" from the abstract "demands" of the various socialist parties. These demands seek scapegoats for what has become intolerable in social life. And they say that once they have found such scapegoats, they must be eliminated. The idea of threefolding speaks of what must become of what already exists if the inconveniences are to disappear. It wants to build up, in contrast to other ideas that criticize, that can also dismantle, but that give no indication of building up. This becomes particularly clear to the unbiased person when he considers what a national territory would have to be led to in terms of economic foreign trade if it wanted to shape itself according to such merely deconstructive principles. In addition to the degrading tendencies at home, there would also be the disproportions with foreign countries that undermine life.

[ 15 ] There can be no doubt that the economic conditions of a single tripartite social organism should have an exemplary effect on foreign countries. The circles involved in a socially just distribution of goods will strive for tripartism in their own country if they see its expediency in others. And with this spread of the idea of threefolding, that which the economic life of modern times strives for according to its own inherent tendencies will be achieved more and more. The fact that state interests favorable to these tendencies are still powerful today in many areas of the world need not prevent the people of an economic area who understand this threefold structure from introducing it. What has been said here shows that international difficulties in economic life cannot arise for them.