The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture at an Assembly of the Federal Council for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism

Rudolf Steiner: I don't want to interfere with the debate for too long, because I think it is better if suggestions come from the most diverse sides today, which can then lead to further fruitful work. But I would like to say a few words at least to suggest what is needed to summarize what has already been very gratefully put forward by various speakers today and what will hopefully continue to be put forward in the course of this evening. Above all, it is a matter of such small circles, which, I might say, can work out of expertise, that such small circles, more or less small or large circles, are formed. But then it is a matter of ensuring that a certain merger of these circles, which must be organized, really does give rise to the cultural council, if we want to call it that; that the cultural council as such performs a kind of work, that small circles do not merely cause a fragmentation of the work. The words I have just spoken are not meant to be in any way opposed to the active work of the small groups, but I would just like to draw attention to the fact that a network of connections of the most diverse kinds must exist between these individual groups. We must never lose sight of the great tasks that actually have to occupy us in the whole threefold social order and in particular in one part of this threefold order, in the work of the cultural council.

You see, in order to really organize the work, we have to focus our attention on the main thing that matters at the present time. This main issue can be described symptomatically by this or that. In his introductory remarks, Dr. Unger emphasized a very harsh symptom, “the school compromise,” and similar compromises, but we actually have the opportunity everywhere to observe how such symptoms of a fundamental decline in our intellectual culture in particular are etched on people's faces. We are suffering today only from a very significant moment of decline in our intellectual life – that is the fragmentation, the atomization of our intellectual life. I beg you: there is actually not so much lack of people today who know the worst damage to our intellectual cultural life and also scourge it, but they remain alone, their circle does not care.

Take one case: it is indeed the case that the constitution of our technical universities, for example, has been castigated in a truly magnificent way by individual lecturers at these technical universities, who have pointed out how the constitution of these technical universities is actually something other than what they should be. There are some really excellent critiques of this impossible university system in the trade journals. But let's ask ourselves this question: Who is taking care of these things from the general public? - Something that should be known in the widest circles is written by individuals, and not even those who are fellow professionals read it. They subscribe to the journals, have them bound, put them in libraries – if they are industrious, they might make a card index so that they can find individual items when they need them – but on the whole these things are not written today to be read, but to gather dust in libraries. In this field, we have intellectual production, but no intellectual consumption. And so it happens that only the narrowest circles are aware of the damage to our cultural life, but that one is powerless to do anything to improve it.

There is an essay – I believe it is by Professor Riedler of the Technical University in Charlottenburg – that severely criticizes the damage caused by the technical universities in particular. Yes, once again, for the umpteenth time, something is being pointed out that is not only harmful with regard to the structure of the technical university, but is detrimental to our entire moral life. It is said that freedom of teaching and learning prevail at universities. People get carried away by the idea that when they move from secondary school to university, they enter the realm of freedom of teaching and learning. What, for example, does freedom of learning consist of? Well, it consists of buying the university program and finding in it: If you want to become an engineer, or if you want to become this or that, then you need this timetable; if you want to become a mechanical engineer, then you need this timetable, which you have to follow, otherwise you cannot pass the exam. — That is to say: on the one hand, the phrase 'freedom of learning' is elevated to a cultural element, but on the other hand, the most terrible learning compulsion is made reality. I could go on telling you how these people actually know what the damage to our cultural life is, and how they also express it, but there is no common ground for a, I would say, human discussion of the question, and people in the broadest circles do not care about it.

In general, I had to say that there are people in bourgeois life who do not know that trade unions exist and how they have worked, so there is no common field of discussion about our cultural damage. The cultural council would have to create something like that. That is, we would have to take care of what those who understand it have said about our cultural damage. We would have to collect all the criticism that exists, and we would be convinced: the most terrible criticism exists, for example, of how the economy is encroaching in a terrible way into intellectual life.

I will illustrate this with an example. You know that there are doctors of theology, doctors of medicine, doctors of philosophy, and now even doctors of engineering. But the technical colleges have invented a very special doctorate; they whisper this doctorate from ear to ear – it is the “Dr. mammoniae”. How does it come about? It comes about because the professors at the technical college, at the colleges in general, are paid extremely poorly, and because the state has very little money to pay its cultural workers. You can find them everywhere if you just look for them. In particular, the technical colleges and those colleges that have somewhat emancipated themselves from the old - yes, how should we describe them, with an “epithet ornans” - from the “old respectability”; they have their honorary doctor, for which you don't need to take an exam, very often set it up so that they send this honorary doctorate to the room of this or that rich man, an industrialist or commercial, on the condition that he makes an endowment in one direction or another for this university. And such doctors are called “doctores mammoniae” from mouth to ear. These “doctors of mammon” clearly show that something immoral is even crossing over from economic life into our intellectual life.

I could give you countless examples of this if only people wanted to be bothered with such things. The fact is that there is a terrible lack of interest in what is going on in the broadest circles, that it is necessary to ensure above all that people really get to know the damage. If people get to know the damage, then they will become open to the only solution to the problem. And for this solution to the problem, we must indeed win people over. That is our primary concern.

You see, one of those who has written quite strong reviews about the damage of the technical colleges shows how students come from secondary school with only a philological education – which was only aimed at a certain training of intellectual life, but not at a real education of the mind - so that the university has to take over the young people and use the first year, and sometimes even longer, to unlearn what they have absorbed in secondary school, so that they are better trained for what they will have to learn later in the actual technical colleges. A man like that, who sees this, wonders: how can this be remedied? Yes, he says to himself: those who know what the damage is, the technicians themselves, are not seen. You don't see them in parliament, you don't see them in public life. At most, they write for trade journals. They do not give their expert opinion for the public to see - nor does the public ask for it. You won't find the technicians where an expert opinion should be given. For example, one of the sighing people writes: “You don't find the technicians there, you only find the lawyers.” These are the stragglers of the old state system.

Some people are already aware of these issues and also highlight them, but there is currently no inclination to summarize them. And where does this critic, who actually has a fairly good knowledge of the prevailing problems, at least in his field, in the field of technical colleges, where does he summarize his judgment? He says: We, as professors at the technical colleges, are already sighing for the days of enlightened absolutism in the state. - Then he says: Yes, but who is enlightened, and who still puts up with absolutism today? - You see, that's where the saddest thing begins: people see that the conditions are untenable; they sigh for change. But they still look to the unitary state; and if they do not like the present form of the unitary state, they long for the restoration of the enlightened absolutism of the eighteenth century. There they believe in what they call the “strongmen” - this expression had somewhat penetrated into the audience during the war. Yes, and that is why it is important to show, starting from what we find today if we only look for it, that the only remedy is to break away from the state and really find our way into the threefold social organism. That is the answer to all these things.

The questions are being asked and have been asked – we just need to collect the material, so to speak. Therefore, it would be good if, above all, the positive material that is already available were collected, and small groups also looked at how people have already recognized and repeatedly criticized the situation here and there. From there, the starting point should be taken to justify the threefold social order. The only way to make progress is to say: Why we want the threefold social order is almost whistled from the rooftops, even if people plug their ears. But that is precisely what our public life is like today, our life spoiled by the plague of newspapers, we plug our ears to this, we know nothing of the world, we do not care about what is really there. That is what it is about, to gain interest in what is there, and then show people: we no longer need criticism, we only need to repeat the criticisms that are there. But we know the means that the others do not come up with: that is the threefold social organism, that is the position of intellectual life on its own ground and so on - how things are has been emphasized often enough here and in other places, so that you recognize them.

That, my dear friends, is what the organization must provide. This must lead to a situation in which what can be found by one group is communicated to the other groups, so that there is a lively exchange and unity among the groups in that they are all imbued with it: this is how today's historical answer to the big question must be given – which actually flows from the judgments that have always been there.

Then it is indeed the case that we are in a somewhat different situation with regard to the questions that arise here in the area of the cultural council than we are, for example, in the area of economics with works councils. In the economic sphere, the works councils are to be elected from the individual companies and are to create, so to speak, what can be called the socialization of economic life. So in the first phase, we will have to deal primarily with a works council made up of producers. This does not have to be the case with the cultural council. This is a matter concerning all of humanity. We might even do better if we don't just make the individual producers or the people who currently have the initiative in this or that field the main focus of this cultural council, but if we really proceed on a broader basis here, if we say: Fine, we listen to the small group of doctors on the one hand, but on the other hand to the other group that comes together, the group of patients. —So here, perhaps to a much greater extent, consumers come into consideration, especially in the field of cultural life.

You see, ultimately we have already had the most diverse experiences. We have approached teachers' circles, and one question keeps coming up: who will pay the teachers in the future? Yes, who pays them today? It really does not depend on the path that the money takes, which comes out of people's pockets, but on the fact that it only ends up with the one who has to eat from it. We will also find this in a different way than through the detour of the present state, the unitary state. Today, anyone who is involved in a profession is to a high degree biased in that profession. This must be corrected by those who are, so to speak, the consumers of that profession. And so I believe that if a large number of our intellectual consumers would pull themselves together, something much better would come out in some individual fields than if, in turn, those who are the producers pull themselves together. For this reason, Dr. Herberg's proposal is to be welcomed, because it may allow the consumers to have their say to a greater extent than the producers. That is how it will turn out in practice. The realization of the proposals will be quite good.

It would only be bad for certain professions – we have to be clear about that – to hear the producers, for example, the newspaper writers. You see, we could say some very strange things today to show how great the damage is in this area. For example, at a meeting this year, where it was a matter of considerable things, but which were not treated in a considerable way, there was also talk of how to remedy the slander of the press. During these deliberations, when the slander of the press was discussed, someone also stood up and said that a very strong correction of the press damage was indeed needed. For example, a large number of people tried to get to the bottom of the real events surrounding the killing of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in Berlin. A manifesto was written that – I don't want to say how many – signatures bore, with a description of this event. It was sent to the newspapers. No newspaper wanted to take it, no newspaper of the reactionary direction, no newspaper of the Social Democracy or the Communist Party and so on – it was simply not taken. That is a matter in itself, it is a mundane matter. But there was someone at this meeting who was a newspaper writer and he said: “Yes, that's not how it was.” And when he was cornered, he said: “Well, a journalist doesn't need to be braver than the government itself. The government itself didn't publish it – why should a journalist publish it?” There are many, many such stories. It is not very helpful to ask a newspaper writer about what should be happening in the press; instead, we should ask the people who are supposed to be reading it. Once again, it is the consumers who are concerned.

I do believe that we should draw attention to the fact that the Cultural Council is a matter for all of humanity. But above all, it is important that we do not place ourselves in this cultural council in order to “have also signed”, but that we also work in it, above all working on the development of that which has been most neglected and whose neglect has driven us most into the present situation.

In Berlin, a professors' association has been founded; a professor said in a speech: Oh, if only the time would come - those are roughly his words, they are not exaggerated - if only the time would come back when one did not have to worry about German politics, when one could just devote oneself to professorial work, when German politics was taken care of by the Hohenzollerns, who cared for us so fatherly, and the Prussian state. That is roughly the gist of a speech made by a group of professors at the University of Berlin. And the person who spoke in these terms is not some obscure individual, but the first professor of German literary history at the first German university, Gustav Roethe. And this was spoken in a circle chaired by Wil amowitz, the famous Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, admittedly the blasphemer of the Greek tragedians, but the Welt says, the one who first incorporated the Greek tragedians into the German language.

What I would particularly like to point out is that this interest in the whole of cultural life should not be neglected. Today you are a painter, today you are a professor or a shoemaker or a laundress or an Egyptologist or a lawyer or a pastor and so on, but you are only interested in what is pastoral, what is in the field of laundry, what is coffee gossip and the like, and not in the general affairs of humanity. They are happy if they don't have to deal with it. If we continue in this mood, we will not achieve a real cultural council. A real cultural council can only come about if we open the windows to the whole of human life as wide as possible, if we can really understand it, otherwise we will look at all the monstrous things that happen in the same way as we look at them now. Such monstrosities occur that two groups of people, the Social Democrats and the Center, unite, and that people look at this without being outraged by this monstrosity. They take it with a certain indifference, even though it means that nothing could be more strongly ridiculed than what would be a recovery of German intellectual life. Such things are quite simply there.

We have a nice example in the special edition of our newspaper that is at least symptomatically significant. You see, the current great man is Herr Erzberger. Well, some people already seem to be starting to care a little about this man, about this individual swarming around in today's political sky, but this concern does not go deep enough. It is said that the Landjäger (a special police force in the German state of Württemberg) appeared in Weimar and demanded Mr. Erzberger. When they were asked, “What do you want with him?” they replied, “We want to hang him.” A Württemberg newspaper responded somewhat brashly, although brashness is otherwise popular in other parts of Germany: “We want to hang him too, but a little lower!” The matter is beginning to dawn a little; people are beginning to realize what Germany has in this man. But anyway, take a look, there is a nice symptom described in our current special edition of the Federation for the Threefold Social Order. There you will find a record of the entry that Mr. Erzberger made in a kind of family album on June 14, 1919, the day it was announced that the terrible Treaty of Versailles had to be signed. On that day, this German “government furniture” wrote in a family album: “First get your act together, then drink and laugh!”

You see, I do not want to criticize these things here, because I want others to criticize them, but I want to point out that we will not make progress if we do not take care of these things, if we do not take care of them, especially if we do not go deep enough into our souls. We have to look deeply enough into our soul. If we just let these things pass us by like the images in a kaleidoscope – that soon the political kaleidoscope will be thrown together in such a way that there were images like Bethmann, Ludendorff and Hindenburg, then you shake a little, and other stones come, and if we now observe these kaleidoscopic images, if we behave like this, then we will never have what we need in the Cultural Council: a real power of transformation, a real power of renewal. But we can only get that into it if we overcome this terrible lack of interest around us, if we open the windows wide and take an interest in what our fellow human beings are doing. What is going on in this or that field? That is not difficult if you just don't shut yourself away in that terrible selfishness that can't get beyond what you're forced to take an interest in. If you can develop a little sense of freedom within yourself, then this sense of freedom will very soon be able to extend to opening the windows wide to what is happening in the world. And only by doing so is it possible to make progress.

That is what I wanted to draw attention to. Only when you pay proper attention to this will you find the organizational plan we need for a cultural council. But this organizational plan can only arise out of life itself, and this life will show that if we look at the individual damages, we will find from them a concrete observation of what is there. Those who want to do this or that must be particularly open to this. Today we must not swim in abstractions, but we must engage with the concrete. We have to get involved, for example, in saying to ourselves: how terrible it is that the denominations do business and conduct their various horse-trading with other groups of people, and so on and so forth. We have to concern ourselves with these things and bring them so deeply into the inner reaches of our soul that our inner emotional experiences are involved, that we do not pass by them indifferently.

Rudolf Steiner's request to speak at a teachers' conference, Protocol Record

If the Cultural Council worked properly, it would replace these terrible establishments with reason, and everything would be better. Then you could also teach sensible astronomy. But you cannot stand up to brutal power. The Cultural Council could do what should have been done from the beginning: really take up its program and work towards taking over the entire school system. The Waldorf School is set up as a prime example. But it can't do anything about the brutal power. The cultural council would have the task of transforming the entire education system. If we had ten million, we could expand the Waldorf School. These are just “small obstacles,” this lack of ten million.

Rudolf Steiner's notebook entry, between December 26 and 29, 1919.

Cultural Council = members do not attend.

In view of what has already been said here, I will only have a few supplementary comments. Above all, I would like to point out that anyone who is familiar with the essence of our anthroposophical movement is also deeply convinced that we must work on the basis of social progress in the present day. But despite this conviction, which, as I believe, should have become sufficiently widespread in the course of our almost twenty years of anthroposophical work, despite this conviction, work such as that characterized to you today and already - at least for the time being - set in motion would hardly have become necessary, or perhaps we should say, hardly have been considered, if from any other side the possibility would have offered itself to take into account what is necessary for humanity today in the field of work, concerning the connection between economic, legal and spiritual life, if it had been shown that the necessity of the time would really have been taken into account from another side. For subjective reasons to somehow fight over what is now intended, subjective reasons to impose on the necessary work in the spiritual movement the additional burden of work associated with these enterprises, subjective reasons do not exist. Reasons of any personal character cannot truly arise from what is at stake here. Not even such reasons could have had the slightest say in the step forward into the world, into the world of ideas, with the consequences of which the present undertakings are associated, with the step forward into the world of ideas with those social ideas that are expressed in my book 'The Key Points of the Social Question'. If one could somehow have limited the previous activity to the purely spiritual field, one would not have needed to add the social field; it would truly have been much more accommodating for what one could have desired for subjective reasons. Because, you see, following necessity, which has been the case here, does not allow us to have good experiences. And our friends know that I much prefer to speak from experience, from symptoms, rather than from any dogma.

From the many experiences that one has been able to have in recent times, I would like to emphasize something more remote. You see, the “Key Points of the Social Question” have already been translated into Nordic languages; they have recently also appeared in Italian; and they have attracted the attention of a—as I am assured—important sociologist in the Italian language as soon as they appeared. They are also about to be published in English in England itself. Something strange then occurred, which is quite symptomatic of what is still going on in our general world situation today and what is so extremely closely connected with the causes of the horrific events of the last four to five years. The English translation of the book “The Key Points of the Social Question” was completely corrected in the whole sentence. The task was to find a publisher in America for the printing of the book, given the special relationship that exists between England and America. And it turned out that the English publisher of the book, who was found at the time, also had a business in America that was even run by a man of the same name. The contract with the English company had already been signed. But it was not at all possible to think that the American company would also print the “key points of the social question” in America, just as it was intended to spread them in England. And yet, as soon as the complete sentence was available, when the paper was purchased for the English edition, when it was no longer a matter of anything but publishing the book, because it was only a matter of a branch company, came the strange news from the American company that they were in the process of publishing my anthroposophical works; in particular, my mystery dramas were to appear in English in America in the next few days. And one wonders now, if the same company comes up with a work of mine of a completely different kind, whether people will not say: Well, that can't be any good, because someone who writes mystery dramas and then a book on social issues, the mystery dramas must be of no use, so we won't buy them either.

With this motivation, I do not want to say for these reasons alone, but with this motivation, the American branch thwarted the plan, which was already on paper, which means a great deal today. The English company immediately backed down and was willing not to publish the book. Nevertheless, the book will be published in England in the next few days. There is no need to sleep in all areas. And even if an American company was initially hesitant, the book must still be published as quickly as possible.

I am only mentioning this because it is intended to show you something specific. Please do not think that I consider people of today with their sleepy souls so clever that I did not know that When a social book appears alongside the Mystery Dramas, such judgments are made. I know that such judgments are timely and self-evident today. So with such foresight, do not think that there is anything tempting about adding to the mere idealistic representation of these social ideas, which is at issue here, all that has been discussed this evening. That alone cannot be considered. Only what is necessary is at issue. And from all the various trends that have emerged from everything we have done since April 1919, here in Stuttgart in particular, the necessity for these ventures, which have been reported to you today, arises with an inner consistency of facts, and they are thoroughly practical in nature.

One could cite many examples to support the conclusion that such endeavors are necessary today. Not only those that have been reported on, but such endeavors would be necessary in all areas. Because, my dear friends, among all the things that could be said for the necessity of these endeavors, there is also one thing. It is not immediately appreciated in the right way, but it is something that one should turn one's gaze to when one has been involved in all that took place in the series of events that then came together and led to the terrible Central European collapse. Perhaps not the most noticeable for everyone, but no less significant, is the machinations of those routiniers, of whom I have spoken in public lectures, who still consider themselves to be seasoned practitioners, even though they could have learned. Because, my dear friends, if you want to find out what caused the collapse of Central Europe, you have to look not least at the business, namely industrial, routine people who spoke big, brash words, who knew how to say that this or that should be done to secure things or not. What they knew, based on their prejudices, was something monstrous, something that unfortunately very few people had the judgment or the ear to hear. The tone from which the business world of Central Europe spoke during these war events must not be continued, otherwise we will not only experience something like the collapse again, but we will experience much worse things. But that can of course also be said today: the very clever will know just as cleverly all that needs to be done for the future, just as the very clever knew during the heyday what needed to be done, where they said: we will win because we must win. I have often referred to these words, which could be heard passed on countless times.

All these things are also involved in the difficult decision that is at issue here. And many a prejudice must be overcome. It has already been pointed out today that it may shock the world that the whole series of undertakings is called “The Coming Day”. When the publisher Scherl once decided to call his newspapers “Der Tag”, he would have done so regardless. But I don't see why what Scherl might do out of inner embarrassment should not also be done out of truth. If Scherl had done it, it would certainly have been successful in certain circles. What matters is that work be done in the truth for once. In that case, one cannot take into consideration whether it shocks the world or not. The main thing is to do what must be done.

I hardly need to tell you, since I have been speaking to you for almost twenty years, about the great goals. I do not need to fear that there are many people among you who do not know that it takes a long time to gain an insight into the subject of spiritual science as it is meant here. I do not need to fear that there are many of you who will form an opinion after just one lecture. I am also not in a position to speak openly in a few words about the goals that apply to practical life. Those who have followed the matter with some devotion know what it is actually about in an ideal and spiritual sense. One could speak very, very spiritually to explain these goals. But that is not necessary at the moment. On the other hand, it is not necessary for me to explain at great length that everything that is opposed to amateurism and boastfulness in every field must be placed on the other side of the scales, for this is a matter of two scales: conscious professionalism and objectivity. It is not programs that are needed, but work – the work that arises precisely from the dedicated efforts of the people who are involved in such things.

You see, when Mr. Molt, at a time when it was already possible to see that our movement must also lead to such things, spoke in Dornach for the first time about centralizing the financing of our movement, I said in response to his words, which were so warmly and beautifully spoken at the time: “I must confess that I am less concerned about the procurement of funds, because these will, after all, be given more or less by the sensible people, because they will come to the conclusion that today, after all, we must work in a rational way, even in the economic field, that countless national treasures have been squandered in the last decades, so I am not even so much concerned about finding those personalities who can now utilize and exploit these funds in the right way.

Indeed, with these words I was able to tie in with something I said many years ago. You see, when we started doing dramatic performances back then, we had to keep a firm hand on the material in our purse. Because if you put your hand firmly on your wallet and don't let go, then you can, because it costs nothing, spout the most beautiful idealistic and mystical phrases, but the matter is in the purse and remains in the purse. And then people can say that the idealist is too mean to talk about money, and even meaner to give something of his money, this terrible mammon, which is better kept in his pocket, for his ideals, because “ideals are much too high to be defiled with this dirty mammon.” At first it worked. One could discuss whether one should pay the 50 pfennigs as an entrance fee for anthroposophical lectures in the early years. Because everywhere we heard from dear friends: anthroposophical lectures are much too high for us not to be delivered to us for free. - I am only telling facts! Then, however, came the years when dramas were to be performed. Then came the years in which dramas were to be performed. It was no longer possible to turn a blind eye to this “high idealism” that does not want to soil its ideals with the filthy lucre. Sometimes it was necessary to appeal to the sacrificial spirit of our friends. But at the time I said: Unfortunately, we are now condemned to touch on that corner of practical life that has been left to us, the corner of imitation or artistic [representation] of life - the image of life. Much rather – the sentence must be found in my lectures again – much rather, I said at the time, I would found a bank than a theater, not out of a preference for money, truly not, but because I realized that it would have to come to this, that the very outermost practice of life would have to be tackled for the necessities of our time. Now this necessary point in time has definitely arrived, and now the situation is such that there is no getting around the justification of practical things – for the reason that the practical people have suffered shipwreck everywhere.

Of course, saying this makes you look very important, because the practical people would prefer to mask the fact – even from themselves – that they are the ones who have brought us to our present situation; but they would prefer to muddle through.

Now, I said at the time in Dornach: Above all, we need people who can make use of the money. And then there comes a point – when you think about it – where you feel a great sense of responsibility. Because under the terrible mechanization of life, the initiative and alertness of the human soul life has indeed suffered so much in recent decades that it is extremely difficult to find the right people. We consider ourselves truly fortunate that we have now finally reached the point of finding people for individual branches of those activities that are necessary for us. People who are dedicated and truly immersed in our cause, who live for our cause as such and are inspired by the great ideals of humanity, and who of humanity, who have indeed introduced themselves to you, who can really connect with the idealistic spirit that we embrace, and who have the necessary dedication for a sober, practical grasp of the technical issues in every field. Because what matters is that we don't just put mysticism on one side of the scales and count on it to tip the scales in our favor; no, it's about balance. We must put expertise and objectivity on the other side of the scales. We must be truly sober practitioners. This must be seen.

You see, our task will be to calculate the future from the past with a fine instinct. Because in life, things cannot be done with programs. You can make the most beautiful programs in the spiritual, economic, and political fields. But making programs is always nonsense. What is important is to create realities in life that embrace such people, so that something living comes out of the joint activity of these people. It is very possible that if a number of people here form a circle, something quite different from what people could have dreamt of will have come into being in five years.

But for anything at all to come about in this way, it is necessary that the people united in this circle can and want to do real practical work. It depends on the individual personality. That is why it is not a cliché in the brochure that one of the tasks of these enterprises is to put people in such positions that their special individual abilities can come to light. This is what has been trampled underfoot, especially in the economic life of the last decades: human talents. What tipped the scales? The completely impersonal, which has been collected here and there into overall judgments about people from school reports, recommendations - all sorts of things that came out of grandstanding, of program words.

The point at issue is to create the possibility for a group of people to recognize the fruitful talents, so that they may draw from living life, not from program words, from faith, from dogmatics. The aim is to bring together people who create out of an ever-deepening insight into life; in short, people in whom one can have complete trust because one can have trust in their will, in their work, because one does not need to prescribe anything to them, but because one knows them, so that one knows that they will contribute what they have to contribute in complete freedom.

This is essentially what is connected with what is to happen here. And while in recent years the outer life has been built less and less on the human being, here it is precisely on the human being that this outer life is to be built - on the human being and on freedom. And it should be seen that the freedom - which, although not desired by some of our friends, was a reality here in this society, where there was no authority and no authority was claimed - that this system, this principle, is also carried into it is intended - into these economic enterprises, so that what happens, really happens through the combined strength of those who work together, and wherever productive life is, it is the living that should happen and not the execution of a dead program.

A few days ago I pointed out to you here something that is alive, but that, as something alive, must develop out of itself. I was a little surprised that friends here were so concerned about how to get this or that article speaking in our favor into this or that daily newspaper. The friends finally agreed that one cannot compromise with the parties, but it was not yet clear to them that one should not compromise with contemporary journalism either. They still wanted to sneak in here or there. Some of them did go down that road, and were thoroughly punished for it, but at least they learned something. They learned that the socialist tendency that remained produced all kinds of offshoots that were no less corrupt than what had fallen into the abyss.

And finally, the outward symptoms, well, you know! You see, an economic party is supposed to be the socialist one. Everything should arise from economic life. This socialist party has now even managed to get all kinds of members into the ruling circles. One of the most important economic areas has not been taken over by a solid or weakened or somehow kind of Marxist or socialist, but they have got used to letting the now most important branch of life, which underlies all the others , on which everything else depends, to be managed by Erzberger, who is certainly no Marxist and whose ability to reshape the Central European world even Helfferich had to educate this Central European world about. Today, it may not matter to anyone whether the language is 'Erzbergerian' or 'Helfferichian', but what is happening here is just one more example of how little the world is willing to learn. I believe that it will not learn much about the qualities of what has been said in “Erzbergerian” language, even if spoken in “Helfferichian”; for the world seems completely unwilling to understand that both belong to what has led us into misfortune. The things that are at issue today cannot be grasped in a “small-minded” way, but can only be grasped by drawing a little from the depths. And what has been said here today is connected with all these things.

I hope, my dear friends, that what I have added here as a few words in addition to what has been communicated to you from various sides will not be misunderstood. For certain reasons, I am prevented from saying many other words that I would have liked to have said in connection with these things. I hope that some of the things that are still causing me concern in the upsurge – I don't want to ignore mentioning this – will also be overcome very soon. But I believe that if as many of you as possible prove capable of standing on truly practical ground right now, something good will come out of this.

I would just like to add, because there may be talk from many sides that the matter has not been understood, I would just like to add what I did not actually want to talk about myself: that it is indeed necessary for the truly future-proof seeds that have been planted in the Waldorf school to be developed in a corresponding way in the various directions. Now, my dear friends, we will quite necessarily have to turn our attention to the economic side, because the economic side should support our spiritual side. But you cannot carry if you have nothing to carry. The main thing for us will always be that the spiritual be carried. We will try to find the harmony between the economic and the spiritual, and we will try especially to do so in the propagation through our publishing house, where we build the future from the past to the greatest extent. We have learned many lessons from the way in which anthroposophical literature has had to be disseminated in recent years, and we know very well that this book, 'The Key Points of the Social Question', has been distributed in 40,000 copies since the beginning of May last year, so for less than a year. People keep saying that the book is heavy and so on. And yet the fact remains that the book has received the favor of almost no journal or newspaper, and yet 40,000 copies of it have been sold. We know what not to count on with this book. So far, in terms of its distribution, we have not counted on what not to count on with this book. In the near future, ways and means will have to be sought to achieve what should be taken for granted. If a thousand copies of a book have been sold, there is no way of knowing whether fifty more will be sold in the next few years. But if 40,000 copies of a book have been sold, it is quite certain that 100,000 copies can be sold in a much shorter time if only the right ways and means are found. And in a similar way, we will have to truly divine from the past what is possible for the future in the most diverse fields. But everything depends on our cultivating the spiritual as such. For example, we must ensure that the spiritual can truly present itself to the world in its inner unity. It is truly no coincidence that we have recently endeavored to advance eurythmy – I would say from four to four weeks – and also to bring it before the public here and in Switzerland where possible. But it should be done in a much more comprehensive way. Something like this is also part of what happens in the Waldorf school in another area; we need a eurythmy as the center of artistic activity, we also need it in its representation through an independent area. And one thing is certain: even if we do not subtract what we want to give for the eurythmy school, for the cultivation of eurythmy, from what we otherwise want to put on the certificates, it will not be out of place to remember now that one must support the other. Things will certainly become clearer in the near future. It will become clear that what can be achieved, for example, by such an arts organization, in association with the publishing house, is also supported by what is to be achieved financially and economically. Such a building costs ten times as much today as it did relatively recently. In the face of such things, it is very important to do what is necessary before it is too late; to really bear in mind that under certain circumstances it may be impossible to build such a building for eurythmy in six months' time and to create binding art forms around it. But it would be necessary, especially here in southern Germany, here in Stuttgart as a central point for many things that would arise if one were to do something for this eurythmic art, which, precisely because of the nature of the means it chooses, the various artistic currents that actually all fail in the present because they still choose unsuitable means today, do not start from the right place, could fertilize. It cannot become a universal art, but it can show, as in a model, how to work, strive and live in other fields of artistic creation if you want to move forward.

I wanted to make these few remarks to explain and supplement what our friends here have said before you.

totaling M. 10,000,000 of the company “Der Kommende Tag”, a joint-stock company for the promotion of economic and spiritual values.

The joint-stock company THE COMING DAY was established by articles of association dated March 13, 1920, with its registered office in Stuttgart. The purpose of the company is the operation and financing of purely economic and spiritual-economic business and enterprises of all kinds, which will be oriented towards the anthroposophical world view, both in terms of their objectives and the way they are conducted, and which should be suitable for placing economic life on a healthy associative footing and shaping spiritual life in such a way that justified talents are brought into a position where they can be lived out in a socially fruitful way.

The company will differ from ordinary banking companies in that it will not only serve financial aspects, but the real operations themselves, which are supported by the financial. Therefore, capital will not be made available to other companies in the way that it is in ordinary banking, but rather from the factual points of view that come into consideration for an operation that is to be undertaken. The company will therefore have less the character of the lender and more that of the merchant who is in the know, who can realistically assess the scope of an operation to be financed and make practical arrangements for its execution. It will therefore be the case that the companies to be financed by the company will generally take the form of branches of the company. In this context, it will be important to focus, for example, on enterprises that are currently profitable in order to use their profits to support other enterprises that will only be able to bear economic fruit in the future and, above all, through the spiritual seed that is now being poured into them, which can only come to fruition after some time. The guiding principles for this will have to arise out of an insight into how the view of life that is provided by anthroposophy can be translated into economically fruitful action.

The leadership of the Society will start from the realization that economic activity can develop branches that may temporarily produce favorable results for the individual entrepreneur, but that have a destructive effect in the context of the social order. Many recent enterprises were oriented in this way. They were capitalized, and it was precisely this capitalization that undermined the social order. Such enterprises must be confronted by those that arise from healthy thinking and feeling. These can be integrated into the social order in a truly fruitful way. But they can only be supported by a social way of thinking that is inspired by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. There is no doubt that enterprises such as those characterized here will initially only be able to overcome the social-technical and financial crises; on the other hand, they will face social difficulties as long as these, as the actual workers' question, still take the form that comes from the old mode of production, which is doomed to crisis. The workers who have a share in the new enterprises will, for instance, behave in exactly the same way towards 'wage' differences as they do towards enterprises of the old type. But in such matters, one must not underestimate how soon, under proper management, an enterprise of the kind characterized here must also have favorable social consequences. This will be seen. And the example will have a convincing effect. If a venture of this kind falters, then the workers who are involved in it will have their convictions with them when they are brought back into influence. For it is only by bringing the manual workers into line with the intellectual leaders of enterprises through a way of thinking that affects all classes of people that the forces of social destruction can be counteracted.

The company will endeavor to invest the capital at its disposal in productive values and in products for which there is a constant demand. It hopes that this will minimize the effects of financial crises.

The board of directors consists of the businessmen Konradin Haußer, Hans Kühn and Wilhelm Trommsdorff, all of Stuttgart; they are appointed by the supervisory board.

The Supervisory Board consists of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, as Chairman, Emil Molt, Stuttgart, as Deputy Chairman, Emil Leinhas, Stuttgart, as Secretary, Jose del Monte, Stuttgart, and Dr. Carl Unger, Stuttgart. The members of the Supervisory Board perform their duties on a voluntary basis.

The founders of the company are:
Konradin Haußer, Stuttgart
Hans Kühn, Stuttgart
Director Emil Leinhas, Stuttgart
Count Otto von Lerchenfeld, Köfering near Regensburg
Councillor of Commerce Emil Molt, Stuttgart
Manufacturer José del Monte, Stuttgart
Count Ludwig von Polzer-Hoditz, Gutau, Upper Austria
Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Dornach near Basel
Factory owner Dr.-Ing. Carl Unger, Stuttgart

With regard to net profit, the statutes stipulate that 5% of this be allocated to the statutory reserve fund until it reaches one tenth of the share capital; the supervisory board is authorized to order further reserves of any amount. Thereafter, a dividend shall be paid on the share capital, which shall represent an appropriate interest rate on the nominal value of the share capital, in line with the prevailing market conditions. The General Meeting shall decide on the remaining profit.

The initial capital stock is set at 300,000 marks, divided into 300 registered shares of 1000 marks each. It is intended to increase the capital stock substantially after the legal authorization has been granted.

Until then, in accordance with the resolution of the supervisory board of March 11, 1920, the issue of loan certificates up to the amount of 100,000,000 marks is planned under the following conditions:

1. The lenders receive loan certificates made out to the joint-stock company “Der Kommende Tag” or its order for a sum of not less than 1,000 marks.

2. The loan certificates shall bear interest at 5% on April 1 and October 1 of each year, be terminable by the lender by special agreement and transferable to third parties by endorsement. The transfer shall become legally binding on the company by entry in its register.

3. The company has the right at any time to convert the loan certificates into shares in any order in such a way that it allocates to the lenders newly issued shares of the same nominal value for the amount of the loan certificate rounded down to the nearest thousand, paying out any excess in cash. These new shares are entitled to dividends on an equal footing with the share capital. The regulation of the relationship between the voting rights of old and new shares is reserved for the General Meeting that will decide on the increase of the share capital.

4. If the loan certificates have not been converted into shares by April 1, 1922 at the request of the company, the company has the right to repay the loans according to a repayment plan to be determined by the general meeting.

The company hereby invites the takeover of loan certificates and requests that the completed and signed subscription form be returned to the joint-stock company “Der Kommende Tag”, Stuttgart, Champignystr. 17 (not registered).

Stuttgart, March 13, 1920.

Konradin Haußer Hans Kühn Wilhelm Trommsdorff
(as members of the board of directors)

Dr. Rudolf Steiner Emil Molt Emil Leinhas
José del Monte Dr. Ing. Carl Unger
(as members of the supervisory board).

On the occasion of the handover of the factory to the joint-stock company “Der Kommende Tag”

[First, Carl Unger speaks about the decision to incorporate the company “Carl Unger Maschinenfabrik” in Hedelfingen into “Der Kommende Tag”. The wording was not written down.

Rudolf Steiner: My dearest attendees! As the chairman of the board of directors of the “Der Kommende Tag” stock company, it is my responsibility, in a sense, to hand over your work to this “Coming Day” in the sense in which Dr. Unger has characterized this handover to you. It is my responsibility, I say, to warmly welcome you on behalf of this stock company “Der Kommende Tag”.

Perhaps you know that the efforts – Dr. Unger has characterized them to you – that the efforts related to the idea of threefolding were to be intensively launched in Stuttgart and the surrounding area from April 1919, under the impression of what was seen as approaching from the great world catastrophe for German economic life. You know, of course, that at that time we had made every effort to prove and substantiate the ideas of threefolding, which is the only way that economic life could recover, to the broadest masses, so that something could have been undertaken from these broad masses, from the circles of the proletariat itself, to get this threefold social order, which is by no means a utopia but an eminently practical idea that could be realized every day, off the ground. If I may say a few words, and it seems to me perhaps not inappropriate at this moment, to share my personal impressions, since I have worked in an outstanding position to disseminate these ideas of threefolding, I believe that if we had been able to continue working in the same spirit as we began, then today we would be on a different footing. Believe me or not, we would be on a different footing. Of course, there is not enough time now to identify all the obstacles that have prevented us from continuing to work in the originally intended sense, but I can at least hint at some of them. It is my conviction that had we been given the opportunity to make the ideas of threefolding plausible to the broadest circles of the proletariat, we would have been on different ground today. If we had been able to carry out what we repeatedly presented to various circles of the proletariat last summer, for example, as our idea for the establishment of works councils, we would not have needed the joint-stock company “Der Kommende Tag” in the form in which it had to be founded. For threefolding is the way by which this could come about, so that economic life could really be sustained by the whole broad mass of the population.

But what has happened? While we were trying to gain the support of the broad masses, we were hindered – why should we not say it frankly when we are in a smaller circle – by the traditional leaders of the proletariat, the socialist leaders, who believed that we wanted something completely different, that we were trying to undermine them, that we were out to take their place in the unions and eat at the same table as them. Unfortunately, the proletariat is still unable to free itself from its leaders. But those who lead the proletariat – read the statement made by Professor Varga, because he is one of them, too, regarding the completely senseless establishment of the Hungarian Council of Ministers, where he explains what caused the whole thing to fail - if these leaders continue to pursue the course they have been pursuing for years, which of course the individual of you within the proletariat cannot fully understand today, then the entire civilized economic life will most certainly come to an end.

Now, you know that there are not only those leaders who guide the proletariat out of impractical ideas, but unfortunately, precisely because of these circumstances, there are also a great many bourgeois leaders who, precisely because of their follies, because of their impossible management of affairs because they only emerged from economic selfishness, which ultimately brought Europe into this decline, but they cannot see why it should not continue as it was, when they pushed the world into the catastrophe of murder and so on. These bourgeois leaders could have been gradually brought to realize this folly if the leaders of the proletariat had not found such willing followers in the broadest circles. I am not saying that one could have counted on these leaders of the bourgeoisie, but what was the idea with them? In the period when we started working, they were actually through — much more through than perhaps a single one of you believes; they were through and would have remained through if understanding for threefolding had been mustered. They came up because there was no understanding for the threefold order, and they came to the hope: Yes, if the proletariat follows these leaders and does not gain any understanding for the threefold order, because we had practical ideas, that is why the leaders of the bourgeoisie hated us. If we had come into the world as impractical people, they would have said: the fools, the utopians! and would not have bothered about us. But because they saw something practical, they hated us so much. And because we were abandoned by the broadest masses, who were seduced by their own leaders, it is understandable that those who were down got their heads above water. And the consequence was that at first the idea of threefolding could not be developed in the way we had envisaged. Of course, this does not mean that it loses some of its character of real practice, but it just has to be implemented differently. Because the idea is practical; it is the only saving idea.

And because it cannot be realized in reality by people as we tried to do it last year, we had to try it in a different way this year, and that is to found real associations, to start at some corner of social life. We must begin to establish individual aspects of the threefold social order. It will be difficult, but we must establish individual aspects. And the point is that we establish such associations that are not based on personal advantage, but that work now as one must imagine work must be done in a truly serious social community. [This is what] “Der Kommende Tag” means: we should work in such a way that we practically have to work in a truly social community. We will try to work in a small circle in such a way that in the service of the whole, to establish what needs to be done to establish an orderly spiritual life, to gradually democratize the community body and a healthy economic body, whether this can be tackled in this way. Since we have not been able to proceed as we should, for example in the factories, where we would have started from the real establishment of the works council, we must try, instead of what we were not allowed to do on a large scale – because people did not join forces to do so – we must do it, so to speak, on a small scale; but we will work with all our might to make it possible to do it on a small scale.

Dr. Unger has already explained to you how some of the concerns that were previously entrusted to his sole care are being transferred to the “Kommende Tag”. And I believe I can promise you that the transfer of the worries about this work to the “Coming Day” will be done with just as much dedicated work as has been done so far. You see, now that the “Coming Day” has to take over some of these worries, I think I can say that these are worries that should be taken off the shoulders of a single personality, because a single personality is no longer able to maintain any area of economic life in the face of world conditions, because this can only be done associatively. Now that this important step is to be taken, I may well say to you: We at “The Coming Day” are in a position to look around so that we do not do anything foolish. We cannot take on any work that is in a sorry state – we would like to, but we can't, because we have to continue our work fruitfully – and so we have to have a certain basis for everything we put together associatively.

Yes, you are of course familiar with the economic life from the angle that is available to you. That is how it was with the bourgeoisie. If they looked at it, they would see how difficult it is to integrate any one business into the whole organism of the entire economic life.

Then there is the responsibility that comes with taking on such a task, and things have to happen quickly. I ask: What were the foundations that allowed us to say that we could take on this task? Yes, the documentation for this is extremely difficult to obtain today. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is today to just enter the business world under responsibility and want to continue something that has already been made three-quarters impossible by the messed-up circumstances of our entire lives. You see, we have the only real basis for what I can tell you in a few words: We must build on the efficiency and strength of character of the previous manager, Dr. Ungers.

What do we know? We know much more precisely than could be gained from any annual balance sheet of a company or anything of the sort; we know because we know Dr. Unger inside and out, so to speak. We know that this business has been run in an exemplary manner in the sense of today's economy, that we can take responsibility for incorporating it into the measures of the “Coming Day”; and we knew that we could continue to run it, even in such a way that you will all be just as satisfied now under the new flag as you were before under the personal flag of Dr. Unger. We know this because, on the surface, nothing will change – nothing will change on the surface, but only the way the entire operation is integrated into the economy as a whole will have changed. We also know that if Dr. Unger is now in charge of this work on behalf of the “Kommende Tag,” it will be well managed, and we are convinced that it will be well managed in technical terms; because the work is, if I may use an Austrian expression, technically “cleanly” managed, so managed that one sees that there is working energy in it. The work is one that, today, when faced with the decision of whether to include it in the “Kommenden Tag”, makes it clear that it can be included; it is a work with which we can attempt to do something to restore economic life in an associative way. And what we want to do in the service of the general public should also benefit you. You will just have to familiarize yourself, as Dr. Unger already mentioned, with the idea that social work is to be done here, that you will have to take an interest in the way we work here, and that you can't achieve everything overnight. It is not least the fault of the circumstances in which the entire economy finds itself that we cannot immediately achieve everything that has been conceived. So I promise you that we will certainly try to gain your trust in every direction. We want to be collaborators, nothing else. We should not supervise anything, we want to work together with you, not only for the individual company, but for the social whole. In this sense, you will see that we will try to act, not just talk, although it will be quite difficult to act in the current confused state of economic life. So in this sense, we want to move forward, we want to have confidence that things will continue as they have done so far in the future.

A worker: If the socialization question would “march” under the present government, how about the joint-stock company of the “Coming Day”? Would it be out of the question, illusory?

Rudolf Steiner: Not true, it is self-evident that under the present government nothing desirable can be achieved. You see, for those who think practically, it is of course very important to realize that nothing desirable can be achieved under a government like the present one. But the much more important question is how, after such a long time, after November 1918, this government has become possible again under the present circumstances. And this question is not to be raised only today, but had to be raised by us long ago. It only reflects the impossible circumstances that are unfolding. Fun. We have fun behind us, fun, something that could have become important for international economic life as well. But who was there? Fehrenbach was there, Stinnes, Simons were there - all people who have grown out of the old circumstances completely. People who should have been removed from their positions long ago, because nothing sensible can come out of the minds of these people, all of whom are involved in the currents that led into the catastrophe. Recovery can only be brought about by bringing in new people – people who realize that they must not bring in the old ones again. For us, since we did not get through with the first way of presenting the ideas of threefolding, for us it is above all a matter of working to get the ideas of threefolding into as many minds as possible. Only then, when we have enough people who understand what needs to be done, only then can we make progress, and only then will we also have governments with whom we can work. Therefore, we must consider anything that brings down one government and lets another come to power as impractical, because a government is coming that will either do something nonsensical itself or bring in the old people, or we will hear the most ancient phrases, ideas, again raised that have proven their impossibility through the catastrophe of war.

For us, it is a matter of new people coming who understand and can do something themselves and who realize that the old ones must not be brought back. And to achieve something like that is not easily done with mere words – that has been shown. We had to resort to introducing something practical and economic. If we do something sensible with it, people will say: They can not only talk sensibly, but also do it, and we will have a means of awakening more understanding for our cause. We are not thinking of utopianism, but of the fact that what can be done must be done. If you think abstractly, you can say: As long as this government is in power, nothing sensible will be done, and with a different government, sensible things will happen even without “Kommenden Tag”. But “Kommenden Tag” wants to help create sensible things. Then he can step aside when he has helped to create sensible things.

But things are not always so that one has only an either/or. In free Switzerland, for example, one could not found such a “Free Waldorf School” as we have in Stuttgart. Because there, in free Switzerland, the law is so tightly knit that one cannot found such a school. But with us there is the possibility of wriggling through. So we don't just have a mere either-or, and so the “Kommende Tag” will also seek, with all the means left to us in the old circumstances, to use this remainder to make progress. We do not think: government gone, another government coming! - you won't get anywhere with that; but we think: you have to use the things that can still be used. The “Kommende Tag” is such a practical institution; it does not want to wait abstractly until the right government comes.

Another worker says a few words about what he thinks he has to say about the threefold order in connection with his reading of Zola's [book] “Work”.

Rudolf Steiner: Zola was not yet at the point where he could have created something positive. With Zola it was only criticism. At that time, people had not yet progressed to the point where they could have criticized. It took the circumstances to make it clear that something had to be done. Today we have to say: what people like Zola did must be changed today. There is no other way. At that time, the reactionary powers could continue to operate; now, they can only muddle through for a while. There is an absolute necessity for action. Some people see it differently, but we have to see the matter of threefolding as the right one. We cannot admit that it could be done better any other way.

to Walter Kühne in front of all the employees of the building at Champignystrasse 17

Dear attendees,

The Federation for the Threefold Social Organism is actually, I would say, the banner under which we are gathered here today, for what has now been created in Stuttgart has emerged from the anthroposophical movement via the Federation for the Threefold Social Organism. The Anthroposophical Movement is a spiritual movement; the means of its work are entirely in the realm of spiritual activity. And when the difficult situation in Central Europe gave rise to the need to create the Federation for the Threefold Social Order out of the anthroposophical spirit, a start was made on implementing the anthroposophical goals directly and immediately in everyday practice, in reality. This is an extraordinarily important, significant and responsible task. You are aware that the efforts of the Federation for the Threefold Social Organism have so far resulted in the Waldorf School and the economic enterprise “Der Kommende Tag”. The “Coming Day” as such has not yet had the opportunity to show the outside world how it wants to present itself to the public with a new work in the economic field, but with a work that comes from a new spirit. It will fulfill its goals if everyone who works with it is actively aware, really of what is actually supposed to happen; that something is supposed to happen out of a completely new spirit, for that, my dear attendees, one needs not only the slogan, the phrase “one wants to work out of a new spirit,” but for that one needs the will to work out of such a new spirit into everyday life and into business habits. And if people wanted to use the phrase “working in a new spirit” to maintain the old business practices and the whole old way of doing business, then the “day to come” would gradually be drawn into the very old and, of course, none of what is actually meant would be achieved. Do not think that what I have just said can be taken only superficially, for there are a great many enterprises in the world that make a big show of things and then simply drift into the most everyday old philistinism. And believe me, man's tendency not to let go of the old in his habits is extraordinarily great.

We see this particularly when we look at the socialist procedures in the very present, in the very latest times. The socialist movement has gradually taken on a form that can be characterized as follows: it is dominated by the most beautiful, immediately ear-catching slogans – and it is dominated by habits of life, by business habits, which truly go back far further in old philistinism and old conservatism than any of the basically reactionary parties. It does not help if one is not supposed to say such things in a moment when one has not exactly gathered for nothing; it only helps if one holds the truth before oneself, and therefore one must say: what is demanded of the time is precisely the opposite of what is mostly talked about by socialists today; it is to work out of a new spirit. How difficult this is – why should this not be said even in such a small circle – becomes apparent the moment one really wants to start working out of such a new spirit in practice. The “Coming Day” and the Federation for the Threefold Social Organism and everything connected with it should work out of such a new spirit. The Waldorf School has begun to work out of such a new spirit. You can understand that the greatest concern in setting up all these new affairs, which are so energetically demanded by the times, must be to find the right people for the job.

Now, you see, I stated in a public lecture a few days ago that Professor Eugen Varga, who would have had all the power as Minister of Economics of Council Hungary, was as clever as anyone could be, but he was hindered in his cleverness on the one hand that he is a bullish Marxist, and on the other hand, that he is a Central European professor. He admits that in an unnoticed part of his arguments, which he has published, it is above all important to put the right people in the right places. Today is basically my first time here, so I can only speak to some extent about the external conditions that have led to what is crystallizing here. But if we disregard everything that is here, then an example may be given which shows how difficult and troublesome the task is that I have just spoken to you about; the Federation for the Threefold Social Order can only do its truly extraordinary, comprehensive and far-reaching work if it has as many co-workers as possible. This spring, the idea was mooted of holding a course here that would provide a foundation for what a person who is not indoctrinated with socialist issues and armed with party slogans should really know when they go before the public to talk about what is needed in today's world. It was not, as was erroneously assumed, a course in public speaking, but rather something that should work in this direction. When the time came to select the people who were to take part in such a course, it turned out that the course could not be started because no suitable audience for such a course could be found in the area that was initially accessible to us. So, as you can see, we are already coming up against the obstacle that Professor Eugen Varga is talking about; because today it is the case that basically everyone believes that if they were appointed the next day by the most important authority to administer any other field, they would be the most suitable person for the job. But when it comes to finding the truly suitable personalities, that is, when one makes a serious effort out of empty phrases, then very little comes of these things. Those personalities who are here in Stuttgart themselves not only have their hands full today, but if they had ten times as many hands as they have – of course, two hands always require something else in a person – then they would still have plenty to do. All this points to the difficulties of working today, which are disguised in the most frivolous way by those people who lead party life in the field of all parties. Without being aware of this, one cannot work on such an undertaking as this.

We have shown that it is at least possible in a small circle to make a start where the aim is to work in an at least limited comprehensive sense from the spirit that is meant here. And it can be said that a small part of the tasks, which could only be achieved in part of its field, has so far been achieved in a comprehensible way by the Waldorf school teachers. There it was possible to find a number of people from the circle of the now existing skills who, in the field that has a certain outer limit, which I will describe in a moment, where in a certain area what is really meant has today, in a way that can be grasped. This could not yet be the case with the other things, because they have only existed for such a short time. What has been grasped and taken from the basis of the spiritual life that we cultivate has been grasped in a way that can be grasped today. There is no reason for anyone to become vain or proud about what has been decided, for there is still much to be done and only those who feel inadequate in the face of their immediate tasks will come to the right realization. You will have heard: There is a lack of understanding again where there should be understanding so far-reaching that the social organism has a threefold structure, where there should be understanding for the fact that, above all, spiritual life should be supported economically, there is a lack of understanding again in the widest circles today. There is an enormous amount to be done to bring understanding into the environment of today's humanity, so that one has to say: The Federation for the Threefold Social Organism has an enormous amount to do, for it is the inspirer and the real active force that is to work in everything that is to be founded in detail. What is to come from the Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism, to which the other fields are spiritually, if not administratively, attached and for the sake of which they actually work, cannot be one-sidedly business-like, nor one-sidedly scientific, nor one-sidedly in any other direction, but must be completely be so that, every week, one discovers afresh the tasks that are set each week, for the person who leads the Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism and those who help him must be people who have an extremely finely tuned, soul-social magnetic needle, the slightest deflection of which can be quickly noticed. Those who are to care for the Federation for Threefolding must have a fine sense for everything that is happening in social life today. Even if it is quite impossible to discuss things directly because they are often much too clumsy and too fleeting, one must still have a sense for the right thing to happen at the right moment, even if it seems to have no connection at all to what is happening.

The goal towards which the threefold social order should develop, my dear assembled friends, cannot be described in a few words, but I would like to hint at it with a few words. As you know, there were matters in the old world, which is much more gone than one thinks today, which is much more on the verge of extinction, in complete decline, than one thinks. In this old world there was what was called “diplomacy”. Diplomacy, ladies and gentlemen, has a name that, I would say, not only causes retching, but almost vomiting. Diplomacy has made its name, which is so not only by what it is supposed to be, but by what it has become, because it has been carried out behind closed doors, because it has worked with means that often had to shy away from the full light of the public. The Socialist parties, in particular during the war and up to the present, have not shown that they would have been able to put something new and honest in the place of the old dishonest diplomacy. On the contrary, anyone who has had the opportunity to observe how the Socialist leaders, must say: the habits, the bad, disgusting habits of the old diplomats have been greatly increased by the diplomats from the socialist parties, who began to pursue their diplomacy in the most diverse fields during the world war. One day, when the diplomatic disciples of the old dishonest diplomats are described, it will be a very dark chapter of history, showing how they have operated up to the present day; but the art of the little diplomat of the socialist parties also belongs precisely in the place of that which is completely ripe for destruction and that which is ripe for destruction in this direction. That which has matured in public life for the most complete downfall must be replaced by something that works in the full light of the public eye but at the same time is endowed with the qualities that the old diplomacy has gradually lost through its bad habits, but which in its better times, even if sometimes cultivated to a point of undesirable sophistication, it certainly excelled in. A knowledge of human nature that goes as far as observing the social soul processes – knowledge of groups of people, knowledge of human contexts, knowledge of human parties, knowledge of human instincts – all this belongs to the foundation from which the one who is to work in the right sense in what is meant by the League for the Threefold Social Organism is to work. This is something that must emerge from direct observation, from the most thorough knowledge of human nature, from the contemplation of the active forces in the present. This is what he must, I would say, keep fairly quiet in his bosom as the scope of the motives from which he must act. But then he must arrange what he does according to this knowledge of human nature, otherwise, if he does not arrange what he does according to this knowledge of human nature, then he simply speaks so that he is understood, as if he were standing in front of a forest of trees and speaking into them; for that is the characteristic, that today, basically, if something is to be effective in public that does not look like the public journalism of all parties or the public talk of all parties, so that when people listen or read, their souls behave like tumblers, so that they immediately straighten up when they hear the buzzwords, when they have fallen over. Today we live off the automatic machines of newspapers and public orators, but if you want to speak to people from a different direction, you speak as if to trees that do not hear. You can only penetrate them gradually if you try to apply a truly diplomatic art, which is honest, as has just been suggested. Nothing less than this must be the task of the League for the Threefold Social Organism, and all the fields of activity associated with it must set themselves this task. Nothing less than to take the place of the old diplomacy of public affairs, which is dying out and has come to mean dishonesty and evil.

Only out of this consciousness, not out of a program, not out of a set of abstract propositions, but out of the goodwill to appropriate people and groups of people as well as one can, can arise what the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism is actually supposed to do. If a possibility for working in such a direction does not arise, then the Federation for the Threefold Social Organism will be something that perishes, probably with all that belongs to it, and one will be able to say: We will have to wait a long time for humanity to mature before we can implement what is so urgently needed today. Those of you who are present today will be the first to realize that when one speaks as I have just done, one is speaking of realities; often one is told in response to these things: Yes, but if one sets such goals, then humanity will need decades or centuries.

One can hardly imagine a worse indictment of these people; for it proves nothing other than that people mean something quite different from what they actually say; it proves that they have not the slightest will to acquire insight into how, today - today! - this must be realized, how it is meant with such practical goals as we mean here. But we need helpers, not hundreds but thousands, tens of thousands. We need more and more helpers, and our work is only just beginning because a large part of our work consists of first having to look for the people who will do the work. We can only do the smallest part of our work because we have to spend most of our time looking for people to do it, even if it looks like we are doing something else.

All this I want to live as a guiding thought every day, every hour, every minute, every second, here where we want to work in the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism. The aims we have set ourselves are truly not too high; for there are no aims too high for that which is today tiny, like the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism, but which is destined to become outwardly great, truly great, infinitely great. The Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism is something that arouses opposition when three or four people get together, as has happened here in Stuttgart, to achieve its goals. The Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism is something that causes a sensation and has a small following; when the three or four are joined by ten, then there are a few hundred who look to it; then, of necessity, something happens in these few hundred that makes them feel the old habits rising up in their inner soul life and that so and so many fall away again. Then, I might say, the small group of purposeful personalities, who stick together, must return to their old loneliness, continue to work, and then the opposition that arises turns into slanderous opposition, into furious enmity, and it must be worked on slowly and intensely, with the aim of winning over as many people as possible to the ideas. There comes a time – and we are in the midst of it; we have already passed through the other stages – there comes a time when one learns to sense what one really knows when one is immersed in practice. You see, after working for the anthroposophical movement for two decades, I can say that I have worked in the anthroposophical movement, in assemblies consisting of three, before assemblies consisting of three hundred, but also before assemblies consisting of three thousand and many more. What has become of the anthroposophical movement is what has become of it – certainly for many other reasons, but also for one reason: I have always counted on it, based on a certain life practice, that after you have been able to speak to a thousand people, you have found two with whom the matter has initially taken hold.

If you want to achieve something new, you will achieve nothing if you are optimistic about life; if you are pessimistic about life, if you let your courage sink because it is the case that out of a thousand you can win two, if you are pessimistic about life, if you are constantly under the impression that it is the case, you will achieve even less than nothing, you will make things even worse. The only thing possible is to feel everything that optimism and pessimism give us, but when it comes to moving from feeling to will, to not give a damn about whether the world is good or bad, but to do what one feels is one's duty; then, even if slowly or quickly, the world will become better. We must think of acting in such a way that the world can become better tomorrow. This is what must govern us as a new spirit. This new spirit arises much more from feeling, sensing, and wholeheartedly engaging with this whole impulse of will than from anything else; it certainly does not arise from empty phrases. We could draw up the most beautiful programs, put out the most beautiful brochures to the world, do everything possible that can be put together in words, we could do this in the seemingly most brilliant management; if we do not work ourselves out of this spirit in every hour, in every minute, in every second, we will achieve nothing through the most beautiful words, the most beautiful brochures, through everything we shall achieve nothing, for today we must fight with our hearts, not with the shrivelled and depraved hearts that are nowadays called hearts because they have been formed by all kinds of old world-views, but with hearts that are capable of really feeling the great impulses of the time and of acting on them with all their energy. Today it is a matter of working from this heart and being there for things from this heart.

Therefore, you must also have a heart for when – since the work here is being done out of a new spirit, to the extent that it is understood – everything changes, so to speak, down to the details of business practice – because if nothing changed, we would mess up the matter – and when someone somewhere comes along and says to something that is being practiced out of the new spirit: Yes, but someone who is an expert in the field and has looked at the field in the world, thinks that this is not right, is talking nonsense; because what has entered into all fields, what has become the spirit of all fields, has shown its impossibility through the world catastrophe, and everywhere practice, not just feeling and thinking, must become something completely different. Without understanding this, we will not make any progress.

And if I may emphasize something today, then it must be that I say: our federation for the threefold social order must work on its own education; it was born out of a world that loves a flood of phrases. Those who have to place themselves in it do not know how strong the power of this flood of phrases is, how strong the power of the old habits is that have led us into decline. And in our work, we must above all progress in freeing ourselves from the old flood of phrases and old bad habits. Only when what I mean is understood, when it is not taken in a way it should not be taken, will what is behind it be able to signify something for the actual goals of the movement for the threefold social order; for a word becomes a mere phrase not only when it is spoken heartlessly, but also when it is heard heartlessly. You can say the most impregnated words, those words in which there is still so much inside; if they are heard in such a way that you only hear the phrase in them and perhaps even translate this phrase into the old flood of phrases, then, then nothing comes of it. We can speak from experience here, because these are precisely the most important cases that come to us, that what is actually meant by our anthroposophical movement resonates in the world outside, but becomes something something quite different, something quite different, which has not only become a mere phrase, but has first become a mere phrase, then been re-prepared, so that the phrase has in turn become the slogan of something else.

For example, something is pronounced, people come into the anthroposophical movement – let's take a specific case – from some sect or other, they make what prevails in the anthroposophical movement into a phrase. Then they reshape it in the sense in which they mean it from the habits of their sect, then they speak or print it, and then the opponents come and fight against what has come into the world in this way, and then come those who say, “Yes, has been said here and there, you haven't refuted it at all - it hasn't been refuted because most of the time one has something to do with it, but not with what has nothing to do with it, because it has arisen on the path, as I have just described, [to refute]. But when it grows to such an extent that one finds the refutation necessary, then supporters and also opponents come and say: Yes, but you are polemicizing far too much, you are fighting far too much; one must work the positive; well, and so on, and so on.

Just recently someone said to me: I don't really like the fact that this is being fought with trumpeting children and house keys in one city, which was said in our defense; I'm only saying it because it was said: What you want is much too lofty to get involved in such things. Yes, you see, that is also the bad thing that comes from good supporters. What comes from good supporters in this regard comes because they have no way of

to replace the old diplomacy; because it is a matter of finding exactly the place, the point where one has to intervene, in order to possibly ignore scribblers and swine, but to take them into account at the right moment. It is a matter of doing the right thing at the right moment. Such well-meaning people, like the one I have just spoken of, are people who look at the world, but in the surrounding area of not very great expanse, spiritual walls arise and through these they do not see through; they talk all kinds of things that sound very nice, but they know nothing about the world. What is important is the good will to know about the world and to act accordingly, not out of some kind of instinctive urge to develop some kind of behavior, and therefore one must not turn into a phrase what I have actually said today that might resonate with something, but I would very much like very much that it penetrates a little into the hearts, that it penetrates from the heart into the most everyday work, and has an effect there; because only in this way will we achieve what can be achieved, what should be achieved through the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism and through everything that is connected with it.

You are sitting there, my dear attendees; by virtue of that you are part of the whole. I had to speak to you today; I could not help but speak to you about the difficulty of the task. Whether I have spoken rightly or wrongly does not depend on whether I have put my words this way or that today, but rather depends solely on whether each individual has the good will to be towards each individual as it should be in the sense of what has been expressed. When the reorganization of the old covenant for the threefold social organism was undertaken, I asked our dear friend Mr. Molt, who is essentially involved in the whole development of anthroposophical social work – the things are only ever in the invisible germ, actually already since the autumn of 1918 and only came to light in the spring of 1919 – I have asked Mr. Molt to take on the role of curator for the new federation, so that he can, firstly, find his way out of his connections with the present world, all those points from which our future work should be undertaken from, and because it is to be hoped that he, of all people, will continue to develop this will for renewal after he has become one of the first to work from here in the spirit of the threefold social order. Mr. Kühne has taken over the leadership of the newly founded Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism, and I have the prerequisite that what has been agreed with Mr. Kühne in long negotiations should be realized by his personality as the spirit of the new leadership of the federation. But, my dear attendees, only what is in the world, what is the best will of your curator, what is the urgent insight and good, best will of the secretary of the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism, will be able to bear the right fruits, will be able to work in the right way on everything what is to be worked with - and what is related to us - should be worked with in a collegial way with all those who are leading in the Waldorf School, should be worked with in a collegial way with all those who are leading in the Anthroposophical Society, should be worked with in a collegial way should work together with all those who are to be involved in the “day to come”, should work together in a spirit of collegiality with all those who are new to our movement, with everything that is in the world, what the best will of the curator is, what urgent scientific and social training and impulsiveness and the best will of the secretary, it will only be able to bear fruit if each individual, in whatever position he is, is willing to adjust himself here so that these qualities, which I have just mentioned, find appropriate support in the collegial cooperation, in the comradely cooperation of all - all who sit here and will still sit here.

I would like to add a few words to the very last (Messrs. Molt, Kühne, Trommsdorff, Uehli had spoken in the meantime), for the reason that everything that is effective in our work should be stated with absolute clarity, which was the case when the Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism was first founded, the work was shaped in its further development in such a way that at a certain point in time it became necessary for an organ of the Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism to introduce the weekly journal “Threefold Order of the Social Organism”. Until now, this weekly journal, which we all long to see developed into a daily newspaper that works in our interest in the foreseeable future, was incorporated into the Federation for the Threefold Ordering of the Social Organism. And this was a matter of course inasmuch as it arose out of the work and was placed within it. But it is also a matter of course in the re-establishment of the Federation for the Threefold Social Organism – because here, after all, the real thing must always be taken into account – that Mr. Uehli's excellent work has had an, I would say, organ-forming effect. And this has led quite organically to the fact that in the future - this belongs to the reorganization - on the one hand, the management and so on will work propagandizing the ideas of the federation, so that this - the effectiveness of the federation for the and on the other hand, the management of the journal 'Threefolding of the Social Organism', which stands alone and is solely called upon to work together with the other management. Both things will thus in future be parallel organizations and will only have to work together in a collegial manner. It is also natural that the fields of work will expand, and that many things that were originally one current will split into several currents, requiring independent leaders. This is the remarkable thing about the geographical formation of countries: that a small river arises, all kinds of tributaries join it, and a large river arises from it, which flows into the sea. It must be the nature of such movements as ours that they also begin as small rivers, that tributaries flow to them from all over the world, but that they then split up and then, moving in parallel, work together and in this way work together in a collegial manner to flow into the great sea of the social construction of the future.

Occasioned by the handover of the José del Monte company to the “Coming Day”

[Eugen Benkendörfer greets those present and after an introduction, gives the floor to Rudolf Steiner.

Rudolf Steiner: Dear attendees! Now that Mr. Benkendörfer has informed you of the transfer of the Jose del Monte company to the 'Kommende Tag', I would like to warmly welcome you all as the chairman of the supervisory board of this 'Kommende Tag'. As a result of what has been accomplished, as Mr. Benkendörfer has informed you, and as has already been discussed to your satisfaction by your representatives, as I have heard to my great joy, you will begin to unite your work with that of the “Coming Day”.

I may perhaps assume that a large number of you have also participated in our endeavors in a social sense, in those endeavors that we began more than a year ago, after the end of the war had made it possible, based on anthroposophical spiritual science. We have also had the joy of seeing one of your representatives often present at our meetings and also hearing him speak at these meetings. Perhaps I may now just point out in a few words that these endeavors in the social sphere, which have grown out of anthroposophical spiritual science, were not only outwardly and thoroughly honestly meant, but that they were also carried by what I would like to call an inwardly honest conscientiousness. For you see, today, in these difficult times of general hardship, it is all too easy to say: I strive for this or that in social terms, I want this or that. It can be recognized that in most cases these intentions may be well-intentioned, that is, they come from those who, from their own lives, know this hardship, who are experiencing this hardship themselves, but one does not get anywhere with mere longing that “things should be better,” with mere words that “this or that must be done.” You can only get ahead if you also have the inner honest conscientiousness and the inner honest sense of responsibility to gain insight into how you can then remedy the social need, how you can advance socially in the service of general humanity. We started from this inner honest responsibility and from this inner honest conscientiousness when we first tried to speak to the entire labor force.

My esteemed audience, I would like to know in which period of time one could have hoped to find more approval for honest, conscientious and responsible social intentions than in the period following the war , which brought hardship and misery into the world, in the time when people in the widest circles could see what the lack of inner conscience and the lack of inner sense of responsibility can bring about in the world. Because basically, even if it is still hidden today in many ways, this war, which was followed by such hardship and misery, nevertheless emerged from the lack of inner sense of responsibility, from the lack of inner conscientiousness among those who should have had both. Because one had to realize, especially in the circles of the working population, that among the leaders who led into the war catastrophe, this inner sense of responsibility, this inner conscience was not present, is not present - also not among many, indeed among most of their successors who have survived the revolution in leading positions to this day – because one should have noticed this, we were allowed to believe that with honest words, but spoken out of insight, the hearts of the broadest circles of the working class could be won. And for me, I say this quite openly, for me, my esteemed audience, this proof has by no means failed to this day. I am of the opinion that these hearts can be won if only the right approach is found. Simply because it has to be done, because without this honest inner conscientiousness and without this honest insight into the situation, no progress can be made, no matter how beautiful the slogans the agitators use. It is a matter of objectivity, of conscientiousness, if progress is to be made, and it is a matter of an honest inner sense of responsibility.

Now, my esteemed audience, we then tried, without throwing dust in people's eyes, to address the works council issue in the way we had to think of it. We have also met with some approval. What has got in our way – and I don't want to attribute this to bad faith, but it must always be said – is the misunderstanding, even lack of understanding, that our efforts in the sense of the threefold social organism are met with by the socialist leadership. We can understand quite well what is actually at issue, and the masses will also understand it one day. But the leaders have managed to gradually empty our halls, or at least make them poorly attended. And we had to say to ourselves: we are not getting anywhere with mere words. We are not getting anywhere in the work that needs to be done in the service of the general public. And so we had to decide, because we were, so to speak, abandoned by the socialist leaders, to found an organization like Der Kommende Tag. This “day to come” should now gradually bring about the atmosphere of social life through its institutions, through the associative union of enterprises, which was actually meant back then when we started our work in April 1919. And we are convinced that we will perhaps be better able to convince the masses if they see what we are doing, despite the fact that they were discouraged from fully understanding us in terms of what we initially wanted to achieve with this crowd, entirely on our own, through the word, based on the will of this crowd. From such endeavors, which were truly motivated by honest inner responsibility and honest inner conscientiousness, as well as by the striving for insight into the true nature of the social situation and how the social future must be shaped, the “Day to Come” emerged. And we, who have been working for months towards this “Day to Come”, have been able to experience the great joy, as Mr. Benkendörfer has explained to you in recent weeks, and especially since last Saturday, that the associative life that the “Day to Come” wants to establish has now been joined by this company to which you dedicate your valuable work. And as you have already been informed, this “Coming Day” is not a joint-stock company like any other; this “Coming Day” is an assembly of personalities who now want to put into practice what they have promised to do socially when they have spoken to the masses in urgent words.

Of course, you cannot yet know with any inner certainty what will happen when you yourself, so to speak, launch your work into the endeavors of the “Day to Come”. But I can assure you, my esteemed audience, that this “day to come” will work with all its might to bring about a social future that must gradually provide a dignified existence for all people. Since we have not found the ear of the German working class in general, which we sought, we can now only appeal to a few through action. We will make every effort to ensure that you too can see that where we take action, we want to fulfill what was in our words.

We at “Kommender Tag” have had Mr. del Monte in our midst since the company was founded. We know that his attitude is fully in line with what we at “Kommender Tag” want and what I have just tried to explain to you in a few words. The other former partners of the del Monte company, Mr. Poch and Mr. Benkendörfer, have been part of our movement for many years. They have achieved much out of the spirit of this movement. And Mr. Benkendörfer is one of those personalities who perhaps best understand how, with active will, an economic enterprise such as the “Kommende Tag” must first transfer its threads to the free spiritual life. For social improvement is possible only if the free spiritual life, with the forces it must bring to the surface, can support economic life in an appropriate way. Social improvement is possible not through inflammatory slogans, but only if those forces of intellectual life that must be cultivated freely and independently can also devote themselves to economic life in an appropriate way, and are understood and accepted by economic life in the right way. That is the conviction of the “Coming Day”. Mr. Benkendörfer is imbued with this conviction. And as painful as it might be for the management and the employees of the Jos del Monte company to see Mr. Benkendörfer removed, at least in part, it must also be considered that Mr. Benkendörfer is now called upon to work at the most important post of the “Coming Day” in the sense of that which I have tried to explain to you. And since the Jose del Monte company now belongs to the “Coming Day,” Mr. Benkendörfer's labor, which is so beneficial to him, will also flow to this company in the future. And since we have come to appreciate and love the instructor of this company, Mr. Jos& del Monte himself, both as a person and as a worker, and since we have come to appreciate the other partner, Mr. Emil Poch, we are completely reassured that everything here will continue to develop in the same way, technically and otherwise, as it has done so far. And so we have no need to reproach ourselves for the fact that on the very day that we decided, for objective reasons, to accommodate the highly esteemed proposal of Mr. del Monte and the other shareholders to incorporate the Jose del Monte company into the “Kommenden Tag,” we also had to take away an important part of Mr. Benkendörfer's labor from this company at the same time.

But let me also say the following, because it is also a social truth and belongs to the social question - and until this is recognized, the social question and the social damage in the present cannot be properly addressed. On the day we merged with the Jose del Monte company, we had to take on most of Mr. Benkendörfer's highly valued employees. You may ask why we didn't just take on new employees and leave Mr. Benkendörfer with us. And to that I answer with that part of the social question which the discerning person today considers so important that he must keep repeating it: there are very few truly economically and intellectually capable personalities today; and when you need someone, you have to work hard to find someone you can use. The “Kommende Tag” is fortunate to have made such a find. It is certainly one of the things that can be called the social question that there are so few truly insightful and capable people in the present day. Anyone who has been forced to look for such people has suffered enough pain because there are so few such people in the present day. I can assure you: If there were a large number of people who did not just talk and “let themselves be employed”, if there were many people who did not just “let themselves be elected” here and there, but if there were many people who were fully committed to life, who also understood something of what they wanted to be part of in the right sense, then we would make faster progress in solving the social question, which is so urgently needed. Today, incompetence among leading people is one of the greatest social evils. That is part of the social question. And since this is still far too little known in the widest circles, it must be emphasized.

I have explained to you, my esteemed attendees, the attitude with which we want to unite with this company. I must leave it to you to recognize that what I have spoken to you is honest and sincere and borne of a sense of responsibility. We will endeavor to ensure that you recognize what you have not yet recognized. You will always have the opportunity to discuss anything that is close to your heart with the current and former directors and shareholders of the Jose del Monte company, who are still with us, with the new general director of “Der Kommende Tag”, Mr. Benkendörfer, and with the other members of “Der Kommende Tag” when the need arises. You will find that the “Coming Day” will endeavor to reintroduce humanity into the business world, which has gradually eliminated humanity from itself over time, which must once have passed, , provided that the “Kommende Tag” pursues it, to reintroduce humanity into business life, which has gradually eliminated humanity from itself over time, insofar as the “Kommende Tag” pursues it - that humanity that has an honest feeling, an honest desire for human work with every human being.

It is in this spirit that we take on the obligation that is imposed on us by our association with this company, and I can only hope that time will bring it about that you will be able to do more and more with us, whatever we can do, and that you will be convinced that what the Supervisory Board, the Board of Directors of the “Coming Day” present here today, may you have the opportunity - and we will endeavor to bring it about through our attitude - may you have the opportunity to find it true through our actions, what I was allowed to speak to you today.

[The introduction to the discussion by Eugen Benkendörfer, two unrecorded votes by laborers, and concluding words by Eugen Benkendörfer.]

Rudolf Steiner: My dear friends! We have asked you to come here today because we, as the supervisory board of the “Kommende Tag”, have to introduce Mr. Benkendörfer as the general director of the “Kommende Tag” and introduce him to you.

The circumstances as they have developed, partly the circumstances in the “Coming Day” itself, but also, in particular, the circumstances between the “Coming Day” and the anthroposophical and the other outside world, have made it necessary to create the position of general director of the “Coming Day”, and the supervisory board had to look around for a suitable person. And I have often said that this task of finding suitable personalities for these or those posts today, which is connected with a very, very extensive sense of responsibility and a very extensive necessity for insight into the most diverse circumstances, that it is extremely difficult to find personalities for such posts. We consider ourselves fortunate to have been able to win Mr. Benkendörfer for this position, and we share this joy and satisfaction with you, believing that this satisfaction will also arise for you to the highest degree over time through Mr. Benkendörfer's work with all of you.

On this occasion, however, it is my duty, having discussed the most fundamental tasks of both the “Coming Day” and the movements from which the “Coming Day” emerged with Mr. Benkendörfer on the occasion of his integration into the “Coming Day”, örfer on the occasion of his integration into the “Coming Day”, it is incumbent upon me to tell you something about the content of these conversations and other things that need to be said today in connection with them.

A real, fruitful development of the “Day to Come”, as we had conceived it, is only possible if the “Day to Come” can truly be seen as growing out of, and continually growing out of, both the entire anthroposophical movement and the threefold social order movement. Now I ask you to consider one thing that has arisen almost by itself here in Stuttgart, although only partially: something of a model, but only a model, since in the present circumstances many exemplary aspects, perhaps even the most important ones, cannot be present. But even if it is not the desirable threefold social order, there is still the model of a threefold social order. We have the movement, which we have concentrated in the Waldorf school, and it in turn stands in connection with the entire anthroposophical movement. This is, so to speak, the spiritual part of a threefold organism. Then there is the Federation for the Tripartite Structure of the Social Organism, which today is essentially only there for the propaganda of the one after which it is named, which has only preparatory work to do for the future, but which we must nevertheless, in a certain sense, take as a model for what must be called the state-legal part of the tripartite social organism.

Now it has often been emphasized that it is precisely through the threefoldness of the social organism that true, concrete unity is achieved, not the abstract unity that the abstract state has to represent. And so, of course, a close bond had to develop first between all that is our spiritual limb and the political-state-legal limb in the weekly journal “Threefold Social Organism”, which must, as it were, stretch its arm out to both sides. But everything that has been developed here in the Waldorf School, in the Anthroposophical Society, in the Federation for Threefolding, in the connection [with] the Threefolding newspaper, must in turn move the current to the actual economic part of our local Stuttgart organism, to the “Kommenden Tag”. One cannot really exist without the other.

When our friend Kühne was introduced, I spoke about some of the immediate tasks of the threefolding movement today. We must not forget that we are living in a very special time, in a time in which the speed of events has increased significantly compared to previous years. And the most harmful thing for us under all circumstances is to get up in the morning and bring with us from yesterday's habits the thoughts of yesterday and then still want to have an effect from these thoughts of yesterday on the morning of the next day. We see that precisely the terrible misery of the times is increasing everywhere outside of our movement; we see that the attacks against the anthroposophical movement are made out of yesterday's thoughts. Those people, who are mostly the opponents, cannot think anything other than what has been done to date, in thoughts that they construct from this.

But these thoughts are outdated. And we must come to terms with the fact that we must stand on the ground of new thoughts, especially in our movement, and that our thoughts themselves must be renewed in a relatively short time. I will say a few more words about what I mean by the latter.

We have just come from a staff meeting at the company that was previously the company of Jos€ del Montes, whose partners were: Mr. del Monte himself, our supervisory board member, Mr. Emil Poch, a member of the Anthroposophical Society, and Mr. Benkendörfer, who will now be the managing director of the “Coming Day”. Two workers spoke after Mr. Benkendörfer and I spoke at the staff meeting today. But everything that these two workers said is, for those who can evaluate such things, again something extraordinarily weighty for the assessment of the present world situation. One does not really get anywhere today if one cannot evaluate such things with all sharpness. What is discussed in the 'Key Points of the Social Question' is that the bridge between the leading classes of today's humanity and [the working classes, the actual proletariat] has actually been broken, and indeed broken by the fault of the leading classes, that one will be able to note on such an occasion with an extraordinarily heavy heart. You speak to the people, the people speak to you, and basically, a very different language is spoken most of the time. And the task, which is already hinted at in the “key points”, the task of building this bridge, must be solved. Because there is no answer to the social question without building this bridge, without the possibility of an understanding between the former ruling classes and the proletariat. And building this bridge is one of the most difficult tasks. It is a task that we should not lose sight of for a single hour, or even a single minute. Of course, these people speak in the most ancient phrases of social phrases, but these phrases are natural to them, have become elementary to them, they are their whole being. They have become hollowed out, mere human shells, hollowed out and stuffed with Marxist and similar phrases, now also with Bolshevist ones. These people carry this with them, they are armored by what basically resembles a human being, and they bring it forward.

In the course of modern development, we have come to a point where nothing has been done, and indeed, when individuals have made an effort – my efforts, for example, while teaching at the Workers' Education School in Berlin – when individuals have made an effort, they have been completely abandoned, especially by the leading circles. They were concerned with theater, with newspaper articles, with everything that was only in their class, which spoke a completely different language than what was spoken in the proletariat every evening in meetings; which not only speaks a different language but also leads a different life. I believe that intellectually, it still exists today, even more so than before, and that it was once starkly and physically evident to me in Berlin when, in the early years, when these things still had little significance, there was talk of the possibility of a small revolution. In West Berlin, some families felt compelled to keep their shutters down and their houses locked for a whole day. The locked house is what the leading classes basically do in the social movement. It is still the same today. Today, in this small circle, we must have no illusions about this. Because we, we, as this particular movement, must regard building this bridge as our special task.

And we must entertain absolutely no illusions about our own path. Above all, we must not entertain the illusion – and I consider this to be the most serious of all – that we can take our time. We don't have much time! Because anyone who looks at things not in the abstract but in the concrete knows that we are in a great hurry for our movement. And in turn, a works meeting like this is extremely characteristic of that. What do you think: the more factories we incorporate for the “Coming Day”, the greater the number of workers we get in the wake of the “Coming Day”, and they ask from their point of view - whether the question is about an old shopkeeper or something else - they ask from their point of view: What does the “day to come” want? - If we just sit on our curule chairs here and take our time with the whole three-folding movement, then the proletariat grows into our own movement in such a way that we have no possibility of getting along with it, no possibility of coming to any kind of understanding. Rather, we will simply come to the point, as I will describe it to you bluntly, that people will say: No matter how much the “Kommende Tag” emphasizes that its supervisory board members do not receive any royalties or profits, it will not be better for the workers either. - If we take our time, if we do not understand today that we do not have time, but that we have to act as quickly as possible, our movement will be in vain. We must not lose sight of this. Through everything we do, especially in this way, we are placing a new obligation on ourselves in the most serious way to act quickly. Because the bridge will be built in no other way than by winning over as quickly as possible those people we need from all classes of the population for our ideas.

My dear friends! Learn to be uncompromising in every way. We have not had good experiences in the past with the compromises that were supposed to be spun; we would only lose time in the future through all the compromises. It is necessary that we represent what we have to say with the same rigor in the world as I did yesterday in relation to Count Keyserling in the public lecture. If we listened to those voices telling us that people like Count Hermann Keyserling, who judges anthroposophy favorably, could be won over, then that would mean that we would give up on ourselves today; today the matter has already reached the point that we would give up on ourselves. On the other hand, what we are experiencing in Stuttgart shows that our ideas have the potential to attract many people. We just have to really commit our whole selves to it, because we must not let those people who come together simply drift apart again, but we have to keep them together. And we cannot use other people in our society, all those who act so sympathetically and always say: There is such and such a person, we want to win him over. — That is the kind of politics that is often practiced in our country, which has already done us harm and should not really be continued. Now we are at an important point in time, and we must not compromise, but stand by the position that I have often expressed in our threefolding newspaper: simply to put our ideas into as many heads as possible, quite independently of who the people are; if they want to come, we take them in. We cannot compromise on any point. We simply reject everything that people want to bring in. When the Federation for Threefolding began here – I have often explained the context – we started by going among the proletariat, and at first we actually had quite noticeable success. We then tried to use these efforts to get the works council issue off the ground, and we had to let the works council issue peter out, so to speak.

Now I do not particularly want to criticize the course of these efforts, that would take us too far today. These things will perhaps have to be examined from various angles in the near future, but I just want to mention that it is eminently damaging for us for internal reasons if we take up a movement or an effort and then let it fizzle out. Circumstances may force us to do so at some point, but then we must be sure that the circumstances of the time have compelled us. But we ourselves must do everything to ensure that a movement that has been sparked by us does not fizzle out.

But as I said, I don't blame anyone, I don't criticize anything, I'm just pointing out that we started the cultural council movement and let it fizzle out. I would like to point out that we were forced to initiate a matter - regardless of how it turns out - to gather sympathy rallies - it has fizzled out. It has been emphasized with rather strong words that the Threefolding Newspaper should be transformed into a daily newspaper as quickly as possible - the movement as such has so far fizzled out.

As long as we do not have the feeling that when we do something, it is imperative that what we do has consequences, that it must be followed up, as long as we do not have the feeling that we cannot leave anything undone, that we have to move everything forward as quickly as possible, our whole movement will still come to nothing. We must keep this in mind with all clarity. Today, we are faced with the necessity of introducing a new initiative into the Federation for the Threefold Social Order. The Federation for the Threefold Social Order must achieve on its own initiative what the aforementioned bridge achieves. To do this, it must truly represent modern diplomacy, as I mentioned when introducing Mr. Kühne. Today it is rather fruitless to talk about all kinds of utopian ideas about how things should be in the future in this or that area, how associations should be organized and the like. Of course, these things can also be discussed, but they are not the most important thing. The most important thing today is to address the real issues of the day and to deal with these real issues of the day.

We are not concerned with setting up many such things as the “Kommende Tag” is. If we have to set up such a thing, we will know how to set it up based on the circumstances. But there is no time today to fuss about how a business should look, how the proletariat should be treated, and the like. Today we are dealing with the most diverse aspirations. They are real. We are dealing with the aspirations, for example, of those workers who are completely on the side that in Germany are called the majority socialists; we are dealing with all sorts of other shades. From these shades arise the present-day conditions of public life. On the other hand, there are the aspirations of public life and those currents that are characterized, for example, by the ideal of Stinnes. He has spoken out, and many have heard what he does, and they can follow Stinnes's activities in many fields. From his point of view, there is nothing complicated about this, but rather something that has been very clearly thought out and clearly defined by him. Stinnes wants to create conditions in which the entire working class of Germany will one day be forced to bow down at his gates and beg for work. He wants to trust the conditions. He wants to create such circumstances that the proletariat will be forced – be it through grandiose lockouts and the like that precede them – to push through the conditions that will force the proletariat to beg for work at any price. That is the ideal Stinnes has proclaimed, and that he consciously implements from day to day. Others are not as ingenious as Stinnes, but they accomplish similar things and they know what they want.

We have to move within the context of what is happening. We have to look at the circumstances. I will soon be providing a short article for the third issue of the threefolding newspaper, if not for the very next one, in which I will show how characteristic it is for international social conditions, what nature has taken on the First International, the Second International and the Third International. Studying these first, second and third internationals of the labor movement is highly significant for assessing the unrest in the proletariat today. These are the realities of the present. It is interesting, and I will demonstrate, that the First, Second and Third Internationals relate to one another as follows: the First International, in which the [followers of Bakunin] broke away from Marx, was still somewhat influenced by the spiritual essence; the Second was merely political and parliamentary work; and the Third is merely economic work, with the expulsion of all parliamentary and all spiritual aspects. So that one can almost study the progression from the spiritual to the parliamentary, to the mere economic thinking, by studying the First, the Second and the Third International.

But my dear friends, what I am describing is alive in what is happening today, and one cannot speak into the world as if into a wall, but one must speak in such a way that one knows what is actually alive there. You have to tell people what “strikes” them. You cannot talk about what you talked about ten or two years ago. For example, when talking about unreality, one must talk about something like the English miners' strike, and one must point out how the behavior there shows how, at the most prominent point, there was such an unreal way of thinking that they wanted to settle a huge strike by simply suppressing it for the time being and laying the seeds for prolonged, periodically recurring new strikes. This can already be seen today from the course of events since then.

Today, it is not about dreaming up utopias about what a fully developed, tripartite social organism should be like. The Key Points of the Social Question do not talk about that either, and where it does, it is only by way of example. Today, we must familiarize ourselves with the most concrete realities, and we must learn to speak to people in a way that resonates with them. But, my dear friends, we can only do this if we are not isolated. If we are limited to the framework in which I myself can still speak today – I can actually only speak in a few places – then when Mr. Kühne and Dr. Wachsmuth speak, it is not enough, not nearly enough! What is important is to develop our new initiative above all in such a way that we can put forward a whole corps of spokesmen to the world, because if we do not have a corps of spokesmen, the few will be swallowed up, that is, their activity is of no use. Today, the situation is such that the few speakers are devoured if there is no corps of speakers. We must use our speeches to ensure that in the event of a crisis, the minds of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, for example, are already filled with thoughts that simply suggest that one could get over something like , let us say, if we now have del Monte's business, have Unger's business, that one day it would be the case that the material improvements that are often the only thing the workers understand today could not be given to the people. We have to get to the point where the people who are with us say: what they have told us makes so much sense to us that we would rather go with them than with the proletarian leaders. If we cannot manage to communicate with each other to such an extent, to speak the [workers'] language to such an extent that we can communicate [with them], then our work is in vain for the time being. We have to be able to get there – there is no other way than to become a body of minds. Because it is of no use if we represent our affairs individually, sporadically. We have to work on a large scale. It is absolutely essential that a large following, a large number of followers, be won in a relatively short time. And we must also keep them. We must not let them drift apart again. For example, we must not forget to draw a lesson from the fact that many months ago our threefolding newspaper had exactly the same 3000 readers that it still has today. It is the task of the Threefolding Federation to ensure that such a fact does not exist at all. We must take this task seriously. To do so, however, we must be particularly careful to avoid getting caught up in things from yesterday. We must plunge into the whole of contemporary life and work directly from the present. We cannot afford the luxury of theorizing that seeks to be universally valid. We must be clear about the fact that what we say today with full value may no longer be true tomorrow if we do not work.

What must we do today? At a meeting like the one we just attended, of course we have to say something; we cannot speak in empty phrases if we want to see the truth. But it will not be possible to make it come true if we do not work in such a way that we present ourselves as a cohesive body. It is up to us not just to say something, because just because we speak a truth does not make it a truth. A truth, to be of the kind that is spoken in social life, only becomes a truth when one can subsequently do what is said. Truth demands action now. It is not a truth of the kind that underlies the sphere of the will, such as the truths of natural science. It can be a truth today and a lie in eight weeks if one is not able to make it a truth. If one does not consider the inner life of social events, something that must happen through the threefold social organism cannot happen.

Through the publishing house, spiritual life in turn extends directly into the economic organism of the “coming day”. And so everything is interwoven with us.

So it is actually necessary that what works here in Stuttgart and then goes out is basically seen as one big unit, and that we do not fragment in any way, but rather embrace everything in our interest.

Above all, I would like to draw attention to one thing: what was inaugurated here in Stuttgart with the best of intentions could not, from the outset, be driven in such a way that it could be understood in the same way out in the world. Instead of always guiding those proletarians out in the world to whom we had the opportunity to speak – which would have been absolutely necessary for us – the local groups [of the federation] often considered it their task to center such things, which led to our local groups being absorbed, more or less temporarily, into the proletarian bodies in a disorganized manner – it was later withdrawn. We have to get rid of that habit. We can only successfully shape a completely new movement if we are unable to compromise on anything. When we spoke to proletarians, it was only meant in the sense that we wanted to win proletarians over by speaking to them. I have indicated this by the fact that basically I have not made a single compromise among proletarians, not even at the time when they were joining us. And the mistakes that have been made have also arisen from the compromisery that has been practiced among us.

I have actually spoken to you most of what I always think needs to be done for threefolding in general. I have pointed out points that need to be taken up again in some form. The whole threefolding movement must be taken in hand so intensively that we can turn the newspaper into a daily newspaper in the shortest possible time. The threefold social order movement must be promoted so intensively that a number of agitators – I have often said fifty – are trained, and equipped with the knowledge needed today to avoid spreading party slogans or political phrases among the people, but to speak about reality. Then we can withstand the opposition if all this can be developed. Something that is saturated with reality will have an effect, even if it is misunderstood at first. For us, it is only important to know that something is effective. Success, immediate success, is not what matters. But we must do what is necessary.

And then it is necessary, above all, that we familiarize ourselves with the smallest concrete – because the smallest thing is sometimes the seed of the greatest – political or economic movement in every class today. We must familiarize ourselves with the goals that are working today. And the aims are effective today in an enormous number [of people]. You have to pay attention to our discussions everywhere, so that gradually a judgment is spread, radiated, from our movement, which leads to every communist or whoever says: Threefolding thinks about the matter in this way, and the people of Threefolding say this and that about it. But this must be effectively represented to the world so that it is heard. These are the basic conditions of our society, and we must actually be able to point to something that is in line with them, that makes visible what we want, for example, with something like the “coming day”.

We need scientific institutes as quickly as possible, and we have to make it clear how these scientific or artistic institutes are connected to the whole social movement. Without scientific and artistic institutes affiliated with our “Coming Day”, whose content we can make understandable to the broadest circles of humanity, we will not get anywhere. We have to put something into the minds of the proletarians, so that what is inside them prevents them from talking to us only as they do today. Of course, one can argue with them. Why did they set up the programs of the proletariat differently at the time of the First International? Because there were still common ideas that all classes of people had. These ideas have long since become empty phrases, just as the German constitution was an empty phrase. It had universal, equal, and secret suffrage; the reality in Germany was that the only person who had anything to say was Bismarck. That was how far removed from reality the idea was. And that is basically still the case today.

Try to study what the reality was that was cooked up when the revolution broke out in Germany. Try to compare that with the ideas that prevailed at the time, and you will see that it was no different in November 1918. And today it is even worse in terms of the general ideas that are supposed to be at work.

We must be clear about the fact that the old ideas have been exhausted and that we cannot compromise with the supporters of the old ideas before the people come to us. Of course, one must do one's duty when the opportunity arises; even when such a man as Foreign Minister Simons, who himself emphasizes that he only sits in his chair with reluctance, who always talks about wanting to be released as soon as possible, even with such a personality who misunderstands the task of the time, when something like what happened with Simons occurs, one must do one's duty. But you must not be under any illusions. It is more important to be able to say that you have done your duty than to have to say that you have given in to hope. There are many things you have to do where you can't give in to hope, because things turn out quite differently today than what you can do about them. You have to do your duty on such occasions.

For us, it is about opening our eyes, about waking up in the morning to what the day brings, not to what we thought yesterday.

And you won't hold it against me for speaking so freely and frankly, but it is what Mr. Benkendörfer and I have repeatedly discussed over the past few days. And it should only characterize something extraordinary that Mr. Benkendörfer needs it, since he is really – you can be assured of that – taking up his position with all goodwill, with great prudence, with extraordinary business acumen, with full devotion to the anthroposophical and other matters, but that he needs to be supported by everyone. The person who stands here with such responsibility, as Mr. Benkendörfer will stand here with such responsibility, must be supported by the Anthroposophical Society, by the Federation for Threefolding, by the Waldorf School, by everything that is relevant to us; otherwise he can work like an angel and achieve nothing. If we allow certain disharmonies, such as those that have existed up to now, to continue to have an effect, then Mr. Benkendörfer will not be able to work any miracles here either. Then that which is so often evident in our movement, but which must be eradicated, will take full hold of our movement, and it will continue to rot.

What is necessary at the present time is for each and every one of us to reflect on the fact that we support Mr. Benkendörfer in the most energetic way possible. Prudence and a sense of responsibility must prevail here. But combined with this, there must be a relationship of mutual understanding and cooperation. In today's difficult times, everyone must really do their best, especially when a person who has found it so difficult to make up his mind to take on this post under the current circumstances has finally taken on this post. I know how difficult it has been for him. He did it solely out of the realization that our cause is a necessary one. This realization that our cause is a necessary one towered above everything else for him, above the belief that it could succeed out of the circumstances. Because at first this belief was not very strong, that it could succeed out of the circumstances in Stuttgart and elsewhere. But in the end, the necessity was recognized, and that means a great deal. And it was out of this realization of the necessity of our entire cause for the present, out of this realization, that Mr. Benkendörfer overcame all his doubts and will, under the terms, head the general management of the “Kommenden Tages”, which I, above all, as the result of the initiative of Mr. Molt Mr. Benkendörfer to take over the post under the conditions that I immediately pronounced as absolutely necessary, and which I can summarize in the words: The General Director has assumed full and absolute responsibility for what happens in the “Coming Day”. It is the task of the supervisory board to represent to the outside world, first to the Anthroposophical Society and then to the rest of the outside world, what happens in the “Kommende Tag”. But as things stand, it is not possible for the official affairs of the “Day to Come” to be arranged differently, with a general director standing here who bears the full, heavy responsibility with his whole person because he wants to bear it, because he recognizes the necessity of this bearing. In this sense, I myself, as chairman of the supervisory board, will always be confronted with Mr. Benkendörfer. I will never fail to think up on my own initiative what is necessary for any branch of our movement, to seek out the opportunities that may arise to do this or that, but I will never really do anything without first discussing it in detail with Mr. Benkendörfer, insofar as it is to become an official matter of “Kommenden Tages”. In this way, I indicate to you the direction that each individual matter must take. Each individual initiative cannot be paralyzed, but can be developed all the more if we remain aware that the person who, as managing director, is fully responsible for the position can count on the fact that we also take this responsibility into account, that we do not cause him difficulties with partial or other actions, but in the most blatant way, we honestly unload what we find out on our own initiative, so to speak, onto his responsibility.

This must be the direction, because that is the modality under which I myself asked Mr. Benkendörfer to respond to the proposal made by our dear friend, the curator of the Bund für Dreigliederung, vice-president of the supervisory board of “Kommendes Tag”, protector of the Freie Waldorfschule, Mr. Emil Molt. Mr. Molt's initiative led to the proposal. Mr. Benkendörfer initially only agreed to discuss Mr. Molt's suggestion, so the first modality was this: But in the future, it must not be otherwise than that this general manager assumes full responsibility and that he can carry this responsibility through the special probation of everything that lies in the area of all our individual companies. I ask that the latter be given particular consideration, because without that, we will not be able to move forward.

I myself am personally most deeply grateful to Mr. Benkendörfer for promising to take on this responsibility in this spirit. And I hope that it is possible for him to carry this responsibility by ensuring that these special circumstances are properly understood in the broadest circles of our anthroposophical movement, the Threefolding Federation, the independent Waldorf school and all that follows from it, so that he can carry the responsibility.

That is what I wanted to say to you as Chairman of the Supervisory Board at this important hour of the introduction of the new General Director.

I welcome our dear friend Benkendörfer as General Director of “The Day to Come”!

[After a speech by Emil Molt, Rudolf Steiner takes the floor:]

Rudolf Steiner: Ladies and Gentlemen! Today is the second time that I have had the honor of addressing you here. The first time was at the invitation of Mr. Molt, to speak about what I believed at the time to be necessary for the progress of humanity out of the great turmoil into which human aberration and its consequences, the terrible catastrophe of the world wars, had led us. Today I am to speak in the presence of the light-filled Christmas tree for the Christmas celebration. But please do not expect me to give you any of the usual Christmas speeches, which can still be heard so often in our time. I would feel like a dishonest person if I did that, and I would also have to believe that if you yourselves are true in your feelings, you cannot bring anything from your hearts to such an unctuous speech. For let us admit it to ourselves: what is often heard in Christmas speeches today seems as if an inertia that has been held for centuries, a kind of mental inertia, had held on to words that still held their validity for times long past, but which today, in view of the world situation in which we find ourselves, seem as if those who speak them would see nothing with open eyes of what is truly going on around us.

Christmas today – one may say it bluntly, I think – is basically something that, in the feelings of the great mass of people and also in the feelings of the few who until recently were called the upper ten thousand, should initially only be a memory, a memory of feelings, of inner forces that were once alive in humanity, which, however, and we will talk about this, deserve to be revived, revived in a new form, but which are not alive today.

When Christmas approaches, people today think - depending on whether they are more or less blessed with goods of fortune - of giving each other more or less precious gifts. They also think of lighting the Christmas tree and getting into some kind of mood, although they don't really know what it is supposed to be. But it wasn't always like that. And I would like to mention just one detail – one could mention many such things, but let us think of this one detail; in a certain way it also characterizes the other things that were associated with Christmas in earlier centuries.

We can look back to the areas that are also around Stuttgart, which go far up to Thuringia and Hesse, which go over to Baden and Alsace and further into France, which go down to Italy, over to Bavaria and so on. We can see this area by looking back in history, and a remarkable picture presents itself to us as we look ahead to the approaching Christmas season.

In most villages – since this area was even less interspersed with towns back then, I am talking about the 14th and 15th centuries – a group of young men was gathered from October onwards, and this group of young men was to learn roles in order to perform Christmas plays at the time of the consecration festival. The text of these Christmas plays was usually available in handwritten form from a particularly favored family in each locality; they held it sacred. No one knew who had written it, so far back in time were memories of these Christmas plays; but the text was held sacred. As early as October, the person in possession of this text, who was also held in particularly high esteem in the village in question, would gather the young men he thought suitable for the performance. In those days, such performances were not yet performed with women, but only with male youths, who also played female roles, the role of Mary and so on. So this group of young men was assembled and taught. Strange traditions have been preserved from this teaching, and from these traditions, these traditions, one can see the deep sentiment with which the Christmas season was imbued as it approached.

There was, for example, the strict regulation that all those who were to play along, that is, who were the learning students of a teacher – it was prescribed, forgive me for mentioning such a harsh regulation after all – that all of them were not allowed to go to their girlfriends during the whole time. We only have to go back to the old cultural conditions to understand what such a rule meant, but it was strictly adhered to by the people who were considered called to take part in something like this. A second rule was that during the entire time that the young men were rehearsing the Christmas play, they had to obey their teacher strictly. That was also a rule that would be extremely difficult to enforce today. We, at least, who are now endeavoring to perform these plays again in the Anthroposophical Society, can hardly carry out any of these provisions. As for the first provision, it refers to something that does not occur at all among anthroposophists, and as for the second provision, it would never be adhered to, because such obedience does not exist there. The third rule, on the other hand, is one that cannot be implemented in anthroposophical circles if we are to rehearse these plays today. This is because the third rule meant that you had to pay a fine if you forgot something and said it wrong during the performance. We couldn't implement that either, because no one would pay the fine.

So I just wanted to mention these individual provisions to show you what was possible back then, out of the sacred mood. Now, there is something we cannot do within the Anthroposophical Society either, where we have resumed the Christmas plays in many places, especially this year, for example in many places in Switzerland, where they were rediscovered, because they had gradually been forgotten in the 19th century and were no longer performed. However, there is one thing we cannot do either: the teacher, who rehearsed these festival plays with the group of young people, was joined, as was only natural in a time when Christianity was as alive as in the centuries I have spoken of, by the local clergy. Of course, we cannot achieve that either. Then the teachers joined them. As it turned out, we could achieve this more easily, and we also succeeded where these teachers in particular had grown out of our own ranks.

Now, I presented all this to you to give you a picture of what was approaching in the mood of the individual places when the holy Christmas season approached. For what were people actually preparing for? They were not preparing for the Christmas tree – that did not yet exist at the time, it is at most 150 years old, when it was first established –; people did not gather around the Christmas tree, but they gathered to commemorate in the mood, in the inner experience of the heart, what they imagined with the birth of Christ Jesus. That was indeed a very different, more vivid conception than it can be today. For people in those days had a different awareness of human dignity and human existence. They still lived quite differently with one another, so the Christmas message was still something for them.

In this Christmas message, we may remember today, there is indeed a deep democratic trait. Today, we have no right to emphasize this democratic trait from the official confessions. But then, if one wants to cultivate true Christianity, as it must first arise again in humanity, then, my dear audience, one perhaps has a right to mention precisely this democratic trait.

There were two prophecies regarding the birth of Jesus Christ. One was for those who, at that time, we can say, formed what we might call the proletariat, and the other was for the shepherds in the field who sensed in their hearts that a time had come that needed healing. And out of this mood arose the mood that was poured into their words: Revelation of the divine, of the spiritual, in the heights, and peace to the people on earth who are of good will. - A drawing closer of man to the spiritual, that is what was felt. And in this approach, something was seen that was to bring renewal and refreshment to humanity from the conditions that existed at that time and that seemed unbearable.

But there is not only this one proclamation for those who could be called the proletariat of that time, for the poor shepherds in the field. There is a second proclamation, that for the wise men, for the kings from the East, that is, for those who were at the top of humanity at that time, for those who were the opposite of the proletariat of that time. Just as the shepherds in the field received the Christmas proclamation in their own way, so they also received the wise kings in their own way. But both found themselves confronted by that which simply wanted to be the representative of the whole of humanity. And in the same way, on the one hand the shepherds in the field and on the other the wise kings from the East, sacrificed and worshiped this representative of the whole of humanity, of the pure humanity that knows no human distinction. In this is indicated in the Christmas proclamation the deeply democratic trait that runs through Christianity and which, despite the many centuries, has not been fully realized to this day, and which can only be realized if one maintains a proper sense of this general, purely human quality that lives in all people and that knows no human distinctions.

One might say that the three main festivals that humanity, Christian humanity, has celebrated over the centuries, in the time when they were still alive in thought and feeling, drew people's attention, one might say, to a threefold structure of the year.

Christmas speaks most to the feelings; it speaks to the feelings by directing them to what, in the highest sense, has poured itself out over the world as the impulse of democracy.

Easter should take hold of the human being's thoughts more, should point him more to spirituality and freedom, while Christmas should point more to equality among people, to the absence of differences, if one wants to work into the deepest part of the human being. Easter should stir in man that liberating feeling that overcomes him when he rises to the spiritual and when he gains an awareness that the spiritual must ultimately always triumph if the world is not to perish, over external material things. This resurrection of the spiritual out of the material is, after all, the Easter idea. When the soul can resurrect inwardly, then it actually experiences freedom by being able to put itself in the place of the spiritual.

And the idea of Pentecost points us to brotherhood. It is presented to us in such a way that we are made aware of how those who were called upon to proclaim Christianity at the time found the right tone to speak to all people in pure brotherhood, to approach all people. If we understand it correctly, it points to what we must feel inwardly if we want to achieve brotherhood in relation to the external, material life of humanity.

It is something ancient, rooted in the human spirit, which has always guided thought in the most diverse areas of life according to the threefold order. Today, my dear audience, we need this threefold order again to heal something in humanity, again to eradicate something unhealthy. Therefore, it was basically for the same reason that I spoke when I had the honor of addressing you for the first time, and that I would like to speak to you today.

We live in a time that is so ill that most people do not want to imagine their illness, partly out of convenience, partly perhaps even out of ill will, but mainly out of selfishness. It is indeed the case today that most people who are content with comfort are always satisfied when, out of the turmoil of the day, a little improvement appears here and there and they can see that not everything has fallen apart, that there and there is “a better economy”. But for those who can see through it, today's life is like that of a person who, three years ago, was still able to buy a suit, and wears this suit - even if it is a bit shabby, he can still wear it - but he cannot buy a new one. And because he can still wear this suit, he still believes himself to be in a possible situation in life. But it is in store for him that one day the suit can no longer be worn. Such is the case with today's conditions. We see how people are trying to patch them up, how they are applying all kinds of mixtures to improve things a little here and there and keep the old. But today's social life is like the skirt. The skirt can still be worn and this social life can continue for a while, but it will surely tear; it will not go on. And the fact that people somehow believe that it will continue is, ladies and gentlemen, a great illusion that people create for themselves by comfortably wanting to persist in the old and not wanting to approach what wants to be a real new creation, as the impulse of threefolding supposes.

It is not surprising that at first, after the idea of threefolding became known, the proletarian leaders not only ignored us, but even put all kinds of obstacles in our way. It is not surprising that everything that Mr. Molt has already described to you has happened. For today we see that the call for the threefold social order is countered by another threefold impulse. This other threefold impulse we may perhaps - even if it does not sound like the usual unctuous Christmas words - present to our souls. For it is precisely by looking a little into the present that we can find the strength that could really perhaps lead not only to the illusion of living in a possible situation as long as the skirt is not yet torn, but to acquiring a new skirt.

Today we see the world filled with a threefold order, but what a threefold order it is! You see, this fall in Dornach, in a more intensive way than was previously possible, we tried to show in a series of college courses how the spiritual life itself in science must be transformed, how it must be placed on its own feet if humanity is to be saved. We were able to show what should be taught in the future in the fields of the individual sciences, in the field of economics and practical life, so that the teachings can penetrate into life and become practice. What are our views on such matters today? Well, today we think entirely from the old conditions, and in this field in particular we are the most conservative of all. Of course, there are people who, in their own belief, have a very good opinion of the popularization of spiritual things. They found adult education colleges, adult education centers, public libraries, and so on. They make the people happy by bringing out among the people what has flourished in the universities and schools in those times that led us into the catastrophe. One feels extraordinarily comfortable when founding such libraries, such popular educational institutions among the people.

In this area, the impulse of threefolding that has emerged from anthroposophically oriented spiritual science must think quite differently. For anyone who is familiar with the circumstances is aware of something quite different. The situation is that the scientific approach and intellectual life cultivated in our schools today is of no use because it belongs to the declining world itself. And no social order, however well-intentioned, can do anything other than lead to decline and not to the dawn if it merely carries the intellectual life that is cultivated in schools today out into the world. For it is not a matter today of carrying out into the people that which is cultivated under the roofs of the university, that which is cultivated in secondary and primary schools, but rather of carrying a new spiritual life into the universities. A new spiritual life must first come into the universities, which can bring salvation to mankind. That is not the case there.

That is why, you see, spiritual science with its consequences, the threefold social order, is too radical for people today - too radical even for the proletarian leaders, who of course want to do nothing other than to conservatively place the old spiritual life in the heads of the people. What makes it difficult to work socially with such an endeavor?

There is the first link in today's threefold order, there is the sum of today's representatives of intellectual life, who, insofar as they deal with the matter at all, want to know nothing of such a renewal, but always emphasize that their old way of spreading Christianity must in turn become popular. And now, ladies and gentlemen, here is how the spiritual life as it is cultivated by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science was characterized by a representative of intellectual life who holds a professorship at a university: He said: First of all, for national reasons – these gentlemen are very fond of invoking national reasons – the people need the nourishing bread that comes from the pulpits, the nourishing bread that they are accustomed to seeing represented by the representatives of the confessions. Only then does it need the sweet. He describes what is attempted by spiritual science as sweet.

This is just one example. I could cite many more of the ways in which what is anthroposophical spiritual science is defamed from the lecterns of these teaching institutions. It is no wonder that the representatives of these teaching institutions react in this way to a movement that wants to bring something different under the roofs of these teaching institutions. For in a certain way, after all, the masters are stepped on, and then they squeal. That is the only explanation for this matter, after all, if one understands it. But it is necessary to understand that one needs an independent spiritual life in relation to the political and economic order. We need a spiritual life that works out of its own forces. And such a spiritual life, as far as it can be today, is anthroposophical spiritual science, through its inner essence, despite the fact that everywhere its throat is being cut. Anthroposophical spiritual science wants nothing more than to provide the pattern for the spiritual life that must come and that can only bring freedom to people. On the other hand, we see the other link in the present threefold social order: the representatives of intellectual life, who are today the most conservative people and would like to suppress all spiritual progress, especially that which can truly bring salvation.

And this first link in the present threefold division is joined by another, which is made up of politicians and statesmen and so on, who have still grown out of the old conditions - out of those old conditions that have brought about the terrible catastrophe over European civilization, through which millions and millions of people have been killed and crippled. They do not want to see that the only hope lies in the fact that new people are emerging from the broad masses, new people who have no connection with those who led into the catastrophe. And it is not the proletarian leaders who belong to these new people, because they are the ones who, like the others, only continue what led to the bloody catastrophes. No matter whether they are delivering speeches at labor meetings or sitting on such curule chairs and shouting abstractions into the world like the one on which Woodrow Wilson sat ; all these people, they want nothing that could bring salvation to humanity today, because they have completely outgrown the old with their thoughts, they only strive to preserve the old in some way.

One must not get hung up on words, my dear audience. Even the word “League of Nations,” which is now going around the world, should not create any illusions in us. A League of Nations can be something very good, something great and salutary, if it is rooted in those ideas that are needed to bring salvation to humanity, in the sense that I indicated when I had the honor of addressing you here almost two years ago. A League of Nations that would emanate from such people, who feel that way, would certainly be a League of Nations that could contribute something to the salvation of humanity. But such a League of Nations must proceed from quite new people, from people who grow out of the broad masses, who today may not even be noticed or, if they are noticed, are trampled to death – at least spiritually. But Leagues of Nations as they arise from the minds of old politicians, these are phrases, at most something Versailles or Geneva-like. And the Geneva spirit is nothing but a talking-shop that fails to take account of the realities of contemporary Europe, just as if one did not see the real conditions with one's eyes open. That is the second link in today's threefold division.

And the third link in today's tripartite division is made up of those people who want to hold on to the old economic system, who only ever think of galvanizing the old again. These are the people who have illusions about American credit to Europe, who have illusions about the possibility of improving the exchange rate situation according to old recipes, who do not want to see that the only thing that can bring salvation is what is called associative economic life in the sense of threefolding. I do not need to characterize it here today; it has often been characterized here and in other places.

We have a threefold order, but it is a threefold order of the negative, a threefold order of today's representatives of the spiritual life, of today's politicians and statesmen, of today's business people, who are working against the good of humanity. This threefold order must be replaced by the other threefold order. And anyone who thinks they can get through with small thoughts today is very much mistaken. Today it is only a matter of ideas that span the globe, while individual countries, especially after the war, have increasingly sought to erect Chinese and other walls around themselves. And while this pernicious game continues to be played, world conditions today cry out for the internationalization of economic life. And today we know that if we only want to ensure that there can be salvation under the influence of the internationality of economic life. Why keep putting a ban on anything that is to be introduced or exported? This only leads further into decline. Only the freedom of economic life is what can bring salvation and blessing to Europe and the whole of today's civilized world. And until the community of people in the world who have an understanding of the fact that such internationality must take hold, it will not get better. Today we have the task of bringing the impulse of threefolding into as many minds as possible.

When I left Switzerland last April to work here – called by friends in Stuttgart – in the sense of the threefold order, after the appeal “To the German People and to the Cultural World” was given to individuals to sign, a very well-known pacifist who had written extremely well during the war visited me. He did not want to put his name to the appeal without first having obtained more precise information about the intentions, which he thought he could not deduce from the appeal. The “key points” had not yet been published, and he told me, among other things, the following: “So you are going to Germany now. I can imagine that you are banking on the second revolution and you would like to pour into the Second German Revolution - the Second Russian Revolution was already over - that which is the meaning of threefolding. - I said: No, because firstly, I have no faith in the Second German Revolution; it will not be something acute, it will remain something chronic. And secondly, even if such a revolution should assert itself, not all the minds will have been removed from the same, which, despite all radicalism, want to continue to cultivate the old ideas among people. - I leave it to everyone to decide whether, in principle, both have not fully materialized.

Therefore, my dear attendees, I would like to say: He who today perceives the great Hydra, the snake that asserts itself as the false threefolding, he who sees this Hydra, this snake, in its real form, could already be pointed out that we in turn need a cure for the morbid conditions of civilized humanity. Therefore, it does us no good today to sit under the Christmas tree with its lights and just remember in an unctuous way what people used to celebrate when Christmas approached. Today we must turn our gaze, if I may say so, from the usual Christmas, from the Christmas of history, to the world Christmas. We must realize that we must live again in a mood in which we must see through what is there, that we must live again in a mood in which we acknowledge: Something must be born again, a spirit must embody itself within humanity. Today we can no longer imagine it figuratively, no, today we must imagine it in full reality. Today we do not need a frivolous radicalism, but we need the radicalism that was also present when Christianity entered the world. Today we need a world Christmas radicalism again. And we must say to ourselves: into this world, as it is around us – disintegrating, sick -, into this world something spiritual must come. And attention should be drawn to what should come as spiritual: to the threefold social order. This threefold social order should embody itself within humanity.

And so, as the world lies today, we can actually do no other than absorb the Christmas spirit into ourselves as a feeling for the future. One might say that the Christmas spirit as a world Christmas spirit has basically no truth today. It only has truth when we absorb it into ourselves as a sense of the future and let it permeate our hearts.

If we look at the Christmas tree in this way, we see its lights shining us into a future in which a possible Christmas will come again. For basically, we can only be in the Advent mood today, in the mood of expectation, and in that mood of expectation that demands deeds, devoted action from us, so that the World Christmas, that is, the outpouring of a new spiritual life into sick humanity, can happen again. We need the mood of Advent, and we need the mood that wants to awaken the strength within us to bring about this Christmas for the world.

But we will never come to this true Christmas mood if we just continue to recite the old, worn-out phrases about Christmas in an unctuous manner, but we will come to this true Christmas mood only if we look with clear spiritual eyes at what stands today as the false threefold division of the world, which is also a spiritual, a political-legal and an economic one. And we will only come to understand what the new Christmas can be for the world if each of us does our duty, if each of us seeks understanding of the world situation. We will only recognize it if we visualize the image that was so often presented to devout humanity in earlier times, so that this devout humanity felt much about this image: below the snake, the dragon, above the one who conquers this dragon. The snake, the dragon is there - the false threefold order is there, my dear attendees. From our hearts, from our intellects, from our understanding of the world situation, there must arise that which will crush the head of this snake. Then, when that happens, only then will Christmas be again. Therefore, today, anyone who lives sincerely and honestly in accordance with the aims of the threefold order cannot speak of anything other than the world Christmas that must be brought about through the efforts of people to achieve the right threefold order, as something healing, that crushes the head of the false, world-murderous threefold order, so that health may once again enter into the social life of humanity.

I would like to have said my admittedly inadequate words today so that the Christmas idea can live in us. But what they want is for these words to find their way to your hearts, so that this Christmas idea may arise in your hearts and the true threefolding may be present in the world, crushing the false threefolding, the dragon that is rearing its head ever more boldly and impudently in the world today.

Dear Sirs and Madams, It is not entirely consistent with the opinions I myself must have of the progress of the movement that Councillor of Commerce Molt has just so enthusiastically expounded to you, if I myself appear before you today to discuss economic issues, or at least economic directions, , but I would have preferred it if the idea of the threefold social order, which did come from me and which I recommended to the world, had been presented to you by a man who was professionally involved in economic life. For it may be said that in such a matter, what is just can only make the right impression when it is advocated by someone who, by his external profession, is fully immersed in some branch of external economic life. But it is the wish of our friends that I myself should speak first of all about our ideas for the recovery of economic life, and what we have taken as a basis for the founding of the “Kommende Tag”, a purely economic society. That on the one hand,

On the other hand, it is difficult today to speak of the recovery of economic life from a broader perspective in a very short time. One can keep these broad perspectives in mind in all one's actions, even in the founding of something seemingly far removed from economic life, such as the Waldorf School, or in the founding of the “Kommen Tag”, as in the case of the establishment of “Das Kommende Tag”. But it is difficult, especially in view of the present world situation, to speak briefly about what one has in mind. Therefore, I ask you to consider what I am about to say, first of all, only as a broad outline, as a suggestion, and then perhaps to receive the suggestion to look up some of the details in my booklet “The Crux of the social question”, or in other writings, for example ‘In the Execution of the Threefold Order’, in which I have set out in detail the principles underlying the whole idea of threefold order for the most diverse areas of life. And I must also, since I may well assume that not all of the esteemed listeners who were kind enough to appear here today are already quite familiar with the idea of threefolding, at least in the introduction with a few - just to characterize it, not to prove it - what the impulse of the threefold social order actually wants, and only then to show what I would like to tell you today.

From the most diverse backgrounds, a few of which I will also mention later, the only remedy for our social ills that I feel is this threefold social order, founded in Stuttgart, is precisely this threefold order for every social organism, be it the German Reich or any other social organism, small or large, can be carried out for each individual, and in fact in such a way - as Mr. Molt has already partially indicated - that what was previously abstractly summarized in the unitary state, so that the individual points of view continually mix: the interests of intellectual life, the interests of economic life, the interests of purely political life, especially socio-political interests, [that] what was thus combined in the unitary state, without being truly organically structured in itself, is to be separated into three members. What I am describing to you is by no means utopian, but something that has been taken from the practice of life. And perhaps today it will be possible to show that when we speak of this threefold order, we are not appealing to some distant point in time and to a particular improvement of humanity in some direction, but that we are speaking of something that can be tackled in principle every day in some area, so that these areas then grow together and a recovery of the entire social organism is the result. The point is that the affairs of spiritual life, to which the education system belongs, must be administered separately from the affairs of legal life together with political life, and then, as a third area, all matters of purely economic life.

The affairs of intellectual life, especially the affairs of education and teaching, cannot be decided by parliamentary means if anything fruitful for the real development of humanity is to come of it. They cannot be governed or administered by majorities in any way. Instead, it is a matter of placing spiritual matters, above all education and teaching, on the basis of pure self-government; that from the lowest elementary school to up to the university, in all fields, those people who are the teachers, and indeed those who, in the time when administrative matters are at issue, are actively teaching, are also the administrators of the entire teaching system. Today we have it arranged in such a way that the person who is involved in any kind of administrative work in the education system used to teach at one time, so that he has actually grown out of the living connection with active teaching and education. Therefore, in the future, the teacher must be relieved. Of course, this cannot be done in its entirety today; our Waldorf school teachers are far too burdened for us to be able to implement everything we consider necessary, but we are working against a situation in which teachers, in terms of teaching and education, only have to spend so much time that they still have enough left over to help manage the school as a whole. In this way the whole field of teaching and education is placed under the control of the teachers and educators themselves. It would take us too far afield today to want to prove this in detail, and I would like to characterize and inspire more today than prove; but it will be shown that in such an administration, through the mutual recognition of abilities, the individual will can be applied, and that from person to person, from body to body, in a deliberation that is not at all reminiscent of parliamentarization, what is to be done for the administration is done. And anyone who really wants to achieve something in the administration of intellectual life must be part of that intellectual life itself.

I will explain what I actually mean in another area. We intend to found an institute here in Stuttgart or nearby that is dedicated to the field of medicine; a field that, as everyone should know today, needs physicians with a certain background, namely in the field of spiritual science. We will be able to produce a whole range of remedies that are hardly on the world's mind today, but which will be a blessing to the world. But we do not intend to run this production of remedies in such a way that they are merely produced by a number of doctors; this would run the risk that these doctors would become bureaucratic, that they would increasingly outgrow the living understanding of human health and illness, that they would become more and more bureaucrats and technicians. Therefore, such an institute must be connected to a clinic, no matter how small. So that those who become technicians are continually in contact with healing itself, with the art of healing. In this way, that which must ultimately permeate their entire way of acting is kept alive in them, the way they have to participate in the overall hygienic-therapeutic process.

This is the basis of a lively approach to teaching and education, which is not sitting there in a parliament with a majority of people who have no idea about the art of pedagogy and didactics, but who judge from other interests and that they make decisions about pedagogical and didactic questions, which in turn are carried out by civil servants who either never worked in the teaching and education system or who left it and are no longer connected to it in a living way. A spiritual life that is left to its own devices means one in which those working in it are also the administrators of that spiritual life.

Now I want to touch on the other wing of this threefold social organism in principle, that is the economic wing. Here it must be clear that economic life is such that it is impossible for someone who is not knowledgeable and skilled in some branch of economic life to judge anything about it. These things can easily be proved from facts. I would like to mention just one, which I have also mentioned several times in my 'Key Points of the Social Question': the empire that so clearly showed how impossible its continued existence was within the European chaos is Austria. I spent half of my life in Austria, namely thirty years; I know the Austrian circumstances as they developed in the 1870s and 1880s, when anyone who studied them a little and could see through, could see from the outset how it would gradually come about; how it had to come about not only for national reasons - that is what one says so easily - but mainly for a different reason. When, in the 1860s, parliamentarianism was established in Austria under the pressure of modern times, how was the Reichsrat composed in Austria? From four curiae: the curia of the large landowners; the curia of the representatives of the chambers of commerce and chambers of trade; the curia of the cities, markets and industrial towns; and the curia of the rural communities. So these curiae consisted of representatives of economic entities, and what they wanted as representatives of the economic entities became intertwined with the purely state and political circumstances in the Austrian Reichsrat. The legal relationships were decided there, laws were given there, but not according to the purely political, purely legal aspects; rather, laws were given there according to the majority. There was often no internal connection between what was to be given as laws and the interests out of which these laws were voted on. In other words, anyone who was able to observe the circumstances had to say to themselves: this is a complete impossibility. Especially where the people were thrown together in such a way that there were 13 official languages in this Austria, it became apparent how, in collision with all the other circumstances, an impossible economic representation was at work in the Reichsrat. It became clear that, above all, it would have been necessary not to parliamentarize economic matters, but to have only those matters represented in parliament that every adult, simply because he is human, can have a say in; on the other hand, to remove all parliamentarization from economic life. In economic life, only those who have expertise in some field and are professionally competent may be considered. The competent and professional economists would have to join forces with others who are competent in other fields, and through these ever-widening associations, an associative life would arise. So that, to put it in layman's terms, it actually works like this: someone who is involved in a branch of production, or who represents a field in which consumers have come together for something, they join forces, associatively; not in such a way that there is an authority above it that organizes, but that all organization arises from mutual negotiations. When implemented, such an associative principle can achieve that each association puts into the negotiations what it understands that the others do not understand. And from the mutual behavior, not from overriding, but from mutual respect for what is expertise in the other, from this principle, which can only emerge from association, the network of the economy can arise, which now really manages the economy economically.

Thus, on the one hand, we have a free spiritual life, and on the other, an economic life that is not dependent on individual personalities.

Please excuse me if I express something that might offend, but which arises when one has studied economic life, state-political life and spiritual life impartially over decades, and when one asks oneself: Who is actually able to assess the economic situation when different economic sectors come into play, or even large state economies, or, as it was in more recent times, the world economy?

In the spiritual life, individuality is what counts, because in the spiritual life it is a matter of the abilities that are born with the human being penetrating into social life from within the individuality, that come out of the human being in the course of human life. If the institution were not set up in such a way that those forces that lie within each individual individuality can come from within each individual individuality, then one would simply be depriving social life of forces. But in the free spiritual life, it is possible for each individual to develop his own inner powers as an educator or teacher.

In economic life, it is an empirical fact that no one has such abilities that encompass anything outside of one or at most a very few economic sectors. For economic life is based on what one has acquired over the years through dealing with economic affairs. It is impossible for anyone in economic life to make a proper judgment as an individual. This may cause offence, but it is an empirical rule that can be proven. I would just like to point out one thing to you: When you read parliamentary debates from the mid- to late 19th century, you get the impression that the decision to incorporate all economic issues into parliament was made around the midpoint or second half of the 19th century, but especially around the midpoint, how much was discussed in parliament about the benefits of the gold standard. What I want to say now is not intended as an objection to these parliamentary speeches, which were delivered at the time by both economic theorists and practitioners. They are really very clever people. I know that a lot of astute things were said in favor of the introduction of the gold standard at the time. And among these astute things, which people said not out of insight but out of personal acumen, was also one that recurred again and again: that under the influence of the gold standard, free trade in particular would flourish. This judgment is repeatedly encountered, and there were good reasons for defending it. They were astute people, but they proved to be poor prophets. The reality of economic life was that people everywhere were crying out for tariff barriers. The protective tariff policy was introduced. So the opposite of what these astute people said about economic developments based on their individual beliefs occurred. And one could cite countless examples that would show that in economic life, the individual human being has a correct, thorough judgment only for those things in which he has personally participated. Therefore, it is necessary that in this economic life it is not the individual who judges, but the associations that form from the individual branches. So that in fact economic action, acting together under the influence of negotiation, happens out of knowledge of the subject, not out of parliamentarization, not out of the decision of majorities.

On the other hand, it is justified to decide by majority vote, in a completely democratic way, in all those areas that affect legal life; these affect what can be judged because it concerns what is universally human in every person who has come of age. We do not want to talk about the age limit here. So, what is placed in the judgment of every mature human being belongs to the state, which stands between the independent economic life based on associations and the free spiritual life.

It is a prejudice to believe that economic life and legal or state life are so intertwined that the two cannot be separated. Those who judge in this way judge according to what has emerged in recent times, where such an amalgamation has already occurred in the socio-political and economic spheres of state life with economic life, for example, so that there are people today who can no longer grasp the idea that the pure economic life, which deals with the production of commodities, the circulation of commodities, the consumption of commodities, with the tendency, on the basis of this negotiation, to arrive at a corresponding price from the negotiations of the associations - because in the sphere of economic life, what it is all about is, after all, in the end, to arrive at a price that ensures people a dignified existence. People can no longer imagine that these negotiations can be separated from one another, including in terms of administration and the constitutional system, and separated from the treatment of purely human issues such as the question of working hours. In the sense of the threefold social order, working hours would not be dealt with within the economic body, but within the body of the state. There it is like this – and I cannot say it any other way, I have acquired this judgment through decades of study – there it is like this, what must arise is that at the moment when, for example, we have overcome, through the principle of association, the hybrid nature of the so-called trade unions, which basically belong to economic life but which, by their constitution, by their very nature, are nothing more than reflections of a politicizing, of a political life; if we had overcome this principle of the trade unions, where basically people come together who are not involved in real economic life at all, but who make demands that do not belong in the economic sphere. In economic life, one should get to know what plays a role between the production, circulation, and consumption of commodities. If people who also work as manual laborers are involved in the association, then today one can only say – I am firmly convinced of this and I was a teacher at a workers' training school for many years, I got to know the most radical workers and their state of mind there; one cannot judge the social question if one has only only from the outside, but one can only judge about what the true labor question is when one has looked at the people - then we would not have the agitation in the socio-political field today, which at the moment threatens to destroy our economic life; we would not have the completely abstract demand for the eight-hour day. If the workers' associations were involved in economic life itself, they would assert their judgment in legal life, where they simply have to decide on the length of working hours; they would know that it would affect their own bodies if the corresponding working hours were enforced. Only when one separates this question from the purely economic life, only when one has a possibility to judge on what is purely human, without any connection to economic interests, which belongs in the political, in the state, only then is one in the position to judge objectively on these things. One can have a heart for the workers' issue in the truest sense of the word, but this heart then also tells one that it is necessary above all that social life should flow in such a way that the worker does not undermine the ground under his feet. To do this, however, it is necessary to look at our entire economic, legal, political and intellectual life with a healthier sense than is often the case today.

You see, one would have to talk a lot about it if one wanted to get to the bottom of the reasons for the economic plight, for example, of the German Reich. And it is really difficult to talk about threefolding today because it can only be carried out in a surrogate. After all, it is political life that is ruining economic life on a large scale today. The war ruined our economic life, but it is fair to say that peace has ruined our economic life even more, and in a much more hopeless way. So it is very difficult to talk about these things today, but I would like to point out that we will not be able to solve economic issues in the appropriate way today either if we do not set about solving the big social issues as such, insofar as this is relatively possible.

You may think about the threefold social order, initially as a kind of postulate, if you like; but one thing is clear, especially within the German Reich, when you consider the fact that this in fact emerged in the second half of the 19th century, that it is already there in certain areas, but that it is only there in a destructive sense, not in a constructive sense. And here you will allow me to dwell very briefly on things that appear to be far removed from economic life, but which, for those who see through things, are intimately connected with it.

You all know that the longing for the German Reich has existed for a long time. It is one of the most beautiful blossoms in German life. How did this longing for the German Reich appear, for example, in 1848 and even later? It appeared as a purely intellectual impulse. Those people who spoke of this establishment of German unity lapsed into a kind of romanticism – whether you like it or not, it is a fact – when they spoke of what they were striving for, of German unity. They wanted to found a Reich in which the spiritual substance of the German people would come to the fore. Then a Reich was founded from completely different points of view. No criticism is being expressed here; enough of that was expressed in the 1970s; one may admit the historical necessity that the German Reich had to be founded in this way, not out of this idealism, which can also be a false one , but it was not wrong for numerous personalities; this founding of the German Reich could have truly served as a framework for that which, out of the best spiritual striving of the Germans, wanted this German unity.

The foundation of 1871 could have provided a framework for spiritual matters. They were there. And, ladies and gentlemen, however much they may be in hiding today, they are still there today, perhaps most strongly there, even if not on the surface of life. But what then emerged within this framework? Here, too, I do not want to criticize, but to fully acknowledge: a flourishing economy has indeed emerged; an increasingly flourishing German Reich in the economic sense has emerged. Do not take what I am about to say in a dismissive sense.

The dreams of those striving for German unity were in the background as a free, spiritual empire, not publicly active or organized, but carried in the heart. It was there, this link of the spiritual organism, only it could not assert itself in the face of the external organization. It did not have its own organization. More and more, a purely economic organization asserted itself. What arose from completely different spiritual and political foundations was used as the framework for a large, powerful, admirable economic organization. Unfortunately, however, this organization contradicted the demands of the world economy, which arose more and more in the second half of the 19th century. It was simply – whether one regrets this or judges it differently – it was simply not possible for the framework of the German Reich, which had developed out of very different conditions, out of spiritual and political conditions, to become an economic area that was opposed to the trends of the world economy. This has become the deepest cause of the war, at least in the West; this is the basis of our tragic fate in Germany.

Now we have two links in the tripartite social organism. We have the secretly ruling spiritual realm; but the school and education system was organized according to the aspects that were at the top. It was, so to speak, seized by the tentacles of the unitary state, which, however, asserted purely economic aspects. On the other hand, we have economic life. And in between, yes, in between, we have a fragment, a part of the third area; the purely state, the purely economic area. This does not descend from above; because here one thinks of setting up politics itself in such a way that it can increasingly develop more and more over the economy; politics, which grows from below, which is there in the demands of social democracy. There, the demands are set up quite ruthlessly in relation to economic life, about which the Social Democracy merely theorizes. There, the demands are set up without regard to intellectual life, to the conditions of economic life. There, purely political points of view are asserted.

You see, these three members of the social organism are growing up, you just don't see it; you don't see that you also have to organize what is growing up; that you really have to come to treating these three members in such a way that they are really taken up; that we have a separate organization for spiritual life, a separate organization for legal life, where those who are not really part of the other two organizations no longer make their demands alone, but together with those who are part of them, have to work with the others as full, whole personalities.

Then we have economic life, which has just been conducted continuously from points of view that did not take into account the general demands of the world economy. We have, to a great extent, developed the economy under the entrepreneurial spirit of technical science in this new German Reich. But we have not developed this economy from an overview of the economic conditions of the world economy. And this world economy plays into the sphere of every single household. It is not something that hovers over our heads, but something we experience at every breakfast. More and more, it is something we experience, and it became more and more necessary to place oneself in this economic life out of knowledge, out of insight, which in turn could only arise out of social life. This was neglected. Then the war took away what had been achieved in a fragment of the world economy. Now, however, we are faced with the fact that politics has narrowed us down to such an extent that it is extremely difficult to achieve much through the threefold social order from this torso, which is an economic torso even in the middle of Europe. But if we look at the threefold social organism, we have to say: Of course it will not be able to turn what is an economic torso into paradise, but it will be able to get the most out of it that is humanly possible.

On the other hand, it is actually beginning to be recognized everywhere that it is necessary, on the one hand, to distinguish economic life from the social organism and to really place it on its own. However, there is little insight among those who, for some abstract reason, speak of a planned economy and believe that economic life can be organized from some central office. In economic life, we should stop talking about organizing altogether. We should know that in economic life the hard-working person can only achieve something if they can also stand within the economic circle that they can see, and can establish a relationship with the other economic circles in such a way that they stand within the associative so that the right thing can happen through the interaction in the associations; so that an opinion can develop that the individual cannot have, but that only those can have together who are part of the associations.

If we look at things this way, we have to say: What we can achieve is perhaps very imperfect, but we will still achieve the humanly possible even in this torso of Central Europe, if we not only tackle those issues that are purely socio-political matters in confusion with economic conditions, but if we really look things in the eye and try to carry out the necessary separation of politics and economics, as far as it is possible in the present circumstances.

But what is emerging, especially the revolution, has once again been covered by an incredibly dense fog, a political fog, and the prophets with their planned economy have emerged in droves. A most unfortunate consequence of what lives in politics is also the famous paragraph 165 of the German constitution of the Republic. Read this paragraph about the composition of district economic councils with a Reich Economic Council and then with what the Reich is to be internally, and try to form a clear and distinct idea of how something unified is actually to come about there. It is the most dismal amalgamation of economic and political points of view in this very paragraph 165 of the German republican constitution of the Weimar National Assembly.

You can see that there are people today who are looking in the right direction, but they are groping in the dark. They realize that something must be done to help the economy. Take the Reich Economic Council, which is truly an assembly of exceptionally knowledgeable people; but you cannot organize across a wider area from a central office, because the possibilities for business are different in each individual territory. The point is that those who have grown into these operating possibilities are included in them, and not those who are directed from above; who manage themselves through associations, while others are included in other operating possibilities. Those who judge from a political point of view will always get it wrong, because they believe that they can organize the whole of economic life through some kind of plan. But in the Reich Economic Council there are people who are familiar with the needs of economic life. They have stated that it is a matter of organizing the whole Reich according to mere economic or transport policy conditions. That is a significant word, only the demand would be that one now leaves it to the individuals working in the individual businesses to form groups that arise by themselves. It can be shown that an association formed from various economic sectors and branches of consumption acquires a certain size simply from the soil conditions or other operating possibilities, from the operating possibilities and consumption conditions. Associations that are too small would be too expensive, and those that are too large would be too unwieldy. This is what needs to be pointed out.

On the one hand, what the threefold social order is striving for is already being demanded today if we are guided by sound judgment. But other organizations will then arise out of the circumstances. It is really striking that out of today's circumstances the Reich Economic Council has been formed, which has to say that it has no initial authority, that the Reich must be divided into such bodies that work out of their operating possibilities. But in between there are always those who hold fast to the old. Thus we have to note that in a meeting of the representatives of the chambers of commerce, it was demanded that economic independence should be introduced uniformly, but that the economic entities should coincide with the old administrative districts, which were created from completely different points of view. In this way neighboring cities would be torn apart, which would naturally have to coincide. This is what repeatedly interferes with the recovery of our judgment, that people cling rigidly to the old.

In another area, too, individuals have already worked their way to a fairly sound judgment regarding corporate bodies that have emerged from the old, even economic necessities, but which no longer have any justification. Anyone who is concerned about such things could be aware of the sad economic situation of the municipalities and cities. Anyone who has studied the matter will tell you this. They are at the end of their economic resources. And those who look into these conditions already have a judgment today that other carriers must take the place of the old economic municipalities, that they must be relieved of what they can no longer provide because they have inherited their practices from old conditions. What kind of bodies are we talking about that are supposed to take this on? Bodies that are formed from the perspectives of economic life itself and that form associations with one another. That is what it is about. And so we can see it as a characteristic feature of our public life today that those who are seriously concerned with these matters are already longing for something to happen that draws attention to the fact that things cannot continue under the old conditions. I would like to say that between the lines one can read it without the people who write the lines knowing it. The sensible manager already has the urge for associative life, for the formation of new economic entities where only economic expertise and specialized knowledge count, the intergrowth of the individual manager with his economy. The grouping into associations is already on the way, but people have so much respect for the old that they cannot get away from it; they keep trying to form corporate bodies out of economic life that associate themselves, that are natural associations themselves, but they would like to combine, would like somehow to nestle in the old framework that which they want to build anew. But that is what holds us back. It is only our lack of courage in the face of new judgments. It is only that we do not want to come to terms with our thoughts. That is what brings this immense inner need to the outer need, that we cannot achieve what is humanly possible within the framework that is still left to us. Of course, even with a certain prospect of success, success in a material sense, the right thing develops out of industrial circles themselves, only one does not go to the last step. For example, it is a very good thing that the electricity industry wants to divide the entire administration of electrical power into eight districts. But if one looks again at how this body is to be linked to the old state framework, one sees that People do not want to break away from the old judgments. They cannot understand that legal relationships and economic relationships only interact properly when they are no longer combined, but when they are properly interlinked.

Some people say: the law is, after all, linked to the economy. Of course it is. In reality, they will continue to be intertwined. But there is no reason why the two should not be kept separate, if the economic circumstances are taken care of by purely economic entities, and the legal circumstances by legal and state entities. Then the people who represent their legal interests in the state and their economic interests in the economic body will not divide in half. They enter life as fully human individuals; they will all represent economic, spiritual, and state-legal life. It is only through the human being that what is only separated by the administration is joined together; but there it must be separated, otherwise we will not progress.

This is what actually distinguishes the impulse of the threefold social organism from other contemporary efforts. I have often been told: Yes, your threefold social order wants an independent economic life, that is also wanted elsewhere. And a free spiritual life is also striven for. It is pointed out that there is something here and something there that recalls the threefold social order. Since our Anthroposophical Society is international, I have already spoken about it with all kinds of people from all over the world. Some have said to me: The threefold social order is nothing new. In the areas where people are interested, we are already trying to do all of this in all three areas. I could only say: The less new the threefold social order is, the better I like it. I am not seeking to bring something new into the world with the threefold social order, but rather that which is new for the development of humanity at this time. What is new, however, is that the efforts in the individual fields are coming to light and that we can only make progress if we come together in the one great impulse, which is the threefold social order.

I am well aware of the objections that can be raised from the most diverse sides. I have also discussed the objections that can be raised from the standpoint of international interests in my paper “The Crucial Points of the Social Question”. I know very well how little scope there is for the development of threefolding and for an associative economic life in our German Empire, which has been so curtailed by the peace agreement. But if we do what is possible and, as I believe, necessary for life, then I have confidence that the example will prove effective. The victors will take a good social thing from us if we can bring it about, just as they would take any other invention from us, even if we are defeated. The only difficulty today, which I often regret in our circles, is that we have too few people working on this.

You see, the book “The Key Points of the Social Question” has been translated into European cultural languages and published everywhere; in English, Italian, French and Norwegian-Swedish. The English translation was published in May 1920. Basically, although people were always warned that an Englishman would not want to have a proper judgment of what comes from a German today, objective discussions of this book appeared in abundance in England in a short time. And if we had had the opportunity to give lectures in England from city to city in July, if we had been able to capitalize on the mood that was created by the book, then something would have come of it. Then, I am convinced, a German idea would have made a great impression there, even under today's terribly unfavorable conditions. We were unable to hold lectures in England; we are far too few in number. The few people around Steiner, the few men in the “Coming Day” are struggling, one can say; for them, night is hardly there at all during long periods. We basically only have a few people, and we need many, many people to make it work. I could only give you the guidelines, they were only meant to be suggestions; but for us they are what, if they can be represented by a sufficiently large number of people, must lead to the recovery of present life.

We also started with the “Coming Day”, this “stock corporation for the promotion of economic and spiritual values”. It is to be a purely economic enterprise. Of course, I would like to point out that such a small individual society cannot achieve what the threefold order wants within the other economic life, of course. Because just think, the most important thing is to get rid of special-interest groups such as the trade unions. We cannot do that overnight, especially not with a small group of people, and especially not if something like what happened to me here in Stuttgart, when we started working for the threefold social order, I would like to say the say it in a way that is somewhat anonymous; I got into conversation with someone from the circles of the bourgeoisie who has a certain following after we had succeeded in generating a great deal of understanding for the idea of threefolding, especially among the working class. This gentleman said to me: Yes, I can see that there is something fruitful in these things; you could make progress with them if you gained followers. But you are too few to win followers, with the few people around you; we cannot base the matter on so few eyes. Therefore, we prefer - although we know that with cannons and rifles we can only go on for another 10 to 15 years - to leave it as it is.

We did not allow ourselves to be discouraged from founding this “Coming Day”, even though we can only realize a very small part of our ideas in it. This small part is that in this “Coming Day” and the “Futurum” that goes with it in Dornach near Basel, societies have been created that eliminate the harmful effects, at least initially in a small area, that can be seen when studying the interaction between banking and industry today. Unfortunately, I cannot go into this in detail now; it would be taking us too far afield. I would just like to say the positive thing. The “Kommende Tag” and the “Futurum” are to be such societies in which banking is administered in such a way that it is not purely banking, but that the administrators of banking in the individual industrial enterprises, which are associatively united in the “coming day”, are at the same time active in productive industrial work, the entire organization of work, and also take care of the financial administration themselves. What has been separated only in the 19th century, to the detriment of humanity, is to be joined together: banking with productive work, with industrial, commercial work and so on. And we want to show that all of social life can really flourish.

I mentioned earlier that we want to establish a therapeutic institute under certain conditions. We have also founded a publishing house. The Waldorf School is also connected to the Kommenden Tag financially to a certain extent, even if it is still a loose connection today.

We want to show that if you can manage things in the right way, you can establish spiritual institutions alongside them, if you just have enough financial acumen to calculate with long time frames. Because spiritual institutions also pay off, they just have to be allowed long time frames, and you just have to have an open mind about what humanity needs.

We are convinced that the remedies, in the way we want to produce them, do not include any unproductive enterprises, although no other thought is embodied in them than to help humanity. But precisely when one works in the noblest moral sense in such fields, one also works in the best economic sense. For it turns out that by taking what you gain in the short term and investing it in enterprises that are subject to long-term conditions, you are at the same time establishing an economy that also encompasses the free spiritual life, which also belongs in the economy. This is an example of how we do not want to juxtapose things, but rather structure them so that things interact in the right way. And just as we do not want to found a school of world-view in Waldorf schools, but only to apply in the art of education and teaching what we have gained from anthroposophy, just as we do not want to inculcate any world-view in the child, but to let the human being become blissful as he wants. People are always criticizing what they see as dogmas in our work. We do not have dogmas; we have a method of inquiry that we claim is the right method not only for world views but also for practical matters. In Waldorf schools, the way we treat children is essential. We have Catholic children taught religion by Catholic teachers and Protestant children by Protestant teachers, but we want a methodology based on a real, thorough knowledge of human nature. And so it does not occur to us to inject any kind of world view into economic enterprises. We would regard that as foolishness. Rather, the aim is to ensure that the “day to come” is based on the associative principle of economic life to the extent possible today; that it realizes this associative principle, which is alive, at least in the one point that the banking activities and measures associate with the industrial and commercial measures; that it forms an organic whole. Perhaps we will live to see that, if the matter is sufficiently understood, this economic center will expand more and more and an economic association will emerge from it, which can then serve as an example to others. This depends on the understanding, also on the - how should I put it - generous understanding that our contemporaries show us. I know that I could not evoke this through these allusions, but the literature is indeed extensive; two books are available from me, and the weekly magazine “Die Dreigliederung”, which we publish, appears every week, in which we discuss the questions at hand in detail, and in which the intentions of “The Day to Come” have been discussed in detail; in which also highlights are thrown on the conditions of the present, on the way in which the present must be treated, so that the impulse of threefolding as a practical impulse can enter into real life and so on. There is also criticism of what in our economic life cannot possibly lead to anything other than decline, at least not to sunrise. And there is still other literature. And the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism is there, trying to propagate these ideas, precisely because it believes that salvation can only be achieved in this way.

Dear attendees, please forgive me if I have only been able to give a few hints and if I have to refer you to what else we do for the idea in the way we have just characterized. But I hope that these suggestions may indicate, first, that here at least an attempt is being made, out of the great trends that are now standing before us demanding a construction out of decline, and out of practical ideas, out of ideas that social life and the real people of the present, that out of all this an attempt is made to do something that leads to a healthy economic life through a free intellectual life and through a legal or political life that satisfies people in its field. We cannot make progress today with small means, which we can only deduce from what has already been missed in economic life, but we can only make progress if we decide to understand the downfall of economic life from a broad perspective and to use this to gain momentum for a real awakening, for a recovery of this economic life.