The Renewal of the Social Organism
GA 24
1. The Threefold Division of the Social Organism, a Necessity of the Age
[ 1 ] It is time to recognize that party programs, which have been passed down from the remote or more recent past, are inevitably bound to fail when confronted with the events that have arisen from the catastrophe of the Great War. The programs, whose representatives were allowed to share in the ordering of social conditions, should be regarded as sufficiently refuted by the catastrophe itself. Their proponents should recognize that such thoughts were inadequate to master the actual course of events. Events outpaced their thinking, wreaking confusion and havoc. The result of this realization should be a striving to find thoughts more adequate to the actual course of real events.
[ 2 ] “Pragmatism” was the name given to what was only narrow-minded routine. The so-called pragmatists had become used to one narrow sphere of life. They mastered the routine of this one sphere, but were neither inclined nor interested to see its connection with wider spheres around it. Within his own narrow sphere, each prided himself on being “practical.” Each did what the practice of his routine demanded, and allowed what he had done to mesh with the overall social mechanism. How it worked there was not a matter of concern. So at last everything became one great tangle; out of this tangled skein of events emerged the world catastrophe. People gave themselves over to routine without developing the thoughts to master it—such was the fate of the ruling circles. Now, faced with confusion, people cannot shake off old habits of thought. It has been their habit to regard one thing or another as “a practical necessity”; they have no eyes left to see that what they held to be a “practical necessity” had a crumbling foundation.
[ 3 ] The modern economic system has demonstrated graphically the inability of our thinking to keep pace with events. It was the socialist workers' movement that revealed the crumbling foundation of this edifice. A different kind of party program arose within the workers' movement—programs that sprang from immediate experience of this decay, and either called for a change of course or expected salvation from the “unfolding” of the events that had been unleashed. These programs arose theoretically, out of universal human needs, without dealing practically with the facts. This praxis, which was merely routine and which despised thinking, was opposed by socialist praxis, which is pure theory. And now, when events demand that we engage productive, living thoughts—thoughts that have their roots in the real world—these theoretical “thoughts without praxis” reveal themselves to be insufficient. And this insufficiency will become more and more apparent as we are called upon to untangle the knot of modern social life by engaging our thinking.
[ 4 ] Instead of mindless routine and theoretical programs without praxis, good will of a definite sort is necessary for those today who want to think with genuine practicality. The routinized pragmatists, who are actually so very impractical, should try to see that the old way of carrying on business—without plan and without thoughts—will lead not out of the catastrophe, but ever deeper into it. Even now people try to blind themselves to the insight that thoughtlessness, which they mistook for practicality, has led to confusion. They despised those who demanded thoughts as being impractical idealists; now they are unwilling to admit that in so doing they did the most impractical thing of all. Indeed, in so doing they showed themselves to be idealists in the very worst sense of the word.
[ 5 ] On the other side, where theoretical “demand-withoutpractice” rules, they struggle to obtain a human existence for the class that feels it has not yet enjoyed one. They do not see that they are struggling to obtain it without real insight into the vital needs of society. They believe that if they can grab the power necessary for their theoretically noble but impractical demands, then they will be able, again as if by a miracle, to bring about the things for which they are striving. [ 6 ] And those who mean well for humanity within that class as well, and raise demands out of the desperation of the proletariat, and want to achieve their goal in the above mentioned way, must face the question: What will happen if one side insists on programs that are refuted by the actual course of events, while the other side seeks power to enforce demands while never asking what life itself requires of any possible social order?
[ 7 ] One may perhaps have good intentions toward the proletariat today, yet one is not dealing with them objectively and honestly if one does not make it clear to them that the programs to which their faith is pinned are leading them not to the welfare they desire but to the downfall of European civilization, which seals their own downfall. One is honest with the proletariat today only by awakening them to an understanding that what they are unconsciously striving for can never be achieved by the programs they have embraced.
[ 8 ] The proletariat labors under a terrible illusion. They saw how gradually over the last few centuries human interests have come to be totally absorbed by economics. They could not fail to observe that the legal institutions of society were determined by the forms assumed by economic power and economic requirements. They could see how the whole life of the spirit, particularly the educational system, had grown out of the conditions prescribed by the underlying economic basis and by a state dependent on industry. Thus a disastrous superstition took root among the proletariat: the superstition that all legal and spiritual life arises with the necessity of natural law from the forms of the economic system. Wide circles today outside the working classes are prey to the same superstitution. A feature characteristic of the last few centuries—the dependence of the spiritual and legal realms upon economic life—has come to be regarded as a law of nature. People fail to see the real truth: it is just this dependence of spiritual and legal life upon economics that drove humanity into the disaster—they yield to the superstition that one needs only a different variety of economic system, one that shall produce a different system of legal and spiritual life. They want simply to change the economic system, instead of recognizing that it is necessary to end the dependence of the spiritual and legal spheres upon economic forms.
[ 9 ] At this moment in historical evolution the aim cannot be to establish another way of making the legal and spiritual spheres dependent on the economic. The aim should be to create an economy in which only the production and circulation of commodities are managed, on strictly businesslike lines, and in which a person's position in the economic cycle does not affect his or her rights in relation to others or the possibility of fully developing his or her inborn talents through education.
In the recent past, legal and spiritual culture have been “superstructures” erected upon economics. In the future, they must become independent organs within the social organism that exist apart from the economic cycle. Measures to be adopted within the latter must be the outcome of actual experience of economic life and of people's connection with different branches of industry. Associations must arise within the various professions and trades out of the mutual interests of producers and consumers; each is to be represented within a central economic administration. The same people who participate in this economic system also constitute a legal community that, regarding its administration and representation, works quite independently of the others, and where everything is settled that rightly concerns all those who have reached the age of majority. All those things that make every person the equal of every other will be arranged here, on a democratic basis. For instance, all labor regulations (the manner, amount and length of work) will fall within this community's jurisdiction. In this way such regulations are withdrawn from the economic process. The worker takes his place in economic life as a free contractor in respect to those with whom he has to carry on the common work of production. His economic contribution to some branch of production is a matter to be decided by expert knowledge in that industrial branch; but with regard to everything that affects the exploitation of his labor he, too, can decide as an adult on democratic legal grounds apart from the economic process.
[ 10 ] Just as the legal sphere (the administration of the state) is regulated within the autonomous legal system of the social organism independently from the economy, so shall the life of spirit (the educational system) guide itself in perfect freedom within its independent spiritual organ of the social community. For just as a healthy economic life in the social organism cannot be fused with its legal system (where everything must be based upon the decisions of all co-equal adults), it is impossible for the spiritual life to be administered according to laws, regulations and controls that proceed from the opinions of all people who have merely come of age. The spiritual life requires a self-administration guided only by the best educational insights available. Only under such self-administration is it possible for the individual abilities latent in a community of people to be nurtured truly for the benefit of social life.
[ 11 ] Anyone who examines impartially the real factors at work in present-day society can only conclude that the health of the organism requires its division into three independent systems: a spiritual, a legal and an economic. The unity of the organism will not thereby be endangered in any way, for this unity is securely grounded in reality by the fact that each human being has interests within all three parts of the system, and that (notwithstanding their mutual independence) the central authorities at the head of each will be able to harmonize their various measures.
[ 12 ] That international relations will form no obstacle, even though initially only one state were to organize as a threefold system, will be discussed in the next essay.
Die Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus, eine Notwendigkeit der Zeit
[ 1 ] Es ist an der Zeit, zu erkennen, daß die Parteiprogramme, die sich aus älterer oder jüngerer Vergangenheit in die Gegenwart herein erhalten haben, den Tatsachen gegenüber versagen müssen, welche aus der Weltkriegskatastrophe heraus entstanden sind. Diejenigen dieser Programme, deren Träger mitarbeiten durften an der Ordnung der gesellschaftlichen Zustände, sollte man durch diese Katastrophe für widerlegt halten. Diese Träger sollten sich klar darüber sein, daß ihre Gedanken unzulänglich waren, den Entwickelungsgang der Tatsachen zu beherrschen. Diese Tatsachen sind den Gedanken entglitten und haben in Verwirrung und gewaltsame Entladung hineingetrieben. Daß man streben müsse nach Gedanken, die dem wirklichen Gang der Tatsachenwelt mehr gewachsen sind, das sollte das Ergebnis solcher Erkenntnis sein.
[ 2 ] Man hat Praxis genannt, was nur engherzige Routine war. Die sogenannten Praktiker hatten sich eingewöhnt in ein enges Lebensgebiet. Das beherrschten sie routiniert. Dieses Lebensgebiet in Zusammenhang zu sehen mit weiteren Lebensumkreisen, dazu fehlte die Neigung und das Interesse. Man war stolz darauf, in seinem engen Lebensgebiete ein «Praktiker» zu sein. Man tat, was die Routine erforderte, und ließ das Getane in die allgemeine Lebensmaschinerie einlaufen. Man kümmerte sich nicht darum, wie es darinnen lief. So lief zuletzt alles durcheinander; und aus dem Tatsachenknäuel entwickelte sich die Weltkatastrophe. Man hatte sich einer «Praxis» ohne beherrschende Gedanken ergeben. Dies war das Schicksal der leitenden Kreise. - Jetzt, da man vor der Verwirrung steht, kann man von den alten Denkgewohnheiten nicht loskommen. Man hat sich gewöhnt, dies oder jenes für «praktisch notwendig» zu halten, und hat den Blick verloren zu durchschauen, wie das «praktisch notwendig» Geglaubte ein innerlich Zermürbtes ist.
[ 3 ] In der Wirtschaftsordnung der neueren Zeit ist dieses Entgleiten der Tatsachen gegenüber den Menschengedanken am anschaulichsten zutage getreten. Auf diesem Lebensgebiete zeigte sich die innere Zermürbung durch die proletarisch-sozialistische Bewegung. Innerhalb dieser Bewegung entstand die andere Art von Parteiprogrammen: diejenige, welche aus dem unmittelbaren Erleben des Zermürbten hervorging und entweder kritisch nach Anderung des Hineintreibens in den Wirrwarr verlangte oder von der «Entwickelung» der entfesselten Tatsachen ein Heil erwartete. Diese Programme entstanden theoretisch, aus allgemeinen Menschheitsforderungen heraus, ohne praktisch mit den Tatsachen zu rechnen. Der Praxis, die nur eine Routine war, die Gedanken verachtete, stellten sich die sozialistischen Gedanken entgegen, die eine Theorie ohne Praxis sind. Jetzt, da die Tatsachen ein Eingreifen fruchtbarer, in der Tatsachenwelt selbst lebender Gedanken fordern, erweisen sich diese theoretischen «Gedanken ohne Praxis» als unzulänglich. Und sie werden ihre Unzulänglichkeit immer mehr erweisen, je mehr es nötig werden wird, mit Gedanken ordnend in die Wirklichkeit des verworrenen Lebens der Gegenwart einzugreifen.
[ 4 ] Gegenüber der Routine ohne Gedanken und den theoretischen Programmen ohne Praxis ist heute bei Menschen, die wirklich praktisch denken wollen, ein guter Wille in einer gewissen Richtung notwendig. Die routinierten, aber doch in Wahrheit unpraktischen Praktiker sollten sich bemühen, einzusehen, daß plan- und gedankenloses Fortwirtschaften aus der Katastrophe nicht heraus-, sondern immer tiefer in sie hineintreiben wird. Man will sich gegenwärtig noch über die Einsicht hinwegbetäuben, daß die Gedankenlosigkeit, die man mit Lebenspraxis verwechselt hat, in die Verwirrung geführt hat. Man hat die Forderer der Gedanken als «unpraktische Idealisten» verachtet und man will nicht zugeben, daß man damit das Allerunpraktischste getan hat. Ja, daß man sich damit als «Idealisten« im allerschlimmsten Sinne erwiesen hat.
[ 5 ] Auf der anderen Seite, wo die theoretische «Forderung ohne Praxis» herrscht, will man ein menschenwurdiges Dasein für diejenige Menschenklasse erkämpfen, die gegenwärtig sich noch nicht im Besitze eines solchen fühlt. Man sieht nicht, daß man es erkämpfen will ohne wirkliche Einsicht in die Lebensnotwendigkeiten einer sozialen Gesellschaftsordnung. Man glaubt, wenn man sich für die theoretisch erhobenen, aber unpraktischen Forderungen die Macht erkämpft, dann werde man, auch wie durch ein Wunder, herbeiführen können, was man anstrebt.
[ 6 ] Und wer es mit der Menschheit auch in derjenigen Klasse ehrlich meint, die aus der proletarischen Gedrücktheit diese Forderungen erhebt und die vermeint, in der oben gekennzeichneten Art zum Ziele zu kommen, der muß sich beschäftigen mit der Frage: was soll werden, wenn auf der einen Seite beharrt wird auf Programmen, die durch den Weltgang widerlegt sind, und auf der andern Seite die Macht erkämpft werden soll für Forderungen, die keinen Zugang suchen zu dem, was das Leben selber für eine mögliche soziale Ordnung verlangt?
[ 7 ] Man ist heute dem Proletariat gegenüber vielleicht gutmeinend, aber man ist nicht objektiv ehrlich, wenn man ihm nicht begreiflich macht, daß die Programme, zu denen es sich bekennt, es nicht zu dem Heile führen, das es erstrebt, sondern zum Untergange der europäischen Kultur, mit deren Untergang sein eigener Untergang besiegelt ist. Man ist heute nur ehrlich gegenüber dem Proletariat, wenn man in ihm Verständnis dafür erweckt, daß es, was es unbewußt anstrebt, nimmermehr mit den Programmen erreichen kann, die es zu den seinigen gemacht hat.
[ 8 ] Das Proletariat lebt in einem furchtbaren Irrtume. Es hat gesehen, wie in den letzten Jahrhunderten die menschlichen Interessen allmählich ganz von dem Wirtschaftlichen aufgesogen worden sind. Es hat bemerken müssen, wie die Rechtsformen des menschlichen Gesellschaftslebens sich festsetzten aus den wirtschaftlichen Macht- und Bedürfnisformen heraus; es konnte sehen, wie das gesamte Geistesleben, insbesondere das Erziehungs- und Schulwesen sich aufgebaut hat aus den Verhältnissen heraus, die sich aus den wirtschaftlichen Unterlagen und aus dem von der Wirtschaft abhängigen Staate ergaben. In dem Proletariat hat sich der zerstörende Aberglaube festgelegt, daß alles Rechts-und alles Geistesleben naturnotwendig aus den Wirtschaftsformen entsteht. Große Kreise auch von Nichtproletariern sind heute schon von diesem Aberglauben befallen. - Was in den letzten Jahrhunderten als eine Zeiterscheinung sich entwickelt hat: die Abhängigkeit des Geistes- und Rechtslebens vom Wirtschaftsleben, das sieht man als eine Naturnotwendigkeit an. Man bemerkt nicht, was die Wahrheit ist: daß diese Abhängigkeit die Menschheit in die Katastrophe hineingetrieben hat; und man gibt sich dem Aberglauben hin, daß man nur eine andere Wirtschaftsordnung brauche, eine solche, die ein anderes Rechts- und Geistesleben aus sich selbst hervortreiben werde. Man will nur die Wirtschaftsordnung ändern, statt einzusehen, daß man die Abhängigkeit des Geistes- und des Rechtslebens von der Wirtschaftsform aufheben müsse.
[ 9 ] Nicht darum kann es sich in dem gegenwärtigen Augenblicke weltgeschichtlicher Entwickelung handeln, eine andere Art der Abhängigkeit des Rechts- und Geisteslebens vom Wirtschaftsleben anzustreben, sondern darum, ein solches Wirtschaftsleben zu gestalten, in dem nur Gütererzeugung und Güterzirkulation sachgemäß verwaltet werden, in dem aber aus der Stellung des Menschen in dem Wirtschaftskreislauf nichts bewirkt wird für seine rechtliche Stellung zu andern Menschen und für die Möglichkeit, die in ihm veranlagten Fähigkeiten durch Erziehung und Schule zur Entfaltung zu bringen. In der abgelaufenen geschichtlichen Epoche waren das Rechtsleben und das Geistesleben ein «Überbau» des Wirtschaftslebens. In der Zukunft sollen sie selbständige Glieder des sozialen Organismus sein neben dem Wirtschaftskreislauf. Die Maßnahinen, die innerhalb des letzteren zu treffen sind, sollen aus der wirtschaftlichen Erfahrung und aus dem Verbundensein der Menschen mit den einzelnen Wirtschaftsgebieten sich ergeben. Assoziationen aus den Berufständen, aus den miteinander verschlungenen Interessen der Produzenten und der Konsumenten sollen sich bilden, die sich nach oben hin zu einer Zentralwirtschaftsverwaltung zuspitzen. Dieselben Menschen, welche dieser Wirtschaftsorganisation angehören, bilden auch eine in bezug auf Verwaltung und Vertretung selbständige Rechtsgemeinschaft, in der alles dasjenige geregelt wird, das in den Urteilsbereich jedes mündig gewordenen Menschen fällt. Da wird auf demokratischer Grundlage alles dasjenige gestaltet, was jeden Menschen zum gleichen gegenüber jedem andern Menschen macht. Innerhalb der Verwaltung dieser Gemeinschaft wird zum Beispiele das Arbeitsrecht (Art, Maß, Zeit der Arbeit) geregelt. Damit fällt diese Regelung aus dem Wirtschaftskreislauf heraus. Der Arbeiter steht im Wirtschaftsleben als freier Vertragschließender denen gegenüber, mit denen er gemeinsam produzieren muß. Über seine wirtschaftliche Mitarbeit an einem Produktionszweig muß wirtschaftliche Sachkunde entscheiden; in bezug auf die Ausnützung seiner Arbeitskraft entscheidet er mit, als mündiger Mensch auf dem demokratischen Rechtsboden außerhalb des Wirtschaftskreislaufes.
[ 10 ] Wie das Rechtsleben (die Staatsverwaltung) im selbständigen, vom Wirtschaftsleben unabhängigen Rechtsgliede des sozialen Organismus geregelt wird, so das Geistesleben (das Erziehungs- und Schulleben) in völliger Freiheit in dem selbständigen Geistesgliede der sozialen Gemeinschaft. Denn so wenig ein gesundes Wirtschaftsleben in eins verschmolzen sein kann mit dem Rechtsgliede des sozialen Organismus, in dem alles erfolgen muß durch die Urteile aller einander gleichstehenden mündig gewordenen Menschen, so wenig kann die Verwaltung des Geisteslebens auf Gesetze, Verordnungen, eine Aufsicht oder dergleichen gestellt sein, die sich aus den Urteilen der einfach mündig gewordenen Menschen ergeben. Das Geistesleben bedarf der Selbstverwaltung, die nur aus menschheitspädagogischen Gesichtspunkten heraus sich gestaltet. Nur in einer solchen Selbstverwaltung können die in einer Menschengemeinschaft veranlagten individuellen Fähigkeiten zum Dienste des sozialen Lebens wahrhaft gepflegt werden.
[ 11 ] Wer in wirklicher Lebenspraxis die Daseinsbedingungen des sozialen Organismus auf der gegenwärtigen Stufe der Menschheitsentwickelung unbefangen zu prüfen in der Lage ist, kann wohl zu keinem anderen Ergebnis kommen als dem, daß zur Gesundung dieses Organismus dessen Dreigliederung in einen selbständigen Geist-, einen solchen Rechts- und ebensolchen Wirtschaftsunterorganismus notwendig ist. Die Einheit des ganzen Organismus wird dadurch gewiß nicht gefährdet; denn diese Einheit ist in der Wirklichkeit dadurch begründet, daß jeder Mensch mit seinen Interessen allen drei Teilorganismen angehört, und daß die Zentralverwakungen trotz ihrer Unabhängigkeit voneinander die Harmonisierung ihrer Maßnahmen bewirken können.
[ 12 ] Daß die internationalen Verhältnisse kein Hindernis bilden, auch wenn nur ein Staat für sich zunächst sich zum dreigliedrigen sozialen Organismus gestaltet, davon soll im nächsten Aufsatz gesprochen werden.
The threefolding of the social organism, a necessity of the times
[ 1 ] It is time to recognize that the party programmes that have survived into the present from the older or more recent past must fail in the face of the facts that have emerged from the catastrophe of the world war. Those of these programs, whose supporters were allowed to contribute to the ordering of social conditions, should be considered disproved by this catastrophe. These promoters should be aware that their thoughts were inadequate to control the development of the facts. These facts have escaped their thoughts and have driven them into confusion and violent discharge. That one must strive for thoughts that are more equal to the real course of the world of facts should be the result of such realization.
[ 2 ] They called practice what was only narrow-minded routine. The so-called practitioners had become accustomed to a narrow area of life. They mastered this routinely. They lacked the inclination and interest to see this area of life in connection with the wider world. They were proud to be a "practitioner" in their narrow area of life. They did what routine demanded and let what they did flow into the general machinery of life. They didn't care how things worked within it. In the end, everything went haywire, and the world catastrophe developed from the tangle of facts. They had surrendered to a "practice" without a dominant thought. This was the fate of the leading circles. - Now that we are faced with confusion, we cannot get away from the old habits of thought. People have become accustomed to believing this or that to be "practically necessary" and have lost sight of how what is believed to be "practically necessary" is inwardly demoralizing.
[ 3 ] In the economic order of recent times, this slipping away of facts from human thoughts has become most evident. In this area of life, the inner attrition caused by the proletarian-socialist movement became apparent. Within this movement, the other kind of party program emerged: the one that emerged from the direct experience of the demoralized and either critically demanded a change in the drifting into confusion or expected salvation from the "development" of the unleashed facts. These programs arose theoretically, out of general human demands, without practically reckoning with the facts. Practice, which was merely routine and despised thought, was opposed by socialist thought, which is theory without practice. Now that the facts demand the intervention of fruitful thoughts living in the world of facts itself, these theoretical "thoughts without practice" are proving to be inadequate. And they will prove their inadequacy more and more, the more it will become necessary to intervene with thoughts to organize the reality of the confused life of the present.
[ 4 ] In contrast to routine without thought and theoretical programs without practice, a good will in a certain direction is necessary today among people who really want to think practically. The routine, but in truth impractical, practitioners should make an effort to realize that unplanned and thoughtless economic activity will not drive us out of the catastrophe, but deeper and deeper into it. At present, people still want to hide the realization that thoughtlessness, which they have confused with practical life, has led to confusion. One has despised the promoters of thought as "impractical idealists" and one does not want to admit that one has done the most impractical thing possible. Indeed, they have proved themselves to be "idealists" in the worst sense of the word.
[ 5 ] On the other hand, where the theoretical "demand without practice" prevails, one wants to fight for a humane existence for that class of people who do not yet feel that they possess one. One does not realize that one wants to fight for it without real insight into the vital necessities of a social order. One believes that if one fights for power for the theoretically raised but impractical demands, then one will, even miraculously, be able to bring about what one is striving for.
[ 6 ] And whoever is honest with humanity, even in that class which raises these demands out of proletarian oppression and which believes that it can reach its goal in the manner described above, must concern himself with the question: What is to become if, on the one hand, programs are insisted upon which are refuted by the course of the world, and on the other hand, power is to be fought for demands which seek no access to what life itself demands for a possible social order?
[ 7 ] Today one may be well-meaning towards the proletariat, but one is not objectively honest if one does not make it understand that the programs it professes do not lead it to the salvation it seeks, but to the downfall of European culture, with whose downfall its own downfall is sealed. One is only honest with the proletariat today if one awakens in it the understanding that it can never achieve what it unconsciously strives for with the programs it has made its own.
[ 8 ] The proletariat lives in a terrible error. It has seen how, over the last few centuries, human interests have gradually been completely absorbed by the economic. It has seen how the legal forms of human social life have been established out of the economic forms of power and need; it has seen how the entire intellectual life, especially the educational and school system, has been built up out of the conditions resulting from the economic foundations and the state dependent on the economy. In the proletariat the destructive superstition has become entrenched that all legal and intellectual life arises naturally from economic forms. Large circles of non-proletarians are already infected by this superstition. - What has developed in recent centuries as a phenomenon of the times: the dependence of intellectual and legal life on economic life, is seen as a natural necessity. One does not realize what the truth is: that this dependence has driven mankind into catastrophe; and one indulges in the superstition that one only needs a different economic order, one that will drive a different legal and spiritual life out of itself. They only want to change the economic order instead of recognizing that the dependence of spiritual and legal life on the economic form must be abolished.
[ 9 ] In the present moment of world-historical development, it cannot be a question of striving for a different kind of dependence of legal and spiritual life on economic life, but of shaping such an economic life, in which only the production and circulation of goods are properly administered, but in which the position of man in the economic cycle has no effect on his legal position in relation to other men or on the possibility of developing his inherent abilities through education and schooling. In the past historical epoch, legal life and spiritual life were a "superstructure" of economic life. In the future, they should be independent members of the social organism alongside the economic cycle. The measures to be taken within the latter should result from economic experience and from the connection of people with the individual economic areas. Associations should be formed from the professions, from the intertwined interests of producers and consumers, which should culminate in a central economic administration. The same people who belong to this economic organization also form an independent legal community with regard to administration and representation, in which everything is regulated that falls within the sphere of judgment of every person who has come of age. Everything that makes every human being equal to every other human being is organized on a democratic basis. Within the administration of this community, for example, labor law (type, measure, time of work) is regulated. This regulation thus falls outside the economic cycle. In economic life, the worker stands as a free contracting party towards those with whom he must produce jointly. Economic expertise must decide on his economic cooperation in a branch of production; with regard to the exploitation of his labor power, he co-decides as a responsible person on the democratic legal ground outside the economic cycle.
[ 10 ] Just as legal life (state administration) is regulated in the autonomous legal sphere of the social organism, which is independent of economic life, so spiritual life (educational and school life) is regulated in complete freedom in the autonomous spiritual sphere of the social community. For as little as a healthy economic life can be merged into one with the legal system of the social organism, in which everything must take place through the judgments of all equal people who have come of age, so little can the administration of spiritual life be based on laws, ordinances, supervision or the like, which result from the judgments of people who have simply come of age. Spiritual life requires self-administration, which can only be shaped from the point of view of human pedagogy. Only in such self-government can the individual abilities inherent in a human community be truly cultivated in the service of social life.
[ 11 ] Whoever is able to impartially examine the conditions of existence of the social organism at the present stage of human development in real life practice can probably come to no other conclusion than that for the health of this organism its threefold division into an independent spiritual, a legal and an economic sub-organism is necessary. The unity of the whole organism is certainly not endangered by this; for this unity is founded in reality by the fact that every person with his interests belongs to all three sub-organisms, and that the central administrations, despite their independence from each other, can bring about the harmonization of their measures.
[ 12 ] The fact that international conditions do not constitute an obstacle, even if only one state initially forms itself into a tripartite social organism, will be discussed in the next essay.