Basic Issues of the Social Question
GA 23
Appendix
[ 1 ] The German peoplet16Page 141 To the German People and the Civilized World. This appeal was counter-signed by a number of personages from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Probably the only one immediately recognizable in the English-speaking world of today is Hermann Hesse. It was printed and distributed by committees in these and other European countries. believed that its imperial structure, erected half a century ago, would last for an unlimited time. In August 1914, it felt that the imminent catastrophe of war would prove this structure invincible. Today, only its ruins are left. After such an experience retrospection is in order, for this experience has proved the opinions of half a century, especially the dominant thoughts of the war years, to be tragically erroneous. What are the reasons behind this erroneous thinking? This question must induce retrospection in the minds of the German people. Its potentiality for life depends on whether the strength exists for this kind of self-examination. Its future depends on whether it can earnestly ask the following question: how did we fall into error? If the German people asks itself this question today, it will realize that it established an Empire half a century ago, but omitted to assign to this Empire the mission which corresponds to the inner essence of its people.
[ 1 ] The Empire was established. At first it was occupied with bringing its inner life into harmony with the requirements of tradition and the new needs which developed from year to year. Later, efforts were directed toward consolidating and enlarging the outward power structure, which was based on material strength. At the same time, means were employed which were directed at the social demands of the day-in some cases appropriate to the needs- but which lacked the larger goal which should have resulted from knowledge of the evolutionary forces to which mankind must direct itself. Therefore, the Empire was placed in the world without a substantial goal to justify its existence. The war-catastrophe revealed this fact in a tragic way. Previous to the war's outbreak, those in the non-German world could see nothing in the conduct of the Empire's affairs which could lead them to think that its authorities were fulfilling a historic mission that should not be swept away. The fact that these authorities did not encounter such a mission necessarily engendered an attitude in the non-German world which was, to one who has a real insight, the more profound reason for the German downfall.
[ 2 ] A very great deal depends upon the German people's objective discernment of this fact. The insight which has remained hidden for the past fifty years should emerge during these calamitous times. In place of trivial thinking about immediate requirements, a broader view of life should now appear, which strives with powerful thinking to recognize modern humanity's evolutionary forces, and is courageously dedicated to them. The petty attempts to neutralize all those who pay heed to these evolutionary forces must cease. The arrogance and superciliousness of those who imagine themselves to be practical, but whose practicality is the disguised narrow-mindedness which has in fact induced the calamity, must cease. Attention should be paid to what those who are decried as idealists, but who in reality are the practical ones, have to say about the evolutionary needs of modern times.
[ 3 ] ‘Practical’ people of every persuasion have seen the advent of new human demands for a long time. But they wanted to deal with these demands within the framework of the old traditional thought-habits and institutions. Modern economic life has produced these demands. To satisfy them by means of private initiative seemed impossible. The transfer of private enterprise to community enterprise in some cases appeared necessary to a certain class of people; and this was carried out where they thought it was useful. Radical transfer of all individual enterprise to community enterprise was the goal of another class which was not interested in retaining the customary private objectives in the new economy.
[ 4 ] All the efforts relating to the new requirements which have been made until now have one thing in common. They strive toward the socialization of the private sector and reckon with it being taken over by the communities (state, municipality), which have developed from conditions which have nothing to do with present requirements. Or, they reckon with newer kinds of communities (cooperatives, for example), which are not fully in harmony with these new requirements, having been copied from the old forms using traditional thought-habits.
[ 5 ] The truth is that no form of community which corresponds to these old thought-habits can cope with such requirements. The forces of the times are pressing for knowledge of a social structure for mankind which is completely different from what is commonly envisaged. Social communities hitherto have, for the most part, been formed by human instincts. To penetrate their forces with full consciousness is a mission of the times.
[ 6 ] The social organism is formed like the natural organism. As the natural organism must provide for thinking by means of the head and not the lungs, the formation of the social organism in systems—none of which can assume the functions of the others, although each must cooperate with the others while always maintaining its autonomy—is necessary.
[ 7 ] The economy can prosper only if it develops, as an autonomous member of the social organism, according to its own forces and laws, and if it does not introduce confusion into its structure by letting itself be drained by another member of the social organism—the politically active one. This politically active member must function, fully autonomous, alongside the economy, as the respiratory system functions alongside the head system in the natural organism. Healthy cooperation cannot be attained by means of a single legislative and administrative organ, but by each system having its own mutually cooperating legislature and administration. The political system, by absorbing the economy, inevitably destroys it; and the economic system loses its vital force when it becomes political.
[ 8 ] A third member of the social organism, in full autonomy and formed from its own potentialities, must be added to these two: that of spiritual production, to which the spiritual parts of the other two sectors, supplied to them by this third sector, belong. It must have its own legitimate rules and administration and not be administered or influenced by the other two, except in the sense that the members of the natural organism mutually influence each other.
[ 9 ] Already today one can scientifically substantiate and develop in detail what has been said here about the social organism's needs. In this presentation only a general indication can be given for all those who wish to pursue them.
[ 10 ] The German Empire was founded at a time when these needs were converging on mankind. Its administrators did not understand the need for setting the Empire's mission accordingly. A view to these necessities would not only have given the Empire the correct inner structure; it would also have lent justification to its foreign policy. The German people could have lived together with the non-German peoples through such a policy.
[ 11 ] Insight should now mature from the calamity. One should develop a will for the best possible social organism. Not a Germany which no longer exists should face the world, but a spiritual, a political and an economic system should propose to deal as autonomous delegations, through their representatives, with those who crushed that Germany which became an impossible social structure due to the confusion of its three systems.
[ 12 ] One can anticipate the experts who object to the complexity of these suggestions and find it uncomfortable even to think about three systems cooperating with each other, because they wish to know nothing of the real requirements of life and would structure everything according to the comfortable requirements of their thinking. This must become clear to them: either people will accommodate their thinking to the requirements of reality, or they will have learned nothing from the calamity and will cause innumerable new ones to occur in the future.
Rudolf Steiner
Anhang: An das deutsche Volk und an die Kulturwelt!
[ 1 ] Sicher gefügt für unbegrenzte Zeiten glaubte das deutsche Volk seinen vor einem halben Jahrhundert aufgeführten Reichsbau. Im August 1914 meinte es, die kriegerische Katastrophe, an deren Beginn es sich gestellt sah, werde diesen Bau als unbesieglich erweisen. Heute kann es nur auf dessen Trümmer blicken. Selbstbesinnung muß nach solchem Erlebnis eintreten. Denn dieses Erlebnis hat die Meinung eines halben Jahrhunderts, hat insbesondere die herrschenden Gedanken der Kriegsjahre als einen tragisch wirkenden Irrtum erwiesen. Wo liegen die Gründe dieses verhängnisvollen Irrtums? Diese Frage muß Selbstbesinnung in die Seelen der Glieder des deutschen Volkes treiben. Ob jetzt die Kraft zu solcher Selbstbesinnung vorhanden ist, davon hängt die Lebensmöglichkeit des deutschen Volkes ab. Dessen Zukunft hängt davon ab, ob es sich die Frage in ernster Weise zu stellen vermag: wie bin ich in meinen Irrtum verfallen? Stellt es sich diese Frage heute, dann wird ihm die Erkenntnis aufleuchten, daß es vor einem halben Jahrhundert ein Reich gegründet, jedoch unterlassen hat, diesem Reich eine aus dem Wesensinhalt der deutschen Volkheit entspringende Aufgabe zu stellen. - Das Reich war gegründet. In den ersten Zeiten seines Bestandes war man bemüht, seine inneren Lebensmöglichkeiten nach den Anforderungen, die sich durch alte Traditionen und neue Bedürfnisse von Jahr zu Jahr zeigten, in Ordnung zu bringen. Später ging man dazu über, die in materiellen Kräften begründete äußere Machtstellung zu festigen und zu vergrößern. Damit verband man Maßnahmen in bezug auf die von der neuen Zeit geborenen sozialen Anforderungen, die zwar manchem Rechnung trugen, was der Tag als Notwendigkeit erwies, denen aber doch ein großes Ziel fehlte, wie es sich hätte ergeben sollen aus einer Erkenntnis der Entwickelungskräfte, denen die neuere Menschheit sich zuwenden muß. So war das Reich in den Weltzusammenhang hineingestellt ohne wesenhafte, seinen Bestand rechtfertigende Zielsetzung. Der Verlauf der Kriegskatastrophe hat dieses in trauriger Weise geoffenbart. Bis zum Ausbruche derselben hatte die außerdeutsche Welt in dem Verhalten des Reiches nichts sehen können, was ihr die Meinung hätte erwecken können: die Verwalter dieses Reiches erfüllen eine weltgeschichtliche Sendung, die nicht hinweggefegt werden darf. Das Nichtfinden einer solchen Sendung durch diese Verwalter hat notwendig die Meinung in der außerdeutschen Welt erzeugt, die für den wirklich Einsichtigen der tiefere Grund des deutschen Niederbruches ist.
[ 2 ] Unermeßlich vieles hängt nun für das deutsche Volk an seiner unbefangenen Beurteilung dieser Sachlage. Im Unglück müßte die Einsicht auftauchen, welche sich in den letzten fünfzig Jahren nicht hat zeigen wollen. An die Stelle des kleinen Denkens über die allernächsten Forderungen der Gegenwart müßte jetzt ein großer Zug der Lebensanschauung treten, welcher die Entwickelungskräfte der neueren Menschheit mit starken Gedanken zu erkennen strebt, und der mit mutigem Wollen sich ihnen widmet. Aufhören müßte der kleinliche Drang, der alle diejenigen als unpraktische Idealisten unschädlich macht, die ihren Blick auf diese Entwickelungskräfte richten. Aufhören müßte die Anmaßung und der Hochmut derer, die sich als Praktiker dünken, und die doch durch ihren als Praxis maskierten engen Sinn das Unglück herbeigeführt haben. Berücksichtigt müßte werden, was die als Idealisten verschrieenen, aber in Wahrheit wirklichen Praktiker über die Entwickelungsbedürfnisse der neuen Zeit zu sagen haben.
[ 3 ] Die «Praktiker» aller Richtungen sahen zwar das Heraufkommen ganz neuer Menschheitsforderungen seit langer Zeit. Aber sie wollten diesen Forderungen innerhalb des Rahmens altüberlieferter Denkgewohnheiten und Einrichtungen gerecht werden. Das Wirtschaftsleben der neueren Zeit hat die Forderungen hervorgebracht. Ihre Befriedigung auf dem Wege privater Initiative schien unmöglich. Überleitung des privaten Arbeitens in gesellschaftliches drängte sich der einen Menschenklasse auf einzelnen Gebieten als notwendig auf; und sie wurde verwirklicht da, wo es dieser Menschenklasse nach ihrer Lebensanschauung als ersprießlich erschien. Radikale Überführung aller Einzelarbeit in gesellschaftliche wurde das Ziel einer anderen Klasse, die durch die Entwickelung des neuen Wirtschaftslebens an der Erhaltung der überkommenen Privatziele kein Interesse hat.
[ 4 ] Allen Bestrebungen, die bisher in Anbetracht der neueren Menschheitsforderungen hervorgetreten sind, liegt ein Gemeinsames zugrunde. Sie drängen nach Vergesellschaftung des Privaten und rechnen dabei auf die Übernahme des letzteren durch die Gemeinschaften (Staat, Kommune˃, die aus Voraussetzungen stammen, welche nichts mit den neuen Forderungen zu tun haben. Oder auch, man rechnet mit neueren Gemeinschaften (zum Beispiel Genossenschaften), die nicht voll im Sinne dieser neuen Forderungen entstanden sind, sondern die aus überlieferten Denkgewohnheiten heraus den alten Formen nachgebildet sind.
[ 5 ] Die Wahrheit ist, daß keine im Sinne dieser alten Denkgewohnheiten gebildete Gemeinschaft aufnehmen kann, was man von ihr aufgenommen wissen will. Die Kräfte der Zeit drängen nach der Erkenntnis einer sozialen Struktur der Menschheit, die ganz anderes ins Auge faßt, als was heute gemeiniglich ins Auge gefaßt wird. Die sozialen Gemeinschaften haben sich bisher zum größten Teil aus den sozialen Instinkten der Menschheit gebildet. Ihre Kräfte mit vollem Bewußtsein zu durchdringen, wird Aufgabe der Zeit.
[ 6 ] Der soziale Organismus ist gegliedert wie der natürliche. Und wie der natürliche Organismus das Denken durch den Kopf und nicht durch die Lunge besorgen muß, so ist dem sozialen Organismus die Gliederung in Systeme notwendig, von denen keines die Aufgabe des anderen übernehmen kann, jedes aber unter Wahrung seiner Selbständigkeit mit den anderen zusammenwirken muß.
[ 7 ] Das wirtschaftliche Leben kann nur gedeihen, wenn es als selbständiges Glied des sozialen Organismus nach seinen eigenen Kräften und Gesetzen sich ausbildet, und wenn es nicht dadurch Verwirrung in sein Gefüge bringt, daß es sich von einem anderen Gliede des sozialen Organismus, dem politisch wirksamen, aufsaugen läßt. Dieses politisch wirksame Glied muß vielmehr in voller Selbständigkeit neben dem wirtschaftlichen bestehen, wie im natürlichen Organismus das Atmungssystem neben dem Kopfsystem. Ihr heilsames Zusammenwirken kann nicht dadurch erreicht werden, daß beide Glieder von einem einzigen Gesetzgebungs- und Verwaltungsorgan aus versorgt werden, sondern daß jedes seine eigene Gesetzgebung und Verwaltung hat, die lebendig zusammenwirken. Denn das politische System muß die Wirtschaft vernichten, wenn es sie übernehmen will; und das wirtschaftliche System verliert seine Lebenskräfte, wenn es politisch werden will.
[ 8 ] Zu diesen beiden Gliedern des sozialen Organismus muß in voller Selbständigkeit und aus seinen eigenen Lebensmöglichkeiten heraus gebildet ein drittes treten: das der geistigen Produktion, zu dem auch der geistige Anteil der beiden anderen Gebiete gehört, der ihnen von dem mit eigener gesetzmäßiger Regelung und Verwaltung ausgestatteten dritten Gliede überliefert werden muß, der aber nicht von ihnen verwaltet und anders beeinflußt werden kann, als die nebeneinander bestehenden Gliedorganismen eines natürlichen Gesamtorganismus sich gegenseitig beeinflussen.
[ 9 ] Man kann schon heute das hier über die Notwendigkeiten des sozialen Organismus Gesagte in allen Einzelheiten vollwissenschaftlich begründen und ausbauen. In diesen Ausführungen können nur die Richtlinien hingestellt werden, für alle diejenigen, welche diesen Notwendigkeiten nachgehen wollen.
[ 10 ] Die deutsche Reichsgründung fiel in eine Zeit, in der diese Notwendigkeiten an die neuere Menschheit herantraten. Seine Verwaltung hat nicht verstanden, dem Reich eine Aufgabe zu stellen durch den Blick auf diese Notwendigkeiten. Dieser Blick hätte ihm nicht nur das rechte innere Gefüge gegeben; er hätte seiner äußeren Politik auch eine berechtigte Richtung verliehen. Mit einer solchen Politik hätte das deutsche Volk mit den außerdeutschen Völkern zusammenleben können.
[ 11 ] Nun müßte aus dem Unglück die Einsicht reifen. Man müßte den Willen zum möglichen sozialen Organismus entwickeln. Nicht ein Deutschland, das nicht mehr da ist, müßte der Außenwelt gegenübertreten, sondern ein geistiges, politisches und wirtschaftliches System in ihren Vertretern müßten als selbständige Delegationen mit denen verhandeln wollen, von denen das Deutschland niedergeworfen worden ist, das sich durch die Verwirrung der drei Systeme zu einem unmöglichen sozialen Gebilde gemacht hat.
[ 12 ] Man hört im Geiste die Praktiker, welche über die Kompliziertheit des hier Gesagten sich ergehen, die unbequem finden, über das Zusammenwirken dreier Körperschaften auch nur zu denken, weil sie nichts von den wirklichen Forderungen des Lebens wissen mögen, sondern alles nach den bequemen Forderungen ihres Denkens gestalten wollen. Ihnen muß klar werden: entweder man wird sich bequemen, mit seinem Denken den Anforderungen der Wirklichkeit sich zu fügen, oder man wird vom Unglücke nichts gelernt haben, sondern das herbeigeführte durch weiter entstehendes ins Unbegrenzte vermehren.
Annex: To the German people and the cultural world!
[ 1 ] The German people believed that their imperial edifice, built half a century ago, was securely in place for an unlimited period of time. In August 1914, they believed that the military catastrophe at the beginning of which they saw themselves confronted would prove this edifice to be invincible. Today it can only look at its ruins. Self-reflection must come after such an experience. For this experience has proved the opinion of half a century, in particular the prevailing thoughts of the war years, to be a tragic error. What are the reasons for this fatal error? This question must drive self-reflection into the souls of the members of the German people. Whether the strength for such self-reflection is now available depends on the possibility of life for the German people. Its future depends on whether it is able to ask itself the question in a serious way: how did I fall into error? If it asks itself this question today, then the realization will dawn on it that it founded an empire half a century ago, but failed to give this empire a task arising from the essence of the German people. - The empire was founded. In the early days of its existence, efforts were made to organize its inner life possibilities according to the requirements that arose from old traditions and new needs from year to year. Later, efforts were made to consolidate and increase the external power based on material forces. This was combined with measures relating to the social requirements born of the new age, which took account of many things that the day proved to be necessary, but which lacked the great goal that should have resulted from a realization of the forces of development to which modern mankind must turn. Thus the empire was placed in the world context without an essential objective justifying its existence. The course of the war catastrophe revealed this in a sad way. Until the outbreak of the same, the non-German world could see nothing in the behavior of the empire that could have awakened the opinion: the administrators of this empire fulfill a world-historical mission that must not be swept away. The failure of these administrators to find such a mission has necessarily created the opinion in the non-German world, which for the truly insightful is the deeper reason for the German collapse.
[ 2 ] Much now depends for the German people on their unbiased assessment of this situation. In the face of adversity, the insight that has not wanted to show itself in the last fifty years would have to emerge. The small thinking about the most immediate demands of the present would now have to be replaced by a great train of outlook on life which strives to recognize the forces of development of modern humanity with strong thoughts and which devotes itself to them with courageous will. There should be an end to the petty urge that renders all those harmless as impractical idealists who direct their gaze to these forces of development. The presumption and arrogance of those who think of themselves as practitioners and yet have brought about misfortune through their narrow-mindedness masked as practice must cease. Consideration should be given to what the idealists, who are decried as idealists but are in fact real practitioners, have to say about the developmental needs of the new age.
[ 3 ] The "practitioners" of all schools of thought have long recognized the emergence of entirely new human demands. But they wanted to meet these demands within the framework of traditional habits of thought and institutions. The economic life of modern times has brought forth these demands. Satisfying them through private initiative seemed impossible. The transformation of private work into social work was necessary for one class of men in certain fields; and it was realized wherever it seemed profitable to this class of men according to their view of life. Radical transformation of all individual labor into social labor became the goal of another class, which, through the development of the new economic life, has no interest in preserving the traditional private goals.
[ 4 ] All endeavors that have emerged so far in view of the newer demands of humanity have one thing in common. They urge for the socialization of the private sphere and count on the takeover of the latter by communities (state, commune˃, which originate from preconditions that have nothing to do with the new demands. Alternatively, they are counting on newer communities (e.g. cooperatives) that have not emerged fully in line with these new demands, but are modeled on the old forms out of traditional habits of thought.
[ 5 ] The truth is that no community formed in the sense of these old habits of thought can absorb what one wants it to absorb. The forces of the times are pressing for the realization of a social structure of mankind which envisages something quite different from what is commonly envisaged today. Social communities have hitherto been formed for the most part out of the social instincts of mankind. To penetrate their powers with full consciousness will be the task of time.
[ 6 ] The social organism is structured like the natural organism. And just as the natural organism must think through the head and not through the lungs, so it is necessary for the social organism to be divided into systems, none of which can take over the task of the other, but each of which must work together with the others while maintaining its independence.
[ 7 ] Economic life can only flourish if it develops as an independent member of the social organism according to its own forces and laws, and if it does not bring confusion into its structure by allowing itself to be absorbed by another member of the social organism, the politically effective one. Rather, this politically effective member must exist in full independence alongside the economic one, just as the respiratory system exists alongside the head system in the natural organism. Their beneficial interaction cannot be achieved by the fact that both parts are supplied by a single legislative and administrative organ, but that each has its own legislation and administration, which work together in a living way. For the political system must destroy the economy if it wants to take it over; and the economic system loses its vital forces if it wants to become political.
[ 8 ] To these two members of the social organism must be added a third, fully independent and formed out of its own vital possibilities: that of spiritual production, to which also belongs the spiritual part of the other two areas, which must be handed over to them by the third member, endowed with its own lawful regulation and administration, but which cannot be administered and influenced by them in any other way than the co-existing member-organisms of a natural organism influence each other.
[ 9 ] It is already possible today to substantiate and expand in full scientific detail what has been said here about the necessities of the social organism. These explanations can only provide guidelines for all those who wish to pursue these necessities.
[ 10 ] The founding of the German Empire took place at a time when these necessities were being addressed by modern mankind. His administration did not understand how to set the empire a task by looking at these necessities. This view would not only have given it the right internal structure; it would also have given its external policy a justified direction. With such a policy, the German people would have been able to live together with the non-German peoples.
[ 11 ] Now the insight would have to mature from the misfortune. We must develop the will for a possible social organism. Not a Germany that is no longer there would have to face the outside world, but a spiritual, political and economic system in their representatives would have to want to negotiate as independent delegations with those by whom that Germany has been thrown down, which has made itself an impossible social entity through the confusion of the three systems.
[ 12 ] One hears in one's mind the practitioners, who are overcome by the complexity of what has been said here, who find it uncomfortable even to think about the interaction of three bodies, because they may know nothing of the real demands of life, but want to organize everything according to the convenient demands of their thinking. It must become clear to them: either they will be content to submit to the demands of reality with their thinking, or they will have learned nothing from misfortune, but will multiply the misfortune they have brought about by further misfortune to an unlimited extent.