The Rudolf Steiner Archive

27. On the “Threefold Nature of the Social Organism”

The Tribune, No. 3/4, August 1, 1919 and No. 5/6 September 1, 1919

[ 1 ] Professor v. Heck is of the opinion that the social conditions which I promise as the final success of my proposals would "solve the social question in a happy way", but that the implementation of my proposals would not have the hoped-for effects, indeed that this implementation, if at all possible, would "not promote but harm" the common good and especially the working class. - One can hardly pass a more devastating judgment on an endeavor that pursues such goals as mine, the threefolding of the social organism. For in comparison with these aims it is of course quite worthless to put forward the dream of a happy solution to the social question and then to make impracticable proposals for bringing about this solution. Pretty much all so-called "solutions to the social question" suffer from this flaw. The moment I was forced to admit that an assessment such as that of Prof. von Heck was right, I would easily consider my own ideas to be refuted. And I would certainly not consider it shameful to make this confession publicly. For the "social question" is, on the one hand, such a comprehensive and difficult one and, on the other, something so binding that the retraction of an unsuccessful attempt can have nothing shameful about it. Prof. von Heck can therefore believe that I can respond to his presentation quite objectively. However, he misunderstands me with regard to the point of view from which he views my endeavor. I am aware that I am not at all aiming to "solve" the social question "in a happy way". I do not believe that anyone who is familiar with the psychology of the individual and the masses can strive for such an "ultimate success". My assumptions are quite different. I believe that I recognize that humanity has currently reached a point in its historical development that demands the threefolding of the social organism out of the nature of today's human being. If this demand is met, it will be possible to master the elementary unrest that has gripped mankind. If it is not met, this unrest will lead to the self-destruction of our culture. It is not because I wish to fantasize about an ultimate goal that I speak of the threefold structure, but because I believe I recognize the causes that demand this threefold structure from the present state of humanity. That is why I have not invented "proposals" for a dreamed-up final goal; rather, for me these proposals are the result of observations that I believe I have made over decades of the social development of humanity. The way in which I have arrived at these observations is proof to me that my "proposals" have nothing utopian about them. But it also makes it understandable to me how so many people come to regard the threefold structure as unclear and impracticable. Such people think they are thinking practically. But they are entangled in theoretical assumptions that they consider to be practical. They have formed these theories according to what was considered practical for a while. If this "practical" then requires a transformation through its own development, they find the newly formed "impractical" because it contradicts their usual ideas. It is precisely among the supposed "practitioners" that one finds such theorists. It seems to me that the threefold structure of the social organism will only be judged correctly by those who not only think they know what has been practical "up to now", but who have a healthy instinct for what may prove practical in its "future" development.

[ 2 ] If Prof. von Heck already misjudges the premises of my "proposals", this misjudgement becomes more and more complete as he continues to pursue what I have presented, since he does not reproduce and oppose my views as such, but replaces them almost point by point with others and then "refutes" these others. I would like to say: he creates his own threefold structure, which has very little to do with mine. I must confess: I would fight this threefold structure no less if it confronted me than Professor von Heck fights it. In this judgment I am in complete agreement with him.

[ 3 ] But I ask: have I really given cause to understand the tripartite structure in such a way that three parliaments should replace the unified state parliament in the way Professor von Heck presents it? Have I ever said or had anything printed that is equivalent to the monster "three states on the same territory"? My idea of the threefold structure demands that the affairs of spiritual culture, on the one hand, and those of economic life, on the other, should not be organized by such a representation of the people as is equivalent to what has hitherto been regarded as a "parliament". The administration of spiritual culture should arise from the same foundations from which the life of the spirit itself unfolds. Those personalities should be in this administration who take an active part in spiritual life, who bring to bear in this administration the same impulses that are at work in spiritual production. And I believe I recognize that such an administration is only possible if the administrators do not sit within the state administration, or are appointed from the spiritual realm into the state realm; but that the spiritual life is placed on a basis independent of the "state". In the state, everything that arises through it must ultimately be the outflow of the sound judgment of every responsible person. For the state strives for democratic organization. In intellectual life, only expert judgment can decide. It seems impossible to me that with further democratization of the state this expert judgment can be found within its framework. I believe that only those who are inclined to take out of democracy what cannot thrive in it can honestly want democratization. I could imagine that a fruitful discussion could arise in this area if the question that comes into consideration were to boil down to the following: Can the administration of intellectual life (especially education) take on a form that merely corresponds to the demands of this life if the democratic state exercises rule in any aspect of this administration? My experience compels me to answer this question in the negative. I believe I know the reasons which lead to its affirmation. But they do not seem valid to me. If my opinion is justified, then the judgments that Professor von Heck puts forward from the point of view of the economic security of intellectual life and compulsory schooling would have to be placed on a completely different basis than his own. I believe I have pointed to this ground on page 88 ff. of my paper "Die Kernpunkte der sozialen Frage". If what I indicated there is properly put into practice, then institutions will emerge that secure the economic basis of intellectual life and also protect against the "temptation" of "not sending children to school, but using them to earn money." Despite everything that von Heck says, it seems unfathomable why, when considering these questions, it should play a role that "as a result of peace, we are approaching a time of impoverishment that no other nation has experienced". No one can doubt that this last sentence is as true as it can be. But why the school should not get what it can out of this poverty, if this is to happen in other ways than before, is surely not understandable.

[ 4 ] Professor von Heck's argument against the separation of economic life from the state proper is no less riddled with misunderstandings. He says: "The complete separation of legal questions and economic questions, which Steiner demands, is not possible at all." What makes it clear that I am "demanding" the "complete separation" spoken of here? What I see as necessary is this: all legal matters should be organized by the democratic parliament; and the economy should be managed by associations arising from the professions, from production, transport and consumption interests. Through this organization it will come about in economic life that its cycle will be governed solely by the decisions of the individuals experienced in individual branches of the economy and by the credit which economic men enjoy through their position in a branch of the economy. The "natural laws of economic life" will force us to replace democratic electoral intentions, which could at most play a role in the transitional period, with the democratic delegation of capable people in the sense of the two conditions of a healthy economy described above. Democracy and parliamentarism will be recognized in their damaging consequences for economic life when this life is no longer veiled in its peculiarity by the state legislation spread over it, but when it is placed in its self-government on an associative basis. Professor von Heck says: "The law determines the forms of the economy and can only be ordered by a power that oversees economic life." However, this sentence is only correct as long as economic life and legal life are merged. If economic life is left to its own devices, that is, if it exhausts itself in the administration of the production, circulation and consumption of goods (with import and export), then the legal relations of the economic agents remain unorganized by this economic cycle. And these are organized on the territory of the state, outside the economic cycle. Legal relations will then not be the expression of economic forms, but on the one hand their basis in the same way that natural conditions (geographical, climatic, etc.) are the basis of the economy. - Anyone who believes in the axiom that legal forms must be the expression of economic forms must find it difficult to accept the emancipation of law from the economy. But whoever realizes that this "axiom" contradicts the present consciousness of mankind will try to overcome his belief in it. Contemporary man cannot bear to live as a subject of law under the compulsion of economic forms. To close oneself off to this fact and to pay homage to the view that "the law determines the forms of the economy" means little more than declaring the work on an important link in the social question of the present to be a chimera. But one should only do so if the separation of legal life from economic life were to be supported by more weighty reasons than those put forward by Professor von Heck.

[ 5 ] One misunderstands the structure which the social organism is to receive through the threefold structure if, as Professor von Heck does, one expresses the following objection: "Steiner, too, if one looks more closely, leaves three economically very important questions to the legal parliament. He leaves to it the questions of taxation, the creation of workers' rights and the restriction of ownership of the means of production, which should last only for life." It is not correct that in a tripartite social organism taxation should be regulated solely by law. Read about this on page 53 of my "Key Points of the Social Question": "What the political state itself demands for its maintenance will be raised by the tax law. This will develop through a harmonization of the demands of legal consciousness with those of economic life." With regard to labor law, it is possible that it will not be left to legal life as an economic matter, but that it will be removed from the economic cycle, that is, stripped of the character of an economic matter. It is also quite inaccurate what Professor von Heck states as my view on the "restriction of ownership of the means of production". What is in question is not left to the "parliament of law", but is made a matter in the ordering of which the administrations of intellectual life and legal life are involved.

[ 6 ] The requirement concerning taxation can be fulfilled in practice by the fact that formally the constitutional state as a consumer organization stands opposite the economic cycle, just as within this cycle itself a consumer association stands opposite a production cooperative, for example. The regulation of general tax requirements and the use of taxes takes place within the legal system. On the other hand, the distribution of tax claims to the individual economic areas will be the responsibility of the associations resulting from the professions and from the interaction of production and consumption. Professor von Heck says appropriately: "The most difficult task that the future threatens us with is the distribution of the enormous, unheard-of tax burden that peace will impose on us ... These taxes cannot be raised without the most serious interventions in economic life. Therefore, even if Steiner's ideas were implemented, every economic group would have to secure representation in the legal parliament in order to defend itself against overburdening." However, this "most difficult task" can only be solved by separating legal life from economic life in such a way that the solution does not contradict the legal consciousness of individual groups of people. For if the interests of an economic group are represented in a parliament based on a democratic foundation, it will always be the case that the economically more powerful group will impose measures on the less powerful group. It will be able to do so through its own power or by entering into compromises. The formation of a parliamentary majority always makes it possible to assert and suppress interests in an unobjective manner. The situation is different if the administration of economic life is organically separated from that of legal life. In this case, no decisions can be taken on the legal ground that have effects in economic life that are detrimental to any group of people. Everything that happens in economic life will be based on negotiations between the designated associations. In these negotiations, the expertise of one association can be contrasted with that of the other; and the unobjective, merely democratic parliamentarization can be dispensed with. Someone might perhaps say that what we are striving for here could also be realized if the main negotiations in the "legal parliament" were transferred to the committees and experts from the individual economic areas were added to them. It seems to me that this would only be half a measure. What limited good it could do would have to show just how the desired effect could be achieved completely only by separating the economic administration from the legal organization. Professor von Heck does not emphasize strongly enough what it means in the practice of life when the competent representatives have to negotiate from branch to branch in such a way that through them the living conditions of one branch have to promote and limit those of the other, without the influence of unobjective majority decisions. Anyone who takes into account the practical effect of such an institution will not think of saying: "How should scientists and doctors have special expertise for ecclesiastical questions, and farmers, merchants and craftsmen for large-scale industry?" This seems to be the right question, but it does not argue against a self-reliant organization of economic life, but against the representation of economic and cultural interests in a parliament in which everyone has a say in matters about which they know nothing. The negotiations between the economic organizations through their representatives do not require any expertise outside the area that someone has to represent. For the outcome of the negotiations will be determined objectively by the factual significance of one area for the other. The basis for such objectivity is created by the fact that the administrative bodies will be organized around those personalities to whom a leading office is transferred in the manner described on page 86 of the "Key Points of the Social Question". The other members of this administrative body will emerge from the needs of economic management in such a way that the usual election will be replaced by a selection of suitable personalities, since ability will be revealed in the organization of work and the conviction will be established that one's own work will prosper best if the most knowledgeable leader is appointed. The members of higher administrative bodies and a central council will emerge in a similar way from the lower ones. Thus, despite the central council, the overall administration will be built on a federal basis.

[ 7 ] Such a structure of economic administration will only be tolerable to the democratic consciousness if everything that relates to the legal relations of the persons involved in economic life is separated from it and relegated to a democratic parliament. However, these legal relationships include everything that relates to the work that people do for each other.

[ 8 ] Whoever understands my proposals for the tripartite social organism in the way described here, and not in the completely misunderstood way in which they appear in Professor von Heck's rendering, will hardly demand a refutation of the objections listed in the last columns of my critic's article. For these objections stem only from the fact that Professor von Heck does not refer to my exposition, but creates his own threefold structure and then polemicizes against it.

[ 9 ] In the essay "My impression of Dr. Steiner and his theory of threefolding" by Alfred Mantz, it is said that my explanations could only represent something that could be realized "if people were different from what they are". One can only hold this opinion as long as one has not yet sufficiently realized in what sense and with what intention one can develop ideas about the institutions of the social organism. It is true that ideal social conditions are only possible with ideally inclined and developed human beings. But anyone who rejects thoughts about the organization of the social organism because of this one-sided truth is moving in a dubious circle of ideas. He will want to wait with desirable institutions until he has the people suitable for them; during this wait, however, he will only ever have people whom he finds unsuitable. If Mr. Mantz will examine my ideas more closely, he can see that I do not require any other people for the realization of these ideas than those who are available. And I find these people as mature, or as immature in general, as he himself. But I assume, as everyone who does not want to sink into fatalism must assume, that among the people of today there are those who can convince themselves of the necessity of reorganizing our social structure. In the tripartite social organism I see - as I explained in the discussion of Professor von Heck's essay - that which fulfills the demands to which mankind is pressing at the present stage of its development. It seems to me that if those people who can convince themselves of the necessity of the threefold structure succeed in doing what is necessary for its realization, conditions will be created which will give such efforts a basis that will make people different "from what they are". The assertion that I am sketching a picture "that must look very good in a vacuum, but in reality is utopia" is truly wrong, since I am not even touching the reality in which we live, but merely replacing the structure of this reality, insofar as it stems from intentions, inclinations, habits, judgments, etc., with a different one, which should also develop from similar human impulses.

[ 10 ] How little is true of what is written in the essay "Dr. Steiner and the Proletariat" can be seen completely in my book "The Key Points of the Social Question". Anyone who wants to refute the statements in this essay must not attempt to do so by claiming that "capital will never submit to their implementation". For he would first have to prove that he has a social structure in mind for the implementation of which "capital" is not needed. But then why should it be needed precisely for the realization of mine? As Mr. Seeger then goes on to say that through the institutions which I would like to see brought about, the worker could "never get rid of the feeling of having to work only for a single entrepreneur", it must be held against this that my efforts are directed precisely towards finding conditions through which the "physically working man" is given the feeling of being a free man in his work.